Page 6 of But For You

“I don’t worry.”

She snorted out a laugh over the phone.

“That was very undignified,” I said as I leaned back in the driver’s seat of the sleek black minivan I utterly adored.

Everyone else I knew had SUVs that were, I was certain, helping to destroy the environment. My minivan was not part of Satan’s master plan, and I loved my car that proclaimed me as married with children as well as safety conscious. I was looking forward to Kola starting soccer in the spring so the picture of domestic bliss would be complete. I had a sweater all picked out.

“You bring it out of me.” Aja cackled.

“Whatever. I’ll call you when I get back from the reunion on Monday.”

She started snickering.

“What?”

“Family reunion.” She was laughing now. “Oh, the horror!”

“It’ll be fine,” I told her as I noticed a man striding by my window. It was weird that he was walking down the middle of the street and not on the sidewalk, but since we were in gridlock, he was in no danger of getting run over. “Hey, your kids like Mountain Dew and Oreos, right?”

“They’re staying with you for two days. Feed them whatever you want.”

I was laughing when I hung up, but when the SUV in front of me suddenly reversed, crashing into my front bumper, I yelled and laid on my horn. But the car didn’t stop; it kept grinding metal, and I realized that he or she was trying to get enough of an angle to go up onto the curb to the right.

I took a picture of the license plate with my phone, thanked God that my kids weren’t with me, and was about to call the police to report the accident when I saw the passenger door of the SUV open. What was confusing was that the small woman who scrambled out had keys in her hand. It was like she had been driving, but hadn’t wanted to get out of the driver’s door. When she flung open the back door, a little rocket seat was visible—she had a toddler.

I got out fast and went around the back of my van—even as the guy in the car behind me honked, leaned out, and told me to get back behind the fucking wheel—and darted to her side.

She whirled on me with a can of pepper spray in hand.

“Wait! I’m here to help.”

Her eyes were huge as she looked at me, shoved the can into my chest, and told me to look out for the guy so she could get her son out of the car. She had been too frightened to even open her door.

“What guy?”

“I don’t know. Some psycho. I think he killed the man in the car in front of me,” she cried. “I think he has a gun or—oh God!”

Turning, I saw a man advancing on us.

“Move your fucking cars!”

“Get inside!” I ordered her. “Lock it!”

She climbed into the back seat around her kid, and I heard the locks behind me as the man came at me fast.

He had a lug wrench, not a gun, and since I could run if I needed to, I went from terrified to annoyed very quickly. “What the hell are you doing?” I barked at him. “You’re scaring the crap out of this lady!”

“Move your cars! This whole street is just full of fucking cars!”

He wasn’t even looking at me; I doubted he could tell me where he was or what he was doing. Maybe the road rage had made him snap or perhaps something else. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. He was carrying around an automotive tool like a weapon. That was really my only concern. The lady in the SUV was freaked because her kid was in the car and this guy was acting crazy. If my kids were with me, I would have had the same reaction.

“Stop,” I ordered him. “Don’t come any closer.”

He kept coming, and he raised the wrench like maybe he was thinking of braining me with it. I aimed the nozzle of the pepper spray and made sure to get his face.

His scream was loud and wounded, but he didn’t drop the tool.

“What the fuck are you doing?” It was the guy who had yelled at me earlier, whose car was in gridlock behind mine. “You just attacked this guy,” he roared right before he hit me.