Cherry Land Chapters

Illustration by Nik Garvoille

The chilled window of the Greyhound bus rattles against Amber’s skull. She exhales. She tugs off her red mittens and runs her fingers through her blond hair, wispy with static. ‘8…9,10,11…12…13,’ she silently counts the silos dotting the gray skyline.

A man speckled with age spots turns the page of a paperback book. A woman secures a purple knit hat on her head as she coughs. A little boy with crusty sleep in his eye peeks over the seat in front of Amber. “Sam, turn around and leave the girl alone,” says the red-haired woman beside him. “Sit nicely by your mother, will you?”

Amber skips a Bon Jovi ballad on her navy iPod Shuffle. The violin intro to Dixie Chick’s “Wide Open Spaces” whines through the headphones. She wishes she was in her own car, left behind by the insistence of her mother, so she could sing the female country anthem freely, She needs wide open spaces, room to make a big mistake. She needs new faces.

Amber considers the faces of old, the onslaught of relatives – Aunt Carol, Aunt Whitney, Uncle Todd, Cousin Brittany, Amy, Theresa, Luke, her mother, her father, her sister, all of them – sure to ask dreaded questions over Eggnog and Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas”: ‘Dating anyone?’ ‘Still waitressing?’ ‘You took the Greyhound?’

Amber feels the expanding pressure of coffee and 7up in her bladder.

“You want a piece?”

Amber pretends not to hear the voice behind her. She doesn’t want new faces, simply familiar faces. Katie, who sat by Amber in the dank and bare Green Bay Greyhound Station, drank from a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper, swallowed and said, “Oh my God, this is like a ghetto.” Martin, miles and miles away, who Amber imagines would hold her hand just now, if he was on the bus. She imagines his thick, tangled hair on her shoulder while he counts silos too. She bites a fingernail. Then, a tap on her shoulder. She makes a show of removing her headphones, a violated ‘do not disturb’ sign in these public situations.

A wiry boy sporting black-framed glasses and a UW-Green Bay sweatshirt offers a foil-wrapped stick of gum, “You want a piece?” The boy beside him, with thick brown eyebrows and a sparse goat-tee, folds his hands and avoids eye contact with Amber, who smiles, shakes her head, and replaces the removed headphones.

‘I hate the bus,’ she thinks as the colossal vehicle turns into another Shell gas station.

•••

Women with bright-colored skirts, headscarves, and pea coats flood the florescent-lit bathroom. Amber stands in line behind a plump woman in neon pink sweatpants who sets off the automatic hand-dryer as she moves forward. “What the hell?” she shouts over the sound, “What is up with this thing?” She turns her exasperated expression to Amber, who offers a tight-lipped smile and notices bubbles of saliva at the corners of the woman’s mouth.

“Nobody uses these things anyway,” mumbles the woman to no one. “They’re useless.”

•••

Amber inhales the scent of cigarettes as she follows a lean man donning a worn denim jacket on the bus. She steps over the feet of a few sleeping passengers, past the pleasant smile of a gray-haired woman in a lavender scarf, to the eager gaze of the boy in black-framed glasses.

“Where you riding to?” he asks as Amber slides into her seat.

“Deer Hill,” she pulls the iPod from her pocket.

“I’ve never heard of it,” he leans closer. Amber can smell his deodorant. The little boy in the front seat climbs his backrest to peer at Amber once more.

“It’s there,” she answers.

“How many people did you graduate with?”

“Like 70.”

“Have you seen Cars?” asks the squeaky voiced boy, missing a front tooth.

“I have,” she answers.

“Do you remember, you remember Tater?”

“Honey,” the woman grips his forearm.

Amber opens her mouth to say, ‘It’s okay,’ but is interrupted by, “What’s in Deer Hill?” asked this time by the thick-browed boy.

“It’s tiny, uh – a gas station, post office, like five churches.”

“Mom? Mommy?” a whimper comes from the back of the bus. A toddler with lopsided pigtails and watering eyes peeks from behind a seat, “Mommy?”

The boy in glasses laughs, “I think someone just left their kid on the bus.”

The girl meets Amber’s sympathetic eyes. “She’s coming, sweetie,” Amber says.

The girl walks swiftly from her seat to Amber and thrusts her head on Amber’s lap.

“Oh my God, seriously,” she whispers, rubbing her hand up and down the girl’s back, thinking of the tears and snot certain to spot her jeans. The man with age spots turns another page.

“What do you do?” the boy in glasses asks as Amber gazes through the bus window, wondering who is parent to the whimpering child.

“I’m a singer,” she lies.

“Whoa, really?”

“Yep.” Heat rises up her neck as she realizes how suddenly she lied, without thought.

“What kind of music?”

“Folksy…my boyfriend sings with me, and plays guitar,” Amber says quickly, rubbing the girl’s back. ‘You’re so insecure, Amber,’ she can hear her mother saying. ‘No one cares what you do.’

“What’s wrong with her?” asks the little boy, peeking from between the blue seats.

“She’s just scared,” Amber says. “It’ll be okay.”

The boy’s mother turns, rubbing her red hair behind her ears, “Who’s girl is that?”

Amber shrugs.

“I hate the bus,” the woman shakes her head. “Unbelievable.”

•••

“Lily, we got you roast beef,” a man’s voice booms down the isle. The girl raises her head, wipes her forearm against her cheeks and hugs the man’s red wind pants. A woman carrying an Arby’s bag shuffles behind.

“That was weird,” whispers the thick-browed boy, rubbing his palms over his knees. The bus jerks forward.

“I waitress too,” Amber admits, covering her ears with the headphones.

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