Graceful Disaster

I turned and gave Kara a withering look. “Hey, Jurassic Dolt, he’s not a T-Rex.”

Kara crossed her arms and pouted childishly—she usually does this after a particularly juvenile comment—and mumbled, “Could’a fooled me.”

After a few deep cleansing breaths (that made me a little light headed), I turned to face McJer—I mean…Actually, I didn’t know the guy’s name. Anyway, I rolled down the window and hoped for the best.

His hand rested on the window as it went down and I tried not to stare into his green eyes. I remembered how amazing they looked at the accident, but I didn’t want to get flustered while dealing with a possibly angry, vengeful man my age. He certainly took his sweet time watching me squirm while I waited for him to talk because a smile formed on his lips. I knew Kara would be no help, she didn’t deal well with angry people that she didn’t know (it was her kryptonite).

“Aren’t you the girl who rear-ended me yesterday?”

And to my horror, Kara let out a spasm of laughter, letting the guy’s hypnotic eyes fall on her for a second.

“I’m sorry,” Kara squeaked and then she turned to look out her window. Thanks, BFF. His attention moved back to me, leaving me pinned under the power of his green orbs and I was not good under tension that could possibly spell out “Parking Lot Thrashing” on my To-Do List. Silently, I prayed that he was a good-natured kind of fellow and that he wanted to share a laugh about it over tea and crumpets. But after I looked at him—through my peripheral vision because I would be guaranteed to get caught if I tried to look him up and down—I noticed his attire consisted of jeans, Vans, a grey button-up shirt, and a Led Zepplin t-shirt. He would beat me and not break a sweat. Tea and crumpets were out.

“Are you?”

I returned from my unintended stupor and made my first mistake, (technically second if you count hitting his car as my first offense) looking him right in the eyes. All thought was literally wiped from my mind. I could have envisioned it, it happened so clearly (and thoroughly). There was no escaping the vast pools that seemed to go on forever and—

“OW!” I whirled on Kara and smacked her as a reaction, but thanked her silently for pinching my butt before turning back to the guy. “Yeah, that was me. Heh, I’m really, really sorry about that. I was nervous because I had a job interview and my turn-off was a few yards away and my foot kinda—well I’m a knee-jiggler when I’m nervous, so my foot came off the brake, ya see, and I’msosorryitwasacompleteaccident.” I rushed the last of my apology and put on a strained smile, hoping—nay, praying to all the gods I knew—that I would not be dragged out of my car and beaten for collateral.

He stared at me again, silence filling the car and causing Kara to squirm. I felt like he could see right through me, that I was completely exposed in his sight. “What’s your name?”

I stared at the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

I saw him smile and I felt my heart speed up enough to possibly crack it. “So that I can know the name of the woman who owes me some sort of retribution.”

My mind did a double-take on the words and I looked at him in suspicion. “What kind of retribution?”

He shrugged nonchalantly and looked back at the building. “Well, you owe me something for hitting my car and not getting dragged to small-claims court for settlement money. So we’ll just say you owe me a favor.”

My eyes narrowed at him (now that he couldn’t see me) and I mulled this over in my mind.
“Fine. But—”

“What happened to your hand?” He leaned his forearm obliviously on the top of the car and leaned through the open window to inspect the bandage that wrapped the hand on the steering wheel. Shocked, I looked at the hand myself. I had completely forgotten about my injury, so that meant the burn cream was doing its job.

“It’s nothing.” I pulled my hand into my lap and turned it palm up. A little edge of the burn peeked over the bandage around my thumb. It had gathered a little because of the tense fists I had made to not throttle Kara as she sang “99 Bottles of Beer On The Wall” as we drove here. The skin was a light pink, but when it healed the scar would turn a light brown and would probably not fade for a year or two.

“Looks like a burn.” He was still leaning into the car.

“So what if it is? Doesn’t concern you.” I looked up at him, defiantly and held his gaze without falling into it. Didn’t help my heart rate much, but I was still able to form coherent thoughts. His face, however, seemed a little shocked at my brazenness. I would have smiled if I hadn’t been so determined to scowl at him. I needed my concentration to be on that or else I would lose it.

Finally, he recovered and smirked, closing his eyes and standing up at the same time. He did it with such a graceful matter that I was unsettled for a moment. “Right, it doesn’t. “ He opened his eyes and looked back at the shelter. “So what are you doing here of all places? Don’t you have work?”

My face crumpled. Kara put a hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off, giving her a brave half-smile. The guy looked back at me when I hadn’t answered right away and I quickly shifted my face somewhat back to normal though, I’m sure he caught my look. “I didn’t make it to that meeting the other day and they found someone to fill in, so I found work here at the shelter.” I nodded toward the building.

“Ah.” Was his intelligent answer. “You still haven’t given me your name.”

I froze. I thought that I had dodged that question, but he was a sharp one. My eyes found his and I gave him a crooked smile that I knew I could do so well.

“My name is Alice. Alice Ménard.”