go out in Manhattan, and she'll just sit here. Unblinking. I can't afford to fix her again. If this is it, then this is really it.
I'm not really paying attention when Scot and Thom remove Caroline from my backseat. After all the time it took to get her in. But I can understand the impulse to abandon ship.
I'm about to help Scot connect the cables when this guy I've never seen before leans into Norah's window and says, 'Hey, baby, you ready to pick up where we left off?'
What. the. fuck?
Okay, maybe I hang with a queercore crowd and all, but still-I never, ever, in a million zillion years would have imagined that a guy could use the phrase 'hey, baby' and mean it. He says it like he's whistling at some girl's boobs as she walks down the street. Who does that?
I expect Norah to put him right in his place. But instead she freezes. She looks away, as if she can ignore her way out of it. By some logic, this should mean that she's now looking at me, since I'm 180 degrees away from our uninvited guest. But instead she focuses on the dashboard, on the place where the lighter should be. And I guess I'm a little surprised, because it was just starting to look like we were going to go someplace together. That this wasn't just going to be a ride home. Now it's becoming a ride nowhere, and I'm sad that it's so out of my hands.
'Baby, I'm back,' the guy goes on. 'How 'bout getting out of this heap and saying hello?'
Now, it's one thing to try to harass Norah out of my passenger seat. But to bring Jessie into it is completely uncalled for.
'Can I help you?' I ask.
He keeps looking at Norah as he talks to me. 'Yeah, buddy. I just got back to the States and I've been looking for this lady here. Can you spare her for a second?'
He reaches in the window, unlocks the door, and opens it.
'We'll be right back,' he goes on. And I'm about to tell Norah she doesn't have to do a thing. But right then she reaches over and pops off her seatbelt. I figure this is a decision on her part-until she fails to follow it up with another movement. She just stays in the car.
'Baby-,' he purrs as he reaches in for her, as if she's a kid in a car seat. 'I've missed you so much.'
I turn the key in the ignition. Still no start. Scot comes over to my window, looks inside the car, and says, 'Problem here?'
Now it's Scot that Norah looks at. And for some reason, this snaps her back.
'Tal,' she says with an edge usually reserved for cutlery, 'you haven't missed me for one fucking minute. You have never for one single second in your entire pathetic life missed me. You might have missed fucking with my head, and you might have missed the satisfaction you so clearly got from demolishing me, but those are your emotions you're missing, not mine. I'm afraid I can't help you.'
'C'mon, baby,' Tal says, leaning into her. She flinches back into the seat. I can sense Scot about to say something, but I beat him to it.
'Dude, nobody puts baby in a corner,' I say. 'Get the fuck out of my car.'
Tal holds his hands up, steps out of the doorway.
'Just giving the lady a choice,' he says. 'I didn't realize she was already ruining another guy's life. I hope you have better luck than I did.'
'Asshole,' Norah murmurs.
Tal laughs. 'Piece of shit car: five dollars. Value of Norah's opinion: three cents. Irony of her calling me an asshole: priceless. '
'Go. Away,' Norah says.
'What? Are you afraid I'm going to tell the truth?' Tal looks at me now. 'Don't be fooled, partner. She talks a great game, but when you actually get to the field, you realize it's fucking empty. '
From somewhere beyond the hood, Thom yells, 'Gentleman, start your engine!'
I cannot find a way to pray to God or some higher being. But I damn well feel comfortable praying to Jessie, and right at this moment I give her my evangelical all.
Please start. I will buy premium gas for the next month if you please, please, please start.
I turn the key in the ignition. There's a slight catch. And then-
Jessie's talking to me again. And she's saying, Let's get the hell out of here.
'I'd love to stay and chat,' I say to Tal, 'but we've got somewhere to be.'
'Fine,' Tal says, shutting the door more gently than I would've expected. 'Just don't say I never warned you. You're dating the Tin Woman here. Look for a heart, you'll only come up with dead air.'
'Thanks for the tip!' I say with mock cheer.
He reaches in the window and touches Norah on the cheek, holding there for a moment.
'Baby, it's you,' he says. Then he turns back to the sidewalk and heads right into the club.
'Seems like a nice guy,' I say. Norah doesn't respond.
Scot leans in my window now.
'Don't worry about her friend,' he says. 'We'll get her home. You two kids have fun now, you hear?'
'Sure thing,' I tell him, even though Norah looks like the only use she has for the word fun is to make the word funeral.
Thom shuts the hood and gives me a thumbs-up. Then he and Scot walk hand in hand back to the van, the jumper cables dangling over their shoulders like a boa.
Norah hasn't moved to put her seatbelt back on. I don't know what this means. She turns to look at the door to the club.
'You okay?' I ask.
'I honestly have no idea,' she says.
I put Jessie into reverse and give our parking space away to whoever comes next. It gives me some satisfaction to know that my departure will become somebody else's good luck.
It's only when I've pulled out onto the street that I realize I have no idea where we're going.
'Do you want me to take you home?' I ask.
I take her silence as a no. Because wanting to go home is the kind of thing you speak up about.
I follow up with, 'What do you want to do?'
This seems to me to be a pretty straightforward question. But she looks at me with this total incomprehension, like she's watching footage of the world being blown up, and I'm the little blurb on the corner of the screen saying what the weather is like outside.
I try again.
'You hungry?'
She just holds her hand to her mouth and looks out the front windshield.
'You thirsty?'
For all I know, she's counting the streetlamps.
'Know any other bands playing?'
Tumbleweed blowing down the armrest between us.
'Wanna watch some nuns make out?'
Am I even speaking out loud?
'Maybe see if E.T. is up for a threeway?'
This time she looks at me. And if she isn't exactly smiling, at least I think I see the potential for a smile there.
'No,' she says. 'I'd much rather watch some nuns make out.'
'Okay, then,' I say, swerving the car back toward the Lower East Side. 'It's time for a little burlesque.'
I say this with some authority, even though I have only the faintest of faint ideas of where I'm going. Dev once told me about this place where strippers dressed like nuns and did this tease to 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain.' And that was only one of the acts. I figured it was too kitsch to be pervy-and that seemed to be Norah's range right there. As far as I could tell.
As we're driving across Houston, Norah reaches over and turns on the radio. A black-lipsticked oldie: The Cure, 'Pictures of You'-track four of my Breakup Desolation Mix.
This, and every other song on this disc, is dedicated to Tris-.
