Notes from the Backseat. Jody Gehrman

get chilly in Mendocino. But I could tell by the way Dannika was huffing that she wouldn’t appreciate an additional item added to the cargo.

      “Wow,” she said, loading the medium suitcase. “What have you got in here? Cement?”

      “Mostly toiletries.”

      That’s when I remembered the trunk of shoes I’d left in the hallway.

      “Oh, just one more thing,” I said, handing her the hat box. “I’ll be right back.” I was tempted to ask if she could get it, but I didn’t want to admit she was in better shape than me and I didn’t want her smile, which was already getting tight around the edges, to go completely rigid. I wished she’d picked Coop up first so he could load everything and smooth the tension with his warm, contagious laughter. Somehow, he’d find a way to spin it so he was the butt of the joke, not me.

      I came back out with my trunk and, let me tell you, getting it to the sidewalk was no easy task. Guess I never realized just how heavy shoes can be. To my horror, I was starting to sweat by the time I finally made it back to the car.

      When Dannika saw me standing there proudly with my trunk of shoes (which was, by the way, hardly any bigger than the mini-fridge we had in college, so what was the big deal?) she folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow.

      As you can imagine, that look filled me with a fresh surge of resentment. First, the cocked eyebrow is my signature look. No one can pull it off like me, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But beyond that, she was using it out of context, which is never acceptable. The raised eyebrow is a form of punctuation and to use it without due cause renders it as offensive and sloppy as a random comma or semicolon dropped into the middle of a perfectly good sentence. To think that my innocent little trunk of shoes caused a raised eyebrow was, simply put, insulting. Not to mention stupid.

      “Everything okay?” I asked coolly.

      She slammed the trunk shut with more force than was absolutely required and jutted her chin at my final piece of luggage. “Why don’t you just shove that in the backseat?”

      “Oh, there’s room in the trunk, isn’t there?”

      “Coop needs some space, too.”

      I nodded. “Yeah, but he won’t bring much. You know boys—just a couple T-shirts and a toothbrush, I bet.”

      “Unlike some people,” she said under her breath. “Anyway, it’s fine, just throw it in the backseat.”

      I did, but not without tweaking a muscle between my shoulder blades as I tried to display how effortlessly I could haul it up off the sidewalk and into the convertible without even bothering to open the door. I don’t recommend it. The pain was unbearable and even now I can feel a dull, throbbing ache near my spine. Of course, my pride had more power than my chiropractic issues, so I slapped a smile on and settled into the passenger seat, reaching instinctively for my seat belt. There was nothing there.

      “Oh, no seat belts in this baby,” she said, throwing the Mercury into gear and lurching away from the curb roughly. “Sorry ’bout that. I never wear them, anyway. Just feels too restrictive, you know what I mean?”

      Marla, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, so please don’t think I’m weird, but I love seat belts. Death by highway is one of my more potent fears and the feel of that strap creating a band of resistance across my chest is, to me, delicious and comforting. I mean, statistically, the 405 is about a thousand times more likely to get us than cancer or terrorists or psycho killers. Most people are in denial about this, but for me it’s all too real. Every time I ride in a car, I feel my mortality pressing in on me like sticky, oppressive heat. I suppose that’s why I’ve never learned to drive; if I didn’t plow into a semi out of sheer terror, I’d surely contract a terminal stress-related disease within weeks.

      Dannika apparently doesn’t share my road phobias. She tore through Los Feliz and over to Silver Lake like a New York cabbie on speed. Her hands rarely landed on the wheel. She was perpetually adjusting the radio, playing with her bracelets, swigging water, toying with her hair as it whipped about like a bright gold streamer. I gripped the armrest with one hand and pressed my feet into the floorboards to keep from flying through the windshield.

      The only thing that saved us from a four-car pileup was that everyone—men, women, babies—stopped what they were doing as she drove past and stared at her golden beauty. It kept other cars from ramming into her and it cleared pedestrians from her path. As she tore up onto the sidewalk in front of Coop’s, steering with her knees while she applied her lip balm, I started to see what people mean by the phrase a charmed life.

      “Hey!” Coop came bounding toward us, down the steps of his craftsman bungalow and over to the Mercury, a big smile taking up the better part of his face. “If it isn’t my favorite girls!”

      Dannika screamed and bolted from the car as soon as she heard his voice. She leapt into his arms as if they were long-lost lovers separated for decades by war and famine. I felt this molten lump of something taking shape in my chest—jealousy, I guess, or rage or psychosis—whatever it was, I could feel it congealing and sizzling inside me, like doughnut batter dropped into a vat of boiling grease. I let myself out of the passenger’s side, hoping that by the time I walked calmly around the car the hug would be over, but when I got there Dannika was still clinging to him, her blond hair shining more brilliantly than ever in the sunlight, her slender tan arms clasped around his neck fiercely.

      Over her shoulder, Coop’s eyes met mine and when I saw the apology there the dangerous lump inside my rib cage broke apart a bit. His face was saying, “Sorry, she’s…like this sometimes,” and somehow just sharing a secret look with him while Satan clung to him pathetically made me feel more poised again.

      “Wow,” he said, when she finally loosened her grip enough to allow some air into his lungs. “Long time no see, huh?”

      “Months!” She looked at him with an appraising eye, now. “You look different.”

      “Really?” He stepped around her, then grabbed my hand and surprised me by leaning down and planting a firm, warm kiss on my lips right there in front of her. Not that Coop and I are stingy with kisses—it’s just that we don’t have much practice doing it in front of other people. Three months doesn’t give you loads of PDA opportunities, I guess.

      “Hey, kitten,” he said into my ear. “You look so great. Love those shoes—God, what an outfit.” His voice made the already half-dissolved doughnut in my chest dissolve completely. I realized then that Dannika hadn’t commented on my travel ensemble. That’s the genius of Satan. You don’t recognize the affront until it’s too late to retaliate.

      “You do, you look different,” Dannika repeated, sounding annoyed that he’d even greeted me. “Something’s changed. What is it? Did you lose weight?”

      Coop patted his stomach, barely existent. “Don’t think so…”

      “Shave or something?”

      He touched his face, always sporting a couple days’ worth of stubble. “Yeah, right,” he laughed.

      She shook her head, mystified. “Your aura’s different,” she said. “Are you getting enough vitamins?”

      “Wait a minute, my aura needs vitamins?”

      She slapped his shoulder. “Two separate observations, you moron!”

      He looked at me. “I’m really happy for the first time in my life. That’s all.”

      “Huh,” Dannika said. “Well, it doesn’t suit you.”

      He shot her a look.

      “It doesn’t! What can I say? You look underfed or something.”

      I tried not to gloat, but I doubt I pulled it off. “I think he looks great.”

      “Huh,” Dannika said again, and the irritation packed inside that one syllable only added to my joy.

      Right.