by Jeff Vrolyks
“Have you ever heard of a check-card, lady?” said the girl waspishly.
Heads everywhere turned to the scene in the making. Wheels was in her purse searching for a non-Bixby’s pen, oblivious to the young woman and probably unaccustomed to confrontation. Connie was a bundle of nerves.
“It’s a great invention,” the girl pursued. “You don’t need a pen or a checkbook, there’s nothing to fill out, saves time, and it’s a free service!” The old bag of alerted bones now glowered at the girl. “Is your time more important than ours? Apparently so!” Such an air of confidence she possessed. A girl at her side elbowed her.
“Yeah!” cheered a man, another resident of the line. I wondered if his praise was for what she was saying or for her beauty.
I didn’t know who said it, it couldn’t have been me. But it was me. Humans are capable of superhuman feats to survive extraordinary circumstances. An old lady can lift the back end of a car off a pinned person, and this was no different.
“Isn’t it obvious the bank is able to steal more of her money by selling her checks she doesn’t need?” I intoned, “Wheels Fargo: helping you waste people’s time one slow-written check at a time.”
The crone now scowled at me, shook her head disapprovingly. Not wishing to further endure our verbal assaults, she left without completing her transaction, cursing us and cursing the store, vowing to find a pharmacy worth a shit to buy the same meds, and for half the price.
After speaking my gambit I entered a dream state. The store lights dimmed, a celestial spotlight beamed down on her. Her big blue eyes met mine favorably. She grinned subtly. Adorning her impeccable figure was a red tunic, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and fitted jeans. The overhead fluorescents cast a sheen on her brown hair.
What did I say? Did I make a fool of myself?
With a broad smile behind a Stoic mask, Connie watched the old woman cane her way out of the store. She then turned her attention to the girl. “Good morning, ma’am. I can help you over here.”
The girl smiled at me through Connie’s summons. It was like waking up on Christmas morning to find heaps of presents choking the Christmas tree, the stocking overflowing with candy and things requiring batteries. This moment was the sum total of every Christmas morning and wrapped in a five-foot-five package.
“Ma’am? I can help you over here.”
“Bro,” said Mike, startling me and stealing my attention, “they only had Pantene in the large size. Is that okay? I got a six-pack of razors. Has the line moved at all?”
What the HELL, Mike! It’s bad enough you broke my arm. Now you proceed to finish me off with my heart?
I couldn’t believe I was friends with this lumbering ogre—a thought frequently revisited, followed by guilt. Couldn’t he see what was happening? It dawned on me that my attention had been diverted. I returned my adoring gaze to the girl, who was now at the counter with her girlfriend. I was compelled to get rid of Mike for a moment so I could focus. “Could you get me a… tooth-brush paste, too? Sorry.” I watched her like a soaring hawk watches a furry snack scampering below.
“A tooth-brush paste?” He chuckled. “What kind? What flavor?”
I shot daggers in his eyes. “I don’t give a rat’s furry ass. Get whatever and take your time.” Mike left scratching his proverbial head.
Connie handed the girl a bag with a receipt stapled to it. She left the counter with her friend and headed for the sliding double-doors. This can’t be happening. My eyes followed her; she glanced back at me. I had to act, and fast. An outside force took control of me. I was a marionette doll, with strings being pulled by destiny and I was willing, oh so willing. I withdrew myself from line and approached her. She stopped, faced me with a teapot handle on her up-tilted hip and foot tapping an inpatient tune. She was being silly, I supposed. I opened my mouth and everything went wrong. My puppeteer fumbled the vocal chord strings. “H-hi,” I stammered. “I’m Kevin.”
“Are you sure?” She extended her hand and introduced herself as Holly. Holly introduced her friend as Alison, or Ali for short.
“Hi, Holly, Ali.”
Holly apologized for the scene in line, insisted that she’s normally a nice person. “When people are mean or rude,” she explained, “sometimes you just have to let them know.”
“Nice? You’re normally a nice person?” Ali bantered. “Since when?”
“There’s a difference between being reproachful and being mean,” Holly retorted. “I’m not mean.”
“I know, you aren’t mean. I’m just messing with you in front of the cute boy.”
“When are you going to learn, Ali? I don’t get embarrassed.”
I was blushing and Alison knew it. She grinned wryly. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, Kevin. Go ahead, ask Holly out.” Ali enjoyed this thoroughly.
“I, uh, I just wanted to meet you and thank you for saying what you did. She needed to be put in her place. You said everything I wanted to but couldn’t.”
“See?” Holly said to her friend. “I wasn’t being mean. I was doing my civic duty as a respectable citizen by showing her the error of her ways.”
“How would the world get by without you?”
Without thinking I interjected, “It wouldn’t.” Alison laughed. Holly’s features softened and she called me sweet. “Not sweet, just appreciative. The world needs people like you to balance things out.” My heart was in my throat, palms clammy. I’m horribly awkward and shy around strangers, specifically women, especially the pretty ones.
“You didn’t have trouble throwing in your two cents back there, did you,” Holly said rhetorically. “Wheels Fargo.” Holly humored and touched my shoulder reflexively. It is written that Jesus healed people by merely laying His hand upon them. Her touch was that amazing. I stared at her hand on my shoulder with awe. She immediately withdrew with a little gasp. “I’m so sorry! I touched your broken arm!”
“No, no,” I assured. “I’m fine, honestly. It’s my arm that’s busted, not my shoulder.” Her frown became a smile, the infectious type. One that could possibly cure cancer. “Anyway, I just had to meet the hero of the hour and shake her hand.”
“You do realize you’ve lost your place in line?” Holly said. “I hope it was worth it just to meet Alison. You could be getting your prescription filled this very moment.”
Alison rolled her eyes. “Yeah, to meet me. That’s why he came over here. He hasn’t even looked at me.”
“I’ve looked at you,” I said in my defense.
“Maybe so, but you’ve been gawking at Holly.”
“I’m sorry if I was rude. I didn’t realize I was staring, or gawking.”
“Nice tattoo,” Alison said, referring to the guitar and flames on my left forearm.
“You play?” Holly asked.
“Habitually. You?”
“Yeah she plays. Horribly,” remarked Alison. Holly agreed.
“I know this is a little forward, but can I buy you girls lunch?”
“I have a dentist appointment in a half hour, sorry. I’m sure Holly would love to. Heh, I said Hollywood.” In good humor, Ali awaited her friend’s response. This was a game to her.
Holly was indignant. “Why did you say that? I know you’re only joking, but he’s not an asshole, he doesn’t deserve that. That’s cruel.”
Alison hung her head and brushed the floor with a quarter-circle toe sweep. “Golly, I didn’t mean any harm. I was only poking fun, mister.”
“Damnit, Ali, if you weren’t so adorable I would’ve left you years ago.”
They smiled at one another and I knew squarely that they were a rare and deep breed of friends.
“Seriously, though,” Alison said, “if I don’t leave right now I’m going to be late. It was nice meeting you, Kevin. See you at home, Holl.” Alison gave us a Little Rascals wave and left.
“She’s quite a character, huh?” I said.
“You have no idea. She’s always trying to embarrass me. That’s why she s
aid I would go to lunch with you. This isn’t the first time she’s done this. I’m sorry, Kevin.”
“So does that mean you don’t want to have lunch?”
“I really should be getting home. I have a lot of work to do. I know it sounds like an excuse, but it’s the God’s honest truth.”
My heart-shaped Titanic was dealt an iceberg. I couldn’t look her in the eyes. I told her I understood and it wasn’t a big deal. It sounded like a bald-faced lie because I didn’t try to conceal it.
“May I ask you something?” she said. “Are you in the Air Force?” I nodded. “I’m flattered you asked me to lunch. Really, I am. A psycho asked me out last time I was here. If he looked like you I might have said yes.” I couldn’t tell if she was flirting or being brutally honest.
“So you are saying no, right?”
“I’m just really busy right now. I’m leaving for a month and I have a lot of planning to do still. I have an audition that I can’t miss, as well.”
“Really? What are you auditioning for?”
“I’m not. I’m looking for a guitarist for a band. That’s why she commented on your tattoo. She was trying to get me to notice it. She’s a plotter, that Alison, always plotting.”
“I see. I wish I could audition for you.”
She pointed out that I didn’t know what the audition was for. I didn’t care. I told her it didn’t matter. It would allow me to spend more time with her.
“Okay, I’ll tell you what,” she said. “As long as we’re quick, really quick, we can have lunch together. The Down Under is across the street, is that okay with you?”
Damnit. How could I forget about Mike? He’s a giant, for crying out loud. And about as nonchalant as Godzilla in Tokyo. I looked over my shoulder and found him twenty feet away pretending he wasn’t watching us. He feigned reading the box of toothpaste. I waved him over.
“He looks a little like my husband,” she remarked.
I looked at her wedding-ring finger and it was as naked as the plump little cherub who was plucking love-arrows at me. “There isn’t a woman alive who would marry that abomination,” I said.
“That’s a lovely thing to say about your friend.”
I introduced the two and they shook hands. Holly claimed to have heard a lot about him and was sorry to hear that he’s an abomination.
“Did he tell you that?” Mike said and giggled like an adolescent girl. He took his revenge on me by saying I did a stretch in the pokey for kidnapping a girl I met at this store a few years back. I called him a bastard and went to give him a punch on his shoulder, forgetting that my arm was broken, and things went terribly wrong inside. I hissed and doubled over.
“Maybe it’s not a bad idea to pick up those pain pills,” I said. “I’ll do it after we eat. I’m so clumsy I’ll probably re-injure it a dozen times before it mends.”
Mike suddenly understood what was happening. The dreaded third wheel. “Guys, go on ahead and get lunch. I’ll get the prescription filled. Hell, it’s my fault your arm is broken, anyway. We’ll meet up later.”
I insisted Mike come along, to no avail. He departed maintaining a side-stare as he journeyed toward the back of the pharmacy line, tripping over a display of cranberry juice. He faltered before falling flat on his face, arms stretched out like Superman in flight. He recovered ungracefully and gestured back at us a thumbs up sign. Inwardly I shook my head at him.
We left the store, Holly and the luckiest guy in the world.
“I’ll see you there,” she said. “You can drive with a broken arm?”
“Yep, I drive an automatic. I’ll be there in a minute.” I observed her sexy gait as she walked to her car. I hoped she was feeling at least a fraction of what I was feeling. I finally broke my sultry stare and wondered if I was acting like a psychopath. I scanned the half-filled parking lot for my truck. There it was.
“Oh no,” I muttered, “What are you doing by my truck? Revenge?” I stood motionless, dumbfounded. How did she know what I drove?
Mrs. Wheels stood upward of five feet tall, perhaps an inch or two taller if her spine wasn’t curved. Her pallid skin was deeply wrinkled. She was eighty, at least. She dressed in black with a black hat topping an unmanageable thatch of wiry silver hair. Her jet-black clothes were void of contour and detail, like she was wearing an impossibly deep shadow. I could not tell where one garment ended and the next began. One pruned claw rested atop the other, perched on a white cane with a gleaming gold tip.
Her scowl was menacing and distinctly her own. It painted a picture of bitterness from a lifetime of disappointment. Between the narrow slits of her eyes were black marbles. She looked like the quintessential family’s sole surviving great-grandmother, either too stubborn to pass away or unfinished in exhausting the last dime of your inheritance. The one who doesn’t just agree with capital punishment but downright adores it.
I plodded toward my truck. She was as still as a gargoyle. I was a dozen feet from her. Her scowl, which I assumed was carved into her wooden face, suddenly blinked into a candid smile. She winked at me, turned around, and walked away with a kind of swagger in her step. Perplexed, I tried to make sense of what had just happened.
A honk from behind startled me; I spun around. It was Holly, window down. “Cars work better when you drive them.”
“Uh huh,” I said absently. She asked what the problem was. “The lady…” I turned back to Wheels. She had disappeared behind any number of cars standing five foot tall or greater. I took issue with whoever coined the phrase out of sight, out of mind.
Chapter 4
I drove a 1990 Toyota four-wheel-drive pickup, white with charcoal cloth interior. A quarter million miles under its belt and room for more. Whenever I debated buying a newer vehicle I reminded myself of how paid-off my truck was. It looked marginally better than usual, too, having recently been detailed.
Did that really just happen with that old woman?
Mrs. Wheels couldn’t have known what I drove, yet she was beside my truck. Maybe the shot of Demerol given to me yesterday induced hallucinations. Maybe Holly wasn’t as stunningly beautiful as I thought she was. I turned the key and the truck roared to life. In the dictionary, under Hell, one definition should be fastening a seatbelt with a broken arm.
I was in a damned good mood. I didn’t have high expectations, only high hopes. I powered on the stereo to feed my good mood. To my dismay classical music polluted the airwaves. The guys who detailed my truck must have changed the station. I quickly found Pirate 98.3 FM. Something decent was always playing on Pirate 98.3. Sure enough, I caught the tail end of a new Green Day song. Nice.
I pulled into the Down Under restaurant parking lot. Being the less popular lunch hour, it only took a cursory glance to find Holly’s car. Her black convertible Cobra Mustang was sharp and esteemed. When I parked next to it, my handsome truck appeared haggard and well intentioned. I wondered if the phrase, You are what you drive, existed. I whistled a tune as I made my way to the restaurant.
It’s amazing one’s attention to detail when transitioning from one mood to the next. This morning I was cognizant of the clear pre-summer day, but not in its glorious details. My skin tingled under the concentrated sunrays of the approaching Summer Solstice. A warm fleeting gust swayed the delicate golden hair of my arms. I inhaled deeply through my nose and savored the remnants of a bountiful spring; an aroma redolent of rejuvenation, growth, and beauty (and new romance?—sure, why not.)
Two crows sailed overhead, cawing as they glided with the air stream. They are the most unloved of birds, yet in my state of glee I saw a shy young male courting a confident young female. They soared aimlessly through the atmosphere, not constrained by the boundaries that mankind abides by. Their only rule: gravity. Their only predator: time. With that kind of freedom comes a naturalness to fully express oneself without fear of consequence, completely and utterly uninhibited. They are free as a bird.
I opened the restaurant door to find Holly standing wi
th folded arms in the vestibule. What she lacked in enthusiasm she made up for in philanthropy (she showed up, after all). A young man grabbed two lunch menus and said, “Welcome to the Day’n Undah. Please follow me.” Did he just try to fake an Australian accent? That was the cheesiest thing I’d ever heard. “Have a seat, fellas. Your waitah Jamie will be here in a moment. Have a funtaystic lunch, mates!”
When he was out of ear-shot, Holly said that she doubted he could even find Australia on a map.
“Yeah, what’s up with that? When I’m at Walmart I don’t talk like a redneck.”
“How did you break your arm?” She produced Chapstick from her purse and applied it.
“Snowboarding yesterday. Mike and I go every couple weeks. The season is about over so I went a little overboard. I hit a jump going way too fast and like an idiot I stuck my arm out when I fell.” Having never experienced them, my perceived hunger pangs turned out to be butterflies.
Her brow raised, eyes widened. “What a coincidence. Alison won lift-tickets from Pirate Radio last week and we planned on going to Heavenly Valley yesterday. But my computer contracted a virus, I lost a lot of my work, I couldn’t go. I was behind enough already.” She stowed the Chapstick. “Are you in a lot of pain?”
“That’s funny, we were at Heavenly Valley. We might have met yesterday if you had gone. And no, my arm doesn’t hurt too badly.” Which was actually the truth at that moment, though I’d be embarrassed if she saw what a baby I was when it happened. I should have turned in my man-card after that sorry display on the Tahoe slopes.
Holly was easy to talk to. There’s nothing more foreboding than a heart-sparked encounter with awkward silences. Now that I was free to gawk at my heart’s content, I indulged. At first glance you wouldn’t presume her to be a natural beauty—somewhere in the ranks of attractive, without the use or appearance of using makeup. She appeared to wear a sufficient amount to be as polished as she was, but she wore very little. Her unblemished skin was like porcelain, virginal to the sun, and provided contrast to her large blue eyes, pink lips, and chestnut hair. Her cheeks had those pink blotches, indigenous to the young, active, or timid.
