Christ!” Jeff moaned, half frightened by the voice coming from the windshield and half sick of it already. He flailed his arms weakly up at the GPS until his right thumb found the power button on the side and pressed extra hard. To his surprise, it very simply and politely said farewell — “Warren. We know where you’re goin’.” — and blinked off. A sigh of relief escaped Jeff and he backed the car out of its spot, rammed it into drive and steered through the parking lot, undoubtedly allowing the Elegante and its staff to collectively breathe its own sigh of relief.
As the car got moving an awful grinding sound came from beneath him, the sound of the abrasion caused by the slow breakup of all the mud and grime in the wheel wells, on the axles and throughout the undercarriage of the car. One last little gift for poor old Ramon, he thought, as he looked in his rearview mirror and saw a massive dirt trail following him out of the hotel lot. The thing that passed him by without his noticing — as Jeff rolled out onto University Drive and began searching for an ATM — was the now fading mud trail on the other side of the hotel’s parking lot entrance, the one he’d created on his way back into the Elegante at the first peek of dawn 36 hours before.
Less than a mile down the road, Jeff veered into a gas station with an ATM INSIDE sign ablaze in the window. He was thinking to himself how Riley was probably stewing away in her bedroom office right now, the room that just a few months ago was their bedroom but which was now empty except for her desk. She was probably scouring away at what little information she’d gotten from Jeff about what had happened.
She probably hoped he was going to have some moment of clarity thanks to her, and leave whatever it was completely behind him, and maybe even give up the bottle. Not because she still wanted to be in his life, of course, but because she always wanted to be the happy thought in everyone’s head and the reason everything always seemed to have a way of working out in her world.
Maybe Riley the reporter would go on the hunt for more, though. After all, that would be one hell of an interesting story to have anyone tell you, whether you cared about them or not, or whether you were a writer or not. Maybe that photograph was headed for the front page of tomorrow’s Times-Pic.
Whatever, Jeff thought. As it happened, he was steadily feeling better and it had nothing to do with Riley. As the absurd-looking Toyota chugged through the convenience store parking lot and into a spot right out front, Jeff began to feel more and more annoyed about Riley’s undying need to be involved, yet uninvolved. He was glad to feel this annoyance, though, because it was a feeling he’d been waiting for, hoping for. If he could just control himself, all the time, he had a mind to start embracing the separation she’d asked for and gotten.
He’d been at fault, but this last little grilling from Riley had exposed a side in her that made the distance between them feel right for the first time. Still, she probably figured that he was going to get his shit together out of some absentee love for her, and to that end, she was wrong. At least he hoped.
Jeff sat in the car thinking, not noticing how much of a conversation piece his car had become in greater Albuquerque. He was starting to embrace having no motivation for anything in the long term. He’d spent some long days and nights both before and after the marriage went to hell knowing there was a huge vacancy in his life, something most people had that made them give a shit about their lives, something that he didn’t have, at least not anymore. He still held out hope, however, that there would be something and that maybe him getting past Riley was what he needed to help him find that something.
As he now worked his way through the store’s center aisle, cluttered with falling bags of pretzels and the two kids who were making them fall,
As the car got moving an awful grinding sound came from beneath him, the sound of the abrasion caused by the slow breakup of all the mud and grime in the wheel wells, on the axles and throughout the undercarriage of the car. One last little gift for poor old Ramon, he thought, as he looked in his rearview mirror and saw a massive dirt trail following him out of the hotel lot. The thing that passed him by without his noticing — as Jeff rolled out onto University Drive and began searching for an ATM — was the now fading mud trail on the other side of the hotel’s parking lot entrance, the one he’d created on his way back into the Elegante at the first peek of dawn 36 hours before.
Less than a mile down the road, Jeff veered into a gas station with an ATM INSIDE sign ablaze in the window. He was thinking to himself how Riley was probably stewing away in her bedroom office right now, the room that just a few months ago was their bedroom but which was now empty except for her desk. She was probably scouring away at what little information she’d gotten from Jeff about what had happened.
She probably hoped he was going to have some moment of clarity thanks to her, and leave whatever it was completely behind him, and maybe even give up the bottle. Not because she still wanted to be in his life, of course, but because she always wanted to be the happy thought in everyone’s head and the reason everything always seemed to have a way of working out in her world.
Maybe Riley the reporter would go on the hunt for more, though. After all, that would be one hell of an interesting story to have anyone tell you, whether you cared about them or not, or whether you were a writer or not. Maybe that photograph was headed for the front page of tomorrow’s Times-Pic.
Whatever, Jeff thought. As it happened, he was steadily feeling better and it had nothing to do with Riley. As the absurd-looking Toyota chugged through the convenience store parking lot and into a spot right out front, Jeff began to feel more and more annoyed about Riley’s undying need to be involved, yet uninvolved. He was glad to feel this annoyance, though, because it was a feeling he’d been waiting for, hoping for. If he could just control himself, all the time, he had a mind to start embracing the separation she’d asked for and gotten.
He’d been at fault, but this last little grilling from Riley had exposed a side in her that made the distance between them feel right for the first time. Still, she probably figured that he was going to get his shit together out of some absentee love for her, and to that end, she was wrong. At least he hoped.
Jeff sat in the car thinking, not noticing how much of a conversation piece his car had become in greater Albuquerque. He was starting to embrace having no motivation for anything in the long term. He’d spent some long days and nights both before and after the marriage went to hell knowing there was a huge vacancy in his life, something most people had that made them give a shit about their lives, something that he didn’t have, at least not anymore. He still held out hope, however, that there would be something and that maybe him getting past Riley was what he needed to help him find that something.
As he now worked his way through the store’s center aisle, cluttered with falling bags of pretzels and the two kids who were making them fall,
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