“It was never really about him. And you know it.”
“If he wanted me back, he would’ve tried by now, no?”
“Why should he? Because he’s a man? How positively old-fashioned of you,” she says. “You broke it. You fix it.”
“Oh God,” I say, feeling slightly nauseous. “I did break it. And if I don’t fix it, I’ll never be happy again, will I?”
“Nope, you won’t.”
I rise to my feet, feeling slightly wobbly.
She taps me in the middle of my abdomen. “This is your gut. Right here. Listen to it. What is it telling you to do right now?”
“To go,” I say without thinking.
“Finally. That’s the first thing you’ve gotten right since you came back from Vienna.”
“Okay,” I say, excitement and terror building in my chest. “I’ll go!”
“You already said that.”
I grin at her, feeling suddenly very much alive. “I’m going to rush to him and see if he’s willing to give things another try.”
“Yes, I know you are,” she says, sounding completely irritated. “You don’t have to keep saying it.”
I start to hurry out of her dressing room, but then stop and turn back. “But what am I to say?”
“I don’t have the first fucking clue,” she says. “But you’ll have exactly twelve minutes in the car to think of something.”
35
Peggy the Five-Star Uber Driver
Will
“Are you Will?”the middle-aged woman in a two-door lime-green Prius asks me, pulling up to the sidewalk in front of the airport.
“I am. You’re Peggy?” I ask, rushing around to the passenger side.
I open the door and am about to get in the front seat when she says, “Please get in the back. It’s safer for both of us.”
I pause for a moment, then flip the seat forward and do my best to fold myself into the cramped backseat. Once I’m in, I pull the seat in front of me back and start to settle myself in, only to have her say, “Are you able to reach the door handle from back there?”
Seriously? “Of course,” I say, pressing myself up against the back of the front seat and straining as far as I can with my left hand. I grope around for a minute before I finally manage to get a hold of it and pull it shut.
“Nice to have someone with long arms for a change,” she says. “You’ve no idea how exhausting it is to keep getting out of the car to shut the door. Now, before we embark on our journey together, I’d like to find out a little bit about your taste in music and preferred temperature settings.”
Oh, bloody hell. “Any music is absolutely fine with me, and I don’t really care about temperature. What Idocare about is leaving right now.”
“Yes, I did notice that your request for a pickup did list this as urgent, but there’s always time for comfort, don’t you think?”
“Not always,” I say. “Sometimes you just have to rush. This, unfortunately is one of those times.”
“No water for you, then?”
“No,” I say, sounding impatient. I follow it up with, “Thank you, though.”
“All right then, I’m just going to check my mirrors again and make sure you’ve got your seatbelt on,” she says, turning back to me. “Very good. Now we can go.”
