Five Days Left (11 page)

Mara

Mara checked her watch. One fifteen—enough time to check the forum before the cab arrived. She’d pass over whatever new topic SoNotWicked had posted for the day’s discussion, she decided, and focus on the posts from yesterday’s thread about MotorCity and his little man.

She scanned through the posts added since her last visit, stopping when she saw an entry by MotorCity from earlier that morning. His comment about opening membership to Asia made her smile; there was something she could offer him after all, more than the vague commiseration she knew wasn’t enough.

Wednesday, April 6 @ 1:20 p.m.

MotorCity, I’ve been doing a detailed analysis of which middle-of-the-night infomercials are most effective (the answer is “none,” though I will confess I’ve considered the juicer more than a few times) and which newspapers get delivered earliest in my neighborhood (Wall Street Journal wins—4:30 a.m.). I had no idea that all this time you were up too and available for late-night chatting. Want to meet me online tonight—say, midnight (Central time)? We can switch to personal messaging so the rest of the
crowd need not parse through our drivel on the main board tomorrow morning.

The instant she saw her message post, she thought how annoyed Tom would be that she had made a commitment to talk late into the night about someone else’s problems instead of getting the sleep she needed. She thought of the to-do list hidden underneath her laptop, and everything she needed to accomplish in the next four days. Was she crazy to spend another second talking online to people she’d never met in person, when she had so little time to organize her departure from the “real life” people who mattered most?

Maybe she was a little crazy, she thought. Then, smiling, she told herself that without the forum, she’d be even crazier. Her “real life” family and friends mattered most, of course, but it was her virtual friends who had, by treating her like a normal person all this time, kept her sane enough to enjoy her real life for as long as she had.

And maybe for that reason, or maybe because she was feeling sentimental, she was reluctant to cut the forum loose this week, no matter how pressed she was for time. She would find a way to check in with her online friends and still check off all the items on her to-do list. And anyway, it wasn’t like she’d be working on the list through the night for the next four nights if she wasn’t chatting online. And she certainly wouldn’t be sleeping. So she might as well be helping one of her friends from the group.

Mara logged off, slipped on the flip-flops she had kicked under the table and reached for her purse. She was organizing its contents when the doorbell rang. The noise made her fling her wallet across the kitchen.

“Shit.”

She swore again when she saw it had landed in the narrow space between the fridge and the wall. Her arm would fit in the space easily enough, but she was worried that given her questionable balance, bending so low might be her undoing. With the cab about to arrive, this was not
the time to end up splayed out on the floor, unable to get up. Maybe she could slide the wallet out with the broom. But it wasn’t in its usual spot and she had no idea where she had put it. By the time she remembered, or made her way around the house to look for it, the cab would be here.

“Goddamn it.”

The doorbell chimed again.

“For Christ’s sake. Leave your flyer and go.”

Another chime. Whoever it was, they weren’t going to leave. And she didn’t want them there when the cab arrived, an audience to wonder why the fortysomething woman was being carted around in a taxi instead of driving herself.

“Coming!”

Annoyed, she opened the door a crack and was about to bark something to scare her visitor off when she found herself staring at the fleshy red face of the cabbie. He was a slightly destitute version of Santa with his red flannel shirt stretched taut over his belly, greasy gray hair slicked off his forehead. His scent was a mixture of mothballs, mouthwash and aftershave. Cologne, she corrected herself, noticing the few days’ worth of gray growth on his face.

“Afternoon, ma’am. Thought I’d come a little early. Give ya . . . Give us . . . Leave us time ta . . .” He ran a thick hand through his hair and tried again. “I know ya want ta leave by two sharp.”

“Oh. Thank you, but you didn’t have to walk up. Don’t you usually wait in the car? I was going to meet you out front, at the curb.”

“’S no problem. I thought ya might . . .” He looked at Mara anxiously, like he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. “I thought I might . . .” he tried again. “I saw how long the front walk is . . .”

“Oh.” Her face grew hot.

After humiliating herself in the cereal aisle Monday morning, and once she had recovered enough to drive, Mara had raced out of the grocery store parking lot and sped down the street, desperate to get out of her smelly wet pants and into a hot shower. But in her agitation, she took
a wrong turn. When she finally realized she was headed away from home and not toward it, she yanked hard on the steering wheel to turn her northbound car in the opposite direction. The erratic maneuver set off a cacophony of honking horns and squealing brakes as Mara’s car bumped over the median and into the south-facing lanes. Her right hand reacted to the sudden noise by pulling on the steering wheel, moving her car halfway into the next lane.

“Shit!”

A pickup truck blared its horn behind her before the driver gunned the engine and raced past her, middle finger in the air, his angry expression mouthing, “What the fuck?”

Frazzled, Mara spotted a side street half a block away, on the other side of a small bank that sat on the corner. In her eagerness to get off the main road, she cranked her steering wheel too forcefully to the right. She wasn’t able to correct the oversteering fast enough, and her car crossed two lanes of traffic before bouncing over the curb, across the sidewalk and into the large metal sign on the bank’s front lawn.

Something made a terrible crunching noise as the airbag slammed into her, pushing the breath out of her lungs in one large gasp. The engine hissed, and when she batted the airbag out of the way, she saw the entire right side of the car was wrapped around the sign pole.

“Goddamn it!”

Slowly, methodically, she assessed every limb, wiggled her fingers and toes, and moved her ankles and wrists in circles. Nothing seemed broken, though from the way her ribs felt, she could swear she must have belly flopped from the roof of the bank onto the parking lot below. The growing noise of people startled her. When she saw the size of the crowd gathering, she wished she could sink down in her seat until her bones and skin melted and she dripped through the floor and out of sight.

A knock sounded in her left ear and a woman wearing too much makeup and a bank name tag appeared in her window. Mara tried to lower it but it didn’t work, so she pushed her door open.

“You okay, hon?” the woman said. “You about gave us all a heart attack just now. Thank God for airbags, huh? You don’t seem to have a scratch.” She peered over the hood of the car, toward the front, before leaning in to speak again. “Can’t say the same for your car, I’m afraid. It looks pretty messed up.”

She bent toward Mara, her lips parted as though she were about to say something else. But suddenly she pressed them together, twisting them a little. She ducked her head a little lower, leaned close to Mara’s ear and whispered, “You got something to cover yourself with?”

Glancing down, Mara saw the blotting she’d done hadn’t helped; her pants were still visibly stained. She put a hand over her face and wished again she could disappear.

“One sec, hon,” the woman’s voice said in her ear. She jogged to the passenger side, reached in for Mara’s jacket, and seconds later she was back, holding the jacket appraisingly before she handed it over. “Looks maybe a little too fancy for . . . this. But, desperate times, I guess, right?” She patted Mara’s shoulder. Mara managed to wrap the jacket around her waist and the woman said, “There, that’s better. I can’t smell it, to be honest, so as long as no one sees, no one but you and I have to know.”

Mara stole a quick glance at the tree-shaped air freshener sitting in the cup holder beside her. In the grocery store parking lot, she had torn the tree from its string on the rearview mirror and rubbed it over her pants. Amazingly, it had done the trick. Quietly, she thanked the woman, who clucked sympathetically and moved away to make room for the paramedics and tow truck driver who had arrived on the scene. Mara eased herself out of the car, waving off the assistance of the first responders.

“I’m fine, really,” she said.

“You musta been in some hurry,” the tow truck driver called from the front of her car. “No time to park and go in, so you thought you’d make your own drive-through ATM, huh?” He guffawed and she gave him a limp smile before moving out of earshot of his laughter.

She managed not to cry on the tow truck ride to the repair shop. But
when the car mechanic gave a long whistle and told her it was amazing she wasn’t hurt, the thought that she could have seriously injured someone, or even killed them, was a punch in the gut. What if Laks had been in the car?

Her chin dropped to her chest as sobs worked their way loose. Out of the corner of one eye, she saw the mechanic take a quick step away from her. His body shifted from one foot to the other while he cleared his throat and told her, without conviction, “No need to be upset there, ma’am. You’re fine.”

The manager told her it would be Friday before they could return her car, and he wasn’t sure he had a loaner available. He was fretting about calling a rental company for her when she finally told him not to worry about it. She wouldn’t be driving anymore, she said flatly. She didn’t need a loaner or a rental. After they were finished with her car on Friday, it would only sit in her garage until her husband had it taken away.

The manager cocked his head, waiting for her to explain. But the one sentence had taken too much from her, and she stood, mute, tears and snot running over her lip and into her mouth, until the receptionist pushed the manager aside, reached across the counter for Mara’s hand and said, “Here, honey, let me call you a cab.”

She stood at the front door of the repair shop, leaning against the glass. The taxi pulled up and she held up her hand. The driver waved back from the front seat, waiting for her to walk out. But after she pushed open the door and took a few steps, suddenly the cabbie was leaping out of the car and running to her side, a panicked look on his face.

He thrust an arm toward her and she glared at his unnecessary show of drama. The tow truck driver and car mechanic had recoiled, too, after seeing her take a few steps. What was with these men? She had growled at the tow truck operator and the mechanic and she hissed at the cabbie now, telling him he should get back in his cab and wait, the same way he did for everyone else.

Because she didn’t need his help. And she didn’t need his pity. And she could walk. Perfectly well. By herself. As he could damn well see.

He lowered his arm but the look on his face showed he didn’t completely agree, and he stayed by her side all the way to the cab. As he walked, he whistled aimlessly and made a show of glancing around casually. He opened the door for her, telling her quickly he did that for everyone. Then he took a step back and waved her inside with the pretense that he was happy to stand there, holding the door while she got in. But when she lost her balance and began catapulting headfirst into the cab, he uttered a quick apology and reached both arms out to her.

Once seated, Mara started to glare at him again, but stopped herself. He might have overstepped, but he had also prevented her from cracking her forehead on the cab door. She smiled at him apologetically and instructed herself not to sneer when she saw the mixture of pity and self-satisfaction she knew would be on his face. The self-congratulating expression that said, “Well, aren’t I the man, helping the poor rag doll of a woman who couldn’t even get herself into a car. If it weren’t for me, she’d have knocked herself unconscious.”

But that’s not what she saw when she raised her eyes to his. There was no pity in his expression, no self-satisfaction. Instead, the gaze that met hers spoke the best thing she could have hoped to hear:
I’ve got my own problems, lady. I’m not about to spend any time wondering about yours.

She asked for his card.

And now, here he was standing in her doorway, the same look of impassiveness on his large, weathered face. And here she was, eyeing him as though he had pointed at her and laughed. She instructed the color to recede from her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was nice of you to think of me. I was getting ready to walk out. But I dropped my wallet in the kitchen and I can’t reach it. Would you mind?”

Surprise at the help she had asked this stranger for, no matter how
unassuming he was, caused her cheeks to catch fire again, and she was thinking of how to retract her request when he answered.

“Happy ta.”

She regretted having asked him but what could she do now, tell him she hadn’t really dropped anything? Didn’t really need his help? She couldn’t pay him if she didn’t have her wallet. And she needed to get to the pharmacy.

“Thank you.”

She led him to the kitchen and pointed to her wallet, which he retrieved in a second and held out to her. She grasped it and promptly dropped it. She shook her head, disgusted. The kitchen floor was like a magnet, sucking things out of her hand.

But the cabbie’s expression gave nothing away as he bent to pick it up. “Here,” he said. “Why don’t I just . . .” Slowly, one eye trained on her face as though he thought she might snap forward and bite him, he opened the purse that hung over her arm and dropped the wallet inside.

“Thank you.”

“Pleasure,” he said. “Should I go outside again, wait for ya by the car?”

“I think we’re past that now, um . . . ?”

“Harry.”

“I think we’re past that, Harry.”

As they made their way to the front door, he edged an arm toward her and viewed her with a wary squint. She heard him exhale as she placed her hand on the soft flannel of his sleeve. She smiled. He was clearly a southern gentleman, preferring a woman walk on his arm. And he had been so gallant about the wallet, it seemed only right to reward him with a hand on his elbow.