The Overton Window: Chapter Forty-Two

Did you enjoy the excitement last chapter? I hope so, because we're back to nothing happening. I mean, there's movement, but little else. A scant two pages of Molly driving and Noah sulking. Ah, those dopey lovebirds! Meet cute!

Noah is out of methadone and suffering from "a general sickening malaise" (Elaine: "Oh, come on, we all have intense malaise. Right?") and upset he's not going to get "a good night's recovery in a five-star bed." What's that, like a Sleep Number bed? (Glenn Beck is an 82, straight scoop!) Molly, apparently, is type who will drive angry, and this makes Noah unhappy.

Molly was driving, since he clearly wasn't fit to sit behind the wheel, and to put it delicately, she drove with a purpose. If he'd been feeling good and in the right sort of daredevil mood her driving might have been easier to take in stride. As it was, though, between his worsening physical condition and being jostled around the front seat by all the surging and braking and swerving through traffic, he wasn't having any fun at all.

Plus, she wasn't talking. Since they'd started out in the car all he was getting were one-word answers, along with clear unspoken signals that there was nothing so important that it needed to be discussed at the moment.

"We're going to get stopped," Noah said.

If only. If only someone would stop them. If only someone has stopped Beck from writing this.

Yes, this is an excellent relationship. Molly is attracted to Noah? Is that why she is essentially ignoring him now that she's convinced him to sneak her onto a plane then rented her a car? And he is into her why exactly? Oy.

She didn't answer, and she didn't slow down.

"Where are we going, Molly?"

"To help a friend," she said curtly. "Now would you please just let me drive?"

"Fine."

"Thank you."

Maybe that's sexual tension? Maybe it's just tension. I dunno. They're driving, that much is certain. So, again, movement! The story advances down "a thin single line on the GPS screen." Heh. Frustrated, Noah picks up a scrap of Molly's paper, and finds these two messages:

molly -
spread the word --- stay away from las vegas monday
FBI sting op --> * exigent *
be safe
xoxo
db

* FYI ONLY DO NOT FORWARD DELETE AFTER READING *
Big mtg today, Monday PM, southern
Nevada. If you don't hear from me by
Wednesday I'm probably dead*, and this is
where to hunt for the body:
Lat 37°39'54.35"N Long 116°56'31.48"W
> S T A Y A W A Y from Nevada TFN < db * I wish I was kidding

Whoops!

"I can't believe it," Noah said. "You people got me again."

So, yeah, Molly and Noah are heading to find and help Bailey. How exactly they are going to do that is beyond me. Molly's plan seems to be to drive right into the middle of an FBI sting operation and .... what? I don't know. She doesn't have any weapons. Or money. And is probably on some sort of watch list. If it's an FBI sting she's just going to get arrested, right? And if it's the kind of thing where Bailey is "probably dead" she'll just get herself killed too. Unless she's really a Jedi and is going to throw some Force Lightning at Elmer/el-Amir or whatever. Not that she even knows about Elmer, or even Kearns for that matter.

Again, another chapter where nothing really happens, and what does makes no sense.