Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [58]
I sipped the coffee I had brought in the G-ride, almost ready to walk across the street and clap them both on the back as if it were all a happy coincidence. I watched as they split the bill and got into Andrew’s Ford, then followed at a distance as they ambled through traffic and eventually got onto the Marina Freeway, euphoric at the thought that I was just a silly, jealous girl.
The Marina Freeway is basically an access road, a short connection between the 405 and Lincoln Boulevard. It is not well traveled, especially on a Sunday morning. You could, if you timed it right, get three to five minutes of uninterrupted cruise along a straight-ahead stretch that pretty much requires minimal concentration.
And that, apparently, was the plan, for as soon as they turned onto the Marina Freeway, Sylvia Oberbeck’s head disappeared out of sight below the front seat, into Andrew’s lap, and stayed there.
The speed of the car dropped to thirty miles per hour. It began to wobble along the slow lane.
Instantly, an uncontrollable force like a conflagration consumed both me and the car as one. I revved the engine and leaned on the horn. Sped up beside them, made Andrew swerve. He saw me. I gave him the finger. Kept honking. Accelerated. He accelerated, but he couldn’t get away. We were one on one, expert drivers going ninety miles an hour in high-performance muscle cars. I pulled behind him, kissed his bumper. Drew up side by side, then gunned it and cut him off, forcing him to skid into the breakdown lane. I could see him swearing, spinning the wheel with grim concentration. Officer Oberbeck was sitting up now.
Our cars swiveled to an uneven stop in a hot rain of pebbles. I threw my door open wide.
“Get out,” I screamed. “I know you’re screwing that bitch.”
He lowered the window half an inch.
“Will you calm down? Relax. I’m driving her home—”
“Get out!” I screamed again. “Get out of the goddamned car!”
I yanked the handle, but he had locked it.
Incredibly, I was still holding the coffee cup.
“Fuck you,” I cried and threw the hot coffee at his face. He flinched as it slung across the glass, splattering through the open crack and in his hair.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Let’s just go,” said Oberbeck. “That bitch is crazy.”
“We are talking about moving in together at the same time you’re screwing her?”
He made a move to open the door, but Oberbeck pulled him back.
“Don’t!” she said. “Just get the fuck out of here,” and hit the button so the window sealed tight.
Andrew hesitated, put the car in gear.
“Move away. I don’t want to hurt you, move away from the car.”
His voice was muffled. He let her cut him off from me, and now he was looking up, expressionless, like some red-faced lying civilian, safe behind the glass.
I picked up handfuls of gravel and pelted the departing car. I threw them and threw them and threw them and threw them until they began to slow down and float like shooting stars burning out in the empty air.
Fourteen.
That night the stars were obscured by a scrim of cloud. You could see airplanes, heavy with lights, marching toward LAX, and hear their booming vibration, but the sky was just a formless haze. Lying back on a beach chair on the balcony of my apartment, I wished for the enormity of the heavens to fill my sight, leave no room for anything but misty blue; to feel nothing but the soft worked cotton of my grandmother’s quilt wrapped around my body.
It was nearly 5 a.m. No lights were on behind the drawn window drapes of the opposite bank of apartments. Pale beige drapery was standard at Tahiti Gardens, which created a pleasing unity in the ziggurat pattern of jutting rectangular balconies, dark on dark. Some had plants, some had whirligigs and wicker and cats; from my corner unit I could see hundreds of insipid variations on a theme.
I had woken up at four with absolute clarity. The