~ ~ ~
After popping my trunk and discovering that surprise, surprise I do not have a pair of jumper cables. Ray grabs a pair from his truck, mosies on back to my car, but not before asking the guy parked next to me if we could use his truck to jump my car. The man obliges and for that I’m eternally grateful.
I rev my engine when instructed to and when it turns over I think about clapping for joy. Maybe even doing a little happy dance. Relief runs through me like the fast current of the Ohio River. Ray closes my hood and I open my door. “Thank you, thank you so much. I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate this.” That’s not a lie. It’s so hard to meet good and decent people anymore. I make a mental note to take down the guy who donated his truck engine’s information or something so I can send a thank you or some kind of small gift basket.
Ray stops at the side of my door grinning. I reach into the interior pocket of my purse and pull out some money. I hand it to him and he raises both hands. “No, I’m not taking your money.”
I shove it at him. “Please just take it. You didn’t have to help me and you did.”
His eyes light up. “It’s no big deal really. I never mind helping a pretty girl.” I fight the smile pulling on my lips as he goes on, “Besides, I have a great idea on how you can repay me.”
Both on my eyebrows shoot up and my eyes widen. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
He winks. “How about that cup of hot chocolate?”
I take a deep breath, laugh, and shake my head. “You don’t give up do you? You’re pretty persistent, aren’t you Ray?”
“I’d say so.”
“What if traffic starts moving?”
“I think we’re good for another ten or twenty minutes.”
I slouch in my seat. “Alright then.” I tap my fingers against the steering wheel, my eyes locked with his. “A cup of hot chocolate sounds nice.”
Chapter Seven
Ray arrives at my car door with a green metallic thermos. The moonlight pirouettes off the shiny steel lid and it glistens in spots. Quickly, I toss the junk in my passenger seat into the added collection of junk I have in the back seat and open the door.
Ella is used to this. When we go places, if I’m not running late, which I usually am, I’m hustling to my car first so I can remove the junk from my back seat before Ella gets to the door. This is a customary ritual of mine. I’ll say, “Wait…Wait! Let me clear off the passenger seat.”
I throw the last few papers onto the back seat as Ray starts to sit down. He glances curiously into the back seat then looks at me half-smiling. “Quite a collection you have back there,” he comments. “Just a few more items and you could be your own junkyard.”
I aim my pointer finger at him. “Hey, now…” I know I’m not the most organized person. I don’t pretend I am. My mother and grandmother are always spouting off random rants at me about it my mom will say, “Oh my God, Sadie!” and my grandmother will say, “My mother always told me that a person who doesn’t make their bed everyday has no pride.” I let them talk and brush their comments off my shoulder. I know they love me. I know they are just trying to help. But my priorities will never be the same as theirs. They have this 1950’s picture of how life is supposed to be.
Still…
Even though it’s the year 2013.
Don’t get me wrong there are things about that era that I wish were still common nowadays. Like having dinner on the table every night. Families eating together. No one does that anymore. It’s sad to me that important family values seemed to have gone out the window. People are more focused on convenience. As a kid, my mom worked like most women do, but she’s still old-school when it comes to the dinner on the table every night thing. It didn’t matter whether she was home or working, she still had dinner on that table every day. Then my Dad would come home and we’d eat as a family. Every day. That’s something that has stuck with me through my 28 years of living and that’s something I hope to instill in my ow
n children one day.
Nonetheless, I’ve been making mental notes to hire a maid for a while, perhaps now is as good a time as any. “If my car isn’t suitable enough for you, you can always stroll on back to your truck and drink your hot chocolate alone.”
“Easy, Duchess,” he laughs. “Easy.” He puts the thermos between his legs with his right hand while palming a white, Styrofoam cup in his left. “Seriously though, what’s your story?”
“My story?” There’s a questioning tone to my voice.
“Yeah,” he says, peaking up at me while he pours hot chocolate into the cup. “Why are you so uptight? And bitter?”
I glare at him incredulously. “I’m not,” I bark out.
He reaches into his jacket pocket and fumbles around for a second. “The snappiness would indicate that you are.” He pulls a small bottle of Peppermint Schnapps and puts a splash in my cup.
I go to slap the bottle away. “You can’t put that in there!”
He extends his arm back and smirks. “I just did.”