Getaway Car

"I need a reason."

Cheap beer smells funny when drunk. She doesn't know it. Sitting on an ottoman on a balcony in a land far, far away, she thought the sunset looked odd. It was a foreign orange, almost burning. The man, his name she cannot disclose, is hidden under ghost-pale duvet. He is asleep. He is asleep, and he is beautiful doing it. She is awake with clumsy hair and playful fingers, drinking not-strong-enough beer, choking on Camel cigarette smoke.

Talking to the voice inside her phone. "Think rationally," he said. "Straight."

She bites her fingers, pulling a scab. "How?"

A beat. There is nothing else on the other side of the phone but his words. She pictures him in some restroom, counting his toes, trying not to place the phone too close his mouth or else he'd be mumbling.

"You love me, right?"

No hesitation. "Yes." "Then that's all you need."

He hangs up without asking her. Her throat adjusts. Dramatical- ly, the phone falls onto her lap. No tears, she tells herself. No tears or you'll be crying. God knows what sounds you make when you do.

She chokes up a sob. You're right.

The sunset has turned devious red and ugly. The clouds are barely there. She is frozen in place, sweat like glue sticking her to the chair. The beach doesn't move once. Wind does not ruffle sand like it usually does. The water winks at her, but that's it. She mistakes a green light for a red one.

What do I do? she asks herself, looking back constantly to see if her monster bears fangs.

She is close to tears.

A message lights up her phone: "Get away."

She flicks the Camel cigarette off the balcony like giving a middle finger to the beach.

Yeah, I should.

She stands up, tiptoes herself inside the room, barely making a sound. As of the moment, she is wind. Yo-yoing, shilly-shallying. Feel it or don't. Hit or miss. She is disguised under thick layers of nothing.

As of the moment, she is nothing. Inside and out. No tears.

She floats across a marbled floor, past a screen door that rattles so gently not even she feels it. He is there, half his face out, and there is nothing more terrific. He is a mansion with a view. His hair is fuzzed up neatly and his eyelashes are strokes longer than hers. His ear pokes out, almost like he hears her move.

She shivers from toe to head. If he moves, what next? Checkmate.

Her phone moves in her jeans. It startles something in her brain. A text message: "Don't forget the envelope."

The envelope, she thinks, then washes her mind from overworrying. Her hands, however, remain unclean.

It sits there, a fat wad, on the desk. In her head: "You love me, right?" Of course she does. Who else?

She imagines him, off in some taxi, texting her: "You know what to do to show me you love me."

She swipes the commercial envelope so fast. Without hesitation. The most it does is sigh.

A pair of keys shudders beside it. It's the keys to a Suzuki Swift. Small, not enough.

She grabs them, too.

And then? she imagines him saying.

Get away.

She flattens her feet, then dashes away. Noise is erratic on the west coast. Every step she takes is a sound the walls dribble at each other.