Читать книгу I'll Be Watching You - M. William Phelps - Страница 24

I

Walking out of the bar and into the parking lot, Mary Ellen was trying to recall exactly where it was she had parked her car. It was approaching 2:00 A.M. The night sky was dark. With all the cars from the dance, it was hard to maneuver around the lot and see each vehicle. Finding her 1981 Olds Cutlass was posing to be quite the adventure.

“What kind of car do you have?” a voice said from in back. It startled her. She didn’t think that the man had followed her out of the bar. She hadn’t seen him. It was as if he had just appeared there behind her. Still, when she saw who it was, Mary Ellen felt relieved. She sort of knew him. At least he wasn’t a stranger who had come up on her.

As Mary Ellen explained what kind of car she was looking for, they walked around the parking lot searching for it.

“There it is,” Mary Ellen said, spying her car to the left of the bar door.

The man pointed to his car, which was parked just a row behind hers.

“I’m not sure how to get on the highway,” Mary Ellen said as she opened her door and got in.

He pointed down the road. “You have to take a U-turn down there to get back on the other side of the road and head east.”

“OK,” Mary Ellen said thankfully. Then she got into her car without paying too much attention to where the man was standing. (“I thought he was leaving too,” she said later.)

On the way to the dance, Mary Ellen’s Olds had stalled. It had been running rough for a while. She’d just had some repairs done because she knew she was starting a new job and needed a dependable vehicle. When she tried starting it that night as the man stood by and watched, it wouldn’t turn over.

So she tried again.

Nothing.

“You’re going to wear the battery down,” he said. “Maybe it’s flooded. Leave it alone for a few minutes and try it again, it might turn over. Sometimes that happens.”

Mary Ellen had the window down. She was still sitting in her car. He was standing by her window, leaning down. At some point (Mary Ellen couldn’t recall exactly when) the man left her, got into his car, and pulled up alongside. Their cars faced opposite directions, but they were parked side by side to each other. He, too, sat in his car with the window rolled down. Waiting for the carburetor to flush itself out and dry up, so she could try to restart her car, they talked some more about how she would get on the highway. The man wanted to be sure she knew where she was going.

After waiting for what was about ten minutes, she tried to start her car again. Turning the key and allowing the ignition to crank and crank, the engine finally fired. But it was bumpy, sputtering and backfiring. She was nervous about driving it home.

“It stalled on the way over here,” Mary Ellen yelled out her window as the engine groaned and hiccupped.

“I can show you how to get on the highway if you follow me,” the man yelled back. “Maybe I ought to follow you after that, because your car doesn’t sound right.”

“That would be nice,” Mary Ellen said to the man. “Thank you.”

Mary Ellen followed the man onto the highway and then pulled ahead of him so she could show him the way to her apartment.

II

Inside about twenty minutes, Mary Ellen pulled up in front of her apartment and parked her car on the street in front of the lawn.

The man parked directly behind her.

Before Mary Ellen could even get out of her car, the man was, as she later put it, “right up by my car door.” He had startled her. As she opened the door, he said, “I didn’t realize it was so far. I have to use the bathroom.”

She didn’t see the harm. He had helped her. He had demonstrated his thoughtfulness by following her home. The least she could do was allow him to use her bathroom.

“Sure, let me open the door.”