Her father didn’t have heart attacks. And he certainly didn’t clean out gutters.
The mental picture was so absurd that she started to laugh, startling herself with the sound. She must be in shock. Shock and denial. And that was fine with her, because she wasn’t prepared to deal with what would come after the shock and denial wore off.
She wanted to turn on the radio and take a sip of coffee from the travel mug resting in the console, but she was too afraid to release her death grip on the steering wheel.
Buying this car had been a mistake; she could admit that. A huge mistake. Almost as huge as the vehicle itself.
Once upon a time, she had driven a sexy, silver, low-slung convertible. She’d breezed around town with oversized sunglasses and her hair streaming out behind her. She’d never given a second thought to issues like braking speed. But when Carl had announced he was abandoning her for something new, Lila had decided she deserved something new, too. And Carl deserved to pay for it. She’d strode out of the house, roiling with rage, and driven to the nearest auto dealership.
“I want the biggest car you have on the lot,” she told the first salesman she saw. “Fully loaded: leather seats, sunroof, power everything.”
The salesman didn’t miss a beat. “Backseat DVD player?”
“Sure, why not?” she’d replied, though she had no children. She didn’t even have a dog. There’d be nothing in her backseat but baggage after Carl sold the house with the spacious walk-in closets.
“Do you have a color preference?” the salesman asked as he led her toward a line of shiny new vehicles.
“No.” She pulled out her checkbook. “Let’s just get this done before my husband closes the joint accounts.”
And that was how she’d ended up with this all-wheel-drive behemoth with an interior large enough to set up a pair of sofas and a coffee table. This sumptuous, supersafe SUV—or, as she privately referred to it, the “FUV.”
She’d driven back home in a spurt of renewed optimism, feeling invincible.
Then she’d turned in to the circular driveway in front of their stately brick home and realized that she had blind spots the size of a small planet and insufficient clearance to maneuver the vehicle into the garage. She’d had to park outside and slink in to face the derision of her soon-to-be ex.
Except Carl hadn’t been waiting for her in the house. He’d vanished, taking his laptop and golf clubs with him, leaving a certified letter from his accountant explaining that because his businesses had been “gifted” to him by his father, she wouldn’t be entitled to any portion of his company’s equity or revenue going forward.
All her rage and optimism sputtered out after that. Hopelessness set in as the divorce dragged on and she lost everything she valued.
But she still had this FUV cocooning her within steel crossbars and countless airbags as she cruised along Route 26. She had a world of comforts at her disposal—heated leather seats, climate control, enough cupholders to accommodate a case of cola, and, of course, the backseat DVD player. She had signed the purchase agreement thinking that she was buying a sense of safety and protection.
Ding.
Lila instinctively tapped the brake as she glanced at the dashboard. An orange alert light in the shape of an exclamation point was blinking. She had no idea what that meant, but she knew it was bad.
Reminding herself to stay calm, she watched the road ahead and maintained her speed.
One hazard light wasn’t the end of the world. She could call Triple A. How did the Bluetooth system work again?
Ding.
Another light illuminated—this time, the engine temperature alert.
Ding.
The oil level alert.
Ding.
The battery life alert.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.
The antitheft alert blared to life at eardrum-shattering decibels.
Lila didn’t realize she was screaming until she heard the sound of her own voice in her ears in the split-second pauses between beeps and dings.
Her fingers clenched the steering wheel so tightly her wrists trembled. She tried to focus on the road, but all she could see in front of her was a cluster of red and orange lights announcing crises she hadn’t even imagined.
She glimpsed a gas station on her right and swerved into its parking lot, skidding on the wet pavement and jumping the curb in her haste. For a moment, she worried the enormous hulk of machinery would simply topple and roll over, but it righted itself with a shudder.
The cacophony of beeps and dings continued. She threw the vehicle into park and started jabbing at buttons on the dashboard and key fob. Nothing changed—the lights kept blinking; the alarms kept blaring.
And just like that, her inner rage resurfaced. All rational thought deserted her and she was furious—at Carl, at this overpriced car, at herself for being stupid enough to think buying it would change anything. Even at her father for dying and necessitating this drive on this road in this weather.
She heaved the door open and jumped out, stumbling on the retractable assist steps that automatically unfolded.
“Shit!” She fell into a gasoline-scented puddle. Though she managed to catch herself with her hands, the water splashed onto her cheeks and collar.
The car alarms kept sounding.
She grabbed the edge of the massive metal hood and pulled. Nothing budged. She could barely see; her hair was plastered to her face in the icy downpour.
Cursing at the top of her lungs, she ran back to the driver’s-side door, flung it open, and felt around the floor mats until her hand connected with the glossy copy of Vogue she’d bought a few days ago. She opened the magazine and perched it on her head like a makeshift hat, then resumed wrestling with the hood.
She startled as a hand pressed down on her shoulder.
“Stop.” A calm, authoritative male voice filtered through all the honking and dinging.
She shook him off, then redoubled her efforts.
“You can’t pop the hood that way.” The man, wearing a baseball cap and a dark wool jacket, held out his palm. “Give me your keys.”
Lila hesitated for a moment, worst-case scenarios flashing through her mind. If she handed over her keys, this stranger could steal her car. She’d be stranded here, shivering and alone.
Without the hulking, heavy vehicle that she could barely drive.
Good.
She repositioned the magazine on her head and pointed toward the driver’s-side door. “They’re in the ignition.”
The man stepped onto the metal ledge, reached into the SUV’s cabin, and cut the engine.
Everything stopped at once—the dinging, the honking, the fury and despair.
Lila listened to the raindrops spattering against the magazine cover during the long, lovely pause.
Then the engine rumbled to life again as the man turned the keys in the other direction.
She started to protest, but the words died on her lips when she realized that she could hear the engine now. She could also hear the steady squeak of the windshield wipers. All the alarms had been silenced.
The man stepped back out of the SUV and nodded at her. “This model has a lot of electrical problems. Probably a short somewhere.”
She swiped the back of her hand over her eyes, trying to get a better view of her rescuer. “How do you know? How did you do that?”
He ignored her question. “You’ll be fine for the next few days, but get it checked. Should be covered by the warranty.”
She started to thank him but he was already gone, walking toward a pickup truck on the other side of the parking lot.
As she watched him leave, a chord of recognition struck somewhere deep down in her memory.
Something about his voice and his stride. Something both foreign and familiar.
“Hey!�
�� she called after him. “Have we met? Do I know you?”
His reply got lost in the noise of passing traffic.
Lila climbed back into the driver’s seat, buckled her seat belt, and just sat for a few minutes. Relishing the heated seats and warm air gusting out of the vents. Watching the dashboard for any more emergency lights.
Finally, she put the FUV into gear and started back down the highway to her hometown.
And five minutes later, when she passed the quaint clapboard sign adorned with the silhouette of a Labrador retriever—WELCOME TO BLACK DOG BAY—she realized why she’d found that stranger so familiar.
They had met. She did know him.
But, of course, there was no way she would recognize him in a situation like this—stressed and grief-stricken and drenched in a midnight storm . . .
And fully clothed.
If she didn’t know for a fact that the turn radius of the FUV was equivalent to an aircraft carrier’s, she would have pulled a U-turn across the narrow lanes of traffic and sped away from the tiny shoreside town where everyone remembered everything.
And nothing stayed secret forever.
Cure for the Common Breakup Page 28
