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Ian
We spent the next two hours in silence. When I needed her to take an exit or make a turn, I pointed. But now that we were only a few miles from my house, we were at the point where I needed to give verbal directions.
“Am I allowed to open my mouth?” I said. “Just to give you directions?”
She slowed down to thirty miles an hour as we turned right into a residential neighborhood. “Fine.”
“Next left.”
She followed my directions, turning left and right and left and right down the long series of twisting roads that led to my driveway.
“This is me,” I said.
“Your street?” she said, looking around for a sign.
“My driveway.”
She looked a little surprised. And why wouldn’t she be? Most people’s driveways weren’t a mile long. I wondered if she was starting to see dollar signs yet. If so, she was going to be disappointed when we got to the end of my driveway and she saw my simple, thousand-square-foot house.
We continued in silence until we reached my waterfront cottage. She had a perplexed expression on her face as she pulled into the parking space. “Can I make an observation?” she asked.
Our journey was mercifully nearing its end, so I didn’t see any harm in allowing her a few last utterances before we said goodbye forever. “Sure.”
“The dimensions of your driveway are deceptively disproportionate to the size of your house. I was expecting a mansion.”
She turned to me for a response, but I said nothing. I was a little taken aback by the literacy of the sentence.The dimensions are deceptively disproportionate...In addition to being the best-looking and most mathematically proficient hooker in history, she had an excellent vocabulary. But when I complimented her on her math earlier, she’d nearly bitten my head off. She’d probably kill me on the spot if I congratulated her on her wordsmithing.
I decided to keep my response simple. “The previous owner liked his privacy.”
She looked toward the water. “Looks like he certainly got what he wanted.”
Without another word, she stepped out of the car, and I followed suit.
“So,” she said over the hood of her car, “can I get my three hundred bucks now?”
Ah, back to hooker-speak.
“Yeah,” I said, “let me run inside, I’ll be back in a sec.”
When we reached the porch, she paused. “I like the way the façade faces the water,” she said. “Nice sunrises, I suppose.”
“I guess,” I said as I typed the security code into the keypad.
Beeeeepwent the “wrong code” alarm. I typed in the six-digit code again. And once again got the alarm. “Shit,” I mumbled.
“What’s wrong?” Clara said.
“I changed the security code last week,” I said. “I’m sure I’m typing it in right but it’s not letting me in.”
“Didn’t you write it down anywhere?”
“It’s in my phone.”
“Which is—”
“Still sitting in my car on 63rdStreet.” I typed the code in one more time, only to hear one more beep. “Goddammit.”
“Is there any other way to get in?” she said.
