In true daytime drama style- When last we left our hero's Alex was on her way to meet her boyfriend in New York City. Her best friend Jay sold his classic Nomad to pay for her trip. Unbeknownst to Alex, Charles, her boyfriend, is drunk in Manhattan while she is snowed over in Chicago. Jay has discovered her true plans from her Dad, and now finds more than his wallett regretting her trip. Alex's mother, Tricia, desperate to make Alex see what she was giving up by leaving Jay sent a manuscript of journal entries along for Alex to critique on her trip. The journal entries convinced Alex her mother's story is one of cheating and betrayal, just as Charles' drunken revelation of his hesitancy to marry her comes out. Now Alex has determined to fly to New York to meet Charles and work it out. Can Alex untangle her heart from her desires? Will Jay find the courage to tell her the truth about his feelings? Does Tricia's story of love lost help Alex see her own heart?
Find these answers and more as we read the reasons you should love a man who loves an ugly car. To read the story from the beginning go to the archives and find 'For The Peanut gallery, Ugly Car week 2 and everything titled Why Love A Man Who Loves An Ugly Car. In the meantime...
Alex
The morning crowd at La Guardia, teemed like a tide pool of colorful sea life. The swirling faces and mixture of languages pulsed around her. Alex felt as if she were floating on a cloud of caffeine and chaos. Her flight had landed at 7:30. After retrieving her bag from baggage claim she looked for Charles at her gate again. She called his cell phone a dozen times, becoming frustrated when it only went to his voice mail. Now, after what seemed like a lifetime later, she passed through terrified, to sit, huddled against a wall fighting back tears. Reaching into her large over shoulder bag, she pulled her cell phone out again. She should call her dad and ask him what to do. The panic that would crease her mom’s expression when Tricia learned Alex was abandoned, alone in New York city, clamped her cell in her hand. She shook her head to dispel the throbbing behind her temples. She couldn’t spend any more time refusing to make a decision. Her watch of the pulsing stream of people flooding by her didn’t help. The vibration of the phone startled her frayed nerves and she nearly dropped it. Frantic, she forgot to check the number before answering
”Hello?” she
choked, desperation clinging to the short syllables.
. The brief moment of silence draped
across the phone made her heart jump, as her mind feared it'd been a wrong
number and she was indeed alone again.
“Lex.” Jay’s voice
said. “What’s wrong?”
Alex took a deep
breath to calm herself but only managed to dislodge her tears from where she’d
been ’fighting them back from her eyes.
His calm reassurances and understanding of the whole terrible morning
only made her tears spill the story more dramatically through the phone. She could hear him
breathing, with only a deep grumbling growl of protest escaping when she
explained her current predicament. Except for a few dark threats against Charles,
his voice remained steady as he promised her that she was fine and there was nothing
to worry about. She blewout a stream of soggy air, scrubbing at her tears as she settled her
emotions. The muscles bunched in her neck relaxing in the embrace of his patience.
“Listen,” he
said.. she flicked tears from her
eyes, biting down on her bottom lip.
“Here is what I want you to do. Do you see the main doors?”
Alex looked
around the wide expanse of airport, following signs with her gaze to where the
main exits and entrances were marked.
. ”Yes,” she said
the edge of hesitance in her voice.“Good. Now, there are ten, ten dollar bills in the front pocket of your bag, take five of them out and put them in different pockets of your clothing. One in your jeans a couple in your coat and a couple in your wallet. Take the other five and put them into your shoe.”
Alex waited,
expecting him to go on. When he was silent, she began fumbling with her bag. She gulped back the catch in her breath as her shaking fingers
closed around the stack of money. “Jay, Where did this come from?”
A slight chuckle drifted through the phone, and Alex stared
out into the swarming airport crowds..
“Wha, how?”
“Just do it Lex.” He
said softly, “I put them there before you left in case of an emergency. I think this counts.
She began
scattering the money as he directed but continued her questions.
“Why am I doing this Jay? Am I going
somewhere?”
“Yeah, I’m sending
you to my grandmother’s brownstone.
She’s in Florida
for the winter and its empty, but she lets me stay there when I come, so you’re
going to go there until we..er you, figure out what to do next.”
Her eyes filled
with tears again.
,” How, Jay? I
don’t know anything about New York? And what’s a brownstone?”
He cleared his
throat as his voice caught and tripped on the words
“, Lex I’m sorry
this is the best I can do, but you need to Just listen. My Grandmother’s house
is a two story brownstone building, kind of narrow and tall. It will be on a
street with a bunch of other brownstones. Various colors and designs but all
looking like shoeboxes stacked side by side standing on end.” Alex nodded and
tried to form the picture in her mind. “I’m going to a shoebox?””
“It’s an apartment, kinda. You’ll be safe there.”
Her lip burned where her teeth bit into the tender flesh. “Okay,
how do I get there?”
“Go out the main exit and have one of the concierge’s flag
you a cab. There should be plenty at
this time in the morning. The envelope with the money also has the key to the
brownstone and the address on it. Give
the address to the cabbie and tell him to take the bridge, not the tunnel to
west 86 th”
Alex dug in her
bag for the envelope tucked between her ticket and the printout Jay gave her before her flight to Vegas.
”How did you know
I need this?”
“I didn’t. I just couldn’t stand the thought of you alone in
New York if something went wrong. So I had a back up plan.”
Alex sniffed and
took a shuddered breath.
“I...don’t know
what to. I…Thank you.” she said finally, “What would I do without you?”
“Let’s not find
out OK.”
His voice was
suddenly flat and hollow as it broke with his next words.
. “Alex,
New York City can be a
dangerous place for a beautiful, young, inexperienced woman, traveling
alone. You need to be careful. Hang your
bag over your shoulder and across your chest, and make sure it’s zipped closed
and you tie it shut with that string thing.”
Alex laughed a
forced gasp to break a strange tide of
emotion welling inside of her. He was talking about the dangers of this city
and she knew it, but somewhere in the deep tones of his voice she thought she
heard him whispering an altogether different plea.
“The toggle?”
she asked her voice quieter now.
“Whatever.” Jay
said the edge still in his voice. “When you get a cab, I want you to write down
the medallion number and the cabbie’s name.
It will be on his license hanging from the rearview mirror. And then call me back.”
Alex shook her
head as if Jay was sitting next to her watching the dismay scamper across her
features.
. “Wait, The what?
She said unzipping her bag and pulling a pen and paper from it.
“The medallion
number.” Jay reiterated. “It’s the number on the light on the top of the
cab. It identifies which cab it is and
which cab company they drive for.”
She scowled. “And
why am I doing this? “
Because no one
knows who you are or where you’re going, including you. I want you to get the
number and the drivers name and then call me and give it to me. Do it from
inside the cab and let the driver hear you.”
With a groan into
the phone, she turned her head, searching the teeming crowd for Charles’ face
once more.. “Jay” she
complained. ”He’ll think I don’t trust him and then how helpful will he be.”
Jay’s teeth
snapped together and Alex heard it, along with
a growl from his throat. Her eyes
left the swarming faces and focused back on his words as he enunciated them. “You
don’t trust him, Alex. He’s not going to help you. He’s going to do his job and take your money.
if you’re lucky. Even if he offers to take a shorter route, or show you the
city, tell him no thank you . Just go to my Abuelita’s. Even an honest cabby is
still going to leave you alone in Manhattan.
He’s not going to become your new pen pal, or save you from all the
other creeps out there.”
Jay’s voice was
starting to pick up remnants of her panic. She felt his growing anger.. “Okay, Okay,” she
said, “I would just feel safer with the cab driver on my side.”
“That would be
great, but neither of us know if he’ll be.. I need to be able to track you down
if anything goes…”
Alex felt her heart rate quicken as Jay’s tight words
suddenly broke off. She bit her bottom lip and then whispered.
. “Okay, I’ll call
you back once I’m in the cab.”
She stood from
her corner glancing around and grasping the handle of her suitcase. “Relax.”
She said with a shaky laugh, “I’ve come two thousand miles on my own, I can
make it another couple of thousand feet.”
Jay’s voice was
so quiet now, that she could barely hear him over the noise of La Guardia. “I know, Lex, You
just shouldn’t have to.”
Following Jay’s directions to the letter, Alex climbed into
a yellow cab before calling him. The driver, a heavy set Jamaican woman in
her forties, just smiled as Alex whispered
her name and the number to Jay. Glenda Robinson’s coffee brown eyes sparkled in the sunlight
streaming through the windshield as she turned up the volume on her radio and
hummed along with the music.
With her aching
head resting against the back of the seat, Alex brushed ice from her coat to
absorb the warmth of the sun filling the
windows. Her bleary gaze studied the light dancing off the water all around her, like tarnished
aluminum instead of ocean.
“What time is
it?” Jay asked, the strain in his voice making it obvious to her that he
was trying to hold back a yawn.
Alex looked
around at the crisscrossed veins of automobiles honking and bleating like
multicolored sheep headed for the same slaughter. Her gaze fell on the clock in bedded on the dash before she
closed her eyes. “It’s after nine." She settled back
into a puddle of sunlight drifting through the window, her yawn going
unrestrained
. “Good. That’ll
get you into the city after rush hour and you should be at my grandmother’s
place in a half hour or so.”
“I don’t know about this Jay. Won’t your grandmother be
upset when I just show up?”
“She’s in Florida, no one’s there. Just find My room at the
left of the stairs and there’s towels in the trunk at the end of the bed. There’s no food in the house, but next to the phone in
the kitchen, there’s a list of takeout places that deliver. There’s a bodega up
the street that will deliver stuff like milk and bread if you want it too.
Alex followed the flurry of information, wondering if she
should be taking notes. Jay seemed intent on telling her everything in the next
few seconds and her heart momentarily panicked with the thought of him hanging
up.
. “The gas and
water are still on for these last minute visits.” He was saying, as Alex heard
fatigue slowing down his speech. “You’ll have heat and hot water so you should
get some sleep and take a shower at least before you try to track Charles down
again.” Alex swallowed hard but didn’t answer. “Are you still there?” he asked,
his voice tightening again.
“Why are you up
so early? How long have you been awake?"
“What are you
talking about? Nine isn’t early for me. I open this place up at eight.” His
words were innocent and the edge of panic was gone but she could still hear
something in his voice.
“How much sleep did you get last night, Jay?”
“Enough.”
“Can you give me a number?”
“I can, but you won’t like it,” he mumbled.
Alex yawned
again . She heard Jay echo the exhaustion from across the line. Her mind
sharpened as she stared at the water surrounding the traffic. The golden globe
of the sunrise sparked her mind to clarity.
“It’s nine here,
Jay.” She said. “Its seven in the morning where you are.”
Jay’s low chuckle
drifted quietly in her ear and she frowned.
. “You know me. Lots
to do, not enough time in the day to do it.”
Alex grimaced,
the spurt of guilt stabbing in her chest again.. “You’re not
getting anything done being my travel agent.”
“Your travel
plans were the only work I had this morning that couldn’t wait. It will all
still be here once I know you’re locked behind three deadbolts and two security
chains at my grandma’s house.”
Alex laughed, hearing Jay take a deep breath. “Are you going
to stay with me until then?”
“At least until then,”
he promised.
She said goodbye to him as her car
pulled up to the row of brownstones. With a shaky sigh, she paid the driver
with the two ten’s from her wallet, pulling another from the pocket of her
jeans, afraid of the cabbie’s scowl at the amount. When the cab pulled away in a cloud
of gray exhaust, she dragged her bulky suitcase
across the uneven sidewalk. She stopped and stared at the brick houses, appearing
just like Jay said, towering tightly and stacked beside one another. The only
alterations between them were the placement of the windows and the color of the
doors. Kids on scooters sped past her, their voices melding with the rush of
morning traffic as she made her way up the stairs and inside the bright blue
door. Heavy wooden construction blocked the street noise out as she slid the thick locks and chains into place.
Abuelita Maria’s key was dropped in her coat pocket as she faced a crowded, but
organized living room. Scattered couches and chairs, along
with doily draped tables beckoned her into the dust of an empty house. The
sparse layer clung and drifted slightly
in the streams of light breaking from the eastern windows. Alex shuddered in the brisk cold of
the unheated room. She went to the open mouthed fireplace flipping the switch
for the gas flame to ignite. Just as Jay promised, the pilot light hissed and caught
in a burst of blue fire. Shivers stole
over her body as she crouched before the flames, her heavy eyes glancing around as she began to feel like a burglar. Her
nervous perusal of the house brought her gaze to rest on a familiar face, settling
the tightness in her chest. Jay and his parents peered out from
a silver framed photograph atop the mantle. This
is his Grandmother’s home, she soothed. Jay told her stories of Maria Sanchez’s life in
New York City since 1924. Jay spent summers with her following the death of her
husband three years earlier. According
to his tender memories, she was the toughest lady he knew, living alone in the
city despite her ninety years. Alex
caressed the gilded frame of a faded photograph. The smiling face of a dark
haired young man in a dress blue uniform, looking strikingly similar to Jay
also graced the shelf above the flames. She smiled feeling a little less
intrusive with the heat, but no longer
able to keep her drooping lids open. Her legs protested as she trudged up the treads of the steep staircase,
too tired to haul the enormous suitcase with her. Hall ways stretched out in a hardwood tongue
away from her, a slim rug rolling its pale blue welcome as she turned toward a
narrow archway. An antique, glass door knob at her left flashed a beckoning ray
of light into her eyes when she grasped and opened it. The room was paneled in
cherry wood, it’s long window opening to the west and looking out onto the flat
stone face of another building. The navy blue curtains were held back with
replicas of classic cars, confirming she’d found Jay’s room. It was narrow and the pitched ceiling’s
plaster rattled slightly as she turned the light on. The heavy trunk at the
foot of the bed was open, thick green towels folded neatly on the top, the lid
forming a footboard at the bottom of the full size four poster bed. She laughed under her breath, trying to
picture Jay’s long legs finding a comfortable spot to rest in the small room.
With a quiet sigh, she took her coat off laying it across the patch work quilt
spread on top of the bed. Caution
lowered her slowly on its edge., expecting to hear the creak of floor boards or
the groan of old springs. the soft bed only invited her tired limbs into its
serene comfort. Alex obliged by crawling
between the crisp linen and snuggling under the warm blanket. The scent of clean sheets and Lysol numbed
her mind as she sank into welcome slumber,
Jay…or Charles…or whomever drifting through her dreams.
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