Sarah yanked the door behind her and thumped the steering wheel. No matter what, she was going to hold it together.
She knew that working for a start-up meant that Matt was working stupid hours, and she'd pretty much resigned herself to not seeing him in the evenings for the next month or so, but she'd really needed to see him today. Not only was it another shitty week full of technically illiterate customers making stupid demands, but today was her 30th bloody birthday. They ought to be illegal. Birthdays and stupid customers. Ban them both, the fuckers.
Sarah sighed, feeling a little better from venting, even if it was only inside her head. She needed to get out into the countryside and take her car for a blast down the familiar lanes that led home.
Without thinking, she fell into her pre-"blast" routine -- a couple of minor changes to the mirrors and her seat, twist the key a notch and watch while the diagnostic lights went out in the correct order, drop her iPod in the dock, select the playlist "punk rock" and wait for the guitar to kick in on American Slang before giving the key the final twist that fired the engine into life.
With the faintest hint of wheel spin, the MR-2 pulled out of the car park and into the rush hour traffic.
Her anger at Matt kept swapping places with her anger at herself. She'd spent so many years arguing that any birthday that wasn't legally significant was, well, insignificant, that she couldn't really complain when people paid attention and ignored her. Like every other day, it was just another chance to beat her personal best for the number of continuous days without dying.
As she pointed the red roadster up the first of the narrowing roads, she decided what it was that had annoyed her most. It wasn't the fact that Matt wasn't able to spend the evening with her. It wasn't even the fact that he'd cried out of their lunch date. It was the fact that he'd done so with a text message that simply read "Sorry S, need to do stuff this lunch. Raincheck? M". Not even a mention of the birthday she'd told him to ignore.
Changing down a gear, she accelerated hard out of the bend, overtaking three middle aged men in their respective rep-mobiles. The front one, a diesel engined Focus, belched black smoke as its driver tried to play follow-my-leader.
It didn't succeed.
-=-=-=-=-=-
(shimmery time travel effect)
It was amazing how much you could get from two words in a medium as soulless as a text message. The ones Matt had got from Sarah spoke of a world of pain that was coming his way in the near future. "Sure. Whatever."
Yeah, he guessed he deserved that. The problem was that he couldn't really explain where he was and why he was missing lunch without spoiling the surprise.
He took a final bite out of the cardboard and mayonnaise monstrosity that masqueraded as a service station cheese sandwich, and threw the crusts out the kitchen window. Sarah's kitchen window. And that was the problem -- if she knew that he'd had to dash to her house because she still hadn't left for work when he'd driven past this morning, she'd think that he'd got plans. The sort of plans that deserved a capital "P" and maybe a hint of a fanfare. The sort of plans that reality never lived up to.
He climbed the stairs and placed his gifts in a neat stack in the middle of her bed. In the cluttered chaotic mess of his house, the three boxes could have hidden in plain sight for hours, but here in Sarah's minimalist room, the childish wrapping papers screamed for attention.
To emphasise the order he wanted her to open them in, each box was wrapped differently: the smallest gift covered in a printed mess of ribbons, balloons and the number 1 in a dozen different fonts; the one beneath it in bright pink paper covered in silver 2s; and at the bottom of the pile, a large yellow box decorated in teddy bears and the number 3 in a font someone thought looked child-like.
Matt decided that she'd either love him for this, or hate him with a passion. Either way, the die was now cast and he'd got a five hour wait to discover how it would land.
He glanced at his watch and decided he had just enough time to raid Sarah's fridge before heading back to the office.
(shimmery time travel effect)
-=-=-=-=-=-
The car crunched to a halt on the gravel driveway as Basket Case faded to an end, and Sarah quickly killed the engine before the next track could start. Breathing slowly and deliberately, she waited while her heart beat dropped back to it's normal rate. The drive had been the perfect balm to her anger, the feeling of pushing the car toward its limits relaxing and invigorating her in the way she assumed beauty treatments relaxed other women. She smiled at her reflection in the rear view mirror and, with a mock posh voice, asked it "Would madam like whale song and fresh ylang ylang today? Or maybe some rock music and a cheeky vintage of refined hydrocarbons?"
Leaving the car gently ticking as it cooled, Sarah went indoors, scooped up a few unexciting looking letters, and headed towards the kitchen. Phone bill, junk mail, junk mail, what looked suspiciously like a birthday card from her mum, a promise that she'd already been pre-approved for a credit card, and two takeaway menus. She put the card to one side and dumped the rest on the pile of things needing her attention at the weekend.
She poured herself a large glass of red wine from a part bottle in the fridge and headed upstairs to swap the confines of her smart office clothes for something to slob around in while she decided what to do with her evening.
Reaching her bedroom door, Sarah stopped dead in her tracks. Those quite obviously hadn't be on her bed when she'd gone out this morning, which meant that either Matt or her mother had visited.
After scanning the bed for a card or note, and finding nothing, she picked up the smallest gift and slowly turned it over and over in her hands. Taking a deep breath, she gingerly pulled at a free edge and tore the paper away.
It took Sarah nearly half a minute before the gentle pressure in her chest reminded her she'd not actually breathed out again. For six months she'd been lusting after the Android phone that was now in her hands, but she'd never actually expected to get around to getting one. A post-it note stuck to the box lid simply read "Ignore the other boxes. Turn me on".
-=-=-=-=-=-
Matt turned off the TV and picked up his warbling phone, the flashing icon showing him that Sarah had turned on her phone for the first time. There were times, he knew, when Sarah hated dating an engineering and electronics nerd -- especially the awful puns and the house full of partly disassembled electronics -- but he hoped this wouldn't be one of those times.
Matt opened up an app simply called "Sarah" and pressed a button marked "V.Chat", triggering a two way video chat between the two phones. The shot of Sarah's face rapidly cycled through intrigue to surprise to slight embarrassment.
"Happy Birthday, darling! What do you think of your new toy?"
"I... It's... it's incredible," she stammered. "It's too much, but it's wonderful. Thank you! But, how'd you do that? The video thing?"
"It's an app I wrote especially for you. Don't worry, it only started automatically this once. I need it for the rest of your present."
