Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [107]
“Well, great.”
The wide freeway is full of cars but empty of interest, merely blank and wet, the place where everyone on earth has surely been before. The air traffic controller doesn’t seem to have anything more to say, which is too bad. In Taylor’s opinion Steven Kant is probably the most upbeat passenger in the history of the Handi-Van corporation, and he’s handsome, besides. “I’m Taylor, by the way,” she tells him. “I don’t usually drive this route. I guess you know that.”
“No, I didn’t. I don’t usually go this route, either. My MG is in the shop.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“I don’t mind the limo service once in a while.” He catches her eye in the rearview mirror and smiles. “The service is friendly.”
“Only the best. You just sit back there, sir, and pour yourself a glass of champagne.”
“In my line of work they kind of frown on people showing up tipsy. But I’ll take a rain check.”
She looks in the mirror again, wondering if this is an invitation of some kind. She decides it is, but he’s made it so gently that if she overlooks it neither one of them will feel bad. She supposes living in a wheelchair might train you in that kind of skill.
“You really drive an MG?”
“Yep. Convertible. Canary yellow, with wire wheels and hand controls and a very sporty wheelchair rack on the back.”
“You got headers on that thing?”
“You bet. Headers and a glass pack.”
“Whew. I’ll bet she purrs.”
“You know a lot about sports cars.”
Taylor smiles. “Not a thing, really. I just used to sell them, a piece at a time.”
Steven Kant laughs. “Sounds like a life of crime.”
“No, nothing so profitable. A car-parts store.” Taylor finds she can hardly remember working at Mattie’s. She can picture herself in the store, joking with the men, among all those organized metal pieces of dream. But that saucy salesgirl seems to Taylor now like a confident older sister, rather than herself. Someone with her life well in hand.
“How about when your MG’s fixed you can drive me someplace,” she says. “Not to work, though. My other job is at the world’s most hideous shopping mall.”
“Okay. How about the locks?”
“The locks?”
“Yeah. Haven’t you seen them before?”
“I’ve got about seven on my front door.”
He laughs. “The locks between the sound and the lake, where the boats pass through. Really, you’ve never been there?”
“I’m new in town, sailor.”
“Well, okay then, I’m going to show you the locks. And afterward I’ll take you out for the freshest salmon of your life. What do you think, next Saturday?”
Taylor’s stomach flips upstream when it hears about the salmon. Freshness is not the issue, either; right now she wouldn’t be above taking home a salmon if she found one dead in the road. She’s so tired of peanut butter she has stopped acting for Turtle’s benefit like she cares about the murdered peanuts.
“Saturday would be good,” she says, after pretending to think about it. “Only, I’m going to have to tell you right up front, I have a little girl that would love to come too. No husband or anything, but a kid. Would that be okay?”
“Two dates for the price of one,” he says. “That’s even better.”
Taylor thinks: it won’t be for the price of one. She eats too.
Jax has knocked over a nearly full bottle of beer into his synthesizer in the middle of “Dancing at the Zombie Zoo.” He manages to play through to the last chords, touching the keys gingerly, not going for the demonstrative ending this time. He just hopes he won’t get electrocuted. While they’re fading on the final, he signals his lead guitarist for a break. Once the stage spots go off and they begin playing taped music through the house amps, Jax takes off his T-shirt and starts mopping the keyboard. He’ll have to take the whole thing apart. He can’t decide whether to start doing that now,