THE UBER DRIVER MAKES NONSTOP SMALL TALK. MY MOUTH IS MOVING ON automatic, trying desperately not to be rude as I respond with rote replies, but my head, this deadweight on my neck, is spinning out of control. I stare out the car window, watching the passing vehicles on the highway, trying to digest what just happened.
There was the drama, the drink I threw in Gabe’s face, the birthday cake smashed like an axe to a tree, and then came the crazy. I stood up from the table and ran to the elevator, which was miraculously open, and got in before anyone could stop me. I bolted out onto the street, hearing snatches of conversations along the way, with Samantha and Lauren racing after me. I was unmoored and fast. There’s no motor like rage. I was eight cylinders on stilettos, screaming wildly, “Please, just leave me alone . . . Gabe, get the fuck away from me!” as I sprinted down Oak Street, past all the designer stores without even a single window-glance, in my one-shouldered body-hugging birthday dress like a prostitute fleeing her bat-wielding pimp. I ran until I could no longer, and then hid behind large green garbage receptacles lined up in a scary alley. The rancid smell of rot was overwhelming but I didn’t move, barely breathed. In the distance, I caught glimpses of moving recognizable pants legs—Gabe, Eric, and Matt, the three stooges, running in the opposite direction. I hugged my shaking body, feeling my bones, my blood, my guts, all the moving parts within me. They lost me. I lost me.
I called an Uber and waited for the driver to come rescue me. And he did within three minutes, just as the app had promised. Stan the Uber Guy with a wispy reddish mustache was my white knight in a dark blue Subaru.
Safely nestled in the backseat, breathing deeply if I’m even breathing at all, I glance at my phone. Fifteen missed calls, alternating between Gabe, Lauren, and Samantha. I check the time. Ten twenty. Without traffic, it should take thirty minutes to get home. Do I even go home? It’s my damn home, I remind myself. I’m not the cheater—he is. What if Gabe is there waiting for me? What am I going to do? Forty-three times. Christ. I drop my phone back into my purse. I can’t breathe.
I open my window and the one on the passenger side as well. Nothing makes sense. I need to think, need to process, but the driver is still talking. I want to tell Stan that I will rate him five stars if only he would just shut up and let me think. But I simply don’t have the heart to be mean to a man who is clearly just trying to make a living; a dependable human who said he’d pick me up in three minutes and was not a second late.
“Big night?” he asks, eyeing me curiously in the rearview mirror.
“Big night,” I concur, staring at his bushy auburn brow.
“You look very nice. Special occasion?”
I find the words in me somewhere. “Thank you. My birthday.”
“Well, happy birthday. You’re my second one today. I hope it was everything you wanted it to be.”
It was Opposite Day. “Thank you.” My tone is crisp.
But he keeps going, not picking up on the social cue. “So how did you celebrate?”
I celebrated the end of my marriage. “I FaceTimed with my daughter who is studying abroad,” I say, wondering why I am even telling Stan this and thinking back to my conversation with Ava earlier this morning. She called from Paris, where she studied last semester and extended her stay into the summer to finish an independent project. The call wasn’t Ava’s usual singing or silliness on my birthday. It felt like a forced call—a because-she-had-to-call-me call. Not her at all. There was definitely something wrong in Ava’s face, in her voice.
“There’s no way—you’re not old enough to have a daughter that old.”
I smile despite myself at the back of Stan’s head with faint appreciation. Well, I will give him this: he is certainly earning his stars. But please, Stan. Just. Stop. Talking. And then, miraculously, as if there is a telepathic chip somewhere in the vehicle, for the next fifteen minutes or so, he does.
As he turns off the highway and heads into North Grove, we pass by my Starbucks, my cleaners, my nail salon, my Whole Foods with its overpriced mung bean salad, my yoga studio filled with pseudo-zen moms, my shoe repair guy, my gas station and bagel place—vignettes of my to-do list, flashes of my daily life—all those things that I love and dread simultaneously.
And then I begin to cry—not silent tears streaming daintily down a cheek, but an all-out bawl. And Stan with all his chattiness, simply doesn’t know what to do with me, so he does it all. He pulls over to the side of the road, flicks on his hazards and hands me a tissue and a Wet One, a Q-tip for my runny mascara, a mini-bottle of water, and tops it all off with a Cinnamint. Every amenity Stan has, he gives to me.
“Sounds like it wasn’t such a good birthday,” he says with true compassion. “I’m really sorry. You seem like the kind of person who deserves better.”
“Thank you,” I bluster. “I mean it. Kindness goes a long way. I’m just up ahead, over there.” I point. “Left at the next light. It’s okay. I’m okay. We can go now.”
He nods, turns on the ignition, and drives, keeping a concerned eye on me through the rearview mirror. I make a mental note to contact his Uber supervisor—Uber-visor?—if there’s such a thing, tomorrow.
We slowly pull into my circular driveway and I look up. The outside lights are on, accentuating our new landscaping, and so is the kitchen light, and the one in our bedroom upstairs. I exhale deeply. Gabe is home.
“Stan?”
He turns. “Uh yeah.”
“What do you do when you don’t know what to do?” My nose is running a steady stream and he hands me another tissue.
He shrugs. “I guess, you just do it. Do what you got to do, make it quick, and then get out. That’s what I do.”
Not so deep but pretty spot on.
I say goodbye and tell Stan he earned every single star and more. I slowly make my way up my driveway as though walking the plank, feeling wobbly in my heels. I stop in my tracks and stare at my big house with its salmon-colored brick, rustic French turquoise shutters, and three-car garage, picturing the once good life inside that no longer possesses bragging rights. Gabe is definitely home. I see him watching me from our bedroom window, lifting back the curtain like a leading man in a horror film. Tony Perkins waiting for Janet Leigh.
Then he reveals himself in full. Our eyes meet and lock. Six foot one, 185, tousled black hair—the kind that will never go bald. Long, lean and muscular, perfectly packaged. GMB18@gmail.com: God’s gift to forty-three women.
Who are not me. I cringe, turning away from him, wiping my wet face with the rolled-up Kleenex as I press the outside code to open the garage door. I hold my head up high, completely unprepared for whatever comes next. Squaring my shoulders, finding my breath, I enter my home of nearly fifteen years to do what I’ve got to do and then get out.
And then I stop in my tracks, backpedal out the door and into my garage. I can’t do this. Not yet. Leaning against my car, I reach for my phone inside my purse. I glance at it before I press the third name listed on my favorites.
“Sophie, thank god,” Samantha answers halfway through the first ring, as though she is watching her phone intently, like one of those black restaurant buzzers that light up when your table is finally called.
“Sam.” Her name comes out as a bated breath. I’m dying here.
“I’m coming right now. I’ll call Lauren. Don’t move. We’ll be there in less than ten.”