Rerouted

"Okay, um...well, let's say...'responsible,' 'generous,' and...'soft-hearted.'"

"Aw. All right, here we go...now it's just gonna take some time to come up with its little report."

Maureen gave a small nod, making her way onto 94.

"Okay! Here it is. Now, y'know, while this may seem kinda generic, it can also be more specific than you might expect."

Maureen thought this was an opportune moment to chomp into one of her energy bars. So she'd do so, and let Dawn go ahead.

"I think this is an opportune moment to chomp into one of my energy bars. So I'll do so, and let you go ahead."

"'Righty..." Dawn cleared her throat, and read at a semi-gradual, meaningful pace.

"'Maureen: a gentle soul of hope, of wonder, of kind intentions. Wistful and vulnerable, she is filled with profound emotion which she feels free and open to express. She is a lover of nature and charity. Her heart tells her to do what it honestly feels is right and moral. She is shy and introverted, and secretly longs for the encounter and connection with that special person who may just be her one true love and best friend. The person who could ease and encourage her from her shell. Her feelings ache for the misfortune of others, and she desires to help whenever possible. She takes good things as they come, but does not expect or demand them. It is this array of qualities that makes Maureen a child of warmth and virtue.'"

She took a deep breath and exhaled a "whew!" indicating she was done.

"So, what'dya think?"

Maureen drove, almost idly, energy bar-filled mouth hanging ajar a few seconds.

"...Maureen?...Ya there? Oh gosh, I didn't lose you, did I? I hope not."

"D—uh, no, no, I'm...still here. I'm just, uh...wow."

"'Wow,' y'say?" asked Dawn, sounding pleased. "Was it accurate?"

Maureen shook her head, even though she knew Dawn couldn't see her.

"Dawn...I...that was...dead-on accurate. Like, right on the nose! I...I can't even believe you could pull that off. My mind is blown."

"Wo-ow!" Dawn chuckled, echoing Maureen's sentiment. "Well, clearly that little experiment was a success then!"

"I'll say," concurred Maureen, still shaking her head. "Dawn, that...was amazing. You just summed up my...just about my entire personality in thirty seconds!"

"Oh, well, I didn't actually do it," Dawn modestly admitted. "The web site program here did. But I'm so happy it worked!"

"I-I just can't get over it. It's...it's like you're psychic! Or, your program is. Y'know what, Dawn, I'll admit it: I was skeptical at first. I really don't buy into psychics and horoscopes and all that stuff. But that was...well, I'll say it again: mind-blowing."

"Well, it is an advanced program. One of the psychiatrists in my office knows someone who helped develop it. So they recommend it for us to use. I think it's really cool. Even if you put in something horrible for your adjectives, it'll still try to give you a 'nice' result."

"What does it say about you?"

"Oh! Well, I've tried it several times, with a lotta words that could describe me. You can manipulate it a little by tweaking your descriptives, and you'll notice a small difference. I'll put in the words I used the first time and read it to ya."

So Maureen eagerly waited, hearing the faint sound of clicking and ticking as Dawn's fingers pranced over the keys.

"...Okay, here I am. 'Dawn: this child is playful and whimsical, having well maintained her childlike sense of idealism. Her soul is vibrant, colorful and vivacious. She is very skilled at cheering up others when called for. She is fond of and kind to animals and tots. Her eyes are completely truthful, even if her lips at times are not. Her heart is a bit fragile and ticklish, but sculpted of pure gold. She is a very sensual creature, enjoying the visual as well as the tangible. Her passions are many and varied. She is more on the extroverted side, and good at showing her affection. While a trifle flighty, she knows when to keep her feet on the ground, a sensible and practical mind. She balances a charming mixture of impish humor, and pragmatic ebullience. Dawn can often be found frolicking barefoot in the fields and plucking daisies, herself a bright lily amongst them.'

"...And that's me in a nutshell! Pretty cool, huh?"

"Indeed. I can't vouch for how much of that's true, but it sounds positively glowing next to mine."

"Well, I can vouch that it's true, but I'll hasten to add that it makes me no greater a person than yourself. Maureen, my friend, I feel you could simply use a nice sip from the nourishing goblet of self-confidence."

"Mm, maybe. But like your thing about me said, I think what I want most is that special friend. And to know just where she or he's been my whole life. ...Dawn?"

"Yes?"

Maureen made a sad face, ignoring a conjured sniffle.

"I just get so lonely, so much."

"Awww, sweetie...well, obviously, you have my phone number now..." Dawn chortled. "...Completely by accident. We may be in completely different time zones, but if you ever just need to, y'know, chat, or anything—and you don't think it's weird..."

"Thank you, Dawn. You're really sweet."

"Hey Maur, hang on a sec, 'kay? My arm's getting a little tired. I'm gonna put you on speaker."

"Oh, a'right. Well, you're not driving, but that's good that both of your hands can be free, to...do other stuff."

*****

94: From Northern Stars To Peace Gardens

Saturday, March 8th, 2003, 11:48 a.m. Central / 12:48 p.m. Eastern

"Well, like I said, I grew up here in P.A., in a little town called Indiana. Bet you didn't know there's an Indiana in Pennsylvania."

"Ha! That I didn't. So, have you always known you're into other women?"

"Since about sixteen. I was at a party, we were playing spin the bottle, and...I was forced to kiss this other comely young lass."

"Oh, poor you."

"I know, right? So, it got the desired effect: a little embarrassment, but everyone including the two of us got a kick out of it. Actually, I got a little more than a kick."

"A-ha."

"Yeah, I...kept it to myself, but after a while I couldn't deny it. Like it or not, there's hot chicks everywhere I look. Lucky me, I like it."

"Eh...I like that too. But unlucky for us, most of 'em're straight. At least just about all the ones I met in Montana. Juniper's got a higher lesbi concentration, which's one of the reasons I moved here. But I still haven't had such great relationships. Last woman I dated saw fit to treat me like slime whenever she was 'pumicing.'"

"W—...whenever she was...using a pumice stone?"

"No. Well, I said 'pumicing,' but I really meant when her monthly pal dropped in. Or, out."

"P—...oh, I see. Like 'pumice' without the vowels. Well, that sucks, though some of us do put those delightful few days to use acting like bitches. And taking it out on whomsoever's in the line of fire. I've never so much had it in me to lash out, though; I usually just cry it through. I think it's healthier."

"Mm, I guess I wasn't exactly an angel to her when my friend—without the 'r'—was in town either."

"Friend without th—oh, I get it. That's clever."

"Yeah...wanna hear something that's not clever? Random weird story about me. I was so dumb when I was a kid—or naïve, depending on how you wanna see it—I was reading the back of a toothpaste tube one time. And I remember it said something to the effect: 'for best results, squeeze the bottom of the tube...and flatten it...as you go up.'

"...Okay? So when I read that, I thought, flatten it...as you go up? You go up? This...what, does this stuff make you fly? Does it actually somehow lift you off the floor and make you physically float, in mid-air, just while you're holding it? As you GO UP??"

"HAAAA! Oh my god, Maureen, that is too hilarious."

"Right?? That's...of-of course I know what it means now, but that is honestly how dim I was when I was little. Never the sharpest tool in the drawer. Now Helena, there's a different blinkity-blankin' story. Always super-smart, Mommy and Daddy's little genius, perfect straight As, whole way through school. Swear to god."

"Oh, I hated that! I tried my ass off in school, but past a certain point I could never do better than average! Sometimes I just outright flunked. Guess I wasn't 'gifted.'"

"Hm. Well, don't take this the wrong way, but it is really nice to talk to someone else who was, y'know, just average."

"Oh, I get it. Trust me, I came to grips with that nonsense a long time ago. So somehow I made it to college...well, it was community college, of course; that's how. And I took my first psychology course. And I fell in love with it. I decided, I've actually found what I wanna do with my life. I just wanna be somewhere in this field. So I studied a few more years, then finally came to the decision, I'm not gonna make it through the academic part of this. I'm just not. Y'know, they tell us when we're young that we can do anything, be whatever we want, our dreams're real, sky's the limit, blah blah. Then you grow up and find out for yourself the hard way. So I figured, well, if I can't be a doctor or a therapist, then lemme at least work in one's office, right? So that took a little while, but here I am. It's pretty nice. 'S got its trying moments, like any job. But it puts food in the fridge and the health coverage is good."

"Sweet. Yeah, I'm kinda just stuck in the middle of the mall, pushing whatever they've got for us this time: knickknacks, t-shirts, beauty products, books, toys, anything seasonal, appropriate to the time of year. And we're kinda supposed to approach shoppers to peddle it, but, well, I'm sure you know this: all that usually does is annoy them. I mean, I'm a mall shopper too, I like the mall, but I just wanna shop, y'know, and for what I actually want. Imagine that. Right? I figure, kioskist, if I'm interested in what you've got, I'll come to you. Know what I mean? So I usually play solitaire on the PalmPilot or something, and let people do just that: come to me. And now and then, someone'll come up and ask about the product. Sometimes they'll buy, sometimes they won't, and, that's just the nature of retail. Occasionally they'll chat me up in more depth, which I kinda like. 'Cause it breaks up the monotony of my day. What really gets my goat, though, is when they—inevitably, it seems—pop this question: 'So what does your husband do?'"

"Oh, gosh, yes, that is annoying."

"Yeah—or 'boyfriend.' But usually 'husband.' And it's like...first of all, what makes you assu—...d'you see a ring on there? What makes you assume I'm married, and what makes you assume I'm straight? Am I putting off some kind of weird het-vibe, or do you just have really lousy 'gay-dar'? Not that I want people to shun me, or feel too scared off to talk to me. To reiterate: I actually enjoy that. It just bugs the crap outta me when they get presumptuous and jump to conclusions. I just don't wanna have to wear a shirt that says 'GAY CHICK' in giant letters, or give myself a Flock Of Seagulls hairdo to get the point across. I really don't."

"Ha! Funny 'cause it's true."

"And that's not ev—..." Sigh. "I'm-I'm sorry if I'm venting too much, but that doesn't even irritate me as much as the collective reaction when I say I'm gay. I'm sure you've seen it. The sudden jump of the eyebrows..."

"Ah, yeah...the mouth slips open that little bit..."

"The pause, followed by the hopefully harmless, '...Oh.' Translation: 'I really dunno what to say to that.' Sometimes there's even a little half a step backwards, out of what I have to guess is intimidation. Sheezus. So now, I usually just say, 'I don't have a husband,' and steer 'em back to whatever I'm selling."

"Well...you could have a little fun with it. I mean, I know you're at work, so this isn't the best idea there. But if you're in a non-work setting and that happens, you could try this: smile nice and big, yell 'Yup, I'm gay!' and then touch them on the head and run!"

"HA! Classic."

"It's even more fun if they have kids! Touch the kids and be like, 'Have a nice gay day!'"

"That's awesome, I'll have to try that. Hey, 'dyou see the last season of Ellen?"

"Oh, naturally."

"How much of it do you remember?"

"Ummm...other than the one episode everyone'll remember and be talking about for years...not sure. There's been so much other stuff I've watched since. I told you before, I'm a big boob-tuber."

"Heh, right. Okay, well, one of the episodes had this fantasy sequence thing, where the whole gay/straight ratio was inside-out, so the homos were in the majority, and the hets in the minority... Sometimes I get to wishing that was actually true. But most of the time, I just wish it was a nice half-and-half."

"That does sound a little familiar. I should see if someone online has tapes of it."

"Yeah, well, I'm hoping it comes out on DVD soon. In the meantime...oh, it's high noon, straight up. Over here."

"...I'll be danged, you're right. Gosh, have we really been talking for six hours?"

"...I feel like I could talk to you for a million and six more, Dawn."

"Awww...Maureen, that's one of the sweetest things anyone's ever said to me."

"Well, I mean it. And screw the phone bill, by the way. A conversation like this doesn't come along every year, and I don't talk or text that much anyhow. 'S kind of...amazing. Isn't it?"

"It is. Almost feels like I'm talking to an old friend."

"Mmm...well, thank god I treat my friends better now than I used to. Lemme tell you another story. One day in school—probably junior high or early high—some kids were giving me a hard time. As per relatively usual. Then something weird happened, that made this day a little different. This boy, whose name I can't remember, called over to the kids making fun of me, and he said, 'Hey, leave her alone. She's my friend.' So...I don't recall if they did leave me alone. But a little bit later, I went over to him, and...well, I meant to thank him for sticking up for me. But it didn't exactly happen that way. I didn't even know he thought of me as a friend. And I was a dumb kid. I guess we were all dumb kids, but...I didn't know quite what to say. So I ended up asking him, '...Why'd you say that?'"

"Okay..."

"And...so, I don't even remember what he said to me. If anything. But I asked him that 'cause, I guess if he actually thought of me as his friend, I wanted him to confirm it for me. I definitely didn't know it before. But now I wish I'd just said thank you. I feel like asking him why he'd try to defend me seems like I was ungrateful. Or almost like I wanted those jerks to keep giving me crap."

"Mm, I get that. If it makes you feel any better, none of us knew how to behave when we're that age. I got picked on too, and to be brutally honest with you, I even dished it out a little here and there. And I feel terrible about it now. If I could remember anyone in school I had a problem with, I'd try to reach out and make up with 'em. But I can't...so what I tell myself is, I doubt they remember me either, and we've all moved on. I'd love to think that no one's traumatized, or holds any big grudges."

"'S a good way to think about it. Unfortunately for me, my social skills never really improved. It also doesn't help that I don't have the friendliest-looking face or -sounding voice. My natural resting expression looks like I'm tired and pissed off."

"Well, I can't offer any input on your face, but I like your voice, Maur. It sounds friendly enough to me."

"Thank you, Dawn, that's super-sweet. I'm really enjoying your voice too. It's smooth, silky, sensual, it's like...sexy butter."

"Ha! Why, thank you! I've never heard it described quite that way before."

"And I'm sorry to sound like a shattered record, but I bet you look like an angel when you're asleep. I look like I'm in pain."

"Hee hee...a, uh, naked angel with messy hair everywhere and drool coming out of her wide-open mouth, maybe."

"Oooh...naked, huh?"

"Indeed; I toss and turn a helluva lot. I'd bend up my wings and scratch the crap outta my halo. Wearing clothes'd require the extra step of plucking them out from under me. Also, I get hot easy. I keep my apartment at 70° even; no higher, no lower. And if I sleep under covers with jammies on, I sweat. If I have the jammies but no blanket, my feetsies get cold."

"Heh...your 'feetsies'?"

"Oh, yeah. Perhaps I should've mentioned this before: I'm a five-year-old trapped in an adult lady's body."

"I see. Well, pardon me for sticking my nose in your bed, but, um, why don't you just wear socks then?"

"...

"Because, apparently, I don't exercise common sense. Ha! God, how did I never think of that?"

"Well, such concepts tend to elude five-year-olds."

"Seriously, though, hon, there may be things to get down on ourselves about, but your looks shouldn't be one of 'em. To my mind, something like plastic surgery's never worth it, and furthermore, I think it's dishonest. But that's just my humble opinion. And if I may just say so, Maureen, I know you find this hard to believe, but I guarantee you that at some point in your life, someone's had at least a little crush on you. You may not've known it, and it may not've been who you wanted it to be, but I guarantee it."

"Hm...have you ever found out someone had a crush on you?"

"Once. This young fellow named Jack. I thought I liked him back at the time. 'Course, we were eleven."

"Ah yes, one of the key cootie years. Hey Dawn, I was wondering...could you describe yourself for me? What you look like?"

"Oh, sure. I'm 5'6", medium-built, brunette, turquoise eyes...I've been told I look a little like Kelly from Saved By The Bell. But I'm not nearly that beautiful."

"Mm. Well, again, I think your voice is."

"Well, aren't you a dove! May I ask what you look like?"

"You may. I'm about the same height, just a bit on the plumpy side, brunette too—lighter color—hazel peepers, and...I've...never really been told I look like anyone in particular. Famous or otherwise."

"Oh. Well, whom do you think you resemble?"

"On my bad days, a fat, frumpy version of myself. On the good ones...I have no idea."

"Fair enough. Anyway, Maur...by the way, is it okay that I called you Maur? I know you said you hated the other nickname. That's just a thing about me, I tend to play with the syllables in people's names. Sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing it. But if it bothers you at all, please, halt me right in my tracks."

"No, no, Maur's okay. Hey, look: I'm at the state line. Uh, in your case, of course, I mean 'look' metaphorically. But yeah, there's the sign. 'WELCOME TO NORTH DAKOTA...LEGENDARY.'"

"Oh, congrats."

"Yup. So...this is Fargo, North 'Middle of Nowhere' Dakota. Y'know, when I moved to Juniper, I took a train, 'cause I hadn't gotten my car yet. I never drove this before. And maybe it's crazy to take this kind of trip in the car. Maybe I'm insane. Or a self-masochist."

"Orrrrr, maybe fate compelled you to drive, so you could accidentally misdial OnStar and reach me instead! Wink wink?"

"That is a tough argument to refute. And I was thinking, for trips like this, if I could afford it, I should get one of those fancy-ass iPod thingies. But then, I'd either have to find 24 hours' worth of music to put on it, or listen to the same stuff over and over. 'Course, I wouldn't mind that if it's Melissa Etheridge. I, friggin', love her. She's my favorite singer of all time."