"AAAAAHHH!"
She screamed out loud at the freezing cold and the snow. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. Just perfect.
"This just fucking perfect," Renee said, hissing in anger and stymied rage.
Her car wouldn't start. It wasn't the battery, either; she knew enough to check that. The battery wasn't dead and jumping wouldn't help. She had no idea about anything else that might be wrong. There was no warranty on the car; she'd gotten it through a repossession from the bank.
She'd been late to work, filling in at a crosstown branch her bank had taken over. The suburb wasn't that big, but it was unfamiliar, and she'd gotten lost. The new supervisor at the place was throwing her weight around to prove her authority, and had bitched her out for being late, telling her some bullshit about setting an example for the angry, scared employees of a failed bank. Her day had been a parade of dickheads and scared, crabby, crazy, angry people. People arguing about their plastic bread bags full of change, people arguing about their account balances, people shouting at the drive-through microphone, people, incredibly, who had dumped out their car ashtray into the vacuum canister and sent it to explode on her clothing when she opened it. Everyone working in the branch was angry and miserable, and wouldn't even talk to her.
She whirled her arms and just screamed in the empty parking lot.
"SON! OF! A! BITCH!"
Standing in the writhing snow of the lot she pulled out her phone and thought of who to call. She had to call a tow truck, but didn't know any numbers. Digging through the pockets of her skirt she realized she'd left most of her stuff at home, under the Marilyn Monroe poster, and didn't even have her Triple-A card. She'd learned not to take her purse to work, instead taking only the minimum paperwork for driving.The bank was locked, everyone was gone, and if she tried to get back in the alarm would go off, and she'd have to deal with the security people. They were just a drive-by company, and wouldn't be around for another hour. If she called them for help she'd just create another issue with the bitchy boss.
"Perfect."
It was almost the holidays, and she was alone in a stupid parking lot. She had no boyfriend, no family around, nothing. She had nowhere to go and her job sucked and her day sucked and she was lonely and miserable and now her fucking car wouldn't start and she was freezing to death.
She got so frustrated she started to cry.
She got angry with herself and tried to stop but couldn't. She got mad at herself for being weak, then even more frustrated and furious, angry she was standing in an empty, freezing parking lot crying, unable to control it any more. Her nose was running and her ears hurt, her feet were cramped up in her stylish shoes, and she was absolutely miserable.
She tried to stop crying and riffed through her little pink phone and looked at numbers, scrolling through her mother, who was states away, and, unbelievably, Rocket's number. Finding it still in her phone she got even angrier and frantically deleted it, sobbing and pounding on the tiny keypad with homicidal intensity. When Rocket was gone she found she had Ray's number in her phone.
Confused, she tried to think of why she had his number, but then remembered her neighbors had gone out of town almost a year ago, and she'd casually taken their number in case of an emergency at the house, just a neighborly thing from last year.
She took a deep breath and called him.
After three rings it went into voice mail, and Renee almost hung up, but decided to leave a message.
She said, "Hi, this is Renee, your neighbor, and I don't want to bother you, but I'm stuck in the parking lot at work and my car won't start, and I-"
Ray picked up. "Hello."
She controlled her voice and said, "Hey, this is Renee, your neighbor, and I'm stuck at work. My car is dead, I don't know a tow company, and I'm freezing to death." She sucked in a huge, desperately cold lung full of air, and continued, "Could you help me? I'm way far away."
Ray said, with no hesitation at all, "Sure. I'm taking my daughter to swim lessons right now; where are you?"
She told him, and he said, "I know right where it is. I'll be there in about 20 minutes. Get in your car and try to keep warm."
She openly sobbed out loud as she gave him the address, then helplessly blurted out, "Thank you!"
Renee got into her frigid, plastic lined car and hugged herself, shaking violently from cold and emotional dump. Ray showed up in a little gray car almost exactly 20 minutes later, with his daughter in the front seat next to him. He pulled in next to her little Korean car and got out. She did too, and she wanted to hug him for coming to her rescue, but stopped herself. Then he walked over to the other side of his car and waved his kid into the back seat. His daughter clambered back between the front seats without getting out, and Ray held the door open.
Renee couldn't help it and started crying again, unable to control herself over a simple, old-fashioned thing like someone holding a door for her, just that little thing after a shitty day. She was pathetically grateful for just that little thing, and she looked at Ray and cried.
She plopped down on the warm, cloth seat, cozy from Ray's daughter's sitting on it. Renee turned to the girl, whose name she couldn't remember, and said, "Thank you so much."
The girl nodded her head and said, "No prob." She was about ten years old, and looked like Ray's wife.
Ray said, "Give me your car key." Renee handed him her key ring, the metal loop festooned with little trinkets and fuzzy pink bling. Ray looked at it and smiled. He closed the door and walked to Renee's car.
