But I continue to stop each time, trying to spot her through the brightly lit rows of Slim Jims and Slurpee machines. She hasn’t been behind the counter the last few times I’ve stopped in Gila Bend. The truck stop cashier probably saw hundreds of people like me every day-people not only in transit, but in transition, pausing before continuing on to their other selves. Under the fluorescent lights of the Love’s truck stop, I feel most at home in the anticipation of which way I’ll turn. One way out of town, the cool sea breeze beckons. Gila Bend is the comfortable purgatory between the posts. It is a constant tug-of-war between the two-and my car has the miles to prove it. Now I’m back to being a full-time Phoenician-though I still consider myself a California girl at heart. I missed the scent of orange blossoms that hung heavy in the air each spring or the dirty smell of wet asphalt that all desert dwellers associate with summer monsoons. I missed my parents and a bedroom I didn’t have to share with other girls. When I approached Gila Bend from the West, I no longer dreaded what lay beyond it. I was losing my grip on the loyalty I felt for a place I had left before losing all my baby teeth.īy then I was driving myself back and forth between San Diego and Phoenix to visit my family. I loved being back by the beach but the magical place I remembered from my childhood no longer existed. The campus was filled with lithe beautiful blondes and expensive cars. When I graduated high school, I moved back to the coast and enrolled at the University of San Diego. I got caught up in my lack of blonde hair and skinny thighs. I survived AP calculus but never quite mastered physics. I managed to make friends and joined the tennis team. When we made the turn onto Route 85 toward Gila Bend, I swore I could see the Pacific Ocean on the horizon.Īs the years passed, my loathing of Phoenix began to wane. I anxiously awaited summer vacations when the desert heat became unbearable and my family would pile into our gold minivan to make the trek back to San Diego. The front yards in Scottsdale were filled with rocks and everyone stayed inside in the air conditioning. I desperately missed our old front yard community, where the neighborhood kids would play together, their bare feet cushioned by the green lawns that blended one house with the next. I vowed to hate it forever in that particularly charming vain of prepubescent girls. I knew immediately that my parents had made a huge mistake moving me to this image-obsessed wasteland. I was a 10-year-old tomboy who up until then had never known boys as anything more than friends. On the first day in my new school, someone asked me whether I had a boyfriend. A few months later we moved from San Diego to Scottsdale, Arizona. Halfway through fifth grade my parents informed my younger brother and me that we’d be trading endless summers of sandy bathing suits and salty sea air for saguaros and triple-digit heat. It was like a sign post, telling me I only had 300 miles to go before I hit ocean. Her gloomy expression was always oddly comforting in its steadfastness. But over the years it had become my little ritual on my many trips between San Diego and Phoenix to make a silent bet with myself that I’d see her, no matter what time of day I passed through. I don’t remember the first time I saw her or even when I began noticing that she always seemed to be working whenever I stopped there. I get out of my car, stretch and walk into the convenience store to look for a cashier-a plus-sized Native American woman with a jet-black ponytail and permanent scowl whose name I’ve never learned. Whether or not I’m short on gas, I always pull into the Love’s truck stop on the outskirts of town, just before the junction with Interstate 8.
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