Words & Dreams (Book 1 of Smithers Family Saga)

Chapter 23

Erica wasn't expecting that she'd have to drive, but she reasoned that Dollie was exhausted from buying a stroller and carting two hypersensitive puppies around Manhattan.

The talk turned to what they did with their time.

"I stumbled upon... a nice date," Dollie said, her eyes half-closed.

"Someone you knew?"

"No," Dollie said. "A really handsome guy though."

"What's he do?"

"Oh, things," Dollie said. "I'll tell you when we get back home."

"You'll be asleep by then. Or want to sleep, and not talk."

"Then tomorrow morning," Dollie said. "Did the interviews go well?"

"Very well," Erica said. "I met a sweet guy myself."

"A date?"

"Yeah, though I'm not sure he really knew till afterwards, when I asked to exchange numbers. It was better that he didn't know, I think. He's that type of guy, who probably gets worse with the pressure of it being a date. At least to someone he admires."

"Ah, he admires you?" Dollie said. "That's sweet. What's his name?"

"Don't tease me for my ego!" Erica said and lovingly rubbed her head in a materialistic gesture.

"Stop that," Dollie mumbled, but her smile made Erica know it made her happy. A silence.

"You never told me his name," Dollie continued.

"Oh, yes, sorry, the traffic is about what you'd expect," and Erica honked the horn, rolled the window down, leaned her head out and screamed a few obscenities.

The traffic stopped and started: the erratic pulse of the New York's metropolis at night. The concrete and all the surrounding things, even under the streetlight, took on the qualities of a bleak darkness, but in the abstract: blues were still blue, and reds were still red, but the bridges, sidewalks, people, buildings all seemed to be headed toward a darkness that wasn't black, including things that were light and dark. As if only seen as a whole from above, would the black buildings and white-yellow headlights of the automobiles; the parks, churches, houses private and public, all submerged, would take on the quality of grey.

"His name's John," Erica said, as she put her head back in the car and rolled up the window, as if she'd never yelled, but had answered the question seamlessly. "How about yours?"

"My name?" Dollie said.

"You really are a sleepyhead, sis. And you're still cuter than I'll ever be, even with drool dripping down your chin."

"Don't say that," and Dollie tilted her head forward.

"I meant, what's his name. From your date."

"Oh, it's Danny."

Eric's turned to look at her sister.

"That's quite a sleepy smile," she said. "You're really hoping for something with this guy, aren't you?"

She smiled at seeing Dollie happy. First Romeo and Juliet, and now this. She only hoped it would work out.

Erica looked in the rearview mirror above the dashboard, and saw Romeo and Juliet snuggled up to one another on the seat. The radio station she was listening to began to scramble. She turned the nob to the tuner, and as classical music began to play, Dollie's eyes snapped open:

"Oh shit!"

"What is it? Erica said, and she checked the mirrors of the car, but nothing was out of order.