of course i didn’t know why she needed the ride as i drove up to her humble home on a dead-end road in little armenia.
i was happy that i had a medium-long ride to ucla, where i wanted to be. i was rocking kc and the sunshine b and a little too loudly.
her name? armenian. complicated. usually the passenger would talk about it for a little while. either she would tell me that it’s extremely common or very rare.
but instead of talking about names, i finally looked at the destination, saw it was the ronald reagan medical center, and asked if i should floor it?
yes. my husband… yes, her voice cracked.
i turned kc down from repeatedly instructing us to shake our booties, and headed toward sunset.
it will take us 40 minutes, i said and showed her on the waze app.
she nodded, but not in a what can you do way,
but in a, i don’t trust you or your phone or your ridiculous disco music.
i switched over to deep tracks on siriusxm. the stones, let’s spend the night together. completely inappropriate. but since she was pretty old, i was hoping her english wasn’t good.
i wouldn’t know though, because she said zero words the entire trip.
instead, she sat in the center of the back seat, eyes glued to the road through the windshield, silently judging every move i made. if i took a turn a block or two before waze told me to, you could hear her catch her breath as if i had stabbed her right in the thigh.
but as we traversed across the sloppy streets of hollywood and then the sunset strip, she hate-watched as the waze app confirmed that every choice i was making was turning the 40-minute ride into a 38-minute one and then a 36-minute miracle.
was she in the car with the finest driver of all?
probs.
i tapped my fingers to the beat at stop lights, because i had moved the dial into ozzys boneyard, the metal station. judas priest, iron maiden, sir ronnie james, dio. they all kept the proper tempo as we hugged the curves along the strip and into posh and manicured hills of beverly, home of little traffic but hella red light cameras. so watch it.
everything i did worked. skill? luck? yes.
cars i chose to follow, magically peeled off right before a green light.
i took shortcuts through impossibly priced neighborhoods, casually avoiding falling palm fronds dropping drunkenly from 100 feet above, narrowly missing our rain drenched black uber.
metallica’s new one came on and she coughed into her hand. then a sneeze.
i cracked my window because i cannot afford to be sick right now. i have to drive every day i can for as long as i can during the winter. no way can i let this woman put me out of commission because her old lady germs are floating around here for eight minutes because i want to be nice.
i do want to be nice, but come on.
then i cracked the passenger’s front window and i turned up the heat to combat the cold air.
she didn’t seem to mind. her hair did fly around a bit, though, i noticed as i peeked in the rear view. but all she was focused on was my route. she was studying it. she was examining me. unlike tests in school, this one i had been practicing for ten years.
watch me drive lady, i ESPed. watch how simple i can make it look despite beverly hills containing the worst drivers in the entire county. leaders of industry and international VIPs jerk around these 90210 roads like rules don’t apply to them.
finally at westwood, we arrived at the hospital five minutes earlier than waze estimated. robots will never replaced cocky brothers with attitudes. try all they want.
if you were going to watch one trip, this would have been the one, and she never blinked. or smiled.
but in perfect english she said, thank you very much, and went to her man inside.
but firs, she handed me a tightly folded up collection of ones.