Vignette 12
Tuesday March 30, 2010
The snow is gone, but a chill lingers in the evening. She wraps her coat a little tighter around her, hating that the leather is colder than the air for the moment.
It’s only seven in the evening, but she’s too drunk to drive. As soon as she was done work, she walked across the street to the pub and started drinking. It’s been one of those days. She drank alone, turning away the attentions of every man who approached her with a cold distance she’s been working on since she was thirteen. It’s a surivival trait, that. All men are evil. Men in bars are eviler than other men.
The bus is twelve minutes late, and she notices him leaning against the bus stop shelter. He’s tall, a few extra pounds around the middle, wrinkles forming in the corners of his narrow, tilted eyes and grey streaking through the black of his hair. He isn’t so much pretty as perfectly groomed.
A long silence stretches between them, the strange silence of two dogs meeting in the woods who aren’t yet sure of one another. He shifts, shuffling his perfectly polished shoes across the pavement. She adjusts her bag, makes herself interested in the nothing that’s in there. Gum wrappers are awesome. Her wallet, completely kick-ass.
“Rough night?” he asks. She doesn’t say anything, but she feels herself answering; she looks at her feet, and fiddles with her keys in her pocket. “Guess so. You alright?”
“I’m fine,” she says, hoping that the venom in her voice is convincing.
“Good for you,” he says. “I’m having a pretty piss-poor day, actually. Car got stolent.”
“Ouch,” she says.
“Yeah. Could have been worse.”
“I suppose…”
“I could have been in the car at the time,” he says with a smile. “That would have been an awkward conversation. ‘Hello Mr. Thief,’ ‘Oh, well hello Mr. Chau, how are you today?’ ‘I’m a little perplexed that you are thiefing my car…’ I figure he’d probably leave, then.”
She laughs despite herself. “Or he’d offer to buy you coffee or something to make up for the inconvenience.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I get the impression he wasn’t really all that concerned with inconveniencing me.”
The conversation died there. The bus was sixteen minutes late. She steps out, looking down the road for it, but it’s nowhere to be seen. It’s Wednesday; do the buses stop running early on Wednesdays?
“Need a ride?” he asks.
“I thought someone stole your car,” she says, looking at him incredulously.
“Nah,” he says, smiling a wry little smile. “I just made that up so you’d like me. I’m parked across the street.”
“Next time you decide to flirt with lies, you might want to choose something that won’t be disproven immediately.” Despite herself, she likes him. Men are evil. But this one seems so strange and sweet. She starts walking across the street. “Yeah, okay. But I get to keep my pepper spray out.”
“Rape tastes better with pepper spray,” he said, smiling.
“Rape jokes aren’t funny.”
“Sometimes they’re funny.”
“They’re not funny right now.”
“Yeah, they sort of are.” He smiled, opening the door for her. She steps in, hating that she likes him.
First thing I’ve written in a while, especially that I actually sort of like. I don’t know who these people are, but I hope they’re awesome. I stole the picture, but I can’t remember who I stole it from. Otherwise, there would be more credit going around.
