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“Breaker one-seven, Breaker one-seven, this is Ladybug calling out to y’all, got a lotta miles to cover today and sure could use some company from anyone going my way.”
There were a few wolf whistles over the airwaves, and a rusty, old voice muttered something ‘bout a lot lizard he knew years ago who called herself Ladybug.
Gross.
Marinette had been at this long enough she knew to ignore that bull cuachy. She checked the gauges on Tikki’s dashboard one more time, making sure she had enough fuel before she blew past the last good gas station for a couple hundred miles. It looked like a storm rolling in, and she didn’t wanna risk it.
It’d been a tough run for her the past few years, what with her dad getting sick, the recession, her art college shuttering its doors…
She’d never planned to stay a trucker, but damn if the money wasn’t good. Besides, she’d already had her CDL because her parents wouldn’t trust her to drive the bakery’s van without one.
Talk about overkill.
The worst part about the job was the loneliness. She cast a longing glance to her left. Her friends were all back in Paris, Texas, probably heading out the Piney Woods for a weekend of camping and beer drinking. She could practically hear Alix’s guffaws as Kim failed to shoot any of the cans of Lone Star she’d lined up for him.
It wouldn’t faze him, though. He’d kiss his pistol (“Dark Cupid,” he’d named it), reassure it he still loved and cherished ”her,” and then pop it back under the driver’s seat before park police came round to find out who’d been making all the racket.
Somehow, they always showed up but never cited anyone. Probably because no one wanted to mess with the mayor’s daughter, who‘d somehow fallen in with them after she flunked outta cosmetology school. Chloé weren’t much fun, but she was useful.
“Breaker one-seven, Breaker one-seven, this is Ladybug lookin’ to git talkin’ if anyone’s arou—”
“YEEHAAAAAAAW, Ladybug, this is Chat Noir here.” A bright, cheerful voice interrupted her over the airwaves, and Marinette grabbed her sunglasses. His voice sounded like it was about to bring the sunshine, and heading west on I-70 it already was so cot damn bright. “Absolutely, yes, ma’am, I have to drive a long ways, too, and I will fall asleep for sure if I don’t have anyone to talk to!”
Marinette had heard about this guy. Real sob story. He’d only been working a short while, got the job to get away from his dickbag of a father, who’d been controlling him his whole life. No one knew where he was from, but she could tell by his mis-inflected ‘yeehaw’ that he wasn’t from Texas. Yankee, she figured. He sounded like he was from the middle of the Atlantic, halfway between Dairy Queen and Queen Elizabeth. No wonder he was drowning.
She smiled and “Well, Kitty, I’m fixin’ to change frequencies if you wanna join. I’ll be listenin’!” She reached over to her CB and spun the dial to get where she was going.
“How do you do, Miss Ladybug?”
The friendly young man’s voice had an inviting but playful quality to it, more fuzz than warmth. She’d thought it was like sunshine before, but now she understood why he’d picked “Chat Noir” as his handle. She almost meowed at him. That would’ve been embarrassing.
“I’m doin’ fine, Chat Noir. I’m bound for Utah, goin’ I-70 the whole way, minus a detour near the end. Gonna be a long drive, but I’ll make due. ‘Specially if—woah!”
She’d spilled her lukewarm truck stop coffee in her lap!
“Ladybug? Are you okay?”
She groaned, wondering how to answer.
“Hey? Are you there?” he asked.
“Ah, shit. Yeah, I’m here. I, um, spilled my coffee in my lap. I’m mighty clumsy, y’see?”
“And yet you’re driving a thirty-ton bucket of metal at high speed?”
“Shut up!” She grinned, feeling playful.
This is gonna be a fun one.
But he sighed over their shared frequency. “Okay.”
Was he for real?
She kept driving, filling in the silence with a profile of this guy she sketched in her mind to take her attention off the flat nothingness west of Indianapolis. What did this alley cat look like?
“Hey, Kitty, you there?”
“I am.”
“…You know I didn’t actually mean for you to shut up?”
His breaths were audible over the radio. “Ah. Okay. I, um, thought you were serious. I’m not so good with this kind of thing.”
“Ah, well, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
They fell silent for a few minutes.
“Hey, Kitty?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s the difference between a Swift driver and a toilet?”
“I don’t know. What is the difference?”
“A toilet can back up!”
Apparently, Chat Noir’s belly had been backed up, too, because he honked out the loudest, most awkward gut-busting laugh she’d ever heard.
“Hey, Ladybug?”
“Yeah?”
“How do you get a garbage truck driver to join the mafia?”
“I dunno. How?”
“You make him an offer he can’t refuse!”
Marinette groaned. “I hate puns.”
“Really? But yours was a pun, too!”
Marinette groaned. “I hate you, too.”
A couple hours later, she had to stop for gas. “Aight, Kitty, I guess I’ll talk to you again sometime. I gotta fill up, and there’s diesel ahead. Nice chattin’, Noir.”
“Hey, you said you hated puns!”
She giggled.
“Here’s an idea: I’ll stop, too, and when you take off again, so will I. That way we can keep on keeping each other company. Any good food around there? My treat.”
Marinette sighed. This always became a problem.
Loin-led truckers.
“Hold yer horses. Sorry, I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea. I got a general policy not to break bread with no one on the road. I’m a tiny lil’ thing, and I don’t know you all that well.”
“No, no, I wasn’t trying to do anything like that.” The disappointment in his voice betrayed him. “I just really enjoy talking with you! Don’t worry, I’ll stop, but I won’t get out of my truck except to refuel. I won’t even look your way.”
Marinette smirked. “How will you avoid lookin’ at me if you don’t even know what I look like?”
The man cackled. “I’m going to guess you’d be the one stepping out of the polka-dotted truck, Ladybug.”
“Now wait one cotton-pickin’ minute, I am not that gauche—”
“Oh ho, fancy word there, Miss Texas!”
“I got a wallet full of five-dollar loan words, Chaton. Product of Paris public schools. My French is incroyable!”
“You lived in Paris? Dans quel arrondissement habitais-tu?”
Marinette blinked. Mlle Bustier never covered this in class! “Umm…Paris, Texas.”
“Ah. Baguette capital of the world.”
This turd-blossom is teasing me!
She stayed quiet, focusing on lining Tikki up to the pump. “Okay, I’m pulled in the Shuck-eez right now. Remember, stay away!”
She heard a long, drawn-out sigh over the radio. “That’s a big ten-four, Ladybug.”
After she finished pumping, she re-racked the nozzle on the pump and skipped to the convenience store to grab a snack. Dried-out donuts, cardboard-y cookies, pizza-rinos beyond their expiration date… A-ha! She grabbed what she was looking for, paid the cashier for the cheap box of macarons—they weren’t Papa’s, but they were better than nothing—and she walked out the door, strolling back to Tikki.
“Hey there, Ladybug!” A skeevy voice a little too close behind her snaked its way into her ears. “I was hoping to catch you before you finished up here.”
The voice was gaining on her, so she picked up the pace.
“Aww, where you running off to?”
Her heart accelerated, and she started running back to Tikki, imagining a hot breath curling around her neck as she fled.
Chat Noir said he’d leave me alone!
“Hey, wait up! I’m talking to you! Come on!” Heavy breaths pursued her like a panther in the jungle.
Marinette threw the door open, leapt into the cab, slammed the door, and locked it.
At the same time, she heard a hard thump on the door. Not even bothering to look, she started Tikki up and started pulling out of the lot. She heard a couple more thuds and saw a shadow pass by her on the ground.
She was safe. But she needed to put some distance between herself and Chat Noir.
Time to put the pedal to the metal.
A few minutes later, a familiar voice rang out over the airwaves. “Ladybug? Hey, are you—”
“Leave me the fuck alone!” She turned the radio off and huffed, feeling a cold chill run down her spine.
That was too close for comfort.
* * *
Passing through Missouri, Marinette was starting ta feel the trip drag on. She’d dropped the macarons when she was running from Chat Noir in the lot and was missing that sugar boost right about now.
She hesitated, looking at the radio. She reached for the switch, then pulled back ’n’ looked at the road again.
Ah, hell.
She leaned over and powered the radio back up, hearing some guys laughing real hard.
“I swear, Jesse, that boy laid Jonny out flat! And then— and then— AHAHAHAHAHA! He deadass said, ‘Stop bugging the lady’!”
Marinette’s ears perked up. Chat Noir’s name is Jonny, huh?
Fitting. “Jonny”’s a real asshole name.
“WHOOO WEE, Alvin! Next time I run into him, Imma buy him a drink. That penis-wrinkle’s had it coming for years.”
Wait, “years”? Who’re they talking ‘bout?
“Hey, fellas—”
“Ladybug! Oh man, we was just talkin’ ‘bout you!”
“Yeah, I figgered so. But…what was y’all talking ‘bout?”
“Whatchu mean? You were there!”
She felt the blood drain from her face, remembering how afraid she was at the time. “Y-yeah, course I was. But…humor me?”
Alvin laughed. “We wuz just talking ‘bout, how Chat Noir beat the fuck out of Jonny fer botherin’ you!”
“He did?” She felt the blood leap back up into her face and then some.
“Girl, what kinda 5 Hour Energy you on? You saw it!”
“Not really. I was just tryin' ta git outta there.”
Jesse started laughing again. “Miss Bug, he told Jonny his next load better be a bunch of donkeys, cuz Jonny’d need to haul ass if he ever saw him again.”
Marinette giggled, but then felt ashamed. What a way to treat her savior!
But if they were talking about him, that meant he wasn’t on. She dialed over to channel nineteen. “Chaton, are you there?”
There was a whoop and a holler. “Izzat you, Ladybug? Oh man, speaking of, he really shat-on Jonny! But you already knew that!”
“Y-yeah. Of course!” Disaster! She’d told him to fuck off! She needed to find him and apologize!
* * *
Marinette made it all the way to Denver, but heard neither hide nor hair of him the whole trip. She was despondent. She’d been yoyoing between channels, calling out to him, but no response. He must not be in range. She hoped. She really didn’t want to consider she scared him off of the radio.
Distracted, she blew through town on her way up into the snowy mountains. The roads weren’t quite icy, but they weren’t exactly friendly, neither.
Didn’t matter. She was making good time. She was hoping her Kitty was ahead of her. By all accounts, he was new at driving, so maybe she could catch up with him and get back in range. And maybe he’d have his radio on. And maybe he’d be on the same station as her.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
She huffed.
And then Tikki huffed. And rumbled. She shook, chugging, chugging, chugging, up and up the switchbacks through the mountains.
“Chaton?” She was undeterred. She needed to find him and talk to him.
“Ladybug? Whatever, I did, I’m sor—”
“Chaton, don’t you dare apologize! You didn’t do nuthin’! Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I heard you jonnied and then—I mean you hit someone named Jonny, and you were a joke, I mean you made a joke, and you protected me and I was so, so in the wrong. I thought that was you tryin’ to attack me!”
He sniffed. “I would never hurt anyone unless they deserved to be hurt, Ladybug!”
Chugga chuggu rumble rumble. Up and down and up and up climbed Tikki. And then she wheezed and seized.
Oh, shit, she thought.
“Oh, shit,” she said.
“Ladybug, what’s wrong?”
“Tikki just conked out on me and I’m stuck on a mountain pass and—”
Something loud roared, and Marinette was in free fall as she jerked her foot off the brakes. What was going—
“Oh, no!”
“Ladybug! Are you okay?”
“Tikki’s on fire!”
“Oh, shit! Hang on, I’m going to… I’m going to…”
“You’re gonna what, Chaton? Huff and puff and blow it out?”
“Hey, I’m Chat Noir, not el Lobo Negro”
“Not helping!”
Chat Noir had nothing to say in response.
Marinette straightened up and began scanning the area, looking out her rearview mirror, the backup camera, and both side windows as Tikki careened backwards down the mountain roads.
She threw her truck into first gear, the engine braking loudly as she jerked and slowed down some.
“I can see you, Ladybug! There’s a runaway truck ramp about half a mile downhill from you!”
“I’m on it, Kitty!”
* * *
Adrien gripped the steering wheel of Plagg as he barreled down the highway, chasing the polka-dotted semi-truck, watching Ladybug deftly maneuver her backward in the dusk with snowbanks on either side of the road, praying she wouldn’t meet any black ice.
Down and around switchbacks she flew. Her brake lights lit up, but the rig didn’t seem to be slowing down any more.
An eighth of a mile, a tenth of a mile.
He felt drawn to those brakelights, like a hawkmoth to a flame. Banter with Ladybug had been like catnip.
She swung around and around, plummeting toward the offramp to the runaway ramp.
You’ve got this, Bug.
And then she’d dropped where she needed. He wasn’t too far off, and he heard the squeal as Tikki swerved and shot back up the ramp, eventually rolling to a stop.
Then the silhouette of a woman with pigtails stepped out, backlit by the setting sun just above the mountain peaks. She pulled off her hat and bent over, putting her head between her knees.
“Wow. Whoever she is behind that steering wheel, I love that girl.”