The Bare Truth

Chapter 5

It was a very, very long car ride home with Molly.

"It's a date!"

"It is not a date! He thinks it's a date. I'm just trying to get information. It's a calculated business decision!"

"Oh you are so full of shit! Is that what you'll call it when you sleep with him? 'A calculated business decision'?"

"We're having dinner! I'm hardly sleeping with him."

"You're not sleeping with him yet."

This went on the entire drive home, during which Sierra was forced to recount every thing that had happened in the woods several times over in increasing amounts of detail. It was only when they got home she was able to escape into the merciful quiet of the bathroom.

She recoiled from her mud-encrusted reflection in the mirror and found herself wondering what on earth Joe had seen in her. Her hair was sticking up in all directions, the mud acting as a kind of plaster. There was more mud smeared on her face, but it was nothing compared to the amount on her clothes. Her skirt was completely crusted in grime, and her blouse was simply never going to be white ever again. She should probably also abandon all hope of her shoes making a full recovery.

She peeled her clothes off and stepped into the beckoning hot shower. The dirt ran off of her in streams. She stayed in there until the hot water turned her skin pink.

By the time she got out Molly was mercifully snoozing on the couch. She'd passed out there, curled up under a blanket with an empty wine glass next to her on the coffee table. She'd been sketching before she went to sleep. On her sketchpad was a drawing of Sierra and Joe, making out and covered in mud. Sierra rolled her eyes and tucked the blanket around Molly before heading for bed herself.

In her dream, she was back in the woods with Joe, trying to get her car unstuck. She was in the driver's seat, watching him in the mirror.

"Give it some gas!" he called out.

She eased on the gas, but he didn't push on the car like she expected him too. Instead, he reached down to the bumper and picked the back end of the car up. She felt the back of the car lift, pushing her body forward towards the steering wheel just a bit. The back wheels spun in the air for just a moment before the front ones pulled the car forward and out of Joe's grasp. No, that wasn't right. The bumper wasn't pulled from his hands. He let it go and then the car pulled forward because he wasn't holding on to it anymore.

In slow motion she saw him stand up again. He had had to crouch down to lift the bumper. He smiled at her in the mirror. He hadn't even strained himself.

Sierra woke with a start. She lay there a long time, trying to decide how much of that detail was memory and how much was invented. After laying there for an hour, unable to get back to sleep, she found herself standing barefoot in the parking garage staring at her mud splattered Prius.

The car weighed 3,042 pounds. She had Googled it. The hybrid battery alone was 150 pounds. Even if he had world record level strength it would still take three of him to lift that much. She thought about those stories you always hear where little old ladies lift school busses off of their grand children. This hadn't exactly been a life or death situation. And he had made it look so easy.

She bent down and grasped the bumper, trying with all her might to lift the car. She succeeded only in falling on her ass for the third time today and breaking a nail when her hands slipped. This time the fall was onto the unforgiving concrete which bruised her tailbone.

She struggled to her feet and headed back into the building, hoping no one had seen her. This, she decided, was completely crazy.

So why was she so sure he had done it?