Harbor Lights

“SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT NOOOO!!”

This was typically the sound of Callie overreacting. She had been my best friend for six years, and throughout those six years I had seen my best friend overreact and blow things far out of proportion many, many times. This, for a shocking change of pace, was not one of them.

“It’s completely, totally fucked! We’re totally fucked, Vanessa!” Callie was screaming at the top of her lungs, gesturing towards what was clearly a blown tire, acting as if it were the end of the world and at that moment, it kind of seemed like it was.

“Vanessa are you even paying attention to this?! Are you looking at my tire right now? That’s like, a blow out right?!”

“Yeah, that looks pretty blown,” I stated the obvious, as calmly as possible yet slightly freaking myself. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t checked yet, but there was a good chance that we didn’t even have cell service.

“Well now what are we supposed to do?” she continued her tirade. “I can’t change a tire, I can’t even do my own nails! The little Chinese ladies do them for me!”

“Vietnamese.”

“WHATEVER! The point is I can not fix this tire and neither can you, and we are in bum-fuck hills have eyes nowhere and we are all going to DIE!” Okay, so maybe that time she was blowing it just a little bit out of proportion.

“Callie, we are not going to die. I’m going to call AAA, and you’re going to open the bottle of Pinot I know you have hidden somewhere in this car.” Wine could always calm the beast that was Callie O’Donnell; it was like her emergency medication.

“I don’t need wine right now, I need my fucking tire to not look like that!” She must’ve been pretty worked up to be declining my offerings of wine; it didn’t happen often.

“Just take a breath and calm down; I’m calling now.”

Luckily, we were in the part of the middle of nowhere that actually supplied me with three signal bars, and I was able to get through to someone. The bad news: there was really bad news.

“So, which part do you want first, the good news, or the bad?” I asked that cliche question that no one ever wants to hear through clenched teeth.

“Yup, I’m gonna need that wine then,” replied Callie without hesitation, rummaging through a now open box. “What, is it gonna take like three hours for them to get here with a new tire? It seriously better be sooner. I really need this wine but I probably shouldn’t even drink it if I’m going to be driving anytime soon.”

“Well, that’s the bad news...” I was unable to continue as Callie’s mini freak-out began.

“What? What’s the bad news, really? They’re not coming?! Oh God, we’re gonna be stuck out here for like twelve hours or something?! Oh shit Nessa, I’m gonna go stir crazy out here in the wilderness if I’m stranded for-”

“Callie, for the last time, calm down! They’re coming,” I reassured before her diatribe could go any longer. “They should be here in about an hour to tow the car.”

“Oh thank God, for a minute there you had me thinking... wait a second, to tow the car? Why are they towing the car?” Her expression immediately changed from relief to a tensed up, frantic look again. “Why can’t they just change the tire?”

“Well...” I began, bracing myself (and preparing to brace her) for the foreboding news I was about to let slip, “apparently there aren’t any shops that stock your tires in this area, or anywhere really for that matter, and so they’re going to have to have it shipped to a shop in LA and have the car fixed there at a later date.” My last few words trailed off quietly as I waited for Callie to lose it. This day was slowly turning into a nightmare.

“A later date? Umm... that doesn’t really work for us, does it?! So what, we’re just gonna ride, like, 300 miles in a tow truck with some creep driver who will most likely skin us and wear us as his new wardrobe to LA while my prized baby trucks along behind us?! And, FOR LIKE FOUR HOURS?!” She screamed that last part, but it was warranted.

“Hopefully there won’t be any skinning involved, but yeah, evidently I guess that’s what will be happening,” I replied vapidly. There really wasn’t much else I could say in response; it was what it was, and my freaking out in return definitely wouldn’t help at this point.

“That’s all you have to say?! Nessa, you have to fix this!!” gasped Callie in pretentious disapproval.

“Excuse me?!” I was a little bit shocked at her reply. “I can’t fix this! It’s not my fault you have a spaceship for a car and have to have crazy tires special delivered for it! And FYI, the world does not always revolve around you and your immediate needs. ”

“That was kind of mean,” said Callie, a delayed response after my reality check. “But you’re right. And I’m sorry.” To my surprise, she was coming back down to Earth. “I know that I’m kind of a crazy, selfish bitch sometimes and I tend to rely on you way too much, and I also probably say thank you too little. It’s just that you’re my best friend, and you’re the only person I can rely on right now. If I was in this situation by myself I would completely lose it! I mean, I’m still kind of losing it, but at least no one’s skinned us yet, right?”

I attempted a laugh. Despite her intense personality, she was my best friend too, and I loved her. “No one is going to skin us, Callie,” I reassured. “The ride is going to suck, but no one is going to skin us. Let’s just get to LA.”

“Please. And let’s chug this wine. Like, all of it. I’m gonna have to be hammered for this ride.”

---

It wasn’t an hour wait for the tow truck to arrive like AAA had said. It wasn’t two hours, either. After three patient calls back and a fourth extremely frantic call demanding to know the exact location of our driver and why the hell he was over an hour behind schedule, he finally arrived a little over two hours after his original ETA. Apparently, once AAA knows you’re “in a safe location,” they don’t bother to rush to your beck and call. Maybe if we’d told them we were being tailed by a masked person wearing bloody overalls wielding a chainsaw, our driver wouldn’t have taken his grand old time.

If there was a word in the dictionary whose definition was awkward times infinity, that would not begin to describe this ride. It felt reminiscent of one of those horror movies where the two hot and extremely stupid girls get in the truck with the obvious killer and then get driven by him to their inevitable doom, because yes, they were stupid enough to get into the truck with him in the first place. But, at this point, what were our other options, really? Sit on a deserted highway waiting for someone slightly less creepy to come along and offer us a ride in his death wagon? I’ll take the creep actually employed by a tow company any day.

Said creep’s name was Walter. I think his name made him extra creepy, but maybe that’s just because he looked like a serial rapist and smelled like rotting meat; I’m gonna go ahead and assume that if his name had been Edward Cullen, those aspects would still overpower the name and make him a creep nonetheless. He was tall, at least 6’2, and very thin, almost anorexic-looking for how thin he was being a man. His skin was paste-like and worn, and his hair was dark and matted to his face; it looked (and smelled) as though he hadn’t showered in weeks. He wore a grey tee, faded jeans, suspenders, and a black cap with no markings which completely hid his eyes, but when I did catch a quick glimpse of them I could see that they were a pale periwinkle. I think they could have been pretty, years ago, before the Cataracts set in.

I felt like kind of a bitch for judging Walter by his looks, despite the fact that his tardiness had pissed me off (he attributed it to traffic and a “miscommunication on AAA’s part”)... right, or he was busy dumping his last kill off in the desert up the road. As a matter of fact, I was having an internal battle with myself over it; I was always silently judging the people around me, and although it wasn’t hurting them, it didn’t necessarily make it right. And all the times Callie and I made sarcastic jokes while people watching at the mall... who were we to talk shit about complete strangers? I was feeling pretty bad about the things I’d thought about Walter right about now, and I was thinking now was no better time than ever to strike up a conversation. After all, we’d already been driving an hour in silence, and the time wasn’t going to pass by any faster this way than it was by speaking to each other.

“So, Walter, have you been doing this long?” I started, smiling over at him. His eyes stayed fixated on the road, his expression stolid.

“Doin’ what?” he replied, a slight hint of a Southern accent present in his voice.

“Driving trucks.”

I felt Callie’s foot stepping on mine, and I turned to see her eyes open as wide as they could be, a contorted look on her face. I glanced back to Walter.

“A while,” he replied, his eyes never veering from the road. I supposed that was a good thing, for our safety, of course.

“How long’s a while?” I asked, making conversation.

“What are you writin’ a book or somethin’?” Definitely from the South.

“Nope, just trying to make conversation.”

“Well I’m not very conversatable.” Definitely not a word in the English language.

“Oh, sorry,” I giggled, mostly at the fact that this man had just made up his own derivative of ‘converse‘ and also a little at his accent, and maybe a little at this totally fucked up situation we had somehow gotten ourselves into. Either way, it was a little bit funny to me. “I just figured since we have about three more hours of driving to do that maybe we could kill some time by talking.” Kill may have been the wrong choice of words.

“Nessa, he said he doesn’t want to talk,” half-said half-whispered Callie, sounding slightly horrified. “He’s not conversatable.”

“That word!” I said rhetorically to myself, as clearly both other parties in this truck thought that word was perfectly acceptable.

“I’m sorry the drive is so long for you girls,” said Walter, unexpectedly joining the conversation. “See, usually on long drives I get stuck all alone. But luckily for me on this one, I got a couple of pretty girls to keep me company. I just get real nervous around pretty girls; don’t have much to say. Can’t really kill much time with talking.”

Walter looked over at us then, and smiled the creepiest toothless smile I have ever seen in my life. Not that I’ve seen many toothless smiles, but of all the creepy smiles that exist in this world, that one pretty much said to me, yup, I’m gonna be knittin’ a quilt outta yer skin later, pretties.

“Uh, we don’t have to talk then, sir, just get us there really, really fast!” said Callie suddenly with a nervous smile back. Apparently she’d gotten the same message as I had.

“Oh, you girls like to go fast?” replied Walter, his eyes back on the road, toothless smile still in place. “There’s not many cops on this here road, so with your permission I can go as fast as you like!”

“Yes, please, the sooner we get to LA the better!” exclaimed Callie, shifting in our shared seat.

“Yippee!” was Walter’s response as the truck began to accelerate, passing no one but shrubbery on the desolate highway.

“How fast are we going?” I worriedly asked, now convinced we were going to crash to our doom before Walter had the chance to boil us and eat our brains for supper.

“Who cares?! No faster than I would’ve driven us! Goooo Walter!” cheered Callie, who seemed to have acquired temporary insanity.

“I’ll go as fast as you want, pretty,” he added, making my stomach turn.

I turned to Callie. “Have you lost your fucking mind?!” I whispered. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m trying to get us to LA like, now! I don’t want to be in this creepy truck with this creepy guy another second!”

“Then stop egging him on for fuck’s sake, he’s going to turn you into a stuffed trophy for his bedroom wall!”

We were whizzing by desert landscape and trees real fast now, and as the sun got lower in the sky I was starting to feel worse and worse about what was going on around me.

“Maybe we should slow down,” I said, twiddling my thumbs trying to calm my nerves.

“Aww come on pretty, your friend likes it fast,” replied Walter, seemingly getting off on this speeding game.

“No, it’s okay, we can slow down a little,” agreed Callie nervously, finally seeing eye to eye with me.

“Come on, don’t you wanna kill time?” he said, smiling at us.

“Well we definitely don’t want you to kill US! So if you could please just not do that, that would be great!” I had officially lost my cool.

“I’ll slow down,” said Walter, suddenly not smiling anymore.

“We’ve had a really stressful day,” I said, recuperating from my quasi-breakdown. “The last thing we need is a car accident, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t be going that fast I reckon. Just want to make the pretty girls happy. Don’t meet many pretty girls.”

I was starting to think that although Walter was without a doubt creepy, his creepiness was in turn harmless.

“Well, you have these two for at least two more hours,” I replied with a smile, trying to make amends more with my own quick judgement than with Walter.

He smiled back, and the rest of our ride was once again silent. We finally arrived at our complex in North Hollywood a little before midnight; not quite the time we’d planned, but it wasn’t going to kill us... no pun intended. I thanked the skies that we didn’t end up in a ditch after doing 90 on the highway, but I was even more thankful to still be wearing my skin. We thanked Walter for everything and said our goodbyes to our newfound creep friend only after denying multiple extremely adamant offers to help us move in.

“Well, I sure am glad AAA sent your boyfriend out to give us that fun and exciting ride home!” exclaimed Callie once Walter and his truck were clear down the road.

“Yeah, that ride was interesting,” I responded, sitting on the tailgate of Callie’s Escalade.

“That man wanted to make stew out of us! And you; you felt the need to strike up a conversation with him?! What the hell was that?”

“I was feeling bad for silently judging him,” I admitted. “And all the times we’ve talked shit people watching in the past; I felt like we owed it to him to at least be nice.”

“So you felt that the best time to come to terms with the fact that we are mean to ugly people behind their backs was during our ride on the highway to hell with grandfather fucking freak king himself?!” This would be an example of one of those times when Callie liked to blow things a little out of proportion.

“Yes?” was all I replied.

“Okay, we’re going to bed,” she spat back at me, motioning for me to follow her to the leasing office. Apparently, she was now over her short-lived tantrum. “On a less terrifying note though, which one of us is happier that we moved our beds in two days early: you, or me with my amazing comforter?”

“Just because your comforter costs more than everything I own combined does not mean you’re going to sleep any better tonight than I am. After the day we’ve had, I think we’re both going to sleep like babies.” But I didn’t think it; I knew.

“No.”

“Um, really though, we are.”

“No, the door. This can’t be happening.” Callie was referring to the note on the leasing office door; the one that was the metaphorical cherry on top of our shit sundae day.

Leasing office closed overnight for cleaning. Will resume normal hours at 8:00 AM tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience.

“Closed for cleaning?! Sorry for the inconvenience?! Yeah, this is extremely inconvenient because WHERE THE FUCK AM I GONNA SLEEP TONIGHT?!” She definitely didn’t whisper that.

“Callie, relax.” I had to think for a second. “Let’s go up to the apartment; maybe it’s unlocked for us.”

“That is the dumbest thing I think you’ve ever said.”

I knew she was right, and so did she, but for some reason, the two of us were walking towards our building, both our trash bag purses in my arms and her ridiculous comforter in hers.

Our building, like every building in the complex, was under strict lock and key as well as surveillance, so of course when we arrived at the entrance door a key card was needed to get in. Quite luckily for us someone was on their way out as we walked up, and we were able to catch the door just as it was about to close.

“Well I think that’s the first bit of good luck we’ve had all day,” smiled Callie with tired eyes as she poked and prodded the elevator button. “And I spoke too soon; our luck is over. What, is this thing broken?”

“No Cal, you need the key card to use the elevator too,” I gasped, more tiredness to my voice than any other emotion at this point. “I guess we’re gonna have to hoof it.”

“Hoof it? As in, stairs? You want me to-”

“Give me the fucking comforter,” I spat with an eye roll before allowing her to finish. I’d been done with and over this day an hour ago and all I wanted to do was fall into my apartment and sleep.

I started towards the stairwell and at this point, Callie really had no other choice but to follow; there was no turning back now. We made our way up six (yes, six) flights of annoyingly steep stairs, trekked down what seemed like an endless hallway, then nearly collapsed at our own doorstep.

“I thought having a top floor corner apartment was supposed to be a good thing!” whined Callie between breaths, trying the door handle and frantically searching under our welcome mat for keys, subsequently kicking it when realizing there were none there. “Fuck you, welcome mat! I am not welcome! Where are my goddamn keys?!”

“Callie, calm-”

“Stop telling me to calm down! I’m annoyed, I’m tired, my car won’t drive, I have no way of getting into my apartment, and I just walked up eight flights of stairs in pajama pants and wedges! I wanna go to sleep!”

I sighed. She was right; this was not a pleasant situation.

After a moment of pondering silence, Callie began to fluff her comforter out along the pristinely carpeted hallway in front of our door, preparing a makeshift bed.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not going anywhere near those stairs again,” she finally said, lying down and curling up beneath the goose down. “Perfect. Come cuddle, Nessa!”

I laughed. First just at Callie, then at the irony of sleeping on the floor outside my own apartment, then even harder at the thought of that absurdly priced comforter being on the ground no matter how nicely vacuumed or well kempt it may be; but my reply after the laughter was a simple, “Sure.” And I’ll admit, as soon as my head hit those down feathers, I almost warranted her spending that much; almost.

“We finally made it,” whispered Callie, half asleep already as I closed my eyes, trying to block the remainder of light from the dimmed hall lamps out of my eyes.

“And with our skin, too,” I replied as I too began to drift off. “Welcome to Hollywood, Cal. Goodnight.”