Useless Information -- Gillian (28)

There was something Ellen wan't telling us. I could tell. I stared out the window at the passing trees. Zen-thingy. Yeah, sure.

"Iowa!" Scarlett shouted loudly, nearly making me jump out of my skin. I turned in my seat, and saw her staring intently out the window at passing cars.

"She's playing the license plate game," Ellen told me quietly. I turned to look at her, "I told her to play a car game."

"Nebraska!" I heard from the backseat.

I looked over at Ellen and we both fought not to laugh. Tension gone.

"So..." I said, desperately trying not to let the conversation lapse back into silence. I pulled out my purse, which was sitting at my feet. I reached in and retrieved my security pass. I cringed at the picture that was on it. My brown hair was in the worst haircut I've ever had. Made my face look terrible. The colour job sucked too. I sighed and put it back inside.

"Oklahoma!" Scarlett let out.

Right underneath was my pack of jam. Raspberry this time. The last one had been blueberry. I laughed out loud, remembering how that one had exploded inside my handbag. As I laughed, Ellen looked over at saw the jam in my hand.

"What's the jam for? " she asked and was answered with a "North Carolina!" from the backseat.

"Oh, it' nothing," I said, blushing, "My mom just always told me that i shouldn't ever leave home without a pack of jam. God knows why. But I keep one with me anyway. I like to keep a part of her with me all the time."

"What kind of jam?" she asked.

"New York!"

"Raspberry," I said.

"I never went for the Raspberry myself," Ellen told me, "I wasalways more of a strawberry girl."

"Me too!" I said laughing, "It was the only kind at the conference I was at, and my last one had exploded, so I didn't have much of a choice."

I felt great. Like I was back with my high school friends, gossiping about who Dan McMichael was breaking up with this week. Before I had been rudely thrown into the real world.

Scarlett interrupted my thoughts again. "Look guys!" she told us, "There's one from Ontario! In Canada!"

I laughed. I was in a frame of mind where even Scarlett couldn't annoy me. "Did you know that in Canada, in one of the provinces, they have polar bear shaped license plates?" I asked her.

"Really?" Scarlett asked.

"Yeah."

"Wow..." she said, as she turned back to the window.

"Is that true?" Ellen asked me, intruiged.

"Yeah, no joke. I'm a well of useless information." I said jokingly.

"Depends on what you consider useless," Ellen replied, "Sometimes it's the smallest things that end up being very important. Hold onto all that 'useless info' you have," she told me, turning her head to face me,"You're gonna need it."

She turned her head back to the road, and I saw we were approaching the turn-off for the airport. Then we were passing it.

"Wasn't that our turnoff back there?" I asked Ellen.

"No;" she told me, "That was the turn-off for the airport that most people use. We use this one," She said as she pointed to a narrow road that turned off the highway. I couldn't see where it led to, but it headed in the direction of the airport.

We turned down the road and followed it for a couple hundred metres. It made a sharp turn and suddenly we were in a remote corner of the tarmac, heading for a small outbuilding not visible through the windows in the terminal. We pulled inside it as a door oppenned up, admiting Ellen's car. As we pulled to a stop, Ellen turned so she was facing me and Scarlett at the same time, her face serious.

"Last stop," she said, "Everybody out."