Dinah had planned to get to Mexico in three days, but the driving was more tiring than she's expected, and hotter. It took her four days from Vancouver to the Mexican border crossing at Tijuana.
By the time she was two hundred kilometers inside Mexico, the warm sun had turned unbearably hot. The country was beautiful, dry desert mountains covered by cacti, funny leafless trees she couldn't identify. The trouble was, she couldn't even spare a glance at them. Her relief at escaping the thick freeway traffic of Southern California was quickly replaced by the tension of trying to drive a big car on a narrow, winding highway. She was getting to the point where she couldn't kill for the chance to pull off into a rest area, but there was no rest areas.
Just before noon, half way up a mountain with the sun beating down heavy and hot, she started the air-conditioning and wound up the windows. She was amazed to discover that the cooling system actually worked. She had bought the Oldsmobile the summer before, had laughed when the salesman had said, 'it's got cruise control, and air-conditioning'.
'You expect me to pay extra for that?' she'd pushed her hands into her jeans pockets and told herself that there were other cars. If the salesman wanted top dollar for the Oldsmobile, it wasn't going to be her car.
He had said, 'it's a luxury car'.
'it's a gas guzzler,' she'd corrected.'' 'You can't sell these things to anyone these days'. She would never have bought a big car herself, except for the girls. For their camping trips she needed room for four people with tents and sleeping-bags and pots and pans. A Honda would never do the job!
The salesman had started to point out the cost of air-conditioning in a new car, and she'd said briskly, 'I need a good heater not air-conditioning, and cruise control's is ridiculous to drive three miles through Vancouver traffic to work. I'm a lot more interested in whether you'll replace that windscreen and knock five hundred off the price.
They'd settled on the windscreen and three hundred off, and she'd had no regret buying the Olds. She had had a good summer with it. It had been a good summer all around... her last with Leo. She had spent her work day concentrating on the new Madison advertising campaign, enjoying the artwork and feeling a warm glow when she saw her own work spread over the city on a billboard. She had used her evenings to plan the camping trips and talk to Leo, her weekends to take the girls out and show them what the world was like outside the city.
A worthwhile summer, especially the time spent with the girls. Later, Leo had told her that Ellen had gone back to school and back to her counselling sessions, and she knew herself that Sally was keeping out of trouble.
Of course the Olds didn't look as shiny after she had driven it through the bushes and up the mountains, but it was still comfortable and she loved the way it surged along the highway. As the salesman had said, it was a luxury car. Even nine years old and thoroughly battered, it still felt like a luxury car. As for the air-conditioning, she had never even turned it on -until today.
She passed a curved sign. If you couldn't believe, the sign, it was square curve coming up, but on the last five hours of driving in Mexico she had learned three things about the roads: they were narrow and the curves were not banked, and the degree of the curve on the sign had little relation to the real thing. She lifted her foot off the accelerator and prepared for anything. The car slowed to a crawl. Beneath the roar of the air-conditioning she thought she heard a funny racing soundin the engine.
'I don't blame you, old lady,' she muttered as the curve started. This one was a false alarm, a gentle bend that twisted around a rock bluff. 'I'm a little tired of climbing mountains myself. If we find a rest area let's pull off'.
As the car straightened out, she found another sign. Curva peligrosa. She had learned in the past few hours to take these signs very seriously. She had a Spanish-English phrase-book with her, but she had not needed to look that one up to realise that Peligrosa means dangerous! Those signs were invariably followed by a cliff hanging corner on the side of a rock face, and once or twice she'd caught the glimpse of a cross on the side of the road. Commemorating someone who had died on the curve? She was a careful driver, but five or six peligrosa signs and one or two crosses were enough to make sure she kept her attention on the narrow road.
She crawled around the corner, then jerked the car to the right as a big tractor-trailer rig appeared in front of her. She couldn't get any further over without taking a chance on that cliff, so she gritted her teeth and held her ground, muttering, 'keep to your own bloody side of the road truck'. The truck gave way and they passed with only inches to spare.