The car was broken down, and while Jennie and I were sulking, Doris and Roy were sitting on a log chuckling to themselves, having a little picnic with the brown bag of goodies Doris had bought at the five and dime. She ate half the apple and then handed it over to Roy.
“I have another one if you want,” she said to me, and I just shook my head. I couldn’t understand how they were so calm. Roy’s car was busted and we hadn’t seen a car in the whole two hours since it broke down.
“Aren’t you guys worried we’re stuck here?” Jennie asked her.
“Nope,” Doris said with confidence. “Someone will come along soon, I’m sure.”
“That’s my girl!” Roy responded. “Always the optimist! Isn’t it beautiful here? I don’t miss the hustle and bustle of the city.”
I can’t believe I just heard Roy actually say that. In the fifteen years I’d known him he’d never been this relaxed. Or this happy.
“What will we do come nightfall?”
Doris smiled as she rooted through the bag to the bottom and pulled out a few pieces of penny candy and offered them around. Jennie took one and listening to her unwrap it was wearing on my nerves. “We could sleep in the car! Roy, you have blankets in the trunk, right? The ones we keep for emergency picnics?” He nodded as he pulled a toy pipe out of his pocket and started pouring bubbles into it. “Wait, you bought it?” she asked him.
“Yup.” At that he put it to his mouth and bubbles started to explode out of the plastic piece of junk.
“But it won’t come to that,” Doris added. “Someone will come.”
I couldn’t take this much longer. What would we do, huddle up in the car under a tiny blanket, shared by each couple? Doris and Roy were bananas if they thought I would get a good night of sleep in that jalopy that couldn’t even handle a simple drive to Cape May. Doris and Roy started whispering and giggling to each other in that loving way. The way they always do it.
Jennie came over and sat next to me. It wasn’t long before she started whispering to me, copying off of them.
“Aren’t they so cute?”
“Sure, sure. They’re cute, and they don’t seem to mind we might die out here.”
“Oh come on. Why don’t we whisper like that anymore?”
“Anymore?”
“Yes! We were just like them when we met.”
I thought back and had to agree, we probably were. But not as annoying. Just to shut her up and reached up and held the back of her hair a bit, pulling her in for a kiss. She smiled. I rose.
“Should I start foraging? Maybe there’s an apple tree or something nearby.”
Doris looked in my direction. “Everything will be fine, Raymond. You’ll see.”
At that I heard the backfire of a truck in the distance, and a tow truck came into view around the bend. Doris stood up and brushed some dirt and leaves off the back of her skirt and smiled at me.
The robot sat on the metro, speeding quickly to its destination. The train slowed, stopped, hissed. A couple got on, holding hands, and sat across from it.
A Flash of Inspiration 