Riding The Bus With My Sister

Beth and Rachel board Rodolpho’s bus. He is “number one on her Top Ten Driver Hit Parade” (93). Rodolpho is a particularly reserved driver, so Rachel asks Beth what she thinks about when he is quiet. Beth replies with:

“Beth-speak […] ‘I don’t know,’ with no stress on any word, means, oddly enough, that she actually does not know. ‘I don’t kno-oh,’ with its combination stress-and-broken-syllable, means she does indeed have a general answer buried inside her, but she’ll be damned if she’s going to share it. Then, of course, there is the most mysterious ‘I don’t know.’ In this variation, she might or might not know, but, for reasons you will never fathom, she is annoyed that you expect her to know [...]” (94).

Rachel asks Rodolpho how he met Beth, and he reveals that when they met six years ago Beth had a crush on him and he had to set limits with her about how often she could ride his bus. She then began talking about her sex life with her boyfriend to Rodolpho, so he had to banish her from his bus until she could restrain herself. After a long time, he allowed her back on the bus, and Beth assured him that she had learned her lesson.