“Damn!”
Stella swore with exasperation as her tightly balled fist beat the
dash of her car. She slid the lever several times and clicked the
knob of the air conditioner controls. What else is going to go
wrong?
She depressed a button on the console and stared at the snarled
traffic in front of her as the windows whirred open. The outside
heat swarmed into the interior of the car and enveloped her like an
electric blanket. Ninety-seven degrees and the air conditioner
picked today to go out.
She gazed in envy at the motionless cars in front of her under the
bridge, which spanned four lanes of traffic. The shade might have
offered a little comfort from the heat.
Stella listened as the radio news announcer excitedly told of the
major wreck on I-75. She heard helicopters buzzing overhead but
couldn’t see them. She looked at her watch, picked up the cell phone
from the passenger side seat and pushed her editor’s numbers.
“Everett Publishing. How may I help you?” The cheery singsong voice
did nothing to alter Stella’s mood.
“Craig Everett, please. This is Stella Marsh.”
“I’m afraid Mr. Everett is in a meeting. May I take a message, Ms.
Marsh?”
Stella sighed. What’s he doing in a meeting? He is supposed to be
meeting with her in less than ten minutes to discuss a contract
about publishing her first book.
“All right. I was scheduled for a meeting with Mr. Everett at one
o’clock today. I’m stuck on I-75 behind a huge traffic jam and
really don’t know when its going to clear up.”
Stella heard the clicking of a keyboard in the background.
“Ah yes, Ms. Marsh. We have your cell phone number. I will inform
Mr. Everett of your predicament and call you back to reschedule.”
“Ok, thanks.” Stella snapped the cell phone closed and threw it on
the passenger seat.
She felt beads of sweat gathering around her neck and trickling
down. The air mixed with gas fumes, and burning oil from overheated
cars caused nauseating spit to gather inside her mouth. Not one car
had moved in fifteen minutes. She leaned her head back against the
headrest and thought about the argument with Rick this morning
before she left.
“We haven’t had one hour together since you started that damn
book.” Rick spoke with irritation as he poured himself a cup of
coffee. “I took today off just so we could be together and talk.”
Stella slipped her jacket on and started fumbling through her purse
on the counter. Finally she just dumped the contents out.
“Talk about what, Rick? You said when I started this I would have
your full support and now all I hear from you are complaints.” Not
finding what she was looking for she glanced desperately around the
kitchen. “Where are my fucking car keys?”
He followed her as she went from the kitchen to the living room
picking up magazines, looking on tables for the car keys.
“We need to talk about us, our marriage. Hell, we haven’t had sex in
four months.”
She turned to him and placed her hands on her hips in defiance.
“And whose fault is that? You are the one who is always too tired.”
“I can’t stay up until one or two in the morning when you decide to
take your nose out of that novel you are writing. In case you
haven’t noticed, I have a job that requires me to be there at seven
in the morning.” As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted
saying them.
She found her keys on the hallway table. She turned, looked at Rick
with hurtful anger evident on her face and said quietly,
“So, all that support talk was just that, huh? You think what I am
doing is not work and is less important than what you do.”
“No, honey, I didn’t mean…”
Hoooonk! Honk! Honk! Honk!
Stella’s reverie broke with the sudden, grating noise of a car horn.
Her eyes quickly riveted to the cars in front of her and she almost
stepped on the gas when she noticed the bumper-to-bumper line had
not moved one iota. She looked in her rearview mirror for the source
of the blaring horn. Directly behind her sat a red mustang
convertible housing a young blonde applying lipstick and shaking her
head in beat to a radio.
Stella’s cell phone rang and she grabbed it up quickly.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Marsh. This is Everett Publishing. Mr. Everett can see you at
three-thirty today…
Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk! Hoooooonk! Honk!
The blare seemed to be right next to her ear. She placed her finger
in her left ear and tried to bend away from the noise.
“Pardon me, I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, Mr. Everett can see you at three-thirty today but after
five today he’s going on vacation and won’t be back for two weeks.”
Hoooooooonk! Hoooooooonk! Hoonk, honk, honk, honk!
Damn idiot bitch!
“I’ll be there.”
Stella threw her phone hard on the passenger seat without closing it
and angrily opened her door. Slamming the door, she stiffly carried
her five foot two frame toward the blonde in the red convertible.
The young women seemed oblivious to all around as she vigorously
chewed gum and bobbed her head to unheard music.
Stella stopped next to the red convertible.
“Look, the cars are not going anywhere, so stop honking your
frigging horn.”
The young girl looked up questioningly as she pulled the Ipod
earpiece from her ear.
“What?”
“Stop…” a sudden screeching of tires and a horrifying crunch of
metal against something solid interrupted Stella. Both women looked
up toward the sound and saw a concrete piece had been knocked loose
from the bridge above by a semi tractor-trailer. They both watched
in horrid fascination as the piece floated down like a feather and
crashed through the roof of Stella’s car with a sickening,
splintering sound. The dust that had poofed up from the impact
eerily clung in the air above the crushed car.
“Wow, good thing you got out of your car when you did. And uh, by
the way, my horn is broken, so it wasn't me."
Stunned and shaking, Stella could only stare at the young blonde and
thought of Rick and how she wanted him by her side at this moment.
Magically, the mere thought of Rick produced his form, weaving
between the stopped traffic on foot, hurrying toward his white-faced
wife. Shock and disbelief washed away from Stella the moment her
husbands arms wound tightly around her.
"Are you all right?" His voice trembled against her ear.
She raised her head from his shoulder and noticed the fear in his
pale blue eyes.
"Yes, I'm fine. But how....why are you here?"
He kept one hand on her waist while he brushed a strand of hair from
her face with the other and smiled sheepishly.
"I felt so bad about the argument we had this morning that I decided
to follow you and apologize. Then I lost sight of you in this
traffic jam. I didn't know you were so close until I saw you walking
between the cars. But I didn't see that thing fall on your car
because some big brusier of a guy was about to bash my face in.
Something seems to be wrong with my horn, it keeps going off by
itself and I guess he got a little irritated. We both heard the
noise..."
Stella felt strangely dumbfounded by this news as she interrupted
him.
"Your horn?" It was his horn that saved her life!
He nodded. "Yeah, I've been meaning to get that fixed."
Unable to comprehend the strangeness of this event, Stella kissed
and hugged her husband. The meeting about publishing her book took a
back seat, so to speak.
