Page 18 of Instant Karma

“No, I just want to go home.”

She bites her lower lip. “I was so worried, Pru. You actually passed out.”

“Just for a second, right?”

“Yeah, but…”

I put my hand on hers and say, solemnly, “I’m okay. I promise.”

Her face relents before her words do. After a second, she nods. I sigh and stare out the window. We pass by ice cream parlors and boutique shops that are as familiar as my own bedroom. I hadn’t realized how late it was. The sun has just dipped below the horizon, and Main Street is lit up like a movie set, the palm trees wrapped with small white lights, the pastel-painted businesses glowing under the old-fashioned streetlamps. In another week, this town will be full of tourists on vacation, bringing something akin to a nightlife with them. But for now, the street feels almost abandoned.

We turn away from Main Street, into the suburbs. The first couple of blocks are the mansions—mostly second homes for people who can afford almost-but-not-quite beachfront property. But soon it’s just another neighborhood. A hodgepodge of Mission style and French Colonial. Tiled roofs, stucco walls, brightly painted shutters, window boxes overflowing with petunias and geraniums.

“So, don’t be mad,” Ari says, and I immediately bristle with the expectation of being mad, “but I thought Quint seemed okay.”

I relax, realizing that for some reason I’d been bracing for an insult. But Ari is too sweet to criticize anyone. Even, evidently, Quint Erickson. I snort. “Everyonethinks Quint seems okay, until they have to work with him.” I pause, considering. “It’s not that I think he’s a bad guy. He’s not a jerk or a bully or anything like that. But he’s just so… so…” I flex my fingers, grasping for the right word.

“Cute?”

I cast her an icy stare. “You can do better.”

She laughs. “I’mnot interested.”

There’s something in the way she says it, like she’s leaving something unsaid.She’snot interested, but…

The words linger in the air between us. Is she implying that I am?

Gross.

I fold my arms tightly over my chest. “I was going to say inept. And selfish. He’s late for class all the time, like whatever he’s doing is so much more important than what we’re doing. Like his time is more valuable, and it’s okay for him to stroll in ten minutes into the lecture, disrupting Mr. Chavez, making us all pause while he gets settled, and he cracks some stupid joke about it like…” I drop my voice in imitation. “Aw, man, that Fortuna traffic, right?When we all know that there is no Fortuna traffic.”

“So he’s not punctual. There are worse things.”

I sigh. “You don’t get it. Nobody does. Having him as a lab partner has been downright painful.”

Ari gasps suddenly. The car swerves. I grip my seat belt and turn my head as headlights blaze through the rear window. I don’t know when the sports car showed up behind us, but they’re riding the bumper, dangerously close. I lean forward to look in the side mirror.

“There was a stop sign back there!” Ari yells.

The sports car starts swerving back and forth, its engine revving.

“What does he want?” Ari cries, already on the verge of hysteria. Though she has her license, her confidence behind the wheel still has a way to go. But something tells me having an erratic car on your tail would freak out even most experienced drivers.

“I think he wants to pass us?”

“We’re not on a freeway!”

We’re on a narrow residential street, made narrower by rows of vehicles parallel parked on both sides. The speed limit is only twenty-five, which I’m sure Ari had been following precisely. Now, in her anxiety, her speed has dropped to twenty. I suspect this is only further irritating the driver behind us.

They lay on the horn—extra rude.

“What’s their problem?” I shout.

“I’m pulling over,” says Ari. “Maybe… maybe there’s a woman giving birth in the passenger seat or something?”

I look at her in disbelief. Leave it to Ari to excuse this inexcusable behavior. “The hospital’s that way,” I say, jerking my thumb in the other direction.

Ari eases toward the side of the road. She finds a spot between two parked cars and does her best to angle her way in—no easy task with how long the station wagon is. Still, it leaves enough room for the other car to pass.

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