“Just sit tight.”

That’s what Aidan had said on the phone just now. Kate sighed as she sat in front of the coffee table, shoveling pizza into her mouth. She’d already polished off two slices and her stomach was starting to get that unpleasant, distended feeling that comes from binging on too much greasy food. She should probably slow down.

“Just sit tight. I’m on my way. I’ll be right there.”

She slid a third slice of pizza onto her plate.

He was coming back to talk to her, and she knew what he was going to say. All the comfort food in the world wasn’t going to take away the feeling of impending doom. She almost wished he’d done it over the phone just now. It would have been easier. Then she could just collect her things and slink away – and not have to worry about hiding how much it hurt.

But Aidan would never break up with someone over the phone. That was the thing about him. As much as Marcy liked to knock him down and call him names, it wasn’t true. He was a good person. Not a douchebag. He'd never been a douchebag, had he?

Oh, why couldn’t he be a douchebag? This would be so much easier right now if he were just a douchebag.

Kate’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing. She looked down in confusion at her cellphone, sitting next to her on the couch where she had left it. The ringing wasn’t coming from there. It sounded like it was in bedroom. One of Aidan’s phones? Had he left one of them here when he went out before?

She ignored the sound and began patting the slice of pizza with a napkin to absorb the excess grease. To her relief, she heard the ringing stop – only to start up again a moment later.

“You never heard of leaving a message?” Kate muttered in annoyance.

She sighed. Maybe it was important. She should probably go see who it was. She stood up and headed into the bedroom. There was Aidan's phone, lying in the middle of the bed with the caller ID clearly visible: Annette.

Wonderful, Kate thought. The ringing stopped and then immediately started in a third time. Clearly, Annette wasn’t giving up until somebody answered her call. Kate rolled her eyes and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hello? Aidan?”

“This is Kate. Aidan isn’t here.”

“Crap,” Annette responded.

“Why don’t you call him on the bat phone?”

“This is the bat phone.”

“Oh.” Kate pulled the phone away from her face and looked down at it in surprise. “Wow, that’s weird.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“He said he was at the airport—”

“The airport?”

“—but he’s on his way back now. He should be here soon.”

Kate pulled the phone away from her ear as she heard Annette curse loudly on the other end. “OK," Annette said at last. "OK, just tell him to call me immediately.  I need to talk to him.”

"Yeah," Kate said under her breath, after she had clicked the phone back off. "Get in line, lady."

She tossed the phone back onto the bed and laid down next to it, trying to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach. Too much pizza. Definitely too much pizza. Better to lie down in here for a little while before she really made herself sick. She was just closing her eyes when she was disturbed by the sound of the phone ringing again.

“Oh for crying out loud!” Kate said, squeezing her eyes further shut. Now what? All she wanted was to feel sorry for herself in peace. Was that really too much to ask?

The ringing continued, and Kate fished out Aidan’s phone from beneath the covers next to her. But the ringing wasn't coming from there. Was it her phone this time? With a groan, she rolled out of bed and padded back into the living room.

There. Her phone was going off. She recognized the LA local number that Aidan had called from earlier, and she picked it up on the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Kate?”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Still at the airport,” Aidan replied. “Do you think you could come pick me up?”

“You don’t have your car?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, can’t you take a cab or something?”

“Just—Are you still in the hotel room right now?”

“Yes.”

“Go into the bedroom,” he said.

Kate stood and returned to the foot of the bed where she’d just been lying down.

“Look at the bedside table,” his voice directed.

She raised her eyebrows. His wallet and car keys were sitting there on the table top. “Aidan, you don’t have your wallet?”

“OK, here’s what I need you to do. I need you to take my wallet and my car keys. Go get my car from the valet, and drive it here. OK? Please?”

“Um, well I—oh wait, Aidan, Annette was trying to call you just now. On the bat phone. She said she needs to talk to you right away.”

“Yeah, I'll bet she does."

"What happened?"

"Nevermind," Aidan said. "I'll deal with her later. Just get the car and come. OK?”

“OK, but— Hello? Aidan? Are you there?“

Her question was met with silence. He must have hung up.

Kate stared at his car keys on the bedside table and considered what to do next. It was a simple enough request. Take his car. Pick him up from the airport. That’s what boyfriends and girlfriends do for one another.

Right. Well, what about soon-to-be ex-girlfriends? Still obligated to perform airport pick-up duty? He had a lot of nerve, honestly, asking her to do that under the circumstances.

But that wasn’t the real problem. That wasn’t what started her heart racing in her chest as soon as she heard his request. The real problem was that she had absolutely no business getting behind the wheel of a car.

Was it even legal for her to drive? Technically, she had a driver’s license that she renewed like clockwork every few years. She’d passed her driver’s test when she turned 16, and her parents had given her a car as a high school graduation present. She’d brought it with her to college at NYU. It had sat, unused in its $300/month Manhattan parking spot the entire four years.

She could count on one hand the number of times she’d taken that car out to go somewhere. After college, she’d sold it to help pay law school tuition and never bothered keeping a car in the city again. Easier just to go everywhere by subway or taxi. She’d lived on the island of Manhattan ever since, and driving had simply never been necessary. It had to be at least five years since the last time she'd touched a steering wheel.

And Aidan expected her to negotiate the freeways of Los Angeles?

It was a problem that had been bothering her ever since she’d arrived here last week. If she was actually going to consider moving to LA, it would mean re-learning how to drive. But she hadn’t told Aidan that.

Now he had no idea what it was he was asking of her. She knew she shouldn't do it. She shouldn’t try to drive. She should call someone else to go get him. But it was too mortifying. If this was going to be goodbye, she'd be damned before she left him with that as a last impression. A weak, helpless little girl who didn't even know how to drive? No way.

How hard could it really be anyway, right? She had a valid driver’s license. It was probably like riding a bike. Once you know how, you never forget.

“Fine,” she said out loud. She grabbed his wallet and keys and thrust them into her purse. “I can do this.”

She picked up his cell phone from the bed and stowed it in her bag as well. Then she straightened her shoulders and strode decisively out the door.

***

“OK,” Kate said to the lady on Aidan’s GPS. “I can do this. Just like riding a bike.”

“Recalculating,” the GPS lady replied.

Dammit. She must have missed a turn. OK. Breathe. She had this under control. She was in the car. Of course, it was a shiny red vintage Ferrari convertible. She didn’t even want to think about how much it must be worth. But that was beside the point, right? Because she was going to drive it to the airport without getting a scratch on it. No problem.

So far, so good anyway. She'd managed to remember which pedal was for gas and which one was for braking. See, she told herself. Just like riding a bike.

“In one quarter of a mile, turn left.”

OK. Turn left. Kate swerved the car into the left lane, and her ears were instantly greeted by the sound of a horn blaring just behind her. Oops. Probably should look next time before switching lanes. OK. Lesson learned. No problem. No harm done.

She turned left and found herself on the entrance ramp for the 405 freeway. Here’s where things got a little dicey. Even when she had a car, she’d never really done much in the way of highway driving. She always took the train whenever she left the city to go home to her parent's house in the suburbs. Now, she felt her hands clench against the steering wheel as she approached the merge and saw the cars zipping by in front of her.

Just stick to the right lane, Kate told herself. It wasn't like she was a stunt driver in some high-speed movie car chase. Who cared if everyone else was going 80 mph? She would go 40, and everyone could just pass her if they didn’t like it. She could do this.

She moved the steering wheel to join the flow of traffic, barely missing the back bumper of the car in front of her. She stepped on the gas to increase her speed as much as she dared.  

“I’m going to die,” she chanted to herself. The speedometer crept upward from 25 to 35 mph. “Oh God, I’m going to die.”

“Proceed on the current route for ten miles,” the GPS lady said.

OK. Ten miles. That didn’t sound like a lot. She could do it. Just don’t change lanes. The car behind her was honking. There, it was passing her. Good. No problem. Oh look, the driver was giving her the finger. She pressed her foot a little further on the gas pedal, forcing herself to breathe as her speed climbed past 40.

Just a little farther. So far, she’d managed not to crash. Everything was going smoothly now. She was going fast enough that the cars weren’t honking anymore at least. She could handle this. It wasn’t that bad.

She longed to look down at the GPS and see how much farther she had to go, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the road. The lady would tell her when it was time to exit, right? Just breathe, she told herself. Breathe and stay in your lane. Everything was fine.

Her shoulders finally started to relax and her fingers unclench, and she mustered up the courage to press the gas pedal a little further. The speedometer was climbing past 45 and approaching 50 when she felt the car give lurch. What was it doing? Why was she slowing down? 40, 35, 30… Was she braking? She could swear she was still pressing the gas.

“Go!” she said out loud, pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor.

It was no use. It was at 25, 20, 15… With no other choice, Kate pulled the car onto the shoulder and glided to a full stop.

What just happened? Did the engine die? Did she break it somehow? She looked around at the dashboard for any hint of what could be wrong. Oh there – that little yellow light was on. The one shaped like a little gas tank. The one right next to that gauge she’d been ignoring, marked with the letter F and the letter E.

The letter F for “full.”

The letter E for “empty.”

She bent forward and gently banged her head against the steering wheel as comprehension dawned.

The arrow pointed to E. She was out of gas.