You can get used to running
and not know it is time to calm down and grow some roses and tend your garden
You can get so used to running…. that you may find yourself not knowing how to
stop
*****
“You should check your emails.”
She was aware of motion. Like a moving vehicle. The accent was confusing her.
It was a weird dream. Why was he telling her to check her emails? And why was she so uncomfortable sleeping this way?— up against a very cold ….glass?
Like a car window?
She sat bolt upright! ….Greg
And inconspicuously wiped her chin—she’d passed out against the inside of his car door. Hopefully he hadn’t become aware of this.
But then….
No warning— she opened the passenger door when he made a stop at a traffic light. And hurled onto the cement ground —splat— and ….
the most remarkable thing about this is she did this before the light changed and shut the door without even flinching. And neatly, again wiped her face.
“For the record, Wilson, this is your fault—why did you ply me with enough tia maria to have me barfing up Starbucks flavored vomit through my nose and ruin that for me for life?—please pull over here—“ and again she didn’t wait.
“We are actually closer to Imogene’s than we are to your hotel,” Greg told her when she had retracted herself back into his passenger seat and shut the door
“Huh….wha….?” she hardly comprehended his words still trying to will away the urge to heave
He reached over her and buckled her back into her seat
as she flopped back against the seat
and shut her eyes,
her hair flopped too and heavy across her face in mad spirals of complete disorder giving her that roll in the hey-stack kind of look
After a moment she forgot. It was almost as if none of that had ever happened because —she wasn’t going to remember this part of the evening later. Or ever again. Completely wiped and burnt out; fried out of her brain’s data base
Did he know when he said to her,
“I’ll bring you to Imogene’s and just get your bag at the hotel in the morning,” he was saying
more for himself as—he could not imagine she’d care either way by the state of her which it was a good thing she wouldn’t remember what she said because yes, it was his fault. He couldn’t suppress that still boyish wicked smile as he glanced at her buckled in the passenger seat held up only by the seat belt. her hair flopped over her face. Yet. Still …. (after how many years?) —she could still drive him crazy to distraction just by being near her
—he’d almost missed the turn
