“Everything ok back there?” Edward shouts over his shoulder, having taken up position leaning against the hood of the car. His head is buried in his phone.
“Fine,” I grunt as I struggle to get the last nut off the tyre. It still refuses to budge.
Typing away on his phone, Edward makes another offer to help. “It sounds as though you are struggling somewhat. Are you sure you couldn’t use a hand? Wait a moment, while I put my phone and cardigan in the car.”
As I stand up to put my whole body into a last-ditch effort to get this nut unstuck, I hear two things. The first is the sound of a rapidly approaching vehicle coming up behind me. The second is the squeak of a car door opening. Edward’s door, to be specific.
“Watch out, Edward!” I shout, but my warning gets lost in the roaring wind as a mid-sized lorry passes inches from the edge of the door, narrowly missing Edward. The wind whips away my sweat, throws the door wide open and sucks all the papers I’d carefully piled onto the dashboard straight out of the car. I watch in horror as papers sweep past Edward, the currents carrying them left and right, up and down, spreading them over several meters of road and off into the neighbouring field.
My mouth opens and a demon’s voice comes out, “OH MY GOD, MY WORK. GET MY WORK.”
Edward’s jaw hangs unhinged, his eyes wide in horror as he realises how much worse his attempt at help has made the situation.
The demon voice spurs him into action, “PICK IT UP. PICK IT ALL UP. NOWWWWWW!”
To his credit, now that his brain has reengaged, he sprints across the street and directly into the freshly ploughed field. He ignores the mud squelching around his ankles, dipping and diving to catch my papers before the wind moves them into another location. I barely notice as I’m frantically doing the same along the roadway. Who knows when another car will pass by? I need all these papers safely back in the car as soon as possible.
I scoop up the last loose sheet seconds before another car passes. I turn around to see Edward standing on the other side of the road, a mass of slightly muddy papers clutched to his chest. We take one look at each other and burst into uncontrolled laughter.
“I thought your request to pick up your wellington boots was overkill, Ms Payne, but now I see I should have stopped for both the boots and a complete biohazard suit.”
I cross the street, coming closer until I can pick a stray leaf from his hair. I dislodge the leaf and run my fingers through the dark, wavy locks to restore some order.
I pull my hand back, standing awkwardly once I realise what I’m doing. I bite my lip and look up into his eyes, ready to take on whatever sarcastic remark he’s brewing up. Instead of sarcasm, I find a softness which I’ve never seen. A hint of humanity he normally keeps hidden behind a wall of intellectual stoicism.
“You have a bit of mud,” he reaches closer and wipes his thumb across my cheek. “Oh dear, I seem to have made it worse.”
I run my eyes over my mud-stained dress, ruined shoes, ripped tights and ragged hem. I must have caught it in my heel during one of my attempts to dislodge the tyre. “A little mud on my cheek is the least of my worries right now.”
Edward has the good sense to look sheepish. “I am terribly sorry. It sounded as though you would cause yourself to have a hernia. I was so focused on putting my jumper in the car I missed the warning sounds of the approaching vehicle.” He looks around at the now empty road and once again bare field. “It seems we have collected them all, I’ll dust and tidy them during the rest of the drive home.”
I nod my head in thanks before breaking up this heart-to-heart moment. Pointing at the flat tyre, I admit failure. “You’re out here now, might as well give me a hand with this last nut.”
It spins free on his first attempt, but he wisely chooses not to highlight this. We complete our tasks in silence, passing tools and parts back and forth until everything is once again orderly, and we can be on our way.
Back inside the car, once again fitted with four inflated tyres, Edward repeats his earlier offer. “If you’ll pass me the rest of your papers, I’ll see if I can sort them out and put them into the correct order.”
I hand him the papers I saved from certain roadway death, settling back into my seat and restarting the car for a hopefully much calmer trip back home. I keep the radio off and the windows rolled up, unwilling to break the temporary ceasefire between the two of us.
When the city limits sign passes by, I realise that Edward has spent the last twenty minutes skimming and sorting my paperwork. “There weren’t that many pages, Edward. Is my handwriting that difficult to read or can you not figure out my system?”
Edward quickly shoves the stack back together and drops it back onto the dashboard.
Looking somewhat shellshocked, he asks, “Do you always put this level of detail into your event plans?”
I snort, “That? Oh, that’s nothing compared to the bunch back in my office.”
Edward’s eyebrows shoot up. “There are more?” Shaking his head, he continues, “I’ll admit that the bubble lettering threw me at the beginning, but I had not conceived that you would need to utilise fully illustrated charts, spreadsheet trackers, and lists. So many endless lists full of every item one can imagine under the sun.”
Pausing at a red
