I haven't submitted anything for a while so I rattled this one off quickly.
***
"Driving for Uber can be really infuriating!" thought Mark as he slowly pulled away from the curb where he left his last passenger.
What he would rather have done was throw the guy out of his car and roll his passenger-side wheel over him a couple of times. Instead he pasted a fake smile on his face and said, "Have a nice day," through gritted teeth.
Now he was looking for a quiet place to park where he could wait for his next ride to ping on the phone app. He slipped into a roadside parking space on Lakeshore Rd and sat back with a sigh as he shifted into park.
He closed his eyes and stretched his feet out as far as they would go with his left against the pad built especially for it and his right against the floor beside the gas pedal. A few minutes of silence went by and soon his last ride was out of his mind and he let the latent anger in him seep away.
"Some people just shouldn't be out in public," he said softly.
The man, just about Mark's age of 55, had become upset when the GPS took them on a turn that led directly into a massive backup of cars. It was almost five minutes before Mark could find a decent route away from the traffic jam during which the man had complained loudly and non-stop about the delay.
It was another ten minutes before his drop-off and the man's whining had gone on the whole time.
Mark sighed again and shifted to a more comfortable position.
His phone pinged and he reached for the screen almost reflexively. Almost immediately the map on the screen showed a brief route of about fifty yards to his right. The rider's name was Chen.
There was a small strip mall with a variety store, a dry cleaner and a nail spa almost right beside him. There was also an Asian massage parlor beside the variety store. His eyebrow went up almost without him thinking about it as he saw a diminutive Asian girl step out of the massage parlor with her phone held closely to her face. She looked to be about 20 or 30, though he had to admit he was terrible at guessing girl's ages. She was dressed in a light blue mini skirt and a powder blue long-sleeved sweater.
"I guess I'm her ride," he thought as he slipped his car into gear and drove the short distance into the strip mall.
He coasted to a stop in front of the girl and she studied him suspiciously for a moment. Mark decided then that she was closer to 30 than 20 and very pretty.
She stepped around to the front of his car and checked his plate number, then briskly strode to the back door and got in.
Mark swiped the ride icon to the right and her destination came up on his screen.
"Is that in Scarborough?" he asked, turning his head half way round toward her.
"Yes," she said frostily, "Is that a problem?"
"Not at all," he said with a smirk, "Just want to make sure I know where I'm going."
He looked at her in the mirror for a moment and saw her angry glare fade away. Then she deliberately lowered her eyes to her phone indicating that all conversation was at an end.
He put the car into gear and pulled away.
The drive across town was a long one. Even though it wasn't rush hour, it was only about 1:30, the traffic across Toronto was always slow.
Throughout the drive the girl in the back didn't speak. She sat with her nose buried in her phone looking up from time to time to see where they were. She also looked occasionally into his mirror and studied him for a moment only to once more direct her attention to her phone.
