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The wind hits me like a tidal wave, threatening to knock me over and then drag me down the street like a discarded Wendy’s bag. I can only imagine how the one hundred and ten pound Liz feels.
I walk around the car and throw the trunk open all the way as Liz struggles with her luggage. There’s not a lot of room, but I only brought one bag. I can buy whatever I need in Chicago. Liz, meanwhile, seems to be traveling by steamer to the New World. She has a fucking trunk, covered in exotic stickers, which I’m sure seemed cute and romantic until she needed to drag it around an airport.
She’s trying to lift it, but I brush her aside, heave it up myself. She has a few other bags, and she goes for them, but I shout over the wind, “JUST GO WAIT IN THE CAR!”
“I CAN PACK MY OWN LUGGAGE!”
We end up in a compromise. I take the larger bag, she the two smaller ones. Everything just manages to fit, but if Liz had brought a single sock more I’d have to bungee cord the trunk shut.
We run back to the cab and dive in. I’m soaked straight through and in a moment so is my seat. I take my scarf from behind my seat and try to dry off as much as I can, but it’s quickly soaked itself. I give up after I realize I’m really only moving the liquid around.
Liz watches me. Her face is red from the wind and she bites her lip. “You didn’t need to get out,” she says. “I could have handled it.”
“The wind would have taken that trunk right out of your hands and crushed you with it,” I say. “What’s with that thing? Are you going to Hogwarts?”
“It was a gift,” Liz says.
“From an enemy?” I ask. “Do they even let you take it on airplanes?”
“Not as carry-on! It’s—” She stops herself, takes a beat to reevaluate if this is really how we want to start this trip, and finally says, a tad robotically, “Thank you Rhett for helping me with my stuff. I’m very sorry you got wet.”
“No worries,” I say. “It’s weird though ‘cause usually it’s the other way around.”
Liz groans and flops back into the seat. “Oh my god. Please let’s not start in on this. I will report you to HR.”
I raise my hands. “Sorry, sorry. We can’t have that. Janice would eat me alive if I ever got sent to her.”
“You’re telling me you’ve never been to HR?” Liz asks with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t believe it. Like, even for a moment.”
“It would shock you how little of the bank I’ve actually seen.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Well regardless, I don’t sexually harass,” I say, abandoning the scarf and throwing it behind me. “It’s actually not such a high bar to jump. I’m an asshole, I’ll give you that. But a creep? No.”
“I’d say that’s not really for you to decide,” Liz says.
“Nope, it’s for Janice. And I’m never needed to ask for her professional opinion,” I say. Then I put the car in gear and explode out of the parking space in a wave of snow and high-performing power.
It’s enough to end the conversation because Liz’s hands are immediately glued to the grab handle and the center counsel.
“Holy shit, Rhett!” she yelps as we take off down the street, skidding sideways on slick snow. “Why the fuck are you— WATCH OUT!”
“For what?” I ask, righting us though only barely. “There’s no one on the road.”
The streets are completely devoid of life, and the Challenger has enough power in her to rip through the powder, so I’m having a little fun with it. Liz hangs on for dear life as we slip, slide, and screech down the Manhattan streets, helped by the wind, hindered by the falling snow, but having a good time all the way.
Well, I am anyway. Liz not so much. I can’t tell if she’s trying to be brave or saying prayers mentally because there’s not a peep from her the entire time. I’m not driving dangerously, at least for me. I’m in full control the entire time. Am I pushing her a little? Maybe. But it’s my petty revenge for Liz’s continued attempts to paint me as a womanizing pig. I’m not that bad. Sure, I have fun, but I’ve always been more into working on motorcycles than bringing home a new woman every night.
I don’t let up until we reach the tunnel, and with it a lot more people going forty under the speed limit. But with a little maneuvering I can still have fun.
Finally Liz manages to get a word out. Or several.
“What. The. Hell. Is. Wrong. With. You.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, whipping around a truck and ghosting a sedan before pulling back into the fast lane and flying away again in a flash of flakes and fury.
“You drive like an insane person,” she says. “You’re going to kill us. Is this the plan? So you don’t have to go to Chicago? Just murder-suicide? Actually make that mass murder ‘cause if you crash in here we’re not the only people you’re gonna take out.”
