Page 85 of The Rom-Commers

As we weaved along the two skinny lanes, I found myself getting motion sick. The ups, the downs, the side-to-sides. It was a lot for my inner ear to handle. Charlie drove it fearlessly—one hand slouching on the wheel—like he drove it all the time.

Which I guess he did.

When Charlie happened to glance over and see me bracing against the door in fear, he said, “You don’t like the Hollywood Hills?”

“I come from a town that’s elevation zero,” I said.

“Don’t worry. I drive here all the time.”

“Why aren’t there more… guardrails?”

At the question, Charlie scanned the road and noticed its very weak guardrail game for what seemed like the first time.

“People are just careful, I guess,” he said in a tone likeHuh.

We’d curve one way and get a glimpse of a deep ravine to the right, then curve the other way and see the LA valley on the left. Through it all, I braced against the dashboard and jammed my foot over and over on a nonexistent brake pedal.

“You’re a terrible passenger,” Charlie said.

“I’m a fine passenger,” I said. “On a normal road.”

“Try to enjoy the view. We just passed Jack Nicholson’s house.”

“I’ll enjoy it later. After we’ve survived.”

“You want to know why you shouldn’t be worried right now?”

“Why?”

“Because the bad thing you’re worried about is never the bad thing that happens.”

I took that in.

“It’s always some other bad thing you’re not expecting. Right? So the fact that you’re worried we’re going to plunge to our deaths off the side of this road means that there’ll definitely be an earthquake instead. Or a drone strike. Or Godzilla.”

“So you’re saying something terrible is a given.”

Charlie shrugged. “Pessimism’s always a safe bet.”

I was just about to argue with that when—right then—an orange cat scrambled full tilt out of some low bushes by the edge of the highway and shot across the road in front of us.

We were edging along a section of the drive that had a steep hill to our left, and, um—how to put it—nothing at allto the right. Just a curving road with no shoulder that dropped off so dramatically into a canyon that you couldn’t see any edge at all.

With only a laughably low aluminum guardrail to protect us.

The cat dropped out of nowhere from the hillside, skittered across the road, and shot under the guardrail to disappear. Charlie touched the brakes, but the cat was gone in a flash—but before we could even exhale, that’s when, from the exact same place in the exact same low bushes, another, much bigger animal leapt out.

I thought it was a dog at first. It was the size of a yellow lab.

But it wasn’t a yellow lab.

Charlie hit the brakes for real this time—hard enough for me to slam forward against my seat belt like I’d been smacked with a wooden board.

And then the chaos started.

The second animal was gone as fast as the first one was—but it had been much bigger, and faster, and closer, and if Charlie hadn’t jammed on the brakes, we would’ve hit it for sure.

Who knows—hitting it might’ve been worse.

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