12:14 am When do you get done with work?
12:15 am When it gets over
Strike one for tonight. I will have to pay for that one.
No, actually. Not after tonight. I’ll text again and tell him I’ll be done by 1am.
The response is a distant, colourless “OK. Awesome.”
His callousness is easier to deal with than his usual dismissal of me.
How hard can it be? Small baby steps. 12:45, I switch off my system and down my Red Bull. 12:50, I go to the ladies’ room to refresh the lipstick. Okay, no refreshing of lipstick tonight. Also. . . where is my tube of Manic Red? Cotton Candy will have to do for now. Oh right, no lipstick. 12:55, I take the elevator to the basement. 1am, I spot his car. 1:05am, I walk up to the car while replaying the points in my head.
One. The hours – mine, not his.
Two. The travelling – his.
Three. Age.
Mostly, age. Note to self – find suitable euphemism for ‘old’. Three reasons should be enough. Things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers.
On nights like these, he drove a hot red hatch with an apologetic ‘L’ taped to the windshield. “I see The Missus is learning how to drive,” I had joked the first time he came down to pick me up in it. He’d laughed. It was strike one for that day but he had laughed.
“Nah. . . She just drives like a maniac – the sign keeps the road clear of her. I like to drive it once in a while too. It’s a good change from the Fiat.”
With that initial acknowledgment of her, I got inside the dark little cabin for the first time. That cabin laid out in piano black and distracting red luminescence. That cabin steeped in pine and menthol. That cabin I did not belong in. Point number four trumps all. Even the sacred Comedy Rule of Three.
I hadn’t found enough to read about her (she was the last of the untraceables on the Interweb) so I pored over everything ever written about her ride. There were numbers – 150 horses, 136mm, 7 inches. What remained with me though was the way the 150 horses felt from the bucket seat upfront. Seats that were meant to wrap around you to make you feel ‘cosseted’. Except, I didn’t feel ‘cosseted’ as much as swallowed in by them. I thought of the 136mm every time it hit a pot hole that somehow never seemed to dislodge the driver while I felt every inch of the road. And the 7 inches came to mind every time the screen lit up with her name on it – her phone still synced.
But for twenty-one months, I had fought my way through the cold exclusion of the little bug of a ride. I am mulish like that. I made room for myself in there, without disturbing the space around me – I’d never had to adjust the seat because when she was in there, she drove it. I ignored my knowledge of the contents of the glovebox – a zippo lighter, a bottle of Nina Ricci and a tool kit – hers, not his. It was almost as if I held my breath, elbows raised, back frozen stiff to avoid contact with my immediate surrounding until we got out of the car, where I could focus on everything else. On the scar running down his jawline. On the way my shoulder blades shifted under his gaze. And all the stiffness melted away.
But twenty-one months is where we put a cap on all of that melting mush. I wish I could have phased this out and ‘transitioned’ but this will have to be done in one fell swoop. “Hello, I no longer wish to play third wheel and so, will have to withdraw. We will terminate all contact from here on. This has been great and I wish you well for all your future endeavours.” Very brisk and business like.
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It’s 1am and I can see it already, parked across the street and ready to go with the lights on high beam. I have to look cool and listless as I walk towards the forbidding red thing, so I am just going to browse through my Instagram like my life depends on it. Don’t look up and search for the scar. Not tonight. If he’s watching me, I can’t tell because my shoulder blades aren’t doing their thing.
I get into the seat upfront, my eyes fixed on the phone. Should I say something? No, just wait for the car to start and let the cabin inspire me. I am just about to buckle up when the car lurches into movement – my phone slips into the side of the seat, my head hits glass. I decide that my first words to him tonight are going to be, “Dick move!”
I can barely get the words out when the car bounces off a road bump and my teeth come crashing on my tongue. This isn’t the mild-mannered, precise driving I’m used to. I don’t need to look to my right to know who’s at the wheel tonight. I decide to look anyway and take in the manicured hands at the steering, the shoulder length hair ironed to geometrical perfection, swinging with each sharp swerve of the wheel and sunglasses which she’s pulling off by night. Mind you, it’s all shaky and frantic from where I’m sitting so excuse me if my descriptions are hazy from here on. But I am pretty sure I’m inhaling a lot of menthol and Nina Ricci from here. And it’s not doing any favours to my gut.
I am going to try and buckle up again. Ok, it’s no point, really. We’re snaking across a straight empty road. Oh wait. There it comes – a curve right ahead and yes, she’s flooring the gas as she closes in. Alright, she’s stepped off it. Is she going to pull up here?
Umm. . . no.
Thought as much.
It’s not like I’m expecting a nice and slow climb up the speedo, but this is sudden death. We’re up a slope now. And we’re bottoming out. So is my stomach.
Now we press downhill with short sharp bursts of brake input – hello dashboard, meet chest.
Now instead of hugging the road, we’re skidding off dirt. Have you taken sporty rides off-road? You should try it.
Hello bile, meet mouth.
Just as I my guts are about to give in, we come to a screeching halt. Doors unlock. That’s my cue and I take it. No questions asked.
I don’t as much as descend from the car as I tumble out of it. With the same sudden death-like start, she’s off again. I take a moment to retch as much as I can, hands and knees on the ground. That Red Bull was a bad idea.
I’m barely done when I hear the engine revving again. 150 horses, my mind recalls, pointlessly. As the blinding high-beam hits my eyes, I can hear her circle around me. This time, I can feel my guts. Sinking.
She staggers to a halt for only a moment, rolls down the window, only to throw out what I’d like to call ‘a message’, and she’s off again.
In front of me, lying in a pool of sick of my own making, is my half-empty swivel tube of Manic Red.
I spin yarns 