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So I did.
I could hear my friend Mallory’s voice in my head. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, Maddie, do not pick people up from shady places, especially after five. Why would someone at an industrial park need an Uber? This man is trouble with a capital T.
But desperate times often called for risks with a megaphone, and truth be told, there weren’t many calls for Uber rides in Cockamamie, Tennessee, with a population of only twenty thousand. A fact that failed to impress the Middle Tennessee Teachers’ Credit Union the last time they called about my late car payment.
So here I was with a rank older man who looked nervous as hell sitting in the back seat of my Ford Focus, which I was still fourteen payments away from paying off.
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” he asked, looking out the back window for the fifth or sixth time.
“Making a fast getaway?” I half teased as I pressed harder on the gas pedal. The industrial park had a twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit, but hardly anyone was around this late, so I pushed it up to thirty-five. Still, it was hard to believe this old fart was making any kind of getaway that didn’t involve finding the nearest shower. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
“Ha,” he said weakly. He seemed to settle back in his seat, setting a brown paper lunch bag on his lap.
“You might want to toss out that sandwich,” I said, looking at him in my rearview mirror. It was none of my business, but I couldn’t see how he could carry that around if he actually knew how badly it smelled. My Aunt Deidre had lost her sense of smell a few years ago. Maybe his was gone too. “It smells like it went bad a couple of days ago.”
His gray eyes, which were partially obscured by his drooping eyelids, met mine in the mirror. Confusion registered on his face for a few seconds, and then he shot me a glare as he tightened his grip on the bag. “I ain’t payin’ you to tell me what to do. I’m payin’ you to drive. So how about you mind your own fuckin’ business?”
I gasped in shock and tried to tell myself that maybe he was lashing out because he was embarrassed. I mean, some people didn’t take well to humiliating suggestions, no matter how well intentioned. I pressed my lips together and pulled to a stop sign at Highway 75, the two-lane highway leading back into Cockamamie. Thank God I had power windows. I used the buttons to crack all four windows in the car before pulling out.
As I took a left turn, I noticed he was looking out the back window again. Did he think someone might be following us? I’d been sort of joking when I’d asked if he was on the run, but what if he really was making a getaway?
A man who looks like he’s in his seventies? Carrying a smelly lunch bag?
No, this was what my mother used to call my wild imagination.
Still, when you put two and two together and came up with four, it didn’t hurt to pay attention.
He leaned forward and gripped the headrest on the front passenger seat. “We need to make an extra stop.”
“Okay,” I said, “but that’ll cost you extra.”
“That’s thievery,” he grumbled.
I squared my shoulders. “Hey, time is money, and extra mileage means more gas. I’m not doing this for funsies.”
“You need to get yourself a husband,” he said, gesturing to my ringless hand on the steering wheel. “A woman your age shouldn’t be driving strange men around in the dark for money. People are gonna think you’re a hooker.”
“A woman my age?” I asked in a huff, glaring at him in the mirror. If I weren’t so fired up over the insult, I might also have pointed out that he’d gestured to my right hand. “How old do you think I am?”
“Over thirty,” he said. “A spinster.”
What era had this guy teleported from? Was he a time-traveling agent on the run?
“No one has unironically used the word spinster for about a century now,” I said. There was no point arguing with him about the “over thirty” comment. My recent thirty-fourth birthday found me guilty as charged.
“You’re still unmarried,” he said, clutching his bag to his chest. “It ain’t right.”
This guy was starting to piss me off. “Some of us don’t have a say in the matter,” I snapped. “If I had my way, I’d already be married, but Steve had other ideas.”
Great. Not only was I thinking about my asshole ex-boyfriend, but I was sharing my shame with this cranky, smelly old fart.
This car ride just kept getting worse.
“Women are meant to be meek and mild,” he retorted.
“You got in the wrong car if that’s what you’re looking for,” I muttered, catching a glimpse of him in the mirror. He was glancing out the back window again. “Why do you keep looking behind us?”
“I told you—none of your fucking business,” he snarled as he turned back around. “Just drive.”
