I wondered what made her choose that car yard, given there’s so many in the city, but my question is answered less than sixty seconds later when she goes and stands at the bus stop. Of course. She chose one that was close to public transport.
I chuckle to myself at the audacity of this young woman, and at her inventiveness. I wonder what she’ll do with her haul. Take it to the bank and put it in her checking account? I doubt it somehow. Nobody wants to explain a thirty-grand windfall to the IRS.
Laura
I am so excited I can’t stop myself from shaking. There’s more money than I’ve ever had in my life in my bag. I can’t believe this. What am I going to do with it? It’s not enough for a house, not in this market, but it’s more than enough to pay all my bills and my rent for ages, and… oh, I can’t even think about that right now. I suddenly feel like the eyes of the whole world are locked on me.
There’s another feeling too, a slow trickle of something like guilt. It feels like the car wasn’t really mine, though of course legally it was.
My phone is ringing. I feel a brief flash of heat, as if it might be him. The man who left me a car and probably… maybe… god, I don’t know if he knows if I sold it, but he might…
“Hello?”
“Hey, Laura.”
Dave. My ex. Usually I would hang up at this point, but I guess the distraction is distracting me, because I don’t.
“Hey,” I say.
“It’s been a while,” he says.
“Yeah. Because we broke up. What do you want?”
“I thought we could still be friends,” he says after a brief pause. “You’re, like, a really special girl. We had some good times together.”
We did not have good times together.
I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s the thirty grand in my bag. Maybe it’s that I’m being stalked by a guy who fucks me and leaves me cars as payment. Maybe I’ve just crossed some invisible threshold that was always there.
“What good times were those, Dave? When I paid for everything and you sat around playing video games all day?”
“Hey, I helped!” He takes immediate offense, of course.
“Helped yourself to my apartment,” I say.
There’s a pause. Usually he hangs up around about now, at the point when I remind him how he used me for months before cheating on me and moving out. Dave was never worth any of the tears I shed over him. He definitely wasn’t worth trying to fix the whole time I knew him. I’m half of the mind to tell him that I have a new boyfriend who just bought me a car, but that’s not entirely true, and I don’t think I can call a man who wakes me up to fuck me wearing a mask my boyfriend.
I have got to stop letting men do man things. The audacity.
“I was wondering if I could crash there,” Dave says, sheepish. “My lease ran out on my place, and I don’t have any money at the moment…”
“No, Dave,” I tell him. “You cannot stay at my place.”
I end the call.
He calls back.
I block him.
That feels satisfying as hell. It’s like everything is starting to align for me. I’ve told my ex to go to hell. I’ve got money. My shift starts in an hour…
Oh, fuck. My shift starts in an hour.
I am on entirely the wrong bus, though I think I can make it work. I just have to get off at the next stop and grab the 64, and then…
I make it to work just in time. I stuff my bag into my locker, pull my apron out, realize I’m wearing sweatpants and thank the absolute heavens I keep a spare blouse, skirt, and set of underwear in my locker for emergencies. By the time my shift starts, I’ve put on some lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara, and my hair is tied up in a shiny ponytail that gets me a whole lot of tips.
The shift goes quick, and ends after the dinner rush, so I can get home a little earlier and stash the cash somewhere. I’m thinking about putting it in cereal boxes in the kitchen. I saw that on a TV show once. It looks like a decent idea.
