Oak Harbor, Washington shivered in bristly fog.
The town was fine and the online marketing workshop was lame.
A waste of time, but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by up and leaving.
The presenter had been with a global marketing agency. Probably got laid off when the big agency lost a big account. He was smooth and, as she expected, fell short on the good stuff, the specifics. She could predict the point when he would fail to flesh out his flowery pronouncements with necessary details.
She wasn’t impressed with the other people at the seminar. None took notes. They all kept smiling thoughtfully as if the cameraman filming the event was about to zoom in on them.
Her attention was drawn to a jittery young man across the room who kept ducking out for a smoke. On a whim she joined him.
He told her he was from Riley, Oregon and that was about it. He smoked Gauloises with yellow fury. Nothing he mumbled made sense. Brief bursts of murmured conversation hinted at vague conspiracies of a biological nature.
The first time she joined him outside she plucked his wallet from an inside coat pocket. The second time his phone. But she couldn’t come up with any car keys. Now that the Lambo was gone that’s what she needed.
Back in Stateline, Nevada she had dumped her neighbor’s 1954 MG TF 1250. Topped off the tank, parked it in the hotel’s covered garage and left the keys in the ignition.
At the hotel buffet she watched a woman in a green velvet coat turn to the window, look out at the mountain, raise her Bloody Mary and whisper a silent toast.
She liked that. She was tempted to go over and ask the woman where she bought the jacket but decided to keep a low profile.
Across the street at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe, she borrowed a 2022 Lamborghini Urus and floated north to Oak Harbor, Washington.
Now it was time to borrow another car and head on out.
