My car broke down. The bus I caught took forever to arrive and when it did, there were twin female drivers, and two fare boxes. "It's a tandem!" the two attractive redheads exclaimed in synchrony, to answer the question on my face.
I didn't recognize the route number but the front driver said yes she was going to Shoreline; in fact, the main artery in my neighbourhood was under construction. The detour would pass directly in front of my house.
The passengers inside were rowdy. They had been riding for hours, they said. The bus was experiencing intermittent mechanical problems and the relief bus had been too small to fit everyone so it had gone ahead with their luggage. Meanwhile it was getting dark and groups of passengers had formed alliances and staked out different territories so they could sleep in safety.
At the front left I recognized the distinctive blonde dreadlocks of my sister. She had her back to me and was putting up strands of white Christmas lights. The front bench seat was Tetris'ed together with a few yanked-out side seats to form a nice double bed over which she had spread a fluffy white faux fur comforter.
Her boyfriend, seated and facing forward, saw me first and yelled "sister!!!" in a british accent; he was clearly drunk. After joyful greetings all round I learned they had smuggled rum on the bus and so were not concerned about the longer-than-normal journey.
We approached a red light and my sister's boyfriend asked her to grab some ibuprofen from the corner store. She was out the door before I could explain that we had just hit the suburbs and the bus stops would now be half a mile apart. Just as she exited the store, purchase in hand, the light changed. The bus accelerated to commuter train speed, leaving no opportunity for my sister to re-board.
We called her cell and it dutifully buzzed beside us; in her haste to run the errand she'd left it on the seat. I was in a panic; my sister was lost in a strange city at night. How would we ever find her? Now I was eager to get home so I could drop all her stuff and borrow a car to retrace the route.
At an intersection about six miles down the road, the bus shuddered to a stop. The mechanic was called again. I went forward to ask the bus driver if he could patch in over the radio to be on the lookout for my sister in case she boarded the next bus.
The driver - now a man, thanks to a company-mandated shift change - was initially reluctant to help. "Thousands of people board buses every day," he said. I insisted, mentioning her distinctive hair. "Blonde dreadlocks?" he looked thoughtful then nodded, reached for his radio. "I can work with that."
I had hoped for a long stop but only minutes after the mechanic arrived, the bus was rolling again. I considered calling the non-emergency police line to see if they had an officer in the area who could look for my sister but then realized she would probably avoid any roving patrol car. As a rasta-looking taxi driver, most of my sister's law enforcement experiences had left her bitter and wary.
I was near tears and pacing at the back of the bus when someone came up behind me and wrapped my waist with gold-bangled arms. "Surprise!" My sister kissed my cheek. Besides her many bracelets, she was now wearing an ankle-length gold satin sheath under a crocheted shawl. Not only had she managed to locate a bus route map, cash and a taxi, there had been time for shopping.
To celebrate we turned the bus into a Buick and deleted the other passengers. I race-carred down the freeway toward the airport so as not to miss their flight. It was dawn, the sun coming up fast. Abruptly I realized that I was speeding behind a highway patrol car. The lights and siren came on, and the car slowed. I swore; he was going to get behind me. A minute later his true target, a small blue Honda, pulled over and I maneuvered around both cars with a sigh of relief... only to see a whole carvan of emergency vehicles angled across four out of five lanes on the highway. Two officers directed traffic as it squeezed through in the far left lane.
As we got closer, I recognized the officers as the two perky redhead drivers from the bus ride. They began doing a Broadway style tap dance, using their nightsticks as canes. As we passed, they shimmied in unison, sent air kisses in through our window and yelled, "See? Police don't have to be scary!"
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