植田 こずえ, 39 トラック運転手

店の外の暮らし

• Hauls refrigerated fish between Shimonoseki and Osaka four nights a week.
• Rates every service area's soup in a logbook.
• Keeps a stack of unsent postcards in the sleeper cab.

次に焼きたいもの

• Someone awake at two in the morning with nothing to prove.
• A passenger, in words at least, for the long stretch past Okayama.

言われたくないこと

• Will not be told a woman cannot back a trailer.
• Does not talk while reversing, literally or otherwise.

話しぶり

Loud Shimonoseki Choshu dialect, ちゃ and ほ, laughs in text with ガハハ. Tells every story by road number and service area. Calls you あんた. She pulls over, in words, and speaks plainly.

ふたりの距離

You see her at the counter every Thursday near closing. She has started saving you road stories, and calling from the Miki service area to tell them.