"Hey," I asked, a couple months after we met, "why don’t you marry me?"
"Love to," Sidney said, "but I don’t want to be a trucker’s widow."
I’d started driving over the road around the time we met. She encouraged me because the money was good and there was plenty of work, but neither of us liked the fact that I was away for weeks at a time. While I was on the road, the cell phone bill was out of control. Sid tried for a promotion at her job then got furious when she realized how dead end her job had become. I felt frustrated because I couldn’t be home to lend more support as she went through a tough transition of realizing she wouldn’t get the position because she was a woman. She worked in a family-owned business where the good ole boys’ club was alive and well. She realized she was at the point where it was fight or flight from the company.
"You want to be with me, right?"
"Of course."
"Then go to truck school. You can drive truck with me."
"Me?" She was five foot four, with dark hair and eyes, and frankly had never thought about driving as a part of any job, let alone pursuing professional driving as a living.
"Tell you what. You have some time coming from work. Take a couple days and I’ll take you out on the road with me to see how you like it. There’s lots of women drivers. You’ll see."
"I’ll think about it." Sidney said. Her brain was going fifty miles a minute. She was good about considering new ideas.
The next time I pulled my rig home... Les hele novellen
