Track Bus Replacement Driver

Chapter 1, The Unexpected Trip



My phone never rings. Never. Since I moved to this small Iowa town, that I picked for the very fact that was small, remote, and I didn’t know anyone who lived there. I only knew a few people in town by first name, and almost never told anyone my number. But there was my phone, ringing away.



“Hello?” I answered it unsurely.



“Scott, thank God!” said a familiar female voice, “I need your help.”



It was my older sister, Stephanie. She still lived in Idaho where we grew up, and had a family there with a guy she married ten years ago. “What’s wrong Steph?”



“Taylor and some of her school friends are stuck in Lincoln, Nebraska. They were driving to Charlotte, North Carolina for a national track meet and their driver had a heart attack. He’ll live but he’s seventy and confined to a hospital bed and there’s no one else within like a thousand miles who I trust to drive them the rest of the way. Their coach is with them, but she isn’t licensed to drive a bus. Taylor says she’s trying to hire someone to drive them the rest of the way,” Steph didn’t even give me any chance to ask any questions, “but I know you have your truck license, and Lincoln isn’t that far away from Iowa…”



“Lincoln is like a three hour drive from my place,” I said, “Besides, why don’t they just fly?”



“Some teacher’s union rules and crap,” she growled. Obviously that was already a sore point. “Are you still unemployed?”



“No, I’m an independent contractor. I’m self employed.” I corrected her.



“Whatever. Can I hire you to take two weeks off? That is if you’re not too busy…”



“No, I’m not…” I grumbled. “Okay, you got a driver.”



Steph gave me all the details of where and when and a phone number to reach and talk to a Ms. Sarah Jordan, the phys-ed teacher who was their track coach. With a quick call to her to let her know I was coming to take over driving, much to her thanks, I got in my car and drove to the hotel they had booked and got there a little after two hours later. Okay I had exaggerated a bit to Steph, but now it was evening and they even had a room booked for me, granted it was originally for their driver, with the rest of the stranded team.



I meet them all over dinner that night, starting with Ms. Jordan, “That’s my mother. Please call me Sarah,” she’d said in our introductions, and likewise I told her and all the teens to call me Scott. She was a strong woman who, while of average looks, had quite a large pair of breasts on her otherwise petite frame, with wide hips and obviously strong legs. She had long raven black hair that she kept tied up tight in a bun, and explained that she’d been a track star in her youth but that ended when she grew her “excessive weights” in her chest.



She did have an impressive pair and I could see how they could get in the way while running, or jumping, as she bounced once to make her point and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. She explained how her “curse” at puberty ended her athletic career, and she knew she would become a gym teacher, and now she was. She couldn’t be older than thirty, and was probably only twenty-five or so, definitely not less than ten years younger than I was.



“Uncle Scott!” Taylor, my sister’s stepdaughter, who greeted me excitedly with a hug as soon as she saw me, was fifteen and a precocious leggy brunette who was always seemed to be getting into trouble. I never met her birth mother who had died in a car accident. That crash had also left her with a big scar on her chest where the catch of her car seat had gouged her, even if it had saved her life. I’d seen it long ago when she was a much smaller child when I babysat her for a week as a wedding gift to my sister for her honeymoon.



Anyway she was two at the time and four when my sister became her mother, but you would never know Taylor wasn’t Steph’s. They looked and acted exactly like twins, always loud and in charge, first in line, and demanding to be the center of attention wherever they went.



There were three other girls with them, Alexis was a short giggly blonde with shoulder length locks, Kayla a shy redhead whose close cut mop of hair was quite curly, and finally Natasha a tall and sassy black girl with just dreads across her scalp. I’m sure I’d get to know them all better on down the road since we would see no one else for the better part of a week on the drive there and back except for the competitions themselves, but after dinner we all went to our four rooms, one each for a pair of teens to share, and one each for Sarah and I.



The next morning we all boarded the small bus and began our journey. It was your standard old yellow, but only had about seven rows of seats and a handicapped lift in the back. So while small, there was still plenty of room for the girls to spread out if they wanted to. Natasha sat in the very back, Alexis and Kayla together in the middle, and Taylor right behind me, talking constantly. Sarah sat across from Taylor, but just listened.



The first two hours I entertained Taylor, who hadn’t seen me for a few years from when my sister had last brought her family out to visit me, and it seemed like she just had to detail every minute between then and now. She talked about school, what a drag her mother was becoming, and how she’d just broken up with her long-time three week boyfriend because he kept trying to see her boobs every time they were alone. I was just glad she was happy she was a vivacious young girl and tried to listen while I drove. That is what family is for, even if half of it was meaningless gossip and melodrama of a fifteen year old girl.



Eventually though she excused herself and went back to sit and talk with Natasha leaving me to some quiet driving. After a while Sarah leaned over and said, “Taylor really likes you.”



“Yea. She really reminds me of my sister at that age.”



“I envy her. I was always an ugly duckling at that age and spent my time alone and just ran on the track,” she sighed, “Until the next year when my body decided to change all that.” She gestured to her ample bosom.



She really had quite a rack, I couldn’t believe she was that upset over it. “Come on. My wife always used to wish she had larger breasts. I’m sure the guys hit on you nonstop.”



“Oh, they hit on me alright. ‘Hey baby I’m drowning and you look like just the flotation device I need.'” She shook her head, “All I am is a pair of boobs to guys. Before that I was invisible.”



She was getting into a foul mood so I tried to lighten it. “Well, I’m driving so will just keep my eyes on the road, but seem to still be enjoying your company.”



I think she smiled and then we settled into some casual small talk. I still wore my wedding ring, but I told her how my wife had passed away slowly from ovarian cancer five years ago. I was better, but just couldn’t live in our Idaho hometown anymore. Everything reminded me of her, the places we use to go, and everyone always saying how sorry they were or remembering her to me. I still missed her, but I just couldn’t live in that painful past anymore. I couldn’t remember her healthy anymore and that hurt more than losing her the first time.



So I moved away. In Iowa I mostly did odd jobs and drive a delivery truck while I lived on an old farm where I could grow my own food, but paid my bills mostly with by working on the internet as my primary job writing computer software. I’m not a hippy, but just wanted to get away from everybody and have some time to myself. It’s easy to live life alone if you are willing to just work hard. I just sort of fell away from the rest of the world.



I hadn’t really talked about it in years, but it felt good to just open up to someone who didn’t know. Sarah wasn’t from Idaho originally and had been looking for a teaching job since she graduated college, but had been working at a call center until old Mr. Finnegan, the guy who was my gym teacher finally retired that she was offered the job. She had only just moved there last year, she explained. Then we spent an hour chatting about the few old teachers I knew who were still there, and the new ones, and those that had I remembered used to be there.



Time seemed to fly while we talked and soon it was time for lunch. I pulled off the interstate, fueled up, and pulled into a McDonald’s. The girls and I all ordered food and after hitting the restrooms we all piled back on the bus and drove on.



The girls had shuffled where they sat and were now all in the back talking and giggling as teenage girls seem too often do. Sarah wasn’t really good with maps, but I had looked and planned ahead so predicted to her we should stop in St. Louis tonight. She started calling to get rooms for us, and with that done the next few hours were some quiet driving. Unfortunately the bus was quite old and didn’t have a radio, just a CB, but I kept that off.



The late afternoon had the teens tittering to themselves the whole time, while Sarah had nodded off from the long drive in the summer heat. Then Natasha came up behind my seat and quietly asked me, “Scott, are you married?”



“Um… I was…” I answered uncertainly.



“Taylor told us that, but you still have a ring. Are you with someone right now?” she asked with a strange determination.



“Well… No, but…” I started to think about what to tell this stranger of a fifteen year old, but she promptly ran back with her answer to the other teens. They tittered and I looked back at them. Teenage girls and their gossiping. I dismissed it and focused on the drive and new scenery as we were getting closer to St. Louis. I’d never been here myself, but the last bus driver had a clear route marked out his map that was easy to follow.



A little while later Alexis snuck into the seat behind me and whispered, “Are you going out with Ms. Jordan?”



“What? No. I only just meet her today,” I tried to say calmly.



“Kay,” and she took off to rejoin her pack of gossipers.



Oh boy. These girls were going to be more of a handful than I thought. We were almost to our exit when Taylor came up behind me again, but instead of talking she leaned close and quickly whispered, “Kayla thinks you’re hot,” then scampered back. I looked up into the wide mirror back at the passengers and saw the girls all watching, including Kayla who looked like she’d die of embarrassment. She blushed so fiercely that her face almost matched the orange of her red hair as she disappeared behind a seat.



I smiled and shook my head, remembering when I was that age. The first girl that I ever liked sent me a love note, but my older sister had found it first and I was so nervous as Steph mocked me for having a girlfriend that I ripped it up unread. My sister, who was horrible to me at that age, then went straight over to her house and told her what I did. She stopped hanging out with me after that. That single stupid move set me back at least two years from getting my first date with a girl.



We drove on until I saw the great arch for the first time, but had seen the signs so was expecting it.