It’s actually kind of a short story, but it feels like it should be far more complicated than it is.
“Honey, I’ve got an hour long break, and you’re not leaving this building until I hear the whole thing,”
“Fine.”
I tell her everything from the time my house burned down, leaving out the part about sleeping in my car. I tell her about the PA position, the pay raise, and finally about the bonus house. Then we spend the next twenty minutes sorting through Marcus’s photos on Instagram and drooling over his good looks. By the time we’re done, Alba is shaking her head in disbelief.
“I wish I were you right now. This is like a fairytale.”
“Except it’s not, because it’s all a lie to get his ex-wife to hand over her shares of the company so he doesn’t have to fight her in court.”
Alba shrugs. “Okay, maybe not a storybook romance, but a modern day fairytale.”
I laugh at the whimsy in her voice. “Not even that. It’s not a romance. It’s a business deal.”
“Will you please stop trying to crush this fantasy for me? I haven’t had a boyfriend in years—not even a fake one, so I’m going to pretend that whatever is happening in your life is far more romantic than what’s happening in mine.”
“Fine.”
I let her have this one even though it’s giving her false hope. There’s no way a man like Marcus Steere could ever fall for me. I’m shocked he would choose me, wife of all people, to be his pretend since I am so obviously out of his league. If we’re going for a sports metaphor here, it would be like comparing tee-ball to the NBL.
Alba’s mom calls her name, and Alba rolls her eyes. “I have to get back to work, but you have to tell me everything. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I tell her.
When she walks away, I want to stay at the counter and just sit here all day because the moment I go back out to my car, I know that real life will come crashing into me again. I’ll have to figure out my living situation for the next week. I have a few groceries in my car from when I went shopping before the fire. There isn’t much: some fruit, canned and boxed items, and a few things I’ll have to throw out because they need refrigerating. None of it is going to last me a week. And then there’s my sleeping situation, and I’ll definitely need to shower. I have no hair products, makeup, or clothes. I can’t work for Marcus without all of those things.
I close my eyes, wanting to cry. I’m going to have to ask Alba for help. But I can’t do it right now. She’s busy, and I need to leave so they can fill my seat with an actual paying customer. I’ll call her after she gets off work.
I head out to my car, but when I get to the alley, it’s not there. My heart starts to thunder and it’s hard to breathe. Please tell me this isn’t happening.
I run back into the diner. Alba stops in her tracks when she sees me. “What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Someone stole my car.”
“Seriously, in the middle of the day?”
I can’t get words out from around the knot in my throat so I just nod.
“Where did you park” she asks.
“In the alley.”
She makes a cringing face. “No, hon, it wasn’t stolen, that’s a tow-away zone. Only delivery vehicles are allowed to park there.”
I bite my lip and fight tears.
She gives me a hug. “Is there anyone you can call to come get you? I would do it but I can’t leave work.”
I nod. “Yeah, there’s someone.” But I definitely don’t want to call him.
3
Once I called everyone in my contacts and no one could pick me up, I pulled out the card Marcus had given me and held it in my hand for a good half hour before deciding to call him. I really didn’t want to, but what choice did I have? It was that or not show up to my new job the next day. He’s the only one who knows about my house burning down and about my life going to shit other than Alba, and even she didn’t know just how bad thing had gotten.
It takes him less that fifteen minutes to get here. Since I know a man like him doesn’t frequent neighborhoods like this, he must have sped over. In a car like that, he probably thrives on driving fast.
He gets out of his car, so out of place with the rest of the population in this part of town.
“Thanks for coming,” I say sheepishly, embarrassed to be in a position to ask him for favors.
“Any time,” he says. I watch his body language to see if he’s annoyed or seems put-out. He doesn’t. If anything, he looks relieved. I’m not sure why, though.
“I didn’t think you’d be coming yourself. I thought you’d send an assistant or something. I’m sorry I pulled you away from work.”
“I’m not going to send an assistant to get my wife out of trouble,” he says with a sideways glance at me.
Why do I like the way that sounds? I feel my cheeks growing warm and I get butterflies in my stomach. Even though this is so embarrassing, I can’t help but feel touched that he went out of his way to help me.
“Shall we?” he says as he opens the passenger side door for me. I slip into the plush leather seat and we head for the tow-yard.
We get to the yard and I hand the man at the cash register my only credit card and hope it clears. I pay the minimum balance each month. It’s been a while since I checked to see how much credit I had available. I don’t know what to do if it’s not enough. If I can’t get my car back, that means I not only don’t have a car, but I also don’t have a place to sleep.
My hands shake as the clerk rings up my charges. “That’ll be fifteen hundred dollars.”
My entire body goes numb. I just stare at him in shock. “Fifteen hundred dollars to tow my car two miles? My car isn’t even worth fifteen hundred dollars.” How can that be? A speeding ticket doesn’t cost that much. What a fucking rip off. I would tell him that too if my boss weren’t standing right next to me. There’s no way I have fifteen hundred dollars on that card. I don’t think there’s even a hundred. If that were the case, I could get a motel room.
Before I can say anything, Marcus puts a credit card down on the counter. “Use this,” he tells the man.
I look up at him, my eyes welling up with tears. Everything is spinning out of control. How could my life spiral out so fast? How could I have gone from having a house and a car to having nothing in twenty-four hours?
“Thank you, but I can’t let you do that,” I tell Marcus. I hate how weak I sound, how obvious it is that I’m about to cry.
He looks at me with a gaze that I can’t quite read. He doesn’t smile, nothing about his expression changes, and yet there’s something kind about the way he looks at me. “It’s already done.”
He’s right. The clerk has already swiped the card and is handing Marcus the receipt.
“Come on, I’ll take you to lunch,” he says.
We leave the tow-yard. Marcus tells the man we will pick up my car later and I ride with him. In the car, things are uncomfortably silent for a moment before he says, “Did you sleep in your car last night?”
I look out the window, watching the scenery whiz by. I want to lie to him, but I can’t. He’ll see me wearing today’s clothes when I come into work tomorrow. I suppose I could borrow something from Alba, but we aren’t exactly the same size. She’s stick-thin and flat chested, where I have what’s considered a true hourglass figure and bountiful breasts.
Plus, I don’t want to lie to him. He did a kind thing for me, picking me up, taking me to the tow-yard, as well as paying for it. Lying to him now would be a slap in the face.
“I did. My friend Alba has a house full of people so I didn’t want to intrude, and she’s pretty much my only friend,” I say.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says, his voice taking on a stern quality.
Shit. Is he going to change his mind about the job because I don’t have a home? Maybe he thinks it will make me unreliable. I guess, in that case, he would be right. I mean, I came so close to losing my car—
which is my only transportation to and from work. If something happens to it because I’m parked in a no-parking zone, that might mean showing up to work late (again), or not at all.