The houses became few and far between and the stench of livestock manure filled the air. She could smell it even with all the windows of the limo rolled up. It was a formidable stench; undeniably the smell of her youth, as much as she hated to admit it. They were on the 248 now headed towards Brown's Canyon. They passed the twenty-acre ranch, which was owned by the family of a boy with which she attended high school. It sat on top of a hill behind a large Jurassic Park style white gate. A massive skull with horns rested at the top. It couldn't get more stereotypical, that is until a giant tumbleweed bounced across the road. An actual tumbleweed. Unbelievable. Lily rolled her eyes at the remoteness of this place. She had gone from a Starbucks on every corner to something out of a scene from an old western movie. The driver swerved a bit, unsure of what to do.
"It's best to just hit it straight on," Lily said.
He took her advice and pulled the steering wheel back straight. Another tumbleweed made its way across the road and hit the front fender. It blew beneath the undercarriage of the limousine. The driver seemed pleased and appeared to be giving himself a mental high five.
"That goes for deer too," she added. She wasn't about to die at the hands of a Salt Lake rookie who had no idea how to handle wild animals on the road. She could just see the headline now, "OC Plastic Surgeon's Soon-to-be Ex-Wife Impaled by Elk Antler While Limo Driver Escapes Unscathed."
"Sounds like you know a thing or two about these here parts," the driver said in what sounded like his best attempt at a hick accent.
"Just common country sense," she said, repeating a phrase her father used to say when his daughters were behaving nonsensically. Like the time she and her father ran into a rattlesnake while hiking into their campground one summer. She screamed bloody murder and was ready to give up and turn around when her father pulled a shovel from his pack and drove it into the snake, decapitating it with one quick smooth motion. "Just common country sense" he had said while she looked on in horror. Lily didn't know how her father did it, living in a house full of girls. He had to buy a male dog just to get a little added testosterone around the place. Duke would an old man by now. He was probably the only thing she missed about this place. That, and her father. She knew he was disappointed in her; that she had run off to California and rarely visited. Not that he was any better. He hadn't come out to visit Lily once since she had left. "It's no place for a country boy like me," he simply answered when she called and informed her father she had already purchased a ticket for him. She tried not to take it too personally when he turned it down. She knew it was more than his distaste for the area that kept him away. She wasn't sure which he detested more, that she lived in such a superficial place or that she was the definition of superficial herself. He had raised Lily to be tough. He taught her how to bait a hook and skin a fish. He taught her how to wrangle a horse and ride bareback. He taught her how to be a boy, because it was all he knew. Violet had embraced his lessons, but Lily resisted along the way. She had to admit though that these little life lessons had come in handy every once in a while when she wanted to impress a man, like when her husband and she were first dating and he took her on a fishing trip to Catalina Island. He was blown away by how much she knew and could do on her own. It also came in handy when she wanted to demascluinize a boy like she did with Shane O'Reilly when he pulled her pants down in the middle of gym class in the 4th grade. Later that week she gave him a pretty nice shiner thanks to the left hook her father had taught her.
They made a right on the 189 and Lily felt her pulse increase. She could actually feel her blood pressure rising. They passed the small town of Peoa. It was one of many towns in the state with a less than desirable name. She remembered the one road trip her family had taken long ago, which took them south towards Las Vegas. Along the route Lily had used the road signs to keep herself busy. When Violet couldn't take any more of her incessant talking she took to looking out the window and reading aloud the various names of the cities they passed. She did this both out of sheer boredom and in hopes that it might drive her sister insane. The list of oddly named cities went on and on such as Scipio, Kanosh, Nephi, Panguitch and her personal favorite, Hurricane, which her father informed her was actually pronounced Her-ah-kun. It seemed like such a quintessential hick town stereotype for a small town in the middle of nowhere to be pronounced so incorrectly. In truth however, Lily wondered if the reason this little town of Hurricane had stuck with her was because of the story her father had told her about its namesake and the similarity to her. Much like a hurricane itself, a violent storm that never will make landfall, Lily was drifting, at times rather violently through life. She had never much concerned herself with how her actions would affect anyone other than herself. She had learned from an early age that you couldn't count on anyone, not even those who love you the most. It was, in many ways, what had kept her free from the need to feel responsible for her selfish actions. It was also, she realized, a contributing factor to her tumultuous marriage and rather painstaking divorce. She often wondered at what point her husband had truly checked out. She was embarrassed to say that it had taken her longer than it should have to realize that he was cheating. The first one slipped by right under her nose. Well, she assumed that was the first one, but she didn't have the courage to ask. She was too busy shopping and wining and dining to notice her husband's wandering eye. On some level she wondered if subconsciously her brain had convinced her to ignore his philandering ways. It was easier that way. Giving up the life she had become accustomed to sounded much harder than living a lie and pretending to be in a happy marriage. Lily now understood all the OC wives who stayed with their cheating husbands. In the past, she had pitied them, but her pity had turned to empathy. As much as she hated to admit it, she could see now how comfort and safety could override one's dignity and self-respect.
"We're almost there," the driver said as they passed the sign welcoming them to the small town of Oakley, population just barely over 1,600, and Lilly was pretty sure half of those were actually cows. Lily didn't need him to tell her that they were close. She knew this part of the drive with far too much familiarity. She thought about the many times, as an adolescent, when her friends and she had defaced the welcome sign, drawing obscene words or pictures on it. She winced in embarrassment at some of the images and words they had written, now that she was older and knew exactly what they meant. But acts of idiocy were an adolescent right of passage. It solidified your cool factor and ensured that you weren't doomed to a life of being "unimportant." That was perhaps Lily's greatest fear; to be just another face in the crowd, forgotten amongst all the other girls. The irony was that she became just that, a pretty wrinkle-less blonde with perfectly manicured nails and a perfectly airbrushed face. Those types of women were a dime a dozen in the OC, all you needed was the right plastic surgeon, to which she had constant access. She was proud of herself though that she hadn't taken full advantage of his services. She tried to limit her upkeep, as she called it, to Botox injections and lip fillers. The addiction proved irresistible for many of her friends but she tired of it after some time. It was around the time that her husband told her no amount of beauty on the outside could fix her "cold, bitter, inside." She believed those were the words he used. Was she really bitter and cold or had he made her bitter and cold? It was like the proverbially chicken and the egg; which came first? The words didn't anger her so much as the fact that they were true. She tried to remember the last time she wasn't cold and bitter. It might have been when she and her husband were first dating, back when they couldn't keep their hands off of each other. But even then it was somewhat of an act. Lily played the role of the picture perfect girlfriend who loved her plastic surgeon boyfriend for who he was and not how much money he spent on her. And he played the role of the older gentleman who was in love with his girlfriend's personality, not her appearance, even though it just so happened that she was drop dead gorgeous. She tried to pretend that their massive age difference didn't matter and he tried to pretend that conversations with a girl half his age, with little to no worldly experience, were just as interesting as dating a woman his own age.
Once they were married the act only worsened. The lies she told the other wives rolled easily off her lips. She even believed them herself from time to time. He was guilty of it too; pretending they were something that they weren't. It was amazing how easily it came for both of them, without so much as one conversation. It was a mutual decision that they never spoke of. They were one way in public, and like the flip of a switch, they were another in private. They could be smiling and hugging friends goodbye at the end of a dinner party and the second the door to Richard's Tesla shut, so did their affection for one another.
The limo passed a wide array of homes. Some were run down shacks while others had main houses and guest homes, barns and stables. Horses grazed the pastures and cows took in one last meal before they would be sent off to slaughter. Lily remembered the time that she watched the neighbor's cow give birth to a calf. She had never witnessed an animal give birth before. It was digesting, horrific and amazing all at the same time. She watched as the calf took its first breaths spitting slimy liquid from its mouth and she watched as it wobbled and fell as it took its first steps. Then her neighbor's mother called them in for lunch and she looked on in horror as they served her up a hamburger. She became a vegetarian right then and there. Most people in California thought it was to look thin. If they only knew that it was actually because she had watched life be brought into this world moments before she was asked to eat it.
Lily laughed when they passed the Road Island Diner not just because of its name but because of how out of place it looked in these surroundings with its 50's style decor. The parking lot was packed, which she guessed was to be expected since it was one of only two restaurants in town. The diner didn't exist when she was growing up in Oakley. If it had, she imagined she would have spent many nights sitting at the counter stuffing her face with fries and drinking milkshakes, at least that's what she liked to think. In actuality, she probably would have been making fun of the kids who went there while she was drinking beers and making out with her boyfriend in the woods. She was a typical rebellious teen, trying to find her way in the world by pushing boundaries. There was a thrill in testing how far she could go before getting into trouble. In many ways she still behaved in that manner. She would push and push until she broke whatever mattered most to her.
"Well would ya look at that," the driver said nodding towards the diner. "I didn't even know they had a restaurant out in these parts. I'd say I'm surprised they're able to stay in business all the way out here but it looks as if the entire town is in there."
He seemed to be talking to himself so Lily didn't respond to his out loud thinking. He was right though; the whole town was there, including one very familiar truck, which she thought she'd never see again. The last time she saw that truck things had not ended well. Her pulse increased and her heart thudded in her chest, but this time it wasn't in anticipation of returning home. Instead, it was with a scared sort of excitement about the possibility of running into certain individuals she said goodbye to long ago. Some had received a proper farewell, while others, like the boy who owned that truck, had received far less than they deserved.