Chasing The O

by LaBelle, Lorelai

  “No, I called in and I have a bunch of stuff I can do from home,” Danielle replied, setting her book down on a thigh. “Are you going in?”

  “Bridgett said she could handle the bakery this morning,” I said, “but I’d like to get up there. Inventory was supposed to be done on Friday.”

  “If you want, I can take you this afternoon.” Her deep brown eyes stared back at me. “The Crosstrek has all-wheel drive, and the snow is starting to turn to slush on the roads.”

  “Great.” I disappeared into the kitchen and grabbed my “Keep Portland Weird” mug, pouring until just below the brim. I had a habit of doing that—rushing. I slurped down a fingernail’s breadth so it wouldn’t slosh and flopped down on the couch, opening up my old laptop from college. The pastime of social networking had taken up a large chunk of my life since oh-six, yet now I mostly did business-related research and advertising instead of chatting.

  Colby-Jack, my cat (named after the cheese that matched his color scheme) leapt onto the open cushion next to me and rubbed my forearm, climbing into my lap. I scratched his belly before he jumped onto the couch’s arm and lay down, his feet dangling off its sides. Danielle liked to call him “Tubbers” because of his size, but after a year a dieting, he hadn’t lost any weight and was irritable all the time, so now he ate what he wanted when he wanted, thanks to a feeder that never stopped filling his bowl. He was a fat, happy cat, who loved to be near me more than cuddle. But I didn’t mind.

  “Oh,” Danielle spat out half an hour later, interrupting my web browsing. “Becky texted me this morning. She has two spots to fill on her Hood to Coast team and was hoping we’d join.”

  “Hood to Coast is so long,” I said, “and I haven’t run in, well, years. Not since working at that first bakery in Eugene.”

  “You’re still a runner at heart, aren’t you? Isn’t that why you have that hanging up?” She pointed to a black-and-white poster of Steve Prefontaine crossing a finish line with the quote, “To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift,” printed in the corner. The poster hung off to the side of the fireplace, sandwiched between two decorative sconces.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I replied, glancing at the quote. “I’m just so out of shape.”

  “No more than I am,” she said. “And I wasn’t twelfth at state like you were.”

  “High school cross country was a long time ago,” I reminded her.

  “Come on, it’ll be fun,” she urged. “We can join that gym that just opened up by the bakery on Hawthorne.”

  “Ripped City Fitness? Really?”

  “Sure, what the hell? It’s close to work, and I saw that the joining fee is only ten bucks since it’s new, and fifteen a month. That’s better than any of the other gyms.”

  “But it sounds like it’s for bodybuilders,” I argued. “I don’t need some guy ogling me the whole time I work out.”

  “Guys are going to do that at every gym,” she insisted.

  I refilled my mug. “That’s a good reason not to join one.” The truth was that I had no interest in paying for a membership I was likely to use for a few weeks before losing the motivation to keep going.

  She picked up her book and blocked her face from me. “Well, I’m going to do it, with or without you.”

  “Fine. Fine. I’ll do it.” I Googled “Ripped City Fitness.” “The gym is open today, if you want to join when you take me up to the bakery.”

  She got up. “Sounds like a plan, Jan. I’ll get to work so we can head over there early.”

  “You’re so lame,” I said.

  “And I make a lot of money,” she teased. It was true, as some kind of a senior manager at Powell’s, she made at least triple what the bakery brought in for my wages. She swept down the hall to her bedroom and left me to my web browsing.

  “COME ON,” DANIELLE YELLED, wrapping herself in her warmest coat. “You always take so long to get ready.”

  “I can’t just throw something on,” I said, changing out of the white spaghetti strap tank top, and tossing it on the growing pile near my dresser. “We’re going to the bakery afterward, remember?”

  She stood in my doorway, throwing her head back, irritated. “Then bring a change. You won’t find something for both.” She picked out an outfit for work as I swapped into a tighter pair of yoga pants. Rummaging through the pile, she held up a high-performance shirt designed to wick away sweat. “Put this on.”

  “But it covers everything.”

  “So?”

  “So, maybe I want to meet someone,” I said. “You’re the one pushing me to move on.”

  “I wasn’t thinking today,” she laughed. “And besides, your sports bra hides your girls. Just put this on so we can go.”

  I yanked the shirt from her, scowling, even though she had a point. Yet they showed a little, enough to attract an eye or two. Her bra, on the other hand, completely concealed her twins: it was one of those Enell bras that boasted ten hooks in the front to secure her exceptional size, nearly eliminating the bounce. She hurried me along as I double-knotted my shoes. We swept down the stairs to the single-car garage that made up the basement of our long, narrow duplex. The room only ran half of the apartment. Why the designers hadn’t constructed the basement the entire length and included another room was as big a mystery as the missing kitchen door.

  Every other week we switched parking in the garage to keep it fair. Danielle’s new silver Crosstrek sat in the cold, damp room. Only one flickering light hung in the middle of the garage, leaving most of it in shadows. I had never been fond of spiders, and the thought of spending too much time in the dark, underground, vulnerable to the swarms of fangs that skittered around on eight legs, always forced me into the car as fast as humanly possible.

  Danielle laughed at me, climbing in slowly, and drawing out the scene of my discomfort. The car door closed and she pressed the clicker under the center console that opened the garage door. “You know, if you didn’t make such a big deal out of it, I wouldn’t even bother,” she said, looking over her shoulder as she backed out into the cement driveway of the two duplexes.

  The car spun out and I stomped my foot as if slamming on an imaginary brake pedal.

  “Relax,” she said, driving over the buried sidewalk and past the eight-foot hedges, onto Yukon Street. It was a modest climb up to Seventeenth Avenue. Danielle broke too hard and the tires skidded, heading into the intersection. Luckily, there were no souls around.

  “Maybe this was a bad idea.” I held onto my seatbelt for dear life, remembering Danielle wasn’t the most cautious of drivers. It wasn’t normally a big deal, but I’d never ridden with her behind the wheel in the snow, and it was starting to freak me out.

  “Don’t be a baby,” she said, continuing onto Milwaukie Avenue. “I’m a good driver. It’s just been a while, that’s all.”

  “I don’t remember snow like this since oh-eight when my mom slid into that ditch,” I remarked. “Remember that? It was lucky that I was there to help dig her out.”

  “I think last year was worse than that. If the snow keeps falling we’re going to have two snowpocalypses in a row. That’s not good for business.” She pulled up to the stop sign. A big full-ton pickup was barreling down the road, slush flying toward the sidewalk and us. Dirty, wet snow splattered our windshield. Wipers slapped it off, streaking the glass. I regarded Danielle, worried that her road rage might kick in. Her eyes blazed with fury.

  “Fucking asshole,” she screamed. “Come on!”

  “Don’t do it, Danielle. Don’t even think about it.”

  She stepped on the gas and followed the truck.

  “This isn’t going to accomplish anything, you know that, right? You’re just heading for trouble. I’ve seen that look before. I know what you’re thinking.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything.”

  “Yes you are,” I said. “You’re going to follow him until he parks then chew him out, just like you did to that guy l
ast month.” My hands were braced against the armrest and the small console that divided the seats.

  She gave no reply. Disaster was on the horizon. She drove within inches of the pickup’s bumper.

  “Let it go, Danielle,” I pleaded, but her ears were closed. “Really? You’re going to do this in a snowstorm?”

  Before I could berate her decision at length, the pickup turned abruptly without a blinker. The stunt shocked us both, and Danielle flattened the brake pedal in reaction, launching the car into a perilous swerve. As the truck cleared the corner, the shiny bumper of a sports car met the front of the Crosstrek.

  The seatbelt proved its futility as my face slammed into the dashboard.

  2

  INTO HIS ARMS

  The car was full of groans, most of them made by me. “You all right?” Danielle asked.

  My forehead thumped and I could feel the bruise blooming above my eyes. My chest hurt where the seatbelt was strapped from my shoulder to my hip. “Nothing a little porter won’t cure,” I joked. “My eyes are having a hard time focusing.” I looked over at her and saw a blurry face.

  “Your forehead is pretty red,” she observed. “There’s no blood, though, so I think that’s a good sign.”

  I nodded. “How are you?”

  “My shoulders are a little tense and my heart is racing, but that’s about it,” she replied, unbuckling both of our seatbelts. The car in front of us was stopped, the engine idle. “We should go check on them.” However, before either of us made a move for the handle, two men jumped out of the sports car, one from each side. The blurriness lingered as they ran to our car.

  “Are you okay?” the driver shouted. His sexy voice forced the blood from my head, having an intoxicating effect, as if I were actually swooning, something I didn’t believe happened in real life. It certainly didn’t to me.

  Danielle opened the door. “We’re fine—we’re okay. You two?”

  The driver was bending over Danielle’s door. “Neither of us is injured. What happened? There was a truck tailgating us, and then . . .”

  “I fucking hit your car, that’s what happened.” She was starting to panic, the pitch of her voice climbing. Neither of the men replied, but the driver offered Danielle his arm as she got up. “Ugh! And the bastard got away!” She rubbed her face.

  “Excuse me?” the driver asked, concern plaguing his countenance.

  I got out and inspected the two. The passenger was a tall, burly guy with tattoos up his arms and neck, a shaved head, and a huge, black beard that consisted of tight curls. He looked like he could have played for the Timbers. The other man was shorter, about Danielle’s height, slender but attractive—from what my suffering vision told me—with a fancy navy-blue blazer over a white shirt that said “Nerdalicious” across the chest. I glanced down at the Crosstrek’s bumper, but it didn’t even seem scratched. The sports car was the same, which I noticed was a Ford Mustang by the design on the trunk. “Mach 1” was stenciled along its top edge. To our collective relief, the disaster could be downgraded to a minor fender bender.

  “Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s really sorry and upset,” I told them. “Danielle!” I hissed. “Get out your insurance card.” She was looking at where the truck had turned. I snapped my fingers to draw her attention. “What are you doing?” My voice sunk to a whisper.

  She broke out of her trance and walked around the car to the glove box, searching through a stack of manuals and papers.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” the driver said. “There’s no damage done. It was an accident and no one got hurt.”

  Danielle straightened up. “You sure?”

  The intoxication wore off as my responsible instinct kicked in. “We have to exchange insurance information,” I said. At that moment I felt like I was under heavy scrutiny from all three, and I made myself small, hiding behind the car door, now self-conscious of what I was wearing. Damn Danielle for hurrying me. “Just in case one of us feels an injury later on. I once read that most people don’t even notice they’re hurt until seventy-two hours later.”

  He nodded. “In that case.” He started for the passenger door.

  “I’ll get it,” the passenger said coolly. He wore a stern expression, one so grim it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had never smiled in his life.

  Danielle poked me, and whispered, “Why did you do that?”

  “What do you care? Don’t you have full coverage?”

  “Yeah, but now my rates are going to skyrocket,” she said, resuming her hunt for the insurance card.

  I thought twice about bringing up how the accident wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t lost her temper. But I knew nagging her then wouldn’t accomplish anything, so I ignored the comment and moved on. “I think that’s it,” I said, pointing to the floor under the compartment.

  “I’ve never been in an accident. What do we do?” she asked, picking up the piece of paper and depositing the rest on the seat.

  I shrugged. “I’ve never been in one either.” My head was beginning to really ache, and my vision was going in and out, from extremely hazy to a little fuzzy. “Just write down their info and let them do the same.”

  “Here,” the passenger said, offering Danielle an open leather folder with the insurance card displayed behind a soft plastic cover. They traded info, Danielle jotting down the lines on the back of a receipt, while the driver extracted a leather-bound notepad, accepting the card from his friend. The passenger walked around both cars, appraising the damage.

  “Again, I’m really sorry,” Danielle said a minute later, handing back the folder to the passenger. He trudged back to the door he had left open and got in. She turned her attention on to the driver. “I’m glad there wasn’t any damage to your car.”

  “Well, I’m just glad there isn’t anything wrong with you ladies,” the driver said. “Cars can be easily fixed. Bodies, on the other hand, they’re a little harder . . . Are you okay to drive?”

  “Yeah, we just live a couple blocks away,” she replied. “And I think we’ve had enough adventure for the day.”

  He smiled, though it was hard to read his face, especially because my eyes couldn’t focus. “Okay. You two take care, and get home safe.” He hopped into the Mustang and cautiously drove a few blocks, pulling off to the side. It was as if he were watching us. Maybe he was a gentleman and wanted to make sure our car still worked, or maybe he was going to follow us home and harass us, or maybe he had other plans . . . Who could say? My mind wandered for a moment, concocting multiple scenarios. It was sweet and creepy at the same time.

  Only a few cars had driven past throughout the ordeal. None of them stopped to offer assistance. “God, that was awkward,” Danielle said, letting out a huge breath.

  “Painful,” I responded. We climbed into the Crosstrek, both pretty shaky.

  “Do you still want to go up to Hawthorne?” she asked, her hands trembling as she gripped the steering wheel.

  “Is that a joke?” I said with a bite. “I think I need to go to the doctor. My vision isn’t getting any better.”

  “Sorry,” was all she said, checking behind us as she pulled forward, then swooping around to head back home.

  DANIELLE WAS SITTING IN the waiting room at our Doctor’s office in Milwaukie. “So?”

  “So?” I echoed, passing the receptionist.

  She failed to smile at my humor. “So, what did Dr. Franklin say?”

  “I have a minor concussion,” I answered, ready for a nap.

  “Really?” she gasped, surprised. “But we barely hit them. There wasn’t even any damage to the cars.”

  “I’m just telling you what he said.” I swept out the door into the freezing afternoon air. “I also have a chest contusion and a swollen forehead. He was worried about my hips, but the x-ray checked out, I guess, so I just have to ice for a few days.” She unlocked the doors with her clicker. “Oh, and he said that new science has disproven that you have to stay awake after a conc
ussion, so you don’t have to worry about making sure I stay awake.”

  Her eyes grew wide with concern. “I can’t believe you have a concussion. Do you want to stop at a drugstore and get icepacks?” We jumped inside, and she started up the engine, still warm from the drive to the office.

  I yawned, nodding.

  The engine revved as she pressed on the gas while still in park. “Oops.” She locked the shifter into reverse and gradually backed up. The ride home was as slow as the ride there. Danielle didn’t exceed ten mph, mindful of the drivers that dared the slick and obstructed roads.

  “How about you?” I asked, about halfway home. Her appointment had slipped my mind until then. “What did the physician’s assistant say?”

  She grinned at me. “No worries here.”

  We spent the rest of the day watching season two of “Once Upon a Time” on Netflix while I iced twenty minutes on and twenty off.

  “ARE YOU READY?” DANIELLE shouted from her room on the morning two days after the accident. The rain had come and melted almost all the snow. Clumps lingered in random spots, but the streets were free of the white menace.

  My vision had cleared up and my bruises ached but the pain was dwindling. “I can’t find anything to wear,” I said, shuffling through mountains of clothes. Most of my outfits were from high school or my early years at U of O. Every time I gazed at my closet or inside my dresser, I had the dreadful sense that I desperately needed a new wardrobe. In reality, there was nothing wrong with the majority of what I owned: they just felt wrong when I put them on.

  Danielle appeared at my door, her arms folded. “Not doing very well at your New Year’s resolution.”

  “I’m trying.” I grabbed a pair of black running pants and slid them on. “Nothing feels right.”

  Danielle threw me a bright pink tank top from the side of a pile. “So your cleavage will show.”

  “Maybe I’ll move on today,” I said, pulling the tank over my head. “How do they look?”