Page 141 of Terms Of Un-Endearment
I yell his name again while running down the stairs. He meets me before I make it to the bottom step.
“What? What’s wrong?” He grabs my shoulders and the worry on his face disorients me for a second.
The pungent cloud of garlic clinging to my skin brings me back to myself. “What did you do to my perfume?”
Archie blinks, then drops his hands and steps back with a smile playing on his lips. “How’s that for karma?”
My eyes burn, but not from the garlic. “I’m already late! I can’t shower. I’m going to stink like this all day! You realize you’re messing with my career, right? I can’t lose this internship because Iliterallystink!”
Archie loses his smile. “I’m … uh sorry …”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Um,” he bites his lip. My brain is spinning out.
“Go shower,” he finally says, pushing me toward the top of the stairs. “I’ll drive you to work.”
His calm voice stops the rant that’s on the tip of my tongue, and his electric purple hair erases it all together. Archie should be laughing at me right now, not acting equal parts guilty and concerned. Instead, he looks as worried as I feel. Like maybe he actually understands the potential consequences of what he’s done.
I’m in too much of a hurry to consider that possibility.
I wash my hair and scrub my skin raw until I can’t smell garlic anymore, then pick out a whole new outfit. When I finally walk into the kitchen, Archie’s waiting for me, a knit beanie covering most of his hair and a mug of coffee in his hand.
"Come on, van’s in the garage." He hands me the portable mug, grabs my free hand, and hustles me to the garage door.
"The van?" I tear my eyes away from Archie’s fingers wrapped around mine. "You drive a minivan?"
“Yeah, nah,” he chuckles.
I follow him into the garage, where I discover that, no, he does not drive a minivan. He drives a luxury Mercedes Sprinter van. Because, of course, he does. What else would a young, single guy drive besides a van big enough to fit eight?
“Let me pull out first.” He climbs into the driver’s side, backs out of the too-small-garage for a vehicle that big, then stops, hops out, and opens the passenger side door for me.
"What time do you have to be at work?" he asks as I climb in.
"Seven forty-five. If I’m not fifteen minutes early, I’m late."
Archie checks the clock on the dash. It’s seven-thirty-two. “Totally doable.”
I raise my eyebrows but keep my mouth closed. If he thinks it’s possible to compress a twenty-minute drive in LA into a fifteen-minute one during rush hour, I want to believe him. Ineedto believe him.
We’re silent for the first few minutes. Mostly because Archie’s busy navigating a giant van around much smaller vehicles while going approximately one hundred miles an hour, and I’m busy holding the emergency handle with one hand and my coffee in the other while praying we don’t die. But when he squeals to a stop at a red light he can’t blow through without killing us both, I take the chance to ease my conscience.
“The purple will wash out in a few weeks. Sooner the more you wash it.” I pick a long hair off my patterned pants.
Archie’s head swivels toward me and back to the light before he lets out a rough laugh. “I’ve got an appointment with Frankie’s hair person after I drop you. Juan will take care of it…but credit where credit’s due. That was a good one.”
I twist the bracelets on my wrist as a smile slips out. “How did you pull off the perfume thing?”
“I found a garlic essential oil at the Natural Foods Market.” The light turns green, and we’re back in a Formula One race. “I’ll buy you a new bottle of perfume,” Archie says casually while weaving in and out of traffic.
“Thanks.” Sarcasm slips into my voice. He has no idea how expensive that perfume is, and he doesn’t care. When you can,literally, buy anything you want, price tags don’t exist.
Archie slams on the brakes and I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself for impact. A horn honks, and I open my eyes in time to see the driver in the next lane flipping us off as Archie passes. Archie waves back, and I hold back a laugh. I hate that he can do that: make me burning mad one second and wanting to laugh in the next.
He flashes me a lightning-quick smile before we both go quiet again. The tension between us is less palpable than it was when I got in the van, but the air is still sticky with it. I’m not sure what to say. Do I tell him how else I’ve sabotaged his beauty routine?
Maybe the purple hair makes the change in his face color less obvious, or maybe because I know it’s coming, I can already see his skin looks slightly orange. Either way, I doubt he’s noticed or he probably wouldn’t have offered to drive me to work or given me a cup of coffee.
