Page 55 of Push & Pull
Petradidn’tknowwhatshe hated more: driving through rainy Pennsylvania, or foggy Pennsylvania.Either way, I can’t see shit.
When they weren’t bumper to bumper in the fog, the rain crashed against the windshield and forced Petra to turn down the punk rock playlist so she could focus on the freeway. This was particularly important when a line of cars suddenly tried to zipper merge into the right slow lane.
“I love the sound of rain. Don’t you?”
Simone had finished her Sally Rooney book and had moved on to scrolling through her prepaid phone. Every so often, she commented on the world beyond the car. Any other day and Petra would have noted how comfortable Simone had become in the passenger seat of the Volvo. Instead, she now gritted her teeth and tried to not smack into the bumper in front of her.
“Sorry,” Petra muttered as she slammed on the brakes and Simone’s torso jerked against its seatbelt. “This rain is nuts.”
They were on the outskirts of Philadelphia, a city that couldn’t feel or look much different from Orlando.Or Raleigh, for that matter.While Philadelphia looked much more like Washington, DC than any of its southern siblings, the stark contrast in three days reminded Petra of what made her want to give up driving once and for all.
“If it’s all right with you,” she said, moving back into the right lane where traffic was most backed up, “I need to stop off and see someone on the north side of Philly. It’ll be faster if I take some of the roads through town, though, so I’m getting off here.”
“Sounds like I don’t have a choice.”
“It’s only a couple hours out of our way,” Petra insisted. “Also, it’s my mom I’m going to see. Trust me. We won’t be talking long.”
“By all means…” Simone held her phone in front of her face. “You’re the one driving.”
“You want me to drop you off somewhere in Philly until I’m done?”
Simone shrugged. “I can’t say I have any friends or family in the area, nor a location I’ve been burning to see. What town does your mom live in? You can drop me off there and I’ll take my laptop into a café or something.”
Cutting it a bit close to home, but sure.Petra hoped to God that Simone wouldn’t put two and two together – that all the signs in the Philadelphia suburb talking of the nearby women’s penitentiary meant Petra was going there.
She wasn’t ready for that conversation yet. Or ever, if this was a fling that would soon fizzle out.
I say that like we’re not already farther along in a relationship than I have with most women.Petra tried to not think about that. Not only did it not speak well for her dating history, but who knew what kind of experience Simone harbored in her prideful heart?Like we’ll be anything more than temporary friends with benefits…
No point thinking about it. Petra needed to find a decent place to drop off Simone that wasn’t so far from the penitentiary that it would take forever to grab her again, but also not close enough that Simone would correctly make awful presumptions about Petra’s mother.
“Looks like there are a couple cafes around here,” she said after pulling up to a ten-minute parking spot outside a Starbucks. “Let me know where you are and I’ll let you know when I’m coming back to pick you up.”
Simone hesitated before opening the passenger side door and slipping on her surgical mask. “Sure thing. Hey, uh…” Although she stood on the wet asphalt outside the Starbucks, she bent down and poked her head back into the car. “Everything all right?”
No matter how much Petra attempted to keep her poker face in check, she still faltered when she encountered those eyes from above a pink surgical mask. “Yeah. Don’t worry about me. I’m a bit frazzled from that freeway traffic.”
“All right. Have a nice visit with your mother. I’ll be around here.”
The door shut. Simone sought shelter from the sprinkle beneath the front eaves of Starbucks. She pulled out her phone while looking around the neighborhood. That was Petra’s cue to get the hell out of there before she lost her nerve.
It wasn’t her first time visiting her mother on the inside. Nevertheless, Petra was always put off by the solemn circus that was checking in, going through a metal detector, and watching a video about the dangers of medium-security prison and the people who inhabited it.
Yet what the warden and his guards could never anticipate was that the thing Petra feared most wasn’t what could happen if she was caught smuggling drugs into the prison population (she wasn’t, anyway.) Nor was she particularly bothered by the idea of a riot breaking out and her petite self being caught in the middle.
No, what Petra Kallis wanted to avoid most was that face that looked too much like her own.
“Hi.” Petra had to clear her throat so her words made sense to the woman seated before her.No more orange, huh?The uniforms were now a drab light brown that complemented the stringy, greasy brown hair falling before Nicolette’s pockmarked face. “Long time no see.”
“I’ll say.” Nicolette’s accent was always a hard one to place, and even after knowing her for half a lifetime, Petra still couldn’t quite figure out where her mother was trulyfrom.Just because Petra was born in the Chicago area, didn’t mean Nicolette had been. According to both her and Uncle Michail, Nicolette was part Brooklyn, part Jersey, part Boston, and part Detroit. “Have you gotten skinnier? I’d say you look good, but that hair is awful on you.”
“Thanks. Yours has really come into its own, too.” Petra had to ignore her mother’s jibes about hair and clothes.She has no room to talk right now.“Everything going okay in here? I dropped off some stuff for you, but you know how it is. You’ll get it when you get it.”
“If I ever get it. Thanks, though.” Nicolette glanced at the burly female guard standing a few feet away. “You get me those pads? The nice ones?”
“Yes, the overnighters.” First thing Petra grabbed at a CVS that morning before she and Simone hit the road.God only knows what Simone thought of that.If anything. For all Petra knew, Simone was about to surf her own crimson tide soon.
“Those things are gold here. Almost as good as cigarettes.”
