Читать книгу The Wing Girl: A laugh out loud romantic comedy - Nic Tatano - Страница 11

Friday night couldn’t have come fast enough. I felt like my soul had been magically transferred into another body.

The old Belinda Carson, now known as “frumpy girl,” had apparently died last weekend. Oh, I was still the Brass Cupcake, but I had become that rare crossover hit in the broadcasting world, an “infobabe” who actually had credibility.

Not that viewers noticed the latter any more.

At this point I was totally conflicted. I was surprised, but I had to admit I loved the attention I was getting from men. Hated that my appearance had become secondary to my reporting talent. Loved getting dressed up and fixing my hair (which also surprised the hell out of me), hated that the first comment I heard in the newsroom had to do with my outfit or hair or makeup rather than the previous night’s story.

I would deal with it later, along with a bottle of wine that was chilling in the fridge with my name on it. First I needed a cab, one of the hardest things to get on a Friday night during rush hour in Manhattan.

Well, it used to be hard. I previously endured a yellow blur as taxis sped by me, often splashing me with slush in the process since I was apparently coated with invisibility spray.

Now I step one foot off the curb, raise my hand, awkwardly stick out one well-turned ankle in a stiletto heel, and it’s a lemon-colored NASCAR race to grab my fare. It felt weird, like I was in some bizarre dance class, but I’ll take it.

Ten seconds after I engaged my sexual hail, a shiny cab crossed three lanes of traffic and screeched to a halt in front of me. The rumpled middle-aged man in a business suit ten feet away who’d already been at the curb when I got there rolled his eyes at me.

I opened the door and got in, then noticed the new-car smell, which is rather rare in a Big Apple taxi.

“Where to, Miss?” asked the cabbie, making eye contact by using his rear-view mirror.

“1042 East 82nd, please.”

He didn’t pull away, and just sat there staring at me in the mirror.

“Well?” I asked. “Is there a ride somewhere in my future?”

“I knew it,” he said.

I furrowed my brow. “Knew what?”

I saw his eyes brighten in the mirror and then he turned to face me.

Oh shit.

“You! Vincent!”

“Oh, you remembered my name this time. I’m impressed.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“What does it look like? Driving my cab.”

“You said you worked on Wall Street.”

He shrugged. “Rox told me to say that. Besides, I do pick up a fare there from time to time.”

“So you’re a cab driver?”

“How very perceptive of you. I can see why you went into journalism.” He smiled, then gave me the once-over. “Anyway, like I said, I knew it.”

“I’ll repeat the question. Knew what?”

“That there was a serious babe under all those bad clothes.”

A tap on the window interrupted us. It was the guy who’d been waiting. I rolled down the window.

“Look, if you’re not going anywhere, can I have this cab?”

“No,” I said, rolling up the window as Vincent took off.

“You look spectacular,” he said, keeping his eyes on the traffic. “Huge improvement.”

“You lied to me.”

“Like I said, Rox told me to say that. Besides, you should be used to it in your line of work.” He hit his horn as another car cut him off. “And you never would have talked to me if I said I was a cab driver.”

“I don’t judge people by their profession.”

“Not what Rox told me.”

My jaw tightened, then I noticed the meter wasn’t running. “You forgot to start the meter.”

“No charge for one of her friends.”

“You’ll get in trouble with your boss. They monitor those things.”

“Pffft. I’m pretty tight with the boss. That’s why I got the new cab. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

“I don’t want your charity.”

“Well, I can see charm school isn’t in session yet. When you get to the class on saying thank you, let me know.”

My eyes narrowed as I stared daggers into the rear-view mirror. He looked into it, locked eyes with me for a moment, and smiled. “Don’t you laugh at me!” I said. I was getting a lecture from a damn cab driver!

“Why not? You’re funny.”

“This is not funny.”

“Let’s see, gorgeous woman gets into my cab, I tell her she looks nice, she proceeds to bite my head off. Funny, don’t you think?”

“Just drive.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t call me ma’am. I’m not old.”

“Fine.” Long pause. “Cupcake.” The sonofabitch continued to smile at me.

I grunted and folded my arms in front of me as my blood pressure spiked. A quick look out the window told me we only had ten blocks to go.

And then the cab came to a sudden halt.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Traffic. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a concept involving too many cars and not enough road, which dictates that two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time.”

“Wow, you got an ‘A’ in high school physics. Congratulations.”

I was trapped in taxicab confession hell. Last week I would have jumped out and hoofed it, but ten blocks in these heels when I’m only on week one as a five-nine woman would’ve killed my feet.

The silence was deafening. “Wanna listen to the radio?” he finally asked.

“Anything’s better than listening to you.”

He didn’t respond and turned on the radio. Sports talk. My pulse slowed down. I’m actually a sports junkie and listen to this station all the time.

The current caller with the Jersey accent was ripping the Mets ownership after making yet another ridiculous trade. “You tell ‘em,” said Vincent. “Worst trade in years.”

I suddenly forgot my anger. “No shit,” I muttered.

He looked at me in the mirror as traffic began to slowly move. “You follow baseball?”

I nodded.

“Football too?”

Another nod.

“Giants or Jets?”

“Giants,” I said, before hitting him with the old line designed to take any Jets fan down a notch in case he was one. “There are no Jets fans, only Giants fans who can’t get tickets.”

“You’re right about that. I’ve got season tickets for the Giants. Had ‘em ten years. Forty-yard line. Great seats.”

“Good for you.”

The cab sped up and the blocks began to pass quickly. I saw my building through the windshield and opened my purse as he pulled to the curb, put the car in park, then turned around. “Nice seeing you again, Belinda.” I pulled a ten-dollar bill out of my purse and handed it to him. He waved it away. “I told you, no charge.”

“Consider it a tip for the sparkling conversation.” I tossed the ten through the little window that separates the front seat from the back and got out of the cab on the driver’s side. I headed for the front door of my apartment building.

“Hey, forget something?”

I stopped. I saw that my purse was over my shoulder and my satchel was in my hand. “No,” I yelled. I didn’t want to turn around, so I started walking again.

“Oh. I thought this broom was yours.”

My jaw dropped while my eyes caught fire. I stopped in my tracks and spun around to face him. “What did you say?”

“You know, Belinda, next time your friends take you shopping, you might stop at a store that sells manners.”

He sped away so fast I couldn’t even get my middle finger up.

***

Several women stopped dead in their tracks and parted like the Red Sea as he walked to the corner table in our usual watering hole, which was crowded and noisier than usual. His eyes locked on mine like a heat-seeking missile. He slid his hand along the brass rail of the bar until he reached the empty chair next to me. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, as he arrived. The man was perhaps forty, dark-haired, about six-two, very attractive. Okay, he’s beyond attractive. Looked like a marine recruiting poster in a thousand-dollar suit.

Didn’t matter. I held up my wine glass, which was full. “Isn’t it obvious I already have one?” Sheesh. Some guys are so dumb.

The guy’s smile disappeared instantly. He shook his head and walked away. I caught the word “bitch” under his breath.

“Excuse me?” I yelled.

He put up his hand and kept walking.

“Real nice,” said Roxanne. “I can see we’re makin’ progress on playing well with others.”

“I’ve already got a glass of wine.”

Ariel rolled her eyes. “Good God, were you raised by wolves? He was just interested in you and being polite.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But after a week of men hitting on me constantly … none of them even recognize me from TV any more. They just want to sleep with me.”

“Your point being?” asked Serena.

I took a sip of my wine. “Look, before all … this … ” I waved my hands down my body, channeling Harry. “Before all the hair and the makeup and the heels and the short skirts and the jeans that make my spunky ass pop, men used to come up to me because I was the credible girl from television news who they knew was intelligent. Now nobody even mentions it. Now I only attract men because of how I look.”

“Again … wolves?” asked Ariel.

“So,” said Roxanne, “you’re in this pissy mood because you’re suddenly hot and hordes of men are asking you out?”

“No, that’s not it. Not totally. It’s because I ran into your cousin an hour ago. The cab driver?”

“Bus-ted,” said Serena.

“Fine,” said Roxanne, putting up her hands in surrender. “So I told Vincent to embellish the truth a bit. Where’d you run into him?”

“I got into his taxi. You know, he’s related to you so you should say something to him about the way he talks to people.”

Roxanne looked puzzled as her face tightened. “Why, what’d he say?”

“He said I look spectacular and I’m a serious babe. And then we got into an argument and he said I obviously hadn’t been to charm school.”

“Let me get this straight … first he said you looked spectacular and were a serious babe,” said Ariel.

“The nerve,” said Roxanne. “I can certainly see why you were so offended.”

“Let’s back up a bit,” said Serena, ever the lawyer, “and ask the court reporter to review the transcript. You said you got into an argument after he gave you two very nice compliments, referring to you as both spectacular and a serious babe. Were said compliments the cause of the verbal altercation that followed?”

I put up one hand as a stop sign. “You had to be there. And stop badgering the witness.”

A waiter dropped by and slid an order of mozzarella sticks into the middle of the table. “Sorry for the delay on your dinner reservations. We should have a table for you in ten minutes. I brought you an appetizer on the house.”

“Great,” I said, not even looking at the guy. I reached across the table, grabbed a piece of fried cheese and shoved most of it in my mouth.

“I never noticed that before,” said Serena, as she watched me eat. She then turned to Ariel. “You?”

“No. It kind of went with the total package and I guess it all blended together. I can’t believe I missed it, considering my mother and all.”

“Noticed what?” I asked, my words garbled a bit as I talked through the cheese. I swallowed, licked my fingers and wiped them on the tablecloth.

“Your table manners,” said Serena.

I had a piece of cheese stuck in my teeth and tried to fish it out with one finger. “What about ‘em?”

“The waiter didn’t leave four forks as a garnish,” said Roxanne. She turned to Ariel. “You know what you gotta do.”

Ariel sighed and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call my mother immediately.”