I was in no rush, two days until I was due in Atlanta, but getting stopped by a slow freight in a tiny town in the middle of Alabama irked me. What’s more, before the freight cleared the tracks, another freight blocked the crossing going the other way. I thought about pulling out, maybe getting some lunch at whatever local diner happened to be in the town, when a car pulled up to my left, hemming me in. So much for lunch. I glanced over, and in the driver’s seat sat a young woman, barely more than a girl. She gave me a glance, a pretty smile, a small shake of the head, perhaps some sort of commiseration about us being trapped this way. I thought about turning on the radio. I rarely listen while driving. I remembered back in the days when I commuted to work always having a book available for situations just like this. Well, not exactly like this, for when I glanced again at the girl in the car next to me, she had her skirt up and her hand between her legs.

I couldn’t help but watch. The motions of her fingers mimicked in some elementary way the binging of the crossing bell mixing with the slow, relentless clatter of the boxcars crossing the crossing. Bing-bing, Bing-bing Bing-bing. Clitter-clatter Clitter-clatter Clitter-clatter. Touch touch touch touch touch. I could feel her excitement. Certainly I was aroused myself. Bing-bing Bing-bing. Touch touch touch. I just watched. I almost wouldn’t have minded had that train gone on forever. As it happened, just as the last car cleared the crossing, the girl shuddered. Her shoulders sagged. The gates went up. She wiped her fingers beneath her nose and took off. I followed.

She pulled into a gas station on the far side of town, and I considered pulling in after her, but I didn’t need gas, and before I could think, I passed on by, continuing my trek east.

I don’t think she could have gotten gas, maybe she’d just stopped at the station for a quick pee or a candy bar or who knows what, because not more than ten minutes later her car raced past me, nipping back into our lane just in time to avoid a head-on collision with a cattle truck. A minute or two later she was miles down the highway and out of sight. I wondered where she was going. I felt a bit sad not to know, not to know more about her. Not to know everything about her.

But twenty minutes later I passed her. She was on the side of the road, a cop car behind her, its lights flashing, and the cop was leaning into her open window. I slowed but kept going. Sure enough, about twenty minutes later she passed me again. But this time, after she’d pulled into my lane, she slowed to my speed, and we drove on, almost together, mile after mile. Her turn signal went on long before she turned off into the parking lot of a not quite sleezy looking motel. I followed.

She got out of the car and went into the office, and I waited in my car. Five or ten minutes later she stepped out of the office, smiled and waved at me, and sashayed down the walk. I got out of my car. I was just about to follow her when she reached her room, opened the door, and a state trooper, almost certainly the one who’d pulled her over earlier, reached her door from the opposite direction. He followed her into the room and the door closed. I stepped back into my car. Well, that settles that, I said to myself. I felt both sad and relieved. I sat in my car for some time, and then I got out and went into the office. “We only have cabins,” the clerk told me. “Actually only one. Cabin F.” I rented Cabin F.