Sometime Soon (4 page)

I’m inching my way into the right
turn. I hate this corner. There’s only a flashing red light and two lanes of
traffic trying to turn onto a major roadway, one lane trying to turn left and
the other lane trying to turn right. There always seems to be an SUV taking the
left turn as I’m attempting to take the right. I can’t see a thing. I have to
inch forward as the SUV does, trying to see if there’s oncoming traffic,
attempting to take my right turn.

After my frappuccino break with
Bryn, my afternoon was not very productive. Karthik never responded to my
email, and every time I ventured up to his cubicle on the
fifth floor he wasn’t there. There was plenty of
evidence of his recent departure, an M.I.T. sweatshirt thrown over his chair, a
half eaten sandwich discarded on his desk, but no Karthik.

I’ve also decided to call Jason Randall tonight. I’m nervous about it, but
I have nothing to lose. Nothing but time and hope, that is. Athough hope may
have already departed. I also have to call my sister back. If I leave that for
too much longer she’ll be angry at me for not getting back to her in a timely
manner.

The hulking SUV continues to block my view of the road, and I ease off the
brake--slowly inching forward again--craning my neck to see, getting
dangerously close to being in the middle of the oncoming traffic lane.
Suddenly, my car is jolted forward.

I slam on the brake to keep from being pushed into the road while my eyes
shoot up to the rearview mirror. I see a guy in the car behind me shaking his
head and running a hand over his face and up through his hair.

Another accident, damn.

The SUV zooms into its left turn, and I can now see that the roadway is
clear. I turn right and pull over to the side, checking the mirror to make sure
the other car has followed me.

“Are you okay?” I hear as I step out and walk around to the back for a
damage inspection. He’s driving a black VW Passat. The license plate on his front
bumper has left a variety of small dents and nasty scratches on my silver back
bumper. His car seems to have no damage.

A pair of scuffed sneakers appear on the curb across from me. I look up at
him. He’s surveying the damage, too, or lack thereof in his case. He appears to
be somewhere in his early thirties, with wavy dark hair disheveled from running
his hands through it, which he’s now doing again. “I’m really sorry,” he says
staring at my bumper. “I thought you were turning.”

I’m impressed with his initial concern and now with his admitted guilt. You
never know how people are going to react during this first encounter after a
car accident, but admitting fault and apologizing are rare.

“I’m fine,” I finally say. “Are you okay?”

He looks at me and nods. I notice that his eyes are bloodshot and his
clothes, a red tennis shirt and faded jeans, are hopelessly wrinkled. “Get an
estimate and I’ll pay for it,” he says. “You’re okay though?” He checks again.

“I’m fine. We should exchange insurance information. I’ll get a pen.” I go
back to my car and fish around in my bag, finally coming up with a pen and a
wrinkled yellow sticky note that reminds me to buy cat food. He’s bent over the
passenger seat of his car, appearing to be looking for something. I write down
his license plate number and the make and model of his car. From my vast
accident experience, I now know that all I need is his license plate number for
my insurance company to find him and his insurance company.

I watch as he locates what he’s looking for, a small notebook and a pen.
He’s writing in the notebook as he comes toward me again, balancing it on his
hand. He rips the notepage off and hands the paper with frayed edges to me.
“You can do whatever you like, but I’m hoping you’ll let me pay you directly
for the damage. I’ll pay for a rental car, too, if you need one while your car
is being repaired.”

I glance at the paper in my hand. He’s written down a name, Ryan
Miller--his name, I assume--and a telephone number. I look up at him. “You do
have insurance, don’t you?”

He runs his fingers through his hair again. Dark cowlicks wave in all
directions.“I have insurance, but this is obviously my fault, and I’d prefer
not to have my rates raised.”

I study him closer. His hair and clothes are a mess, and he is a bad
driver--or at least a distracted one--but beneath it all, I realize he’s a very
good-looking guy. He has high cheekbones, a straight aquiline nose, and a
shadow of a beard. His tired eyes are an odd golden shade of brown beneath dark
slashes of brow. He appears exhausted and annoyed with himself, but earnest
enough. “We can try it your way,” I offer, knowing it’s easy to contact his
insurance company if he’s being less than honest.

“Good. Thanks,” he says, looking relieved.

“Are your insurance rates high from being in a lot of accidents?” I
inquire.

He laughs and shakes his head. “Not yet. Although the way things are going,
that’s a real possibility.”

I eye him inquisitively.

“I’m pretty sleep-deprived these days,” he explains. “Some friends and I
have been trying to get a business off the ground and, well, it’s a lot of long
hours.” He shrugs as his voice trails off.

“Maybe you should stay off the roads until you can get a good night’s
sleep?” I suggest. “You might find yourself in more than a fender bender next
time.”
“Other drivers sharing the road with me would certainly be better off.” He
grins. “Well, I’d better let you be on your way. I’ll stay a few hundred yards
back this time. In fact, I’ll give you a five-minute head start.”

“I’d appreciate that,” I say, feeling a smile forming.

“I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll wait to hear from you.” He starts to turn away
and stops. “Wait, what’s your name?”

I hesitate, remembering Bryn’s serial killer comment from earlier. Then I
figure offering my first name probably isn’t too risky. “Andrea.”

“I’ll look forward to hearing from you, Andrea.”

“He said ‘
I’ll look forward to
hearing from you’
?” my sister Laura asks me later on the telephone.

“Strange thing to say when I’m
going to be calling to get money for the accident he caused.”

“Maybe he likes you,” she offers.

“Maybe he had no idea what he was
saying. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. I was tempted to offer him a
ride so he wouldn’t get back behind the wheel.”

“I can’t believe you were in another
accident. You’ve got some bad car karma going on.”

I’m sitting on the floor in my
living room--the telephone tucked between my neck and shoulder--surrounded by
papers, attempting to organize my software feature data for work. Perhaps if I
were more organized, I would be less confused by the conflicting information
with which I had to work. This endeavor is made even more challenging by Tiger,
who is leaping onto the scattered papers, enjoying the crunching sounds he’s
producing. I grab him off the papers and pull him onto my lap. His green eyes
peer up at me in adoration as his purring reflex kicks in. But then he
remembers the papers and squirms out of my lap. Crunch, crunch, crunch….

“What is that noise?” Laura asks.

“Tiger is helping me finish some
work.” I try to gather up the now wrinkled papers.

“Has Tiger decided to try his paw
at marketing?”

“I wish. It really is time for him
to go out and get a job. Something that doesn’t require opposable thumbs.”

Laura laughs. “So tell me--what happened
with Derek?”

I groan into the phone.
“Was it that bad?”

“It was beyond bad.” Then I proceed
to describe our afternoon together.

“Ooo that’s disgusting!” she
squeals. “And he made a move on you in the middle of all that. How could he be
so clueless?”

Thinking about that smell and those
bugs again makes me just want to change the subject. I interrupt her
commiseration with a question. “When is the tasting?” News of my car accident
had sidetracked our conversation.

“It’s this Saturday. Can you make
it?” She wants me to join her and my mother at the bakery they have chosen to
make the wedding cake. They are to sample different flavor combinations.
Normally, I’d be all over free cake. But since the wedding planning began,
being with my sister and mother is as close as I’ll ever come to being in a war
zone, I hope. Of course, Jonathan, my soon-to-be brother-in-law, can’t make it.
He’s working again, trying to make partner at his law firm. They met in law
school. Laura is a lawyer, as well, but she works in real estate law where she
is actually able to get weekends off. Trying to build law careers and plan a
wedding at the same time are not making for a blissful nuptial planning period.

“Are you going to make every
attempt to avoid antagonizing her?” I ask.

“I don’t do anything. She’s the one
who makes me crazy--quilting me into going with her to make all these
decisions. She asks me what I want, and when I tell her she disagrees and just
does what she wants anyway. There’s no point in my even being there, especially
when she makes me take time off during the week to go through this ridiculous
charade.”

“Well, thanks for the full
disclosure,” I say. “You couldn’t pay me to go with you on Saturday.”
“Come on, Andy. I need you there as a buffer. Please?”

“Fine,” I agree, rolling my eyes
even though she can’t see me. Eating cake for an hour in the afternoon does add
some incentive to my acceptance.

“Thank you. Maybe it will even be
fun with you there.”

“Yeah, sure. What time is fun?” I
ask.

“Not anytime soon.” Laura laughs.

Laura is my junior by four years.
She’s an attorney and she’s engaged, but I still think of her as my little
sister. What she has never learned is that it’s simply easier to agree with
everything Mom says when you’re in her presence. Tell her what she wants to
hear, and then go ahead and do whatever you like. There is no point in arguing
with her. She has superhuman stamina for arguments. She thinks I am a most
agreeable daughter. But what she doesn’t know can’t hurt me.

I sign off after making
arrangements to meet them at the bakery on Saturday. The next telephone call is
to Mr. Frameless Glasses. I look at his neat block writing on the business card
and dial. After four rings, his voicemail answers. “You’ve reached Jason,” his
smooth, deep voice begins, “Leave a message.”  Beeeeep.

I take a breath and try to speak in
a calm and casual voice. “Hi, Jason. This is Andrea. We met at Café Blue the
other night. You had the waiter give me your card.” And this is when Tiger
decides to come barreling at me and the stack of papers I’ve collected on my
lap. He flies at the stack, hitting it head-on and sending papers flying. He
lands on my lap while continuing to bat at the airborne sheets. “Dammit Tiger,”
I mutter, as the phone falls from my shoulder where I’ve been balancing it. I
grab it up quickly. “Umm,” I continue into the telephone, trying to remember
what I was saying. “I was sorry we didn’t have more time to chat, too. You can
reach me back at…” I leave the number to my cell phone and hang up, wondering
if his voicemail caught the brief commotion. I had planned to say something
clever about his disappearing act, but Tiger threw me off, and I figured brief
was better.

“Well, Tiger,” I say looking down
at him. He has rolled onto his back, offering his tummy up for a rub. “I’d say
you got the drop on those papers, my friend. They never saw you coming.”

The nice gentleman at the Honda
collision office knows me by name. This is certainly not a good thing. “Back
again, Ms. Whitman,” he says, stepping out of the garage into the bright
morning sun. I can’t recall his name, but he is an older man dressed in the
same beige polyester pants and Red Sox T-shirt he’s worn the last two times
I’ve seen him.

“It’s not too bad,” I say leading
him around to the back of the car.

He puts his hands on his hips as he
bends down to peer at the bumper. “Someone hit you again, huh?” He shakes his
head at me. “You’re one unlucky lady.”

“Actually, you could say I’m lucky.
Three accidents within a year, and I’m still unscathed.” I realize that this is
probably not smart to say out loud. It’s kind of like throwing down the
gauntlet to the driving universe.

“Can’t say the same for your car.
Have you got the insurance estimate?”

“Actually, the other driver offered
to pay for the damages. I just need an official estimate from you.”

“Okay, give me a second.”

I head to work with an estimated
repair cost of three-hundred and ninety-eight dollars and an extra thirty
dollars a day for the two days in which I will need a rental car while my
bumper is being smoothed out and painted. I would consider keeping the money
and not fixing the car, but I really like my car. I want it to look like new,
despite the traumas it has suffered under my care.

“Running late this morning,” Joan
says.

I buzz by her. I’m on a mission
today. I’m going to find Karthik once and for all. I dump my bags on my desk
and take the stairs up two flights. When I get there, I can’t believe it.
Karthik is sitting in his chair, hunched over his keyboard and monitor.

“Hi there.” I decide to take the
friendly approach rather than attacking him with accusations for ignoring my
emails.

He swivels around in his chair to
face me. He is wearing his M.I.T. sweatshirt and he appears as freezing cold as
I usually am. Karthik’s cubicle is the same cramped, mustard-colored box we all
are issued, but his looks as though he hasn’t cleaned or organized it ever. He
has a handful of computer towers scattered around, some in use, others retired
to paperweight status. Empty soda cans balance upon paper piles of differing
heights. Each surface looks as though one more paper, or one more soda can, or
even one more breath released too strongly would cause an avalanche, burying
Karthik under his own disorganization.