Free Her Wild Oats by Kathi Kamen Goldmark

paper into his hand. “Call or text me. In the meantime, don’t forget about my song.”
    Oats got up to follow the others onto the bus. As they pulled out of the dirt parking lot, he saw her smiling and waving, and he opened the window and waved back. This gesture wasn’t lost on certain eagle-eyed bandmates.
    “Who’s the shorty?”
    “Check it out. The kid has a groupie.”
    “What’s that uniform all about? She a cheerleader or something?”
    “Tell her she can leave her hat on.”
    No doubt that train of thought would have chugged along for quite some time, if not for the fact that—just as Melody ran out of sight toward her marching-band group and Bus Driver Dave gunned the engine—there was a loud noise and the bus lurched to one side and ground to a stop.
    “Shit, man!” Gary shouted. “I think we’ve got a flat.”
    So everyone got back off the bus except Dickie, while Bus Driver Dave and Gary G. changed the tire. Oats was pressed into service holding the flashlight. He sat on the dusty ground trying to keep one hand steady on the light while swatting mosquitoes away with the other. In the distance he heard the crowd roar as Gretchen Wilson took the stage. Suddenly it was an effort to keep his eyes open.
    “All right boys,” Pete announced a few minutes later, “everyone back on the bus and we’d better step on it.” Oats was so tired he could think about nothing but getting to his bunk.
    Pete caught Oats’ eye and mouthed the phrase “What, and quit showbiz?”
    “All present and accounted for,” Pete reported to no one in particular as he heaved himself onto the shotgun seat next to Bus Driver Dave.
    Everyone settled into what would become their regular nighttime positions. Willie and Rascal broke out a deck of cards at the little table up near the front of the bus. Jeremy, the pedal-steel player, talked softly on his cell phone. It turned out that he called home every night after the gig to talk to his wife and kids before they went to bed. Bobby Lee hunched over a stack of papers. As bandleader, it was his job to make the set lists and write the musical arrangements while his brother Billy talked quietly with Gary G. They were both techno-geeks who carried on a never-ending conversation about equalizers and Pro-Tools and how to get their laptop wireless interfaces to work. But Dickie Jaspers, lead guitar, was not at his usual place hogging the DVD player with a porn video. He hadn’t come outside when the tire needed fixing and the curtain of his bunk was closed so Oats figured he was asleep until an odd groaning sound rose from behind the curtain in that direction. It sounded like a man in a great deal of pain.
    Bobby Lee rushed over and pulled open Dickie’s curtain and there was Dickie, lying on his bunk with his underwear around his ankles and a woman wearing nothing but pink shiny panties, her head bobbing up and down in his lap.
    “What the fuck!” Dickie shouted. “Can’t a guy have any privacy around here?”
    The woman shrieked and sat up so abruptly that she hit her head on the top of the bunk. She tried to cover her boobs with her hands but Oats couldn’t help but notice they were pretty big boobs and her little hands didn’t cover much.
    “What the hell are you thinking?” Bobby Lee shouted.
    “I told you I didn’t sign up for no fucking kindergarten, Bobby.”
    Meanwhile the woman searched frantically for more clothes to put on, and all Oats could look at was her boobs flopping around as she did so. This was the first time he had ever seen a topless woman in person instead of in a photo or video. She was a little chubby in a really nice, curvy way. Everything about her seemed round and soft, including her face and her hairdo. Oats forced himself to stop being mesmerized, pulled an old Lollipopalooza T-shirt out of his duffel bag, and handed it to her. She pulled it over her head and held her hand out to shake.
    “Thanks,” she said in a throaty whisper.
    “No