Read Online Things I Want to Say by Cyndi Myers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Cyndi Myers
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immediately begun building a fantasy of two carefree pals seeking fun and adventure as they traveled cross-country. Female bonding and empowerment on the open road. We’d sing along with the radio, while away the hours remembering all the great times we’d had together as kids and stop at every tourist trap and souvenir stand on the way. It would be the kind of vacation celebrated in the movies, a time we would remember fondly in our old age.
By the time we pulled into Lancaster that afternoon I’d begun to deal with the reality that two middle-aged women in a moving truck were not exactly an updated version of Thelma and Louise. A giant orange-and-white truck doesn’t have the same cool factor as a red convertible. Neither Alice nor I could carry a tune or remember the words to songs on the radio. You can only talk about the past so long before it begins to sound a little desperate. The souvenir stands and tourist traps had been replaced by McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. And after eight hours of staring out the windshield I was positive no one would mistake me for Susan Sarandon.
Still, for a gal who hadn’t traveled much, I was having fun. Amish country was exactly as I’d always pictured it—black horse-drawn buggies plodding along in the slow lane, women in bonnets and aprons selling fresh produce and colorful quilts from the front porches of neat white frame farmhouses and barefoot children in old-fashioned clothes playing in the fields.
Everything looked like a picture postcard, and many of the businesses continued the Amish theme. Farmer John Real Estate, Plain and Fancy Farm Restaurant, Countryside Apartments.
“It’s more like a theme park than a town,” I said as Alice maneuvered the truck across four spaces in the back lot of the Lancaster Econo Lodge.
“I think that’s why I liked it so much when I was here on my honeymoon,” she said. “It was Williamsburg without the boring guides.”
We ate dinner at a farmhouse-themed restaurant. A strapping German waitress who had probably never bothered to count a calorie in her life brought out steaming bowls of mashed potatoes, beans, country ham and sausage, sauerkraut, creamed corn and a whole loaf of homemade bread. My mouth watered, but I resolutely allowed myself tiny helpings of the least-fattening choices.
I noticed Alice didn’t eat much, either. “Don’t hold back on my account,” I told her.
“Oh, it’s not you.” She laid her fork across her half-full plate and pushed it away. “I still don’t have my appetite back from the chemo.”
“How long has it been?” I asked. For some reason—maybe her hair—I’d assumed Alice had completed her treatments months, maybe even a year or more, ago.
“About three months now.” She sat up straighter. “But I’m doing great. And I’d be a fool to complain about losing the urge to overeat.”
“Yeah.” Twisted as it is, I could see the positives in her situation. When I was the most depressed about being fat, I used to fantasize about developing some mysterious but nonfatal illness that would cause the excess pounds just to melt away.
How many times have you heard someone—almost always a woman—say something like “Yeah, I puked up my guts for three days with the flu. But the good news is, I lost five pounds.”
No telling what our waitress thought about all the food we left uneaten, but we left her a big tip and walked back to the motel. We’d rented a room with two double beds to save money.
Alice kicked off her shoes and crawled onto the bed closestto the door. “When Bobby and I were here, we stayed at a bed-and-breakfast,” she said. “The Farmhouse Inn or something. It really was a room in someone’s farmhouse.” She giggled. “We had to show them our marriage license to prove we really were married.”
“Is the place still here?” I kicked off my own shoes and pulled my hair back into a ponytail.
“Who knows? I didn’t see the name in the tourist brochures I
By the time we pulled into Lancaster that afternoon I’d begun to deal with the reality that two middle-aged women in a moving truck were not exactly an updated version of Thelma and Louise. A giant orange-and-white truck doesn’t have the same cool factor as a red convertible. Neither Alice nor I could carry a tune or remember the words to songs on the radio. You can only talk about the past so long before it begins to sound a little desperate. The souvenir stands and tourist traps had been replaced by McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. And after eight hours of staring out the windshield I was positive no one would mistake me for Susan Sarandon.
Still, for a gal who hadn’t traveled much, I was having fun. Amish country was exactly as I’d always pictured it—black horse-drawn buggies plodding along in the slow lane, women in bonnets and aprons selling fresh produce and colorful quilts from the front porches of neat white frame farmhouses and barefoot children in old-fashioned clothes playing in the fields.
Everything looked like a picture postcard, and many of the businesses continued the Amish theme. Farmer John Real Estate, Plain and Fancy Farm Restaurant, Countryside Apartments.
“It’s more like a theme park than a town,” I said as Alice maneuvered the truck across four spaces in the back lot of the Lancaster Econo Lodge.
“I think that’s why I liked it so much when I was here on my honeymoon,” she said. “It was Williamsburg without the boring guides.”
We ate dinner at a farmhouse-themed restaurant. A strapping German waitress who had probably never bothered to count a calorie in her life brought out steaming bowls of mashed potatoes, beans, country ham and sausage, sauerkraut, creamed corn and a whole loaf of homemade bread. My mouth watered, but I resolutely allowed myself tiny helpings of the least-fattening choices.
I noticed Alice didn’t eat much, either. “Don’t hold back on my account,” I told her.
“Oh, it’s not you.” She laid her fork across her half-full plate and pushed it away. “I still don’t have my appetite back from the chemo.”
“How long has it been?” I asked. For some reason—maybe her hair—I’d assumed Alice had completed her treatments months, maybe even a year or more, ago.
“About three months now.” She sat up straighter. “But I’m doing great. And I’d be a fool to complain about losing the urge to overeat.”
“Yeah.” Twisted as it is, I could see the positives in her situation. When I was the most depressed about being fat, I used to fantasize about developing some mysterious but nonfatal illness that would cause the excess pounds just to melt away.
How many times have you heard someone—almost always a woman—say something like “Yeah, I puked up my guts for three days with the flu. But the good news is, I lost five pounds.”
No telling what our waitress thought about all the food we left uneaten, but we left her a big tip and walked back to the motel. We’d rented a room with two double beds to save money.
Alice kicked off her shoes and crawled onto the bed closestto the door. “When Bobby and I were here, we stayed at a bed-and-breakfast,” she said. “The Farmhouse Inn or something. It really was a room in someone’s farmhouse.” She giggled. “We had to show them our marriage license to prove we really were married.”
“Is the place still here?” I kicked off my own shoes and pulled my hair back into a ponytail.
“Who knows? I didn’t see the name in the tourist brochures I
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