Her phone rang, the cheery tune so poweful, it could have set the basement in shambles with its strength.
She picked up. The other end of the line was static. The number was unavailable.
“Becky?” The static broke and then returned.
“Tad? Where are you?”
“Becky?”
“Hello?”
“Can you meet me? Hello?”
“Yeah, Tad, hey.” She stepped outside. “Can you hear me?”
“I’m by you job. Over at the payphone. Hello?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
Besides her reasons for leaving prior to his call, she’d hadn’t spoken to him since she had seen him last, only to say a quick thank you and let him know how her grandfather was doing. The next couple of days, she told him that she was going to be busy and didn’t know if she would be able to talk, for the most part, she just wanted to be by herself. He hadn’t called. The moment that she had hung up the phone after telling him, she wanted to call him back, and couldn’t.
Not having a phone was one of the most inconvenient things about him, though it was better on Becky’s part because she wouldn’t appear so needy. For all of the times she thought about calling him, and couldn’t, he would have ran, if she had his number at reach. Anyway, she would have gotten she fed up with herself she might have thrown it out, and let him call her. Just the way it was almost, maybe it was a good thing that he didn’t have a phone. She would have been sitting in her room, needing to get her mind off of everything, the thought of him would settle in, and she would look at the phone, hear his voice of the other end of the line, and that would sometimes be enough to break her away from it all or other times in would weave her in tighter where she would have to force herself to do something else. The past three days she hadn’t slept right, and was more exhausted from thinking than anything. She would have liked not to have the number to her brain. That would have been nice. To disconnect herself for a few days.
She began thinking about her grandfather, walking never helped when she wanted out, and could have switched places, if it was possible, just so that she wouldn’t be on the end of not knowing, the thinking end. Sleep was the only break that she had, and she couldn’t even manage to get in more than three or four hours, if she laid in bed for entire afternoon. Her mind was all over the place. How she could have traded places. She had to wipe it all away before she saw Tad, nobody wanted to see anyone in the condition that she was in, one moment up there and going about her day and the next moment so down she couldn’t have been bulldozed out of the ground. Her feet were getting so heavy that she stopped in the middle of the parking lot. There was no way to see could see him and pretend that everything was okay, that she was fine. She hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, because she didn’t think that she could. There were no words, just distance, to explain how she was feeling. Nobody, not even her own mother knew, could compete with how much she loved her grandfather.
He was going to die. She knew.
Nobody was going to be able to help her away from that circling thought.
She couldn’t get a hold of herself. The air, fresh as it was, was cold and there was so much of it spinning about her that she felt alone. It was more alive than ever before.
There was one car at the end of the parking lot, an old beaten up buick, sitting infront of a payphone. Becky wished suddenly that Tad had a phone being it was almost three in the morning, and it wasn’t very often that she was out by herself at that time. She saw him someone sitting on the curb next to the car, huddled over, cigarette in hand. It had to be him, she kept telling herself. He didn’t wave her over, if it was. Maybe he didn’t see her. She walked over.
“Tad?” She called at a distance. He was so hidden, the lights didn’t give him a face, when he looked up. “Hey.” She walked over when he stood up and opened up the car door for her, and got inside.
The interior was shredded and reeked of mold, and the window was tapped with a garbage bag. Worse, the ignition was ripped out and wired, and there was a crow bar sitting by her feet. She stared at him as he got in the car.
He felt it. “What?” Then without waiting for her to answer, “It’s my friend’s car. He lost the key, so I wired it. Don’t worry.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s alright, he wants to get another car anyway.” He said, twisting the wires together. He ducked down, searching around the wheel. “Where the hell’re the lights on this thing?”
“You stole it?”
He stopped, and fixed his hat. “No, don’t worry. It’s just for the next couple days. He was going to dump it, anyway. It’s a piece of shit.” He lit up a cigarette.
Becky felt like getting out of the car and going home, she didn’t know why she was even there to begin with. She sat there in someone else’s car, someone else that was going to walk out of there house in the morning to go to work and call the cops. He was acting as if he didn’t know it was a fellony, pleading not guilty so honestly, there was a second where Becky almost believed him. There was no way that someone would have their car broken into and wired because they couldn’t find their key. His lying was too good on something so bad, she was uneasy. Her hand was on the handle.
“Hey,” He leaned in, and took her hand. “I’m sorry. I just… It’ll be alright.”
“Just tell me.” She wanted an explanation.
“I don’t know. What? Tell you what?” He let go of her hand, opened up the door, and got out. “Come on. I didn’t steal it I told you. It’s just a fucking car. Shit! The guy was going to junk it anyway. Look at it.” The car rattled as he kicked the frame.
As if the problems that she had weren’t enough, there came another. All that she needed was a chance to get away, to feel good, to get her mind off of things, and he was fuming as if she had done something wrong, asked something so severe that he couldn’t handle to give her a straight answer. He was off, rocketing back and forth with his arms wrapped over his face, mumbling to himself. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, and began guessing, overflowed with questions that she could use to help read his mind, because she was too afraid that she would worsen the situation if she were too ask what was wrong. She blamed herself that he wanted out so badly that he would leave the car, being so intrusive and badgering, not giving him the benefit of the doubtm, hearing him enough to respect that he was telling her the truth, as slight as it may have been. She was a mess, everything was mess, that she was beginning to trip over herself, couldn’t push her garbage aside to clear herself an easy path. The more she tried to push aside, the more stuff that piled on her, it almost seemed as if some power above had a bout with her, raining garbage just when the clouds parted. If he were telling her the truth, he wouldn’t have been so frustrated, or maybe he was frustrated because the truth wasn’t good enough for her. It could have worked both ways. As it came be to, however, all that mattered was that he was against the rings, already hit, waiting for a rematch. Becky couldn’t stand the thought of him fogged up to the eyes, hating on her. They hadn’t even had a chance to get closer than liking each other, yet. She pushed open the car door and got out, to go back home, just wanting to leave. It wasn’t the right time to talk to anyone yet. She wasn’t ready. She was a bombshell.
He grabbed her hand as she walked by.
It felt so good to feel his hand in hers. She couldn’t turn to face him for she knew that he didn’t want to see her get upset. She tried to stay strong, but it felt so good to have his hand in hers that she thought if she had sat it the car and just taken it from there, nothing would have ever went wrong, she would have never started. It had been so long since she had that kind of energy ride through her hand, there was something so intense within their grip, she never wanted to move again. It washed away everything at contact so simple and unproblematic that it made her start to cry.
