by Jaime Maddox
He paused in front of the BMW, then slowly circled it, taking in the detail. It was beautiful, sleek and trim, silver sparkling on every surface, even without the benefit of sunshine. He imagined himself behind the wheel, maneuvering the car around sharp turns on a country road or whizzing past slower traffic on the interstate. This model was meant for speed, and he suddenly thought of Dr. Ball’s Porsche convertible, built for the same purpose. Why did everyone have a convertible except him? He took a deep breath to dispel his growing anger and let it out slowly. Someday, he chanted softly as he traced the outline of the pills in his pocket.
“What the fuck do you want?”
Derek looked up to see the girl staring at him. In spite of her venomous words, he detected no threat. She seemed curious, as if no one typically dared approach her and she wanted to know what sort of creature had the nerve to do so. She’d been walking toward him, but stopped and crossed her arms over her chest as she studied him from head to toe with eyes hidden behind designer sunglasses.
He smiled his killer smile, the one known to melt women’s hearts. He’d been using it since he was a teenager, when he came to understand the power of his good looks. His tall, broad frame commanded attention, and his dark hair and blue eyes seemed to dazzle women of all ages. Plus, women loved a man in uniform. Somehow, though, the girl seemed immune to it all. She continued to stare.
She thinks she’s tough, he thought. Derek had seen tougher. “I was just admiring your ride.”
She began moving toward the driver’s door. “Well, admire it from somewhere else.”
He nodded but didn’t move. Instead, he placed his hand on the silver surface of the car’s hood. “Sure. You sellin’? Or buyin’?”
His questions stopped her again, and she quickly looked around, as if fearing a trap. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He laughed. “Oh, I think you do. Your parents dragged your ass to Dr. Ball for the cure, but you’re really not interested. You’d rather get high. So, do you want to sell me your strips and buy a few pills from me, or pretend like you’re seeing the doctor for acne cream?”
She looked around again, and Derek could see the façade begin to crumble. Just the mention of drugs had her on edge. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, threw her purse farther back on her shoulder, clenched and unclenched her fingers. She was in desperate need, and he was just the man to help her.
When she looked back at him, Derek knew he’d won. “I don’t have the strips. Just a prescription. I have to go to the pharmacy.”
“I can meet you later.”
“Can we trade? Strips for pills? I’m a little short on cash.”
Derek laughed. “C’mon! You’re driving a sweet little convertible like this, and you don’t have any money?”
“My parents cut me off.”
“Ouch,” he said as he backed up a step, pulling his hands up from the car and holding them up in front of him. “That’s too bad.” He debated making a deal with her, but he couldn’t. If he was going to do business, it had to be on his terms, especially with a girl like this, who was undoubtedly accustomed to getting her way. Establishing the rules at the beginning was essential.
He continued to back up, still looking into the big brown lenses of her glasses.
“Wait!”
“It was nice chattin’ with ya,” he said as he turned.
“I’ll get some money, and I’ll be back here in an hour,” she said to his back.
Glancing at his watch, he shook his head. In an hour, he’d be at the nursing home, exchanging one load of patients for another. “Make it two,” he said, and he didn’t bother waiting for a reply.
He watched, pleased, as the car sped out of the parking lot and disappeared in the distance. He’d read her right and played her perfectly, and if it worked out the way he hoped, within a few days, he’d have a new girlfriend. He’d supply her with drugs, and she’d supply him with sex, and money, and a sporty little convertible.
The phone attached to his hip began vibrating, and he retrieved it, his gaze still set on the distance and the future he hoped the girl might lead him to. I don’t even know her fuckin’ name, he thought as she glanced at the screen and the text message from Pete: Get the fuck in here.
He pulled the van to the front of the building, into the same spot the girl had vacated, and began the process of loading his patients. A few minutes later they were back on the road. They returned their charges, consumed a greasy take-out lunch, reloaded the van, and were back at Dr. Ball’s office just over an hour later.
This time, Derek had no interest in the normal routine of his business. Rather than watching the storefronts for activity, awaiting patients with full bottles of pills, he kept his eyes glued to the road where he’d last seen the BMW. He nearly missed the chance to pick up ninety pills from a regular customer, who, fortunately, sought him out near the van. Just as he handed the man his money, the BMW pulled in beside the ambulance and the girl looked at him.
Since she made no move to approach him, Derek walked to the passenger side of the car and tried the door. It opened, and he sat down and sank into the soft leather seat. With his arm resting against the wood paneling on the door he imagined reaching his hand to touch the line of dials controlling the sound system. The smell of new car filled his nostrils. Keeping a neutral expression wasn’t easy.
“I’m Derek.”
“Lucy.”
He smiled his killer smile again, and this time he was rewarded with a change in expression, from scowl to neutral. At least he was making progress.
“Nice to meet you, Lucy. Wanna go for a ride?”
The scowl returned to her face. “I’m not a fucking taxi driver.”
Derek’s anger rose as tension tightened his muscles and his pounding pulse flushed his face. Who the fuck did she think she was? Just because she came from money and drove a fancy car, she wasn’t better than him. In fact, she was much worse off. He used drugs, but he was completely in control of his use. He could quit at any time, if he wanted to. Lucy, on the other hand, with her suburban house and fancy sports car, was an addict. His customer. She needed him, not the other way around. He decided to remind her of that fact.
He turned slightly in the seat so he was facing her. She gripped the wheel with both hands but maintained her focus on something in front of her. “Listen, Lucy. I’m just trying to be friendly. See, I don’t sell pills to just anyone. I sell them to my friends, people I know and care about. People I trust, because I have to trust someone to hand over pills. If you OD, it’s on me, you know? But you don’t seem like the friendly type, so let’s just forget this whole thing.”
Just as his hand reached the shiny chrome handle he felt her grab him. “Wait. I can be friendly, if that’s what you want.”
Playing coy, he shifted once again and studied her. He hadn’t really had the chance to look at her closely, and now that he did, he realized his initial impression had been accurate. She was a beauty. Her coloring suggested Mediterranean heritage. She wore her long dark hair straight back, or had the wind just arranged it that way? It followed her neck invitingly, and his fingers twitched with desire to push the strands away, to weigh them with the tips of his fingers. Were they as thick as they looked? Her olive skin was flawless, and the lips that seemed painted in a scowl were full and red, even without artificial coloring. Her strong nose held up the glasses that still covered her eyes. He couldn’t tell, but he’d wager on brown.
After studying her face and hearing no objection, he allowed his eyes to travel farther. Her build was slender, but her breasts were high and full, and threatened to pop through the buttons on her thin cotton shirt. He didn’t let his eyes linger, but instead followed the rest of her, from her slender hips to her brightly painted red toes.
Finally, his eyes met hers again, and he smiled. “I like friendly. Let’s take this baby for a ride.”
“Where to?” she asked at the light, as if she’d alread
y given in and decided to follow his command.
“Head for the interstate. Let’s fly.”
As she flipped the blinker, he dialed the radio to his favorite station, turned up the volume, and settled back into his seat. The powerful speaker filled the cabin with classic rock-’n’-roll, and he got lost in the music. The sun warmed his face even as the wind chilled it. When he opened his eyes, his first glance was to the speedometer. One hundred and five.
He would have suggested she go faster, but she wouldn’t have heard him above the wind and the radio. He would have touched her leg for encouragement, but he wanted her attention on the road as she passed slower-moving cars that appeared suddenly before them, like obstacles on a video-game racetrack. The landscape was a blur of green, dusted here and there with other colors that passed too quickly to be accurately identified. He closed his eyes, swept away by the wind.
A few minutes later the car began to slow, and he opened his eyes to see why. Lucy had pulled off the highway at the intersection, and she cruised to a stop at the traffic light. He assumed she was turning around but was surprised when, instead, she pulled into a park-n-ride. Without speaking, she opened her door and walked around the front of the car to his door. She opened it and stared blankly at him. “Well, you want to drive, don’t you?”
Derek practically jumped from the car and ran all the way around to the driver’s side. After he buckled himself in, he stared for a moment. He felt like he was in the cockpit of a fighter plane, with all the fancy instrument panels and control knobs. He adjusted the seat first, and then the mirrors, and then turned to her. “Where to?” he asked.
“You’re the driver,” she said as she rested her head and seemed to relax into the seat.
Derek looked around. The entrance to I-81 was to his right. Ahead and behind him were industrial parks. Off to the left, he saw a big green sign and knew his destination. The Pennsylvania Turnpike. Not much traffic. Road surfaces in decent shape. Not likely to be any cops on the stretch between Pittston and Wilkes-Barre. He headed that way.
The brakes were touchy, but the car was so responsive to the subtle turn of the steering wheel that he suddenly felt an uncontrollable need to go fast. He cruised through the intersection and picked up speed as he approached the turn for the turnpike entrance. Luckily, no other cars were in sight, because he was ready to fly. Not letting up on the gas, he turned the car smoothly through the first curve and picked up speed on a small stretch of straight asphalt before another curve. He entered the turn at sixty and held tightly to the wheel as he raced through it, the little car shooting out on the other side a split second later.
“Wooey!” he screamed. Bringing his foot down hard on the gas pedal, he watched the speedometer climb quickly to a hundred and twenty miles per hour. In a few seconds, he reached a toll booth and had to crawl through it, with other cars jockeying for position in one of the three stalls. When they were behind him, he let loose once again.
Were it not for his job, and the fact that he needed to get back to work, he would have kept going all the way to Philly. Instead, he exited at Wilkes-Barre and sped down the mountain once again. He hadn’t yet reached the strip mall when his phone vibrated.
“Steer for me,” he instructed Lucy as he pulled his phone from his belt and checked the text. “Fuck me!” he said as he read the text telling him to get back to Dr. Ball’s office.
“I’m off work in half an hour. Where do you want to meet?” he asked her.
“Can’t we do this here?” she asked.
He shook his head. Even though he conducted business in the doctor’s parking lot every day, this was different. She was different. He intended to get to know her. To date her. Maybe marry her. She had the kind of money he wanted and was likely to never make on his own. She was the key. And he had her wrapped around his little finger.
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out two tablets of oxycodone. “They’re tens,” he said as he placed them in her hand. Twenty milligrams of oxy should keep her happy for an hour. “How about Kirby Park in an hour? By the pond.”
If she wanted drugs, she wouldn’t argue with him. Still, she was silent for a moment before she nodded.
He parked next to the ambulance, hopped out of her car and into the big van, and went back to work.
“Where the fuck were you?” Pete asked.
“I met a girl. She let me drive her BMW convertible.”
He burst into laughter. “Good one.”
Derek didn’t argue. He had nothing to prove to Pete. A bunch to prove to Lucy, though.
After hurriedly depositing his patients at the nursing home and his ambulance at the garage, he changed into his street clothes. Assessing his reflection in the mirror, he nodded approval. He looked good in a clean designer T-shirt and neatly pressed golf shorts. He jogged from the locker room to his car and lamented his ride. After seeing her car, he was ashamed. He needed to take care of that situation, fast.
At the park, it was surprisingly easy to find a parking place, and he loped toward the pond, eager to see her again. He hoped she noticed his clothes. The shirt was one of the nicest he owned, and he wanted to impress her. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to walk back to his car.
She was sunning herself in the grass when he spotted her, and he thought it fortunate that he noticed her at all. Stretched out like that, the picture of relaxation, she looked anything but an addict trying to score some drugs. If it were spring, he would have thought her a student from Wilkes University or King’s College, both just across the river. In the summer, she had to be a local, and he would have thought her a student on break, relaxing after a day at her pseudo-job as a camp counselor or park-activities coordinator.
For a moment he stared, wondering if she knew how beautiful she was. Then he scolded himself for even asking the question. Of course she knew. She’d probably been told that her entire life, and he refused to be a fan throwing compliments her way, only to have them batted back to splatter in his face. He approached quietly, and rather than say the wrong thing, he said nothing, instead lay quietly in the grass beside her.
She still wore the sunglasses, and he wasn’t sure if she saw him, or heard him, or sensed him, but after a few minutes, she spoke. “So, did you bring my stuff?”
“Are you always so forward?” he asked.
“I let you drive my car, and you made me wait an hour, so I figured we must be friends by now.”
Derek laughed. “Tell me your story, Lucy.”
“There’s not much to tell.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“So you’ve existed on this planet for nineteen whole years, and nothing has happened? There’s absolutely nothing you can tell me that’s gone on in all that time?” Derek was great at math, and he silently multiplied in his head. Nineteen years times three hundred and sixty-five days. Plus four or five leap years, too. “That’s six thousand nine hundred and forty days, give or take. And you haven’t done anything in all that time?”
He rolled from his back to his side, facing her. Now, instead of a clear blue sky he saw her, sensually draped across the green grass, her head thrown back to face the sun, looking totally relaxed. Her oxys must have kicked in. “Not a thing.”
“Okay, let’s play cops and robbers. I’m the cop, and you’re my suspect. You have to supply an alibi to prove your innocence.”
She groaned. “What is this, third grade?”
Her sarcasm no longer singed him. In fact, he expected it. Liked it even. “Ninth. Because in third grade, we couldn’t do this.”
In one bend of his knee, with a little push from his arm, he was beside her, his hip to hers, his arm draped across her waist to claim her, and then, his mouth on hers. He expected a slap for his boldness, or at least a withdrawal. Instead, he got nothing. As he softly drew his lips across hers, parting them with his tongue, she was like putty, allowing him to shape the kiss by his own will. He deepened it, then backed off, sucki
ng each lip and then darting into her mouth again, until he felt the need to take her growing irreversibly strong. He pulled back and collapsed breathlessly into the grass.
His heart pounded, and his erection did, too. He hoped she didn’t notice, but she would have had to be paralyzed not to feel it against her hip as he kissed her.
“Have you eaten yet? I’m kind of hungry.” He wasn’t really, but he needed to do something quickly, and food seemed like an easy distraction.
“Seriously?” she asked. “I have to suffer through dinner with you just to get high? There’s got to be a better way than this.”
In spite of her words, she stood and looked down at him, waiting.
He held out his hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet. They began walking toward a pizza place he knew nearby. “So, where were you last night between seven and ten when the gas station was robbed?”
“Home.” Turning her head, she stared for a moment then shook her head, apparently deciding to play along.
“Any witnesses?”
“Yes. My pathetic parents, who think they can straighten me out by making me watch game shows and stupid movies with them.”
“Aha. The famous game-show addiction therapy. It often backfires. Anyone who survives ends up using more drugs than they did when they started.”
She chuckled, and the sound of her laughter buoyed him.
“Are there any other witnesses? Siblings?”
“There is a sibling. A beautiful, proper, perfect older sister, but she’s too busy preparing for the wedding of the century to spend any time watching game shows.”
“When’s the wedding?”
Lucy looked at the coils of silver rings wrapped around her left wrist. Apparently a watch was tangled in the stack. “Fifty-six days, fourteen hours, and eleven minutes from now.”
“Seriously?” he asked.
“Close enough.”
“Are you a bridesmaid?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“What does that mean?”
“If I can keep it together, my wonderful sister will allow me the honor of wearing an ugly dress so I can pretend I’m happy for her as she follows in a long line of women who marry their money.”