* * *
The cab squealed to a stop at yet another red light. Julie winced—the squeak seemed to last forever—and she realized she had a bit of a headache, or perhaps a mild hangover. Then again, maybe everything was a tad more unpleasant because of the mysterious girl with the blond hair. Or Andrew. Or Andrew and the girl with the blond hair.
It was one thing to say you weren’t exclusive and to know he was probably sleeping with other women. And she’d certainly slept with a few other men. But to find the evidence. To know he had some blond girl in his bed—and so recently. It was just wrong.
Happy birthday. Welcome to the other side of 30.
She massaged her forehead with her icy cold fingers, hoping it would make things better. But it only intensified the stinky cab smell of old cigarettes and cinnamon air freshener. At least shutting her eyes helped blot out the blazing afternoon sun. Normally, she and the rest of the living would revel in a sunny winter Chicago day, but today, it just made the spot behind her eyes ache.
She prayed there would be no more stop lights. It wasn’t just the squealing breaks. The swooshing motion was making her a little car sick as well.
No such luck.
They stopped yet again. Squeal. Swoosh. Ugh.
A string of billboards on the bus shelter caught her eye. They were all the same, and they all showed a yellow bikini top stretched to its limits with a bottle of beer nestled in the girl’s cleavage. The tag line read: What now?
What now? A very good question.
And then she really thought about it.
Now she was officially 30 years old. She rented a one bedroom condo just off Michigan Avenue. Alone. She had no one in her life that wasn’t some sort of underworld creature. No one she could trust. All of her real estate clients were Andrew’s friends and acquaintances. She couldn’t admit any of this to her mom and brother, since they couldn’t know there were vampires and the likes running around the Chicagoland area. And now, she was coming home from her non-boyfriend’s house still wearing last nights’ clothes, outrageously expensive earrings, and angry as hell at the thought of Andrew sleeping with some blond girl.
Thirty years old with almost nothing to show for it, and nothing to look forward to. What now indeed?
“Stop the cab.”
“We stopped, mum.”
“I mean, I’m getting out.”
The cabbie seemed confused, as if no one had ever cut their trip short. “We not there yet, mum.”
“No. This is it.”
Julie looked at the meter. It showed $13.87. She snatched a twenty out of the beaded evening bag and tossed it onto the seat next to the cabbie.
“Keep it.”
With that, she swung her door open, squiggled out of the backseat—oblivious of how it hiked her dress up to her butt—and began to strut through three lanes of traffic toward the billboards.
The light turned green. Her cabbie floored it and roared off.
A gust of wind blew her trench coat open, and the other drivers were treated to a view of a lot of leg. Fortunately, they were gorgeous legs, or she’d have been creamed. Human road kill.
What now?
Julie stood in front of the row of billboards. Anyone that drove by probably wondered why she would stand there just looking at the bikini-clad breasts. Though the men and the lesbians most likely had their own opinions.
“What now?”
She actually said it out loud.
“Whoo-hoo!” a miscellaneous driver hooted at her and honked his horn.
World’s most pathetic attempt at picking up a girl.
Julie turned from the billboard long enough to flip off the idiot, but he was already too far away to notice. It still felt good, though.
She spotted a small park area farther up the street and started walking. When Julie crossed the side street on the red light, barely looking at the cars, she looked like she was absolutely compelled to go to the park. She walked, never slowing, never speeding up, until a street vendor broke her out of the trance.
A pudgy, forty-fivish woman at a hot dog cart called out, “Dogs, brats, water, pop.” The smell would normally beg Julie to indulge in a wonderfully unhealthy snack, but today, it just added to the nausea.
The vendor did a double take when she spotted Julie. Anybody would have. Not only was she strutting around with her skirt still hiked up to her butt and her coat flapping open around her, but she was obviously still dressed in Saturday night clothes on a Sunday afternoon. No chance she’d slept in her own bed. Obviously.
“Look like you could use somethin’,” the woman tried.
Sure could. A silver bullet, a wooden stake, or maybe the blonde’s head on a platter. At least that last option would actually accomplish something. She wasn’t so sure about whether the vampire myths worked for killing one of them, but it really had her thinking.
Then again, if she could get back the last five years of her life, that would work too.
Instead, Julie said, “How ’bout lemonade?” Liquid sounded good right now. And lemonade was the perfect combination of sweet and sour—plus liquid. Her mouth watered thinking of it.
The vendor stopped swaying from foot to foot and squinted at Julie in the harsh daylight. This poor woman couldn’t be making much money on a Sunday when there was no game in town. What a life.
“I have Coke, Diet Coke, root beer —”
Julie interrupted, repeating herself slowly. “How...’bout...le-mon-ade?” This was not a good day to cross Julie. The woman either had lemonade, or she didn’t. Why couldn’t she just say so? If Julie had wanted those other things, she’d have said so.
The vendor-woman narrowed her eyes and mimicked the tone Julie had taken saying, “How...’bout...actin’...de-cent?”
Julie rolled her eyes at the woman. She may as well have said “bitch” for as clearly as the sentiment came through. Then she turned and continued on to her true destination.
At the Right Time Page 8