The Scenic Route

by Devan Sipher

  “Must have been an accident,” Gordon said. “Probably someone was drunk.”

  “It’s too early to be drunk,” Omar said.

  “It’s never too early to be drunk,” Drew said.

  Cars weren’t moving. At all. And it looked like they hadn’t in some time. There were silhouettes of people standing between the lanes of traffic.

  “We are so screwed,” Tad said. Mandy felt herself being bodily rearranged as he scrambled up and over her. He lifted the latch on the hatchback and got out of the car.

  “Tad?” Mandy called after him. “Where are you going?” He didn’t say anything, just shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, pulling it tight around him. She followed after him, walking between the stopped cars. “The party’s going to be going past midnight,” she said to his hunched back. “If you guys end up being late, you can play later.”

  “They hired us for the cocktail hour,” he said without turning around. “They don’t want a trumpet quartet playing on New Year’s at midnight.”

  It felt weird to be walking down the middle of an expressway. To be moving freely past hundreds of cars that were unable to do so. There was something exhilarating about it. Mandy felt a frisson of nervousness, wondering what would happen if those cars started rolling forward again. But there was safety in numbers, and there was a fairly large crowd up ahead. “Accidents happen, Tad,” she said, knowing firsthand how useless those words could sound, but hoping they would also be helpful. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “That’s exactly the problem!” He moaned. “There’s, like, no jobs. And there’s nothing I can do. The guy who hired us tonight has a connection with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and he was going to help me get an audition.”

  That explained his agitation. “Maybe he still will,” she said gently, bracing for another eruption. Tad just sighed. “Or you’ll get an audition someplace else.”

  “There is no place else. Unless I leave Michigan.”

  The thought of his leaving gave her a queasy feeling as they reached the periphery of the crash site. Halogen headlamps from the waiting vehicles spotlighted the area, like a movie set, but one where the starring actors had already departed.

  There seemed to have been three cars involved in the crash, and none of them had fared too well. An SUV was accordioned against the concrete divider. The other two cars had somehow ended up head to head with their innards splayed across the lanes amid broken glass and blood. In the backseat of one of the cars were two crimson New Year’s party hats.

  No one in the gathered crowd was saying much of anything as grim-faced policemen kept them yards away from the debris. A teenage girl with ironed blond hair was sobbing softly, and a freckled boy in a leather jacket was rubbing her back. Mandy longed for Tad to put a comforting arm around her waist, but he wasn’t even looking at her.

  “If we had left Ann Arbor on time . . .” Tad let the thought hang in the air.

  “But we didn’t,” Mandy said.

  “It could have been us.” Tad seemed genuinely disturbed by the notion.

  They stood in the chilly air, watching and waiting like the others around them. Though it was unclear precisely what they were waiting for.

  “It was nice of you to come tonight,” Tad said softly, still not looking at her.

  “It was the only way I was going to see you,” she said, being much more honest than she intended. Tad was silent, and she wished she could take the words back.

  “If you lived in my apartment, you’d see more of me,” he said, or seemed to have said. She found it difficult to believe she had heard him correctly. “Seems kind of dumb that we’re both paying rent.”

  She felt like the ground was tilting, like she was sliding downhill and unable to get any traction. Her feelings for Tad were like a mudslide. They came all at once and left her gasping for breath. “You want me to move in?” she managed to ask him.

  “Only if it’s what you want,” he said.

  And then what? she wondered, knowing she shouldn’t. But what happened after he discovered she wasn’t as easygoing as she’d been pretending. What happened after he discovered just how neurotic and damaged she was?

  “Is it what you want?” he asked.

  There were so many things she wanted. “Yes,” she said.

  “I’m glad,” he said, slipping his hands around her hips. They kissed in the pulsing light of the emergency flares. “Don’t worry.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was just a day like any other day. Austin kept repeating that to himself while he examined the watery eyes of Harvey Fishman.

  “Better One or Two?” Austin asked, adjusting metal dials on the phoropter while Harvey leaned in against the machine, focusing on the eye chart on the far wall.

  After a long pause, Harvey said, “Can I see One again?”

  “Absolutely.” Austin flipped the lens. “Better One or Two?”

  “One,” Harvey said hesitantly as he ran his hand through the thin gray strands covering his scalp.

  “Good,” Austin responded.

  “No, Two.”

  “Also good,” Austin said with a smile. “Now, neither of these may be very good, but is it better A or B? That’s A?” He switched back and forth between the optics. “Or B?”

  “Can I see the previous one again?”

  “A?”

  “No, One.”

  “You said Two was better.”

  “I’m not sure,” Harvey answered, sounding anxious. “Can we start over?”

  Naturally, the last patient on a holiday was going to be a difficult one. No, not a holiday. Just a workday like any other workday.

  Austin pushed away the phoropter, deciding he had a better chance of coming up with an accurate prescription if he did the refraction exam manually. He pulled out a polished mahogany case from under his desk, wiping away an invisible film of dust before flipping open the brass clasps. It had been his gift to himself when he finished his ophthalmology residency and one of his prized possessions. Inside were 266 glistening lenses with metallic rims, meticulously placed in labeled slots on a black velvet base. He put on a pair of thin plastic gloves before removing a lens and holding it in front of Harvey’s left eye. For the next half hour he slowly and painstakingly held up lens after lens, sometimes in combinations of two or even three, with Harvey vacillating every step of the way.

  The tediousness of the task soothed Austin. It kept him from dwelling on less productive topics, like where he might have hoped to spend his New Year’s Eve. Once Austin had confidence in the prescription, he proceeded to put drops in Harvey’s eyes. It was while waiting for Harvey’s pupils to dilate that Austin’s mind began to churn, and he left the examination room to check his phone for messages. He had this crazy idea that Naomi might call. It was right up there with expecting a call from the state lottery board, but, like they say, hope is the thing with feathers, or in Austin’s case, with rocket propellant.

  He had one voice mail, but it wasn’t from Naomi.

  It was Len, calling from Cabo, to remind Austin to contact Inteflex after the holiday. Austin had offered to reach out to his former medical school program to see if there were any alumni looking for jobs. Len and Austin hadn’t yet filled the junior partner position, and Len was getting increasingly nervous, though Austin was the one bearing the brunt of the additional workload.

  Austin was about to put the phone back in his pocket, when it buzzed. His first thought was that it could be Naomi. But it was Stu.

  “Do you have plans tonight?”

  “Yes,” Austin said. He was lying, as he had done many times over the course of the last week. Though it easily could have been true. A friend had invited him to a party at his home. But it was going to be married couples and their kids, and the party was going to end at eleven, which seemed to make it le
ss of a New Year’s party than an old year’s party.

  “I don’t believe you,” Stu said.

  The fact was that Austin didn’t want to go out for New Year’s just for the sake of going out. There was too much pressure to have a good time, and he was actually looking forward to picking up some Buddy’s Pizza, staying in and catching up on episodes of Lost.

  “How about joining Stuffi and me?” Stu asked.

  “In California?”

  “In Detroit, wise guy. We’re staying at the new MGM Grand.”

  “Thanks for the advance warning.”

  “Don’t be a girl about it.”

  “You text me practically every time you blow your nose, but you don’t mention you’re coming into town on New Year’s?” Austin was kind of relieved, because he would have felt too guilty to say no.

  “Last-minute thing. Got a meeting with a venture capital guy here on Wednesday. So decided to spend the holiday in Detroit. You in?”

  “I’ll come see you tomorrow,” he said.

  “Don’t be lame. Come tonight.”

  “I told you I have plans.”

  “And I told you I don’t believe you. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  Right. Loads of fun. Being a third wheel with a newlywed couple on New Year’s Eve. A bickering newlywed couple at that.

  “I think you and your bride probably need some quality time together, just the two of you,” Austin said.

  “If it’s just the two of us, we may kill each other. I’m serious, dude. She started kickboxing, and she’s a little scary when she gets mad.”

  And that was supposed to entice Austin? “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do tonight. And get here by nine. We’re going on the midnight riverboat cruise.”

  There was no way Austin was going on a river cruise. Being trapped at a floating New Year’s party he couldn’t leave was his idea of hell.

  He returned to Harvey and continued with the eye pressure part of the exam, positioning Harvey’s chin on the ledge of the tonometer.

  “So, Doc, do you have plans for tonight?” Harvey asked.

  Austin was tired of lying and no longer saw the point. “Not really,” he said. “Probably just going to stay in.”

  “You and me both,” Harvey said. “New Year’s, Shnoo Year’s. Right?” Harvey was more excited than Austin about discovering their common bond.

  “Try to stay still,” Austin said. “I’m measuring the pressure inside your eye.” He hoped that the tonometer’s probe approaching Harvey’s eye would silence him, but no such luck.

  “People pay through the nose to go to some shmancy party with bad food and loud music. Who needs that? We got a better plan, right, Doc?”

  Austin was growing uncomfortable with the idea of being simpatico with Harvey. He was a nice enough man, but he was also a sixtysomething man, with a thick paunch, mismatched clothing and Coke-bottle glasses. Austin didn’t believe in judging a book by its cover, but Harvey’s personality was no great shakes either.

  “I got myself a nice piece of sirloin from the butcher,” Harvey informed Austin. “Not too fatty ’cause I gotta watch my cholesterol. But I got some nonfat vanilla ice cream, which tastes just as good as the real stuff. Swear to God. Gonna make myself a root beer float, broil up that sirloin and watch a video on my thirty-two-inch flat-screen TV. There’s not a party out there that can beat that. Am I right?”

  Austin gazed at the downtown skyline as the riverboat drifted down the Detroit River. The party cruise wasn’t as bad as he had anticipated. But he had anticipated it being pretty bad.

  The faux Mississippi steamboat traveled back and forth along a two-mile stretch of the river, which seemed to Austin like the boating equivalent of paddling in place. The prime rib on the buffet was dry, but the lasagna was tasty. And the band was enthusiastic, though they sang with more volume than skill, straining to reach high notes and landing too often in the crevices between pitches.

  Austin took a swig of his third Scotch and soda and looked down at his phone. Still hoping for a message from Naomi. But not expecting one. He could have been home contentedly watching episodes of Lost if Harvey hadn’t shown up as the ghost of New Year’s Future. Austin wished he could go back to pretending it wasn’t New Year’s. But it was. And he was alone. Alone with people. Which was somehow even worse. But he wasn’t going to meet anyone new sitting in his living room. Though he wasn’t entirely convinced he was going to meet anyone on the boat either.

  Stu had failed to mention it was a swing dance party, and the people on board were pretty serious about their dancing. There were men in zoot suits and women in polka-dot dresses doing dips and flips. A guy in a white fedora did splits, and Austin’s groin muscles hurt just watching. But it was hard not to, because the guy was dancing with a striking woman in a red dress with dark skin and long, darker, curly hair.

  “You should ask her to dance,” Stu said, noticing that Austin was gawking.

  “Right,” Austin said, looking away.

  “Why not?” Stu said, tossing back a shot of Stoli.

  “I can’t swing dance,” Austin said. “I can barely regular dance.”

  “That doesn’t stop Stu,” Steffi said, finishing her drink as well.

  “And she still dances with me.”

  “She doesn’t have a choice,” Austin said.

  “Who says?” Steffi said.

  “Are you looking to find some other guy to dance with?” Stu asked her.

  “Who knows?” she teased. “The night is young.”

  “See, Austin, this is why you don’t want your wife dressing hot and sexy.”

  “You think this dress makes me look hot?” Steffi was wearing an iridescent purple dress with a plunging neckline. Stu touched her thigh with his index finger and made a sizzling sound. “I’m glad you like it,” she said with a contented smile, “because this is the dress I bought in St. Barts.”

  Stu’s mood shifted the moment she mentioned St. Barts. “Are you trying to make a point?” he asked.

  “Just stating a fact,” she said.

  “I said you looked nice.”

  “And to look nice I need to buy nice things,” she said. “Unless you want me walking around naked.”

  “That would be a whole lot cheaper,” Stu responded. It was the first time Austin had witnessed them bickering in person, and it was a lot easier hearing about their spats via Stu’s texts.

  “You’re disgusting,” Steffi said, getting up from the table.

  “Hey, it was your idea to walk around naked,” Stu called out as she walked away.

  “You should go after her,” Austin said.

  “Do you know how much that dress cost?” Stu asked. “Take a guess.”

  “A thousand dollars.”

  “Five thousand dollars,” Stu said. “Who pays five thousand dollars for a dress? I could get a sixty-inch plasma TV for five thousand dollars.”

  “I thought you were in the middle of a gold rush.”

  “I am. I will be. Once the VC deal goes through, she can buy a ten-thousand-dollar dress.”

  “Are you worried it’s not going to go through?”

  “No, I’m not worried,” Stu said. “But other people are worried about Google Maps, now that they added satellite view and street view.”

  “That seems like a good worry.”

  “Those are just pretty pictures. We’re not living in the picture age. We’re living in the information age. EZstreets is the only 3-D mapping service that includes fully integrated white-page listings for every residence and every commercial business.”

  “What’s to stop Google from also adding that?”

  “Let them. Because Yahoo and MSN will have to follow suit, and it takes too much time and money to build it from scratch in-h
ouse. One of them will buy us up in a flash. That’s what the VC guys are counting on, which is why I’ve got this meeting on Wednesday. These money guys in Detroit are hungry for the next big thing. They’re hungry to put this city back on the map and want to get in on the deal. Come with me to the meeting.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t need you to build the Web site with me. I don’t need you to give up years of your life. I just need you now while I’m in the home stretch.”

  “You don’t need me.”

  “I’m a software guy. I go into these meetings, and I’ve got my CFO and my VC people, and it becomes an alphabet soup. I need someone in the room I can trust. Take a year off and work with me. Take six months off.”

  “Stu, I can barely even get a day off. We’re still short one partner.”

  “Listen to yourself. I’m begging you to let me hand you part of my company, and instead you’re working your butt off for a guy who takes advantage of you. Where’s your self-esteem? And where’s your sense of adventure?”

  Austin wondered if that was what Naomi would say if she were there. It would be so easy to take Stu up on his offer, but Austin instinctively distrusted anything that was too easy. He felt more comfortable going uphill than down. And that was a problem. It suddenly seemed like he was putting up unnecessary resistance to the natural path lying before him. He could feel a surge of momentum pushing him forward. Or was that just the rolling motion of the boat combined with the alcohol running through his bloodstream? He needed to figure out the answer. No, he needed a sign. He snuck a glance at his phone, willing a message from Naomi to appear.

  “You keep looking at your phone,” Stu said. “You got a booty call lined up tonight?”

  “Right.”

  “Whatever happened with Naomi?” Stu asked.

  “Nothing much,” Austin said, acknowledging the unfortunate truth. “Why?” He tried to sound nonchalant. “Do you ever hear from her?”

  “I haven’t,” Stu said, “but I bet Steffi has.”