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I thanked her and said good-bye, spinning the key chain around my index finger as I made my way to the door.
The Rolls was parked boldly right in front of Tracey’s on Magazine. A few stray smokers, all men, heard me beep it open with my key chain. A long, slow whistle accompanied me as I strutted around to the driver’s side to slink in, just in time to avoid the rain. I’d never be sure if that whistle was for me or the car, but it didn’t matter.
Inside, the buttery leather seats and that dense smell of new-car luxury gave me a momentary high. I felt around for the windshield wiper controls and cued up the GPS system. A smooth female voice instructed me to Please drive to the highlighted route. I buckled up, threw the Rolls into gear and started off, my bracelet and three charms jangling with my every rotation of the upholstered wheel.
The GPS voice was relaxing, sexy. The directions took me out of the downtown core, out of the city, past the park and down towards the 90. With every rainy mile, I was putting work concerns behind me. I’d figure out some way to get at the Pierre story some other time. Tonight was for me. I wanted to say, See, Julius? I’m not all work, no pleasure. You can have both. You can.
I let my mind wander. Maybe I was heading to some out-of-the-way bed-and-breakfast. Or some secluded mansion near Slidell where a handsome stranger was already pouring drinks. All I knew was that the day’s events, the nomination especially, had made me, well, horny, and this was a fantasy I was going to let myself enjoy. After all, wasn’t this one all about Generosity?
The highway morphed into Pontchartrain Drive somewhere over the Bayou Sauvage. If not for the driving rain, I would have enjoyed my slow build of arousal. But the weather was so bad that on a particularly steep bend I had to cut my speed in half, my visuals now down to a few yards in front of me. I started to get that “mom panic,” that sense that I shouldn’t be putting myself in jeopardy because there was more at stake than my life—no matter how much I wanted to accept this Step. I imagined the reports: … and no one knows why local news anchor, Solange Faraday, was driving a rented Rolls-Royce on the outskirts of the city on this cold, wet night …
I was on the cusp of turning around when my tires hit a bump on the road, instantly sinking the car on the front right side. I clenched the wheel and eased off the accelerator so I could steer down a gravel side road. I came to a tricky stop on the shoulder. The rain was torrential by now, but I left the headlights on and threw my trench coat over my head to check the damage. Sure enough, the front right tire was flat.
Shit, shit, sonofabitch. There goes my Step Four, I thought, collapsing back into the front seat and fishing out my phone. I punched auto-dial on my AAA number.
Nothing.
“You have got to be kidding!” I muttered. No cell service. I was in a dead zone.
Seconds later, things went from bad to scary when a set of headlights approached me from behind, inching closer and closer, until I could make out the front of an old, white pickup truck.
Outside my windshield it was pitch black. Behind me, the only light came from the reflection of the truck’s headlights on the wet road. I heard the engine shutting off. I watched the driver’s silhouette exit the truck and slam the door. It was a man. He ran in the rain towards my car. Shit.
I hit the button to lock my doors.
Tap tap tap.
“You okay in there?” the driver yelled through the streaming wet glass.
I couldn’t make out his face, but his forearms and wrists were covered in vivid, black tattoos. The sight of them against his pale skin sent a chill up my spine.
“I’m okay!” I yelled. “Just a flat. Someone’s on the way! Thank you! Bye!”
He hesitated, his torso—the only part of him I could see—turning left, right, taking in the blackness that now surrounded both of us. His head was over the top of the car. His white T-shirt was soaked through, clinging to his muscles, more tattoos apparent through the increasingly translucent material.
“Okay then, just checking!” he yelled through the window. “I just don’t want to leave you out here alone. I’ll go wait in my truck ’til someone gets here! No worries!”
Oh god. Will he follow me when I peel away? How far is Mandeville?
Through the rearview mirror, I watched him trot back to his truck, so wet his jeans hung low on his narrow waist. I started up my engine and blasted the heat, and was getting ready to drag the Rolls in its current state to the nearest anything, when I saw him struggle with his door. After a few seconds, I could see him run around to the other side, making the same full-body effort with the passenger door.
This isn’t happening. Why is this happening?
He seemed to stop and think, for maybe three seconds, before running back to my car, defeated, his arms wrapped around him.
Drive away, drive away, Solange. This is how people get killed. They’re stupid. They don’t react fast enough.
Tap, tap, tap.
“I’m so sorry to bother you again!” he yelled. “I locked myself out of my truck!”
“Sorry to hear that!” I yelled, moving the gearstick into drive.
“Wait! Stop! Don’t be scared! I’m harmless—a lover not a fighter! In fact … shit, okay! If you accept the Step, I might not catch pneumonia!”
Relief flooded my body and I fell back into my seat, the engine still running.
“I’m supposed to ask you later,” he yelled, “but I think I’m freaking you out. I’m not a threat, I swear! So can I—?”
