Aviva asked him, "Where's your car?"
He involuntarily looked around, and admitted he'd walked to the coffee shop. "I live a few blocks away and I hoofed it. No car tonight."
She nodded and said, "That's cool. Let's go." She looked at his cup and said, "You can bring that with." She made a closed-mouth smile and said, "My car has cupholders."
He got up and had to half-skip across the parking lot to catch up with Aviva, who was practically charging, striding athletically on the pavement. He felt self-conscious for a second, and turned to see if anyone was looking at him, but no-one was. He shrugged and caught up with the average woman. She pointed at the passenger door of a nondescript American car of a nondescript color, and he opened the door and got in, half falling into a deep bucket seat. He put his cup in an empty holder next to a stick shift console. The car was full of trash and the floor was concealed beneath a covering of takeout bags and papers.
Aviva said, "My car's a mess. I keep my house clean but not my car."
She started the engine and roared backwards in the lot without looking, then punched it and squealed to the exit. He looked for a seat belt and reached for the upper grab handle. While he was slithering on the fake leather seat she flipped the radio on to some R & B station, and while he clutched and grappled he heard a cooing sexual song. He looked over and she was tilting and bopping her head, singing softly along with whatever it was. He noticed with some surprise she had a beautiful voice. Her phone trilled with a music tune, and driving with her knees she fished in her pocket for it. She flipped it open and looked at the screen.
"Hold still," she said, and to his astonishment took his picture. She fiddled with buttons while driving. After a second or two she said, "Okay, we're good." She swiveled her head and said, "My sister wanted to see what you looked like."
The car pulled a couple of G's going around a corner, and a photograph of a young boy, encased in a hard plastic sheath and hanging from the rear view mirror, hit him in the head. 'Her son', he thought.
"We gotta make a stop, real quick. I have to pick something up."
Lee instantly thought she meant condoms or something, but remembered she'd said she had those. They rocketed down the road at flatly illegal speed, his companion making faces and singing along to the radio, which was now playing a sexually suggestive song by a rapper.
They drove in silence for several minutes, and he wondered briefly how he was going to get home if something went wrong. Then he thought about more small talk, but decided against it, and finally sat back quietly and hung on for dear life while his pilot warbled along with several rather dirty pop songs.
He looked her over again, and admitted to himself she wasn't really bad looking, and while she drove checked out her body. She had mom fat, a kind of gut and hips, and her thighs did a sprawling thing on the car seat, but he could tell underneath a film of American cellulite she was strong and muscular. 'Solid', he thought, and not misshapen, just carrying some average mother weight. Her face was roundish and kind of full, sort of flat, and she had a short, turned up button nose. Her hair was likely dyed darker than it naturally was. 'Dishwater blonde', he thought, and realized wryly that was average too. The car screeched into a parking lot, and he saw a neon sign reading 'LIQUOR'.
The car shuddered to a halt and Aviva unbuckled her seat belt and looked around impatiently. "Come on, bitch, where are you?" she said, and followed that with an exasperated huff.
Lee asked, "What are we getting?" He instantly realized he had referred to them as 'we', implying something that maybe wasn't the case, but she didn't react to it. Instead she just sat silently for a second.
Aviva said, "Wine."
Lee said, "Well, let's get something good. Come on," he said, and opened his door.
