As I took a right onto Beaumont, I drove passed a silver super car pulled up onto the shoulder with its hood popped open. Catching a glimpse in the rearview mirror, I saw a hale figure bent over the engine. I checked to make sure no one else was in back of me, and I put my car in reverse.
“Need me to call Triple-A?” I asked, rolling down my passenger side window.
The man sighed frustratingly. “Nah, I’ve got it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” he said, slamming the hood down. He turned and looked at me with surprise. “Oh...”
I smiled. “Hey, stranger.”
There stood Jack, his black locks soaking wet and his leather jacket catching the raindrops pouring off his shoulders. “Hey, what brings you out to this neck of the woods?”
“Well, I was thinking about wanting to do something that would most likely leave me terrified, so I thought that a long, dark misadventure in the shadowy back roads during a storm would suffice. You?”
“On my way to pick up my car,” said Jack. “Unfortunately, the Lambo apparently had second thoughts. I guess it just wasn’t ready to part from me.”
“Huh, so it looks like you could use a hand,” I replied, all a little too merrily.
“You’re enjoying the view I take it?”
I couldn’t resist grinning. “Me, no. I never rejoice in the misfortunes of another.”
“Want one more try at that? This time, try not smiling like the Cheshire cat.” He laughed.
“Need a lift?”
“What happened to your ‘don’t accept rides from strangers’ policy?”
“I’m not the one in need of rescuing here, you are. So it’s purely your decision on whether you get in or not. But just so we’re clear, I do have a Taser gun in less than an arm’s length away from me, and I’ve got a quicker draw than Annie Oakley. Given your dampened condition, it might make for an interesting test to see how you’d react to it, but for your sake, I’d advice against foul play,” I replied. “So, Lash LaRue, what say you?”
He smirked. “Interesting baiting tactic. If I decline, are you going to try to lure me in with candy next?”
“Well, I think I’ve got an old Snickers bar that’s been sitting in my glove box since late August if that helps, but I would think of it as less of a luring device and more of a notion to a dare,” I laughed. “Besides, I’m about the last person who would be interested in luring you. I’m simply being a humanitarian. I can happily leave without you.”
“Okay.”
“Have it your way,” I said, letting my foot off the brake.
Jack grabbed the passenger door and walked alongside the vehicle as it started rolling away. “I meant that I would appreciate the ride, but you already knew that.”
“Yep, I just wanted to hear you actually say that out loud,” I replied, pulling out a couple of spare towels I had lodged under the seats.
I draped one over the passenger side and tossed him the other through the window. Jack pulled off his jacket and shook out the excess water before lobbing the Lambo’s key onto the driver’s seat of the super car. Wiping off his hair and arms as best he could, he climbed into my car and rolled up the window.
“That’s how you’re gonna leave the Lambo?” I asked, disbelievingly.
“As I said before, it’s not mine,” he replied.
When he realized I wasn’t going to drive until I was satisfied, he deflated upon explanation. “Look, the reason I’m not driving my car is because it was damaged beyond restoration. My uncle owns a repair shop that works with his dealership. And before I moved here, I brought my car in for him to do some basic maintenance on my Impala, which was in pristine condition prior to the drop-off. Then after a day or so went by, and I hadn’t heard a word about the car, I headed over to the shop to find my baby in the back with the entire front-end smashed in, along with a fractured windshield.
“Pretending that it wasn’t my car, I asked one of the mechanics there what had happened. Turns out, it fell off the lift and my uncle was going to cover up the incident before I noticed. As any vehicle owner knows, a car never runs the same after an accident. And since I had practically rebuilt the Impala in its entirety preceding the event, I was... let’s say, not happy. As consequence, my uncle was forced into buying me a new car, which I was just on my way now to go pick up, and he gave me the Lambo as a temporary.”
“Still doesn’t give you justification for ditching his car,” I said.
“It does when the car he gives me is in such desperate need of some serious work. You should see the engine. Looks like Chernobyl in there. My uncle knowingly handed me a deathtrap. He’s lucky I’m not going to go pay him a visit.”
“Sounds like your uncle would get along swimmingly with all of my extended family,” I muttered.
“As far as I’m concerned, he can go fish that thing out of the Atlantic.”
“It’s not the car’s fault,” I said, batting my eyelashes sympathetically.
Jack got back out and grabbed the Lambo’s keys off the front seat before shutting the driver’s door. The super car chirped as he hit the lock button on the remote. “Satisfied?”
I nodded, and he climbed back into my car just as I stepped on the accelerator.
Cautiously driving down the fog riddled streets, I tried my best to not hydroplane on the sharp, winding turns. It took a few minutes before either of us decided to say something.
“So-”
“Why-”
We both spoke at the very same instant, and immediately stopped the moment we heard the other.
“You go first,” I said.
“I was simply going to ask where you were from?” he laughed. “You said you moved here not too long ago, so I was just curious.”
“The Big Apple,” I said.
“Really? A city girl, huh? Makes sense.”
“Do I even want to bother trying to understand that remark?”
I could see him smile out of my peripheral.
“You’re just a little rough for these parts is all,” he said. “Look at you, clad in a studded leather jacket and matching heels, a revamped rock t-shirt, and killer ripped jeans. It hardly helps you blend in with the rest of the cardigan sporting divas of Maine’s coast.”
“And what about you? You’re still clearly from the general area, yet your look faithlessly says otherwise.”
“I can pull it off though, because the rest of me is so credible to the locale,” he chuckled. “The whole former-quarterback, All-American jock thing is practically a staple in this culture.”
“Former jock? That explains it.”
“I’m a beacon of normalcy in a very convoluted world.”
“Yes, because as we both know, that solidifies everything you say and do to be the absolute truth.”
“Well, that wouldn’t be any fun now, would it?”
“Hey, I’m into mysteries as much as the next Sherlockian, but I’d like to think that the people I surround myself with don’t require me to decipher them.”
“Alright, how about I break out of character long enough to clue you in on a little known fact?”
“Why do I already feel uneasy?”
He smiled. “I knew you were standing outside the locker room doors yesterday.”
I couldn’t tell by his tone if he was serious or not, so I rolled my eyes in his direction to make sure, without letting him know I was interested in finding out. “Oh, really?”
He nodded.
“And what service did offending me do for you?”
“It got you to pay attention.”
As much as I knew I needed to concentrate on the road, I looked sideways at him again.
“I saw that defeatist mindset of yours take over the moment Stacy introduced herself to me. You forfeited before you even let things have a chance.”
“I’m more than familiar with Stacy’s repertoire of tricks she uses into baiting and hooking whatever guy she sets her sights on. And since her shal
low tastes are one of the clearest indicators as to his character, I consider any guy who falls for her games to be damaged goods.”
“We both know that this wasn’t about Stacy or her tainting my character. It was only a matter of time before I slipped up in one form or another that would give you reason to write me off,” he said, seeing my jaw tightened as I came up short for words in defense. “You know I’m right. Not every guy who has ever expressed interest in you has been a bad seed, but you’re so certain that people are going to hurt you that you push them away before they even get a chance for you to make a genuine assessment of them.”
I began squirming in my seat, but stopped the moment I knew he caught on to my discomfort.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
Nothing. I had no words. What could I do? Drive off the cliff and crash the car into a collection of trees? It would definitely put an end to the conversation...
“Stacy was just an excuse, and I spotted that the second you saw her coming my way. I knew I had to do something different, something that would make a lasting impression on you.”
My jaw tightened once more, but this time it was to resist the urge to smile.
“Admit it. What I said to and about you got under your skin, had you thinking about me.”
“It had me wanting to knock the living daylights out of you,” I remarked.
“Even so, it was still probably the most time you’ve ever spent thinking about a guy who showed interest in you.”
Yeah, I really couldn’t deny that. “Okay, I’m going to ask you something out of complete and total seriousness.”
“Go for it.”
“What in the name of all that is holy honestly convinced you that I’d really be worth all this trouble?”
Jack laughed.
“You said it yourself. Guys find me ‘passive’ and ‘evasive,’ so what on earth is so enticing about that?” I said, breaking out into a wide smile. “What? There’s nothing sexier than a frigid, boring, and inaccessible girl?”
We both burst out laughing.
“I’m a better judge of character than to see you that way,” he said.
“Sure...”
“You still doubt my skills of deduction?”
I just kept smiling, knowing it would bother him if I did not reply.
“Fine,” he said, taking a deep breath as if he was preparing for a lengthy speech. “I see and hear several prime examples right in front of me. You’re wearing a classic Led Zeppelin t-shirt, listening to ‘Riders on the Storm’ by The Doors, and you have the CD to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack sitting in the holder beneath the radio. You know what that tells me?”
“That I’ve been spending too much time with my dad?” I cracked.
“You have good taste. I’ve never met a girl who could listen to everything from Zeppelin’s ‘Trampled Under Foot’ to Chuck Berry’s ‘You Never Can Tell’ and thought that she was a stick in the mud.”
“And pray tell, how long of a shelf life would a girl like that have in regard to the likes of you?”
He only smiled.
“Exactly what I thought. What was the longest relationship you’ve ever even been in? A month? A week? A day? A night?”
“Hard to say,” he replied wincingly.
“Wow.”
“Well, in all admission, I have to say that it was a bit more difficult for me to really be involved in anything serious up until now.”
“So what? I changed everything for you? You saw me, and I saw you. Suddenly, the room went quiet with the exception of some overplayed, lover’s lament song playing in the background as we stared at one another longingly in slow motion?” I laughed.
“Minus all the hideous clichés, yes.”
I let my foot off the gas pedal as we approached the red light of the upcoming intersection. Suddenly, the light changed to green before we came to a standstill, so I accelerated into the empty junction.
“Cassie, watch out!” yelled Jack, reaching over and spinning the wheel to make a hard turn as his foot punched down on the accelerator.
Just as the car fishtailed into the drift, I caught a flash of headlights roaring at us from the left before a banking force collided with the backend of the Camry. We were sent into a full rotation, being tossed to the other side of the vehicle as a devastating wallop erupted down the road. When the world finally came to a standstill, I looked over at Jack who appeared just as shaken by the impact.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “You?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking past him, “but I don’t think they are.”
What appeared to be a gray Sudan was now overturned, its front-end down in the ditch.
“Stay here,” ordered Jack, climbing out. “Don’t let anyone else in the car, unless it’s me.”
“What? Where’re you going? We should call the police!”
He didn’t acknowledge the remark. He slammed the car door shut and ran down the road with something indistinguishable wielded in his right hand as the rain continued to obstruct my vision through the side window. I pulled the car over onto the shoulder and took out my cell to dial 9-1-1.
“State your emergency.”
“Hi, my friend and I have just been in a car accident. Someone broadsided us, and they flipped their car. We’re in the intersection of Beaumont and Procter,” I said to the operator. “I moved off the road, and the other car is in the ditch.”
“Is anybody injured?”
“I think my friend and I are fine, but I don’t know about the other people. My friend’s checking on them.”
“Stay where you are. Help will be there shortly. Do you want me to stay on the line with you?”
Knock. Knock.
I yelped at the sight of a looming figure standing just outside the side window.
“Ma’am, is everything all right?” asked the operator.
“Yes, I'm fine,” I sighed, realizing it was just Jack. “Can you hold on a minute?”
“Sure.”
I unlocked the door, and he climbed in.
“Are they okay?” I asked, pointing to the Sedan.
He shook his head.
“How bad is it?”
He looked back at me bewilderedly. “No one’s in there.”
Without thinking, I hung up the phone. “What?!”
A couple of rookie officers arrived at the scene in about eight minutes with an ambulance as an escort. They ran through their list of procedurals, and we were both given clean bills of health by the paramedics. The same could not be said about my car. My poor baby’s left back end had been maimed, and she was now being prepped to be hauled away to the repair shop by the tow truck that had just arrived.
“I doubt their insurance is going to cover the costs?” I said to the officer, motioning to the Sedan that was now being dragged out of the ditch.
“Unfortunately, no. We already ran the plates, and it turns out the car had been reported stolen last night. I think it’s a fairly easy assumption to say that the driver fled the scene. Grand theft auto isn’t exactly sentenced with a slap on the wrist.”
“But you saw the car. There’s no way they could have climbed out of there. Besides, my friend got out of the car to check on them almost immediately. They wouldn’t have been able to get away, let alone not even be seen while doing so.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Miss Foster,” he said, rather annoyed.
“I’m sorry,” I replied, adjusting the umbrella he handed me over my head as the rain continued to pour down on us. “It’s just that... this makes no sense.”
“We’re gonna keep looking into it. But in the meantime, do you two need a lift, or do you have someone coming to pick you up?”
“A lift would be much appreciated,” I said, following him over to the squad car.
Jack joined me a minute later as the two cops finished up whatever discussion they were having. “So, you consider me to be a friend?” he asked, sliding into the bac
k seat.
“I’m sorry?”
“Just now, you acknowledged me as your ‘friend’ to Officer Talbot.”
“What did you expect me to say?” I said, sitting beside him. “‘Hi, this is my new classmate/constant antagonist/pain in my ass/passenger’?”
“I think savior belongs in there somewhere.”
“‘Savior’?”
“Not sure if you noticed back there, but we could’ve ended up being road kill if it hadn’t been for my impromptu heroics.”
“Oh, my sainted hero!” I mocked. “Whatever could I do to repay you?”
“Well, it seems we have the back seat here all to ourselves, and I could think of a few things.”
I gave him a good shove as I closed the door.
“Oh, fine. Be that way,” he chuckled.
Chapter 9
Beautiful Dangerous
I immediately dosed up on Advil when I awoke the next morning with a major kink in my neck, still uncertain as to whether it was from the accident or from the time I’d spent out in the dampened cold. Finishing up my morning routine, I ran my comb under the faucet before putting it through my hair so that I could tame any of the flyaway strands with a little water. Coating my lashes with one final swipe of mascara, I was ready to face the day. My dad could still be heard outside fiddling with some tools, so it was safe for me to start changing out of my pajamas as I made my way to my bedroom. Pulling off my shirt and tossing it into the hamper at the end of the hall, I opened my door with the instinct to head straight to the closet. Instead, though, I just stopped dead in my tracks before jumping back in alarm.
“Jack!” I yelped, seeing none other than the devil himself laying on my bed with a copy of Pride & Prejudice opened in his hands. “What the hell?!”
“Gooood morning!” he said in the same tone as a radio host would use. “Trust you slept well.”
“What are you doing in here?!”
“Well, I came over and told your dad I was giving you a ride to school, and he said you weren’t ready yet and that I could make myself at home until you were,” he replied, still casually skimming through the pages of the book before taking notice to my outfit - or lack thereof. “But please, don’t let me interrupt.”
Divine Vices Page 10
