“D’you remember where the car is?” I ask, peering into the dim cavern ahead of us.
She responds by pressing the fob and the car unlocks with a thump, indicators flashing twice in case I was still having trouble locating the vehicle.
I head for the driver’s side, only correcting when she frowns across at me. “Are you sure you’re okay to navigate?” she asks with a tiny snort. “That must’ve been excellent champagne.”
“Either that or I’m drunk on the sight of your tiny titties,” I murmur, earning a scowl. “What? Aren’t I allowed to mention they’re the perfect size for my hand.” I get into the passenger seat and lean across as she gets into the driver’s side. “Allow me to demonstrate.”
Instead, I get a palm in my face for the trouble. “Do up your seat belt. I’ve already got demerit points on my licence. I’m not getting blasted because you’re too drunk to remember basic safety tips.”
I bury my entire face in her lap, laughing as she tries to move my head with her miniature hands. “Let me snap your garter, at least.”
“Do I…?” She frowns as I raise my head, hands on the wheel but taking no action to start the car. “How am I meant to return all this?” She waves at the clothing. “Do I get it dry cleaned or—?”
“Keep everything. It’s not my size.” I sit upright, leaning away from her so my shoulder rests against the side window. “If anyone asks tonight, you go to school with me and you were happy to fill in when Kari was unexpectedly taken ill.”
“Okay.”
She finally starts the car and steers out of the parking building. With each descending level, her comfort increases until by the time we exit at street level, she relaxes back in the seat. “Which direction from here?”
“Head out towards Amberly. When we’re closer, I’ll show you the turnoff.”
“Sure.” She navigates through the city streets, the ebb and flow of traffic fading into a steady stream as we get onto the motorway.
When we approach Woodend, a sign calculates our speed, spitting out the results in flashing red.
“What are you? A racing car driver.”
“I wish.” She makes a concerted effort to slow and by the time we pass underneath the sign, it’s calmed down to green. “Why? How fast can this baby go?”
“Take the next turnoff and you can find out.”
She glances over to me for an explanation, and I smile as the light catches her eyes. For a desperate last-minute date, she scrubbed up pretty well. I won’t be embarrassed parading her through the doorway.
Kari will hate her on sight. I check my phone battery, making sure there’s enough juice left to record a plethora of photographs.
I point out the side road leading to my dad’s place, and she smoothly makes the turn.
“It’s not a private road but nobody else uses it much, so it may as well be. Dad owns all the land around here.”
“Is he a farmer?” she asks in such a sweet, polite voice that I’m halfway through framing a serious answer before I catch the humour lurking behind the words.
“You’re a comedian, too?”
“Racing driver first,” she says with a smile, then steadily increases the speed until we’re flying along the dark streets.
Out here, there’s so little traffic that streetlamps are only planted in the intersections. The sole light illuminating the stretch of road in front of us is from the headlights, the beams picking out a hundred metres clear before it turns into a black unknown.
“There’s a curve coming up to your left,” I warn her, grabbing the handle above the passenger door as the speedometer needle continues to climb. “After that, it’s pretty much straight roads until we hit the mansion.”
“You live in a mansion?”
I laugh, some of it releasing my nerves for the forthcoming evening, most of it at the gap between my father and me. “I live in a boarding room not much bigger than this car.”
“You’re a boarder?”
I glance over, wondering at the sudden interest but her eyes are glued to the road, her lips wearing a relaxed smile of such contentment that I feel a stab of envy. “Yeah. Otherwise, I’d spent half my week commuting.”
She nods as though that makes sense, even though it’s only taken us forty minutes to get where we are and another ten will see us to the door.
