So the Season's Changed Your Face

What seemed like five minutes later, Mike was shaking me awake. I wiped drool from the corner of my mouth and tried to focus my eyes on him but it was far too dark. Without his body pressed against mine, I discovered how cold it really was. I immediately pulled my knees to my chest.

“Vivi, come on, get up,” Mike pleaded. Suddenly, he threw my shoes toward me. “It’s one in the fucking morning!”

I shot up and hastened for my shoes, slipping them on carelessly. I stood up. “Shit! You’re joking!”

“I wish I was,” he said, hurrying to pick up the blanket. “My mom’s going to kill us. Come on!”

We broke into a run. There was a stitch in my side by the time we arrived at Mike’s car. Mike tossed the blanket in the backseat and reached over the console to unlock the passenger side door. The interior of the entire car was freezing cold.

Mike put the key in the ignition but the car refused to start. He tried again and again and again, but to no avail. “Shit!” Mike shouted, pounding the steering wheel. The horn sounded.

He sprang from the car and popped the trunk. Deciding now would be a very good time to be helpful, I got out and lifted the hood of the car. Mike came back around with the flashlight and was muttering about how it “better fucking work”.

“Can you hold this?” he asked, holding out the flashlight.

“Of course,” I obliged, taking the flashlight from him and pointing it at the inner workings of his car. Mike began to fumble around, turning caps and checking wires. He was mumbling to himself again.

I was shivering like mad, but Mike seemed to be completely unbothered by the cold weather. I suppose he had bigger and better things on his mind.

“Here, can I have that?” he asked, holding out his hand for the flashlight. I handed it to him and he held it between his teeth. He took the lid off of the fuse box and began checking the fuses. “You’re fucking kidding.”

He stood up and wiped sweat from his brow, leaving a grease mark on his forehead. I didn’t laugh because the accompanying look on his face was not funny. He held up a tiny fuse. “It’s a blown fucking fuse.”

He sighed and went back to his trunk, where he rifled around for something he knew wasn’t there. He let out an exasperated moan and came back around, closing the fuse box and shutting the hood of his car with more force than necessary.

“Vivi, it’s fucking freezing out here. You should get back in the car,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “I need to call my dad. God, they’re going to be so pissed…”

I pat his cheek and got back in the car, pulling the blanket from the backseat and wrapping it around me. I guess Mrs. Carden was right about making Mike keep an emergency kit in his trunk because we were, in essence, broken down in the middle of nowhere.

Ten minutes later, Mike came back and rested his head on the steering wheel. “He called a tow truck. Should be here in thirty minutes or so.”

I wanted to ask Mike why his dad couldn’t just drive over and fix it, or wonder aloud why tow truck companies are even open for business at one in the morning, but I couldn’t bring myself to. He looked too distressed for conversation. I will never understand why he lets little things like this stress him out, but he does.

“Dad would have dropped by to take a look, but he said we didn’t have any extra fuses,” Mike said suddenly. I swear, he can read my mind sometimes. “Said he’ll pick some up tomorrow. Today. Whatever.”

I squeezed his shoulder, attempting to comfort him. “Here,” I said, unzipping his sweatshirt and handing it over. “You must be freezing.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, pulling his arms through and zipping it up to the neck. “I’m really sorry about all this.”

“Mike, you should really consider not apologizing for things that are out of your control,” I suggested, smiling at him. “Really, it’s okay. Actually, tonight was pretty nice. I had an actual meal and I got some really good sleep. I’m not complaining.”

Mike rolled his eyes at me.

“Plus, I got to spend the evening with you, and that’s always nice,”

Mike flushed. “Stop,” he grumbled, hiding a smile.

“Stop doing what?”

“Making me feel better,”

“That’s my job,” I informed him. “What kind of girlfriend would I be if I let you sit here and mope? A shitty one, okay? And I am trying really hard not to be a shitty girlfriend.”

“You’re not a shitty girlfriend, Vivi,”

“That’s because I’m trying so hard!” I joked. “You can’t know who I truly am!”

Mike rolled his eyes again, but humored me regardless. “Are you telling me that there’s an even worse side to you? Like, you can get worse? What do you call this side of you?”

“Veruca,” I answered, nodding. “I call her Veruca.”

“Like Veruca Salt? From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?” he asked, smirking. “That spoiled brat who screams about everything?”

“Exactly like Veruca Salt,” I smiled. “I am Veruca Salt.”

“I never want to meet the other side of you,” Mike started. “I’m just going to stay on your good side – if you can call it that – I mean, I like you, but…no. No.”

We were both laughing now; clearly the idea of my horrible alter-ego distracted Mike from his broken down car.

This conversation somehow managed to carry us up until the moment the tow truck came. The towing guy looked like he would rather be anywhere else, but hooked Mike’s little car up nonetheless and let us climb up into the cabin, which was pleasantly warm but smelled strongly of…something. I’m not even sure what the smell was, but it was disagreeable.

Mike’s dad was standing in the driveway when we arrived back at Mike’s, wearing a bathrobe and a pair of tattered slippers, looking unsatisfied – definitely not angry, but clearly irritated. He did have to fork over a chunk of change to get Mike’s car towed though, so I suppose I wouldn’t be very happy if I were him either.

Guiltily, Mike asked his dad if he could borrow his car so he could take me home. Mr. Carden sighed, but handed Mike a ring of keys regardless. “Mike, don’t fuck up my car.”

“Dad, I didn’t fuck up my car,” he rebutted. “You can check yourself; one of the fuses burned out. I did not fuck up my car. I respect my car. It just doesn’t respect me.”

“Yeah, okay, Mike,” Mr. Carden said, yawning. “And don’t take your time.” He looked pointedly at Mike. “Your mother is not happy, okay?”

“Yeah, of course she’s not,” Mike muttered.

“Don’t start,” his father warned, still looking pointedly at him.

Mike put his hands up defensively. “Okay, I won’t.”

“I’ll leave the door unlocked,” Mr. Carden said, his hand on the doorknob. “And, really, Mike. Don’t take your time.”

Mike and his dad shared the exact same facial expression for a few seconds, one of complete lack of amusement. It was unnerving, to say the least.

“Wow, I haven’t been in this car since before you started driving,” I mused, looking around the car.

“It’s very uncomfortable,” Mike remarked, bringing the seat forward. “It’s like he lies down when he drives!”

“Okay, Mike, that’s just you, though,” I said. “You drive with your knees touching the steering wheel.”

“It’s more comfortable that way!”

“For you maybe. But for the rest of us, it’s completely weird,” I told him. “Normal people like having their legs stretched out when they drive and nowhere near the steering wheel.”

Mike stuck his tongue out at me and started the car. “At least we’re not in my mom’s car. She drives a stick.”

“Your mom drives a stick?” I asked, incredulously. “A stick?”

“She always has. And she was like, ‘Mike, learn how to drive stick-shift so you can drive my car!’ and I was like, ‘No thanks, I’d rather walk’,” he exclaimed.

“How many times did you walk because you didn’t know how to drive stick?” I asked, tongue in cheek.

“More times than I care to admit.”