10 a.m.
     Gina is leaning forward, her eyes intent, both hands gripping the wheel. For a few moments, she looks like an automaton until the chorus comes back and she’s singing a song that dropped off from radio station playlists ages ago.
     "Don’t go chasing waterfalls," she half sings/half whispers. If the wipers had a little more rhythm, they’d be metronomes, swinging back and forth in groove with the ladies from TLC and Gina herself.
     Her voice, though melodic in speaking, doesn’t seem to be able to carry a song. Her singing is husky and tuneless, but her more-than-a-whisper, less-than-an-utterance is soothing in the gray cloudiness of a Saturday morning when the clouds have devoured the horizon and their water is supplied endlessly.
     No flooding yet on I-35, but there’s plenty of it behind us. We left early, despite Gina arriving half an hour late. Now, a little after 10 a.m., with a spiral pad in my lap and the rain a heavy sheet against the windshield, I wonder the wisdom of our trip.
     We were listening to a salsa CD Gina brought with her and after the short disc ended, we were still able to catch a few radio stations from Austin. One of them went on and on about flooding. They warned that no one should travel, especially south toward San Marcos and San Antonio.
     We were heading north, but a storm is a storm and if it was going to catch us, it might catch us bad. And Gina’s car, the little sporty red vehicle hovering about three inches from the ground, couldn’t make it past a puddle, much less a flooded road without stalling. We’re on a major highway and I keep thinking if we just keep on it, we won’t have any trouble. High ground, high ground.
     We started picking up another station an hour out, maybe Waco, and Gina got her Top 40 fix. I haven’t said much to her. Her concentration is on the road and the visibility keeps getting good, bad, worse, good, bad.
     High ground, high ground, Gina. Don’t lose the road.

* * *

     10:25 a.m.
     Gina lost the road.
     Or at least the lines in the road. The rain was heavy and I was half paying attention, wondering if there was anything to note in the pad, then deciding aw, screw the pad. It’s too early and I’ve still got sleep haze in my eyes.
     I was looking out the passenger side window and could barely see mile markers and grass as we soldiered on. I glanced out one moment, noticing that the mile marker we were passing (229? 29? Still can’t see them) was farther away than the others.
     I turned Gina’s way and saw two headlights from up on high catty-corner to us. Gina saw it too and she jumped. We heard the sonorous horn of an 18-wheeler as its lights and the bulk of its metal beast body passed us. We both screamed as the force of wind from the rig whooshed by. A huge wave of rain cascaded against the car’s front and Gina’s side.
     Gina was slowing down quickly and I thought the car would skid. I turned to look behind us. No headlights there.
     Her hands, still death-gripped on the black steering wheel, were trembling.

* * *

     Noon
     We’re at a gas station just south of Dallas. The rain isn’t as bad as it was leaving Austin, but the day is still dark and around us; the fall of skinny droplets is making the world look like a snowy TV.
     Gina insists on pumping and paying herself. I wait.
     The rest of the way here, Gina began talking, I think maybe to relieve her own boredom, avoid sleep, maybe avoid a collision with another rig bound for some beer delivery depot in waterlogged Austin.
     She asked if there was anywhere in Dallas I wanted to go.
     "This may sound weird, but my dad was really into the Dallas Cowboys. Can we go to Texas Stadium?"
     Gina looked at me, smiling, as if expecting a punchline to some joke I’d made up.
     "I’m serious. Can we go?"
     She laughed. "Sure. If there’s not a game going on or something."
     Gina said she wanted to shop at the Galleria, unfortunately on the other side of Dallas. Then, she said, she wanted to go to West End and get some fudge at a shop inside the mini-mall that connects to Planet Hollywood.
     "It’s the worst mall in the world. They don’t even have real stores. It’s just a bunch of trendy junk shops. There’s a magic shop and a hologram store, but other than that, it’s just t-shirts and souveniers. And don’t even get me started about Planet Hollywood," she said.

* * *

     Evening
     We arrived at the Galleria at about one, with traffic pretty bad the further north within Dallas we got. I haven’t been here often, but when I have, I’ve come away with incredibly bad vibes. Dallas is a city where Austin, San Antonio and to a lesser extent, Houston, are towns that got really big. Dallas feels like it’s always been too big, that it’s always had a personality deficiency, that it’s always been full of assholes who can pretend that they’re not assholes because they have enough money to convince themselves and the people around them otherwise.
     The Galleria is enormous even by mall standards and has several different parking lots, some of them underground. We parked in one of those and entered through a men’s clothing store with suits and vests and more ties in nice oak display cases than I’ve ever seen.
     We wandered to the main area and before us were four floors of spending possibilities. I took a deep breath, mentally calculating how much money I’d need for the next two weeks. Can I live off sandwiches for a while? Do I qualify for the Ramen Noodles Student Scholarship?
     Before shopping, we hunted for food. We found an exquisite Italian restaurant on the fourth floor. Gina ordered pasta with mushrooms and chicken and made moaning sounds through the entire meal. I might have been embarrassed if I wasn’t attracting more attention to us myself: every time she got into one of her moaning fits (punctuated with "oh yeah," and "oh god"), I’d start laughing, coughing up some bit of my lasagna.
     We drank wine with our meal and the combination of the laughter and the alcohol made me lightheaded. By the time we got up to leave, I nearly stumbled out of my chair.
     Gina grabbed my arm and leaned over, whispering as we left. "I feel so good right now," she said, conspiratorially. "I gotta shop."
     Fast forward an hour and a half, and my feet were already hurting. Gina, though, was indefatigable. She bought two skirts, a dress, some underthings at Frederick’s (black lace bra, black garter, slip – sorry, Gina, gotta be thorough in my account) and birthday cards for her niece and her dad at Hallmark’s. Gina breezed from store to store like a salmon swimming upstream – all instinct and grace and effortless distinction. She manages to walk into any store blindly and find something that is perfect and exact. Maybe she has a good eye. Or maybe she just falls in love easily with the things she sees.
     In any case, watching Gina shop is a little like watching a really good professor break apart a novel you’ve read a dozen times but never really got – you keep wondering why you couldn’t piece it together when it was all right in front of you.
     After she’d done most of her own shopping, Gina helped me put together an outfit at Lerner’s and we found some half-priced shoes at The Wild Pair. The outfit from Lerner’s was a slit-cut knee-length black skirt ("The slit’s in," Gina said, "and it’s perfect for dancing.") and a silver top. It was a little more daring than what I’m used to wearing, but it won’t be out of place clubbing in Austin.
     We left the mall with our bags, Gina swinging hers around. I realized I was having a really good time. I was going to ask for directions to Texas Stadium, but instead decided to leave it for tomorrow if we had time.
     I wanted to see where Gina would take me next.

(trip to be continued)