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Snow White

 

 

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     The first time Frank saw the woman in the black Mercedes he was struck dumb.

     His Friday at work just complete and the weekend a mere four minutes old, Frank looped his car through the parking lot.  It was October but it was Indian summer and today was ninety-nine degrees outside.  The only thing on Frank’s mind was the ice cold treasure trove of beer that awaited him at home.  Those frosty ranks of bottles had been calling to him from the top shelf of his fridge since nine that morning. 

     Frank tapped the brake pedal at the edge of the lot as another car sped to the exit at the same time.  It was a brand new Mercedes.  The car’s shade of black was so black it looked wet.  Frank and the other driver hesitated a moment, each expecting the other would go first.

     At the wheel of the Mercedes was the most striking woman he’d ever seen—pale, clear complexion and large blue eyes.  Most striking about her was the contrast between her bright face and her immaculate salon hair that was every bit as inky black as the car.

     Even her eyebrows were perfect.  

     Frank had noticed many women in his time but had never stopped to admire a good pair of eyebrows.

     “What planet are you from?” Frank muttered.

     He waved her forward: Ladies first.

     She offered him a glowing smile and a butterfly wave of the fingers in return:  Thank you!

     And that was all it took.  Frank was in love.

     She checked for traffic and glanced at him one more time.  Was this woman giving him the eye?

     Her hand came up again... this time she blew him a kiss.

     Then the moment was over and the Mercedes rolled through the exit and sped away.

     Curiosity bloomed in his head: which building did she work in?  Was she a new hire?  What were the odds a woman like that was single?

     The ghost voice of Frank’s long gone ex spoke up at once in his head: Give me a break, Frank, that woman was waaay out of your league.

     Frank had to laugh.  Ghost or not his ex was hard to argue with.

     As he drove out of the parking lot he resolved to keep an eye out for her around work starting Monday.  Starting this very second he would answer the call from the fridge.

     So he gunned it down the street, feeling good about the next couple of days off.  Indian summer aside, autumn was Frank’s favorite time of year.  He was a sky guy, and any sky guy would tell you autumn was the best for stargazing.  The giants returned to the sky in autumn.

     A light up ahead turned green and Frank punched the gas a little harder.  He followed the road through a gentle left curve and flew through two more of those lucky-Friday-go-home green lights.  Frank’s foot got even heavier—cops be damned—and his eyes flicked to the mirror.

     The rear view was eclipsed by the black Mercedes.

     She had left first but was now behind him, right behind him.  There was no mistaking that face.  Or the eyebrows.

     “How’d you do that?” he said aloud.  

     She must have pulled off the road for a quick text with the hubby, and Frank had simply been moving too fast to notice.  Or she stopped for a cold soda at the gas station.

     He came to a red at Watt Avenue.  His route home dictated a right-hand turn.  It was clear to his left so he rounded the turn with more Friday afternoon gusto, leaving the Mercedes in the dust.

     “So long, Snow White!”

     Frank gunned it northbound.  Up ahead his cool air-conditioned house waited.  And even cooler foamy beverages.  He yelled, “It's beer-thirty and whiskey-o'clock!”

     Frank crossed the bridge over the American river so fast it may have been a stream or a trickle.  Then he came to another red at the intersection of Watt and Fair Oaks Boulevard.

     He slowed and flipped the blinker for a right turn.  As he waited on traffic he glanced around to make sure no cop had caught his mad dash over the river on radar.

     Snow White was right behind him.  And... was she staring back into the mirror?

     “She’s baaa-aaack!”  Frank said crazily.  “My place or yours?”

     The light turned green and the two cars veered onto Fair Oaks.  The Mercedes kept a scant five feet from Frank’s bumper through the turn.  He straightened the wheel and stomped the pedal.  Behind him she matched his every move.

     He thought of a cat sneaking up on a bird.  But that was a bit much.  Probably the Mercedes was a speed machine and she simply couldn’t help but ride the ass of the car in front of her.

     Fair Oaks was two lanes in each direction, and Frank chose the far right lane.  If she was a speed demon, now was her chance to pass him.  But she took the right lane.

     “Get off my ass, ya hottie!”

     Frank hated being tailgated.  He swerved into the left lane and watched her in the mirror.  The Mercedes stayed right… then casually drifted left and was back on him.

     “What the hell!” he said.

     Frank shot back into the right lane and did what he always did when tailgated—he took his foot off the gas and went into a coast.

     “Your move now, Snow White,” he said.

     The woman in the black Mercedes made her move.

     There was a roar of engine as she pulled up on Frank’s left.  Then she was directly beside him.  The passenger side window opened.  Frank took his eyes off the road long enough to watch several locks of dark hair dance around her in the breeze.  She looked over at him, and Frank had an idea that if the devil had a girlfriend it would be this woman right here.

     She blew him another kiss.

     Frank had another idea: he was dreaming this most bizarre ride home.  She gave another flutter of fingers that Frank would remember for quite a while.  Then she drifted into the far left turn lane and slowed rapidly.  The route they had in common ended at Eastern Avenue.

     Frank kept to Fair Oaks as his place was further up the line.  The fridge and its contents utterly forgotten for the time being, Frank took one last look back at the black Mercedes.  He thought he could feel her back there.  Then the road curved and she was gone.

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     Frank arrived home, drank his beer and found himself mentally replaying the commute from work.  He’d made that run thousands of times over the years, and never had it been as bizarre as on that day.  Thinking how she had blown him a kiss not once but twice, Frank could only grin and shake his head.

     The rest of the weekend found Frank doing a round of yard work.  He replaced a jammed sprinkler in the front yard and grilled salmon in the back yard.  He caught a soccer game on TV and lost track of how many beers went down the tube.  Monday morning he got up and went out back for a glimpse of Orion and Aldebaran.

     The work week rolled around with eerie speed.  Frank was back at the desk.  The days inched along with eerie slowness.  Each afternoon Frank walked to his car wondering if there would be another sighting of the black Mercedes.  There were many cars on the road that resembled the one that had tailed him last week.  Mercedes were popular cars.

     But there was no sign of that one.

     The week clicked along to Friday again.  This time it was payday Friday, and as Frank was leaving the office he phoned in a pizza.  Smoky pepperoni and extra tomato sauce.

     He left work, started up his car and took a look around.  No Mercedes.  No Snow White.  Of course not.  And it was just as well.  Dear Oh So Beautiful Tailgater, the car was not a toy.  What was the leading cause of death in the U.S.?  Was it cancer or was it car crashes?

     Frank mulled it over as he went to pick up his dinner.

     He paid twenty-five dollars for the pizza, and propped it carefully on the passenger seat so he could ride home with the aroma of pepperoni.  Frank was starving.  It was to be a beer and pizza Friday.  His stomach made noises.

     He put the car in reverse, checked the mirror and…

     And there she was.

     The Mercedes was parked tail first in a slot on the other end of the pizza parlor’s lot.  Sitting behind the wheel and watching him, Snow White looked exactly as she had last time.  

     Frank uttered a startled laugh, feeling a mixture of emotions at once: elation, confusion… and a cold undercurrent of caution.  

     But mostly elation.

     The S word occurred to Frank.  Was it too absurd to think this dare devil woman might be a stalker?

     But Frank had to laugh at himself.  Stalkers were nerdy guys who never showered, not a woman like this one.  To think she would have any difficulty finding a Friday night date was preposterous.  So she wanted a cat and mouse game, and had followed him to the pizza joint.  Frank wasn’t sure if that made her a stalker.  Even if she was, his ego could imagine worse things than to be followed around by a gorgeous woman.

     The long gone ex spoke up again: Frank, normal folks like to chit chat.  Normal folks probably don’t follow strangers around town.  Just sayin…

     Hell with stalkers, hell with leagues and hell with ex girlfriends.  What if she was simply allowing him the chance to make the first move?  In his mind it made a bizarre sort of sense.  So Frank took a deep breath and gathered his determination to go say hello.

     But before he could do so much as open his door, she did the last thing he expected.  The Mercedes launched across the parking lot and into El Camino Avenue.  With a scream from the engine she took off, headed west.

     Frank didn’t think.  He reversed, shifted, and darted into traffic.  Someone gave a warning blast of car horn.  The jolt of curb as he left the parking lot jostled the pizza to the floor of the car.  He secured his dinner with one shaky hand and held the wheel with the other.

     There she was up ahead.  He would have to break some laws if he was going to catch her.  He wanted to ask the woman point blank why she was following him around town.  He thought once more about statistics and causes of death... and about the way she had blown him a kiss not once but twice.

     He floored it.

     Frank weaved through traffic like an ambulance with its lights on.  His heart rate doubled.  

     The signal up the street turned red and immediately her brake lights flashed. 

    “Hah!  Gotcha now, Snow White!” he bellowed in triumph.  

     He let up on the gas, which felt like a good thing to do.  Frank was an office worker after all, not an ambulance driver.  His heart rate decreased as the speedometer did likewise.

     Then for the second time she did the last thing he expected.

     As Frank closed the gap, her brake lights went out and her reverse lights came on.  The Mercedes rolled backwards, stopped to shift, and shot to the right up a side street.

     “What?” Frank cried.  

     The side street was Mission Avenue.  It cut through a residential neighborhood where the limit was thirty.  Frank turned onto Mission and saw her a good distance ahead.  No way was she doing thirty.

     “No, sweetheart,” he groaned, “kids play on streets like this one!  Kids!  Bicycles and basketballs!”

     Frank’s speedometer crept up past forty to forty-five.  No kids in sight.  At least there was that.

     Frank promised himself that her next dangerous move would be his cue: he would take his foot off the gas, turn around and take the smoky pepperoni home.  The game of real life Mario Kart was too much.

     Her brake lights flashed up ahead.  

     “That’s riiiight!” he said in relief.  “Stop signs galore on this street!”

     It was the first stop sign on Mission, and it allowed him to catch up to her.  But that wasn’t quite right.  Because she wasn’t taking off again.

     She was waiting for him.

     “About time the lady sees reason!”

     Frank rolled up behind her and came to a sudden stop.  A week ago he’d been in front.  Now from behind, Frank was looking at a custom plate.  It was five letters, the standard navy blue on white of California plates.

     The letters spelled:  FRANK

     “Wha…”  Frank breathed.  The Mercedes exploded out of the stop so abruptly Frank jumped.  She accelerated and worked the wheel, spinning a donut around the intersection.  The move took about three seconds, tires burning twin half-circles onto the asphalt.

     Then they faced each other.  Their eyes met.

     Frank was perhaps more confused than he'd ever been in his entire life.  He shrugged and put up his hands: What exactly...?

     The woman who looked like Snow White and had his name on her license plate was smiling at him.  

     Was she smirking? 

     She extended one pale arm out the driver’s side window, and in her hand was a round purple object.  With a flick of her wrist the object in her hand opened.  Frank realized she was holding a compact, mirror side towards him.  Her other hand came up and for the third time she blew him a kiss.

     The compact shifted slightly in her outstretched hand, and Frank sensed what was about to happen a split second before it happened. 

     She caught the sun in the mirror, and Frank was blinded.

     “Ahh, hey,” he moaned, blinking furiously.

     Tires screeched a final time.  Frank rubbed his eyes until his vision returned in green and yellow hues.  There was no sign of the Mercedes.

     Snow White was gone.

     “Whole.  Lee.  Shit.”  He said to the empty street.

     His nerves were so jacked up his hands shook.  A handful of folks had come out of their houses to see what the noise was.  He drove slowly up Mission in a daze.

     He took back roads home, going nice and slow.  He tried to make sense of what just happened.  Puzzling him most was the custom license plate.  And what the hell was the deal with her catching the sun in her compact and blinding him?

     By the time he got home the pizza was cold.  He ate a couple of slices anyway and made a decision: no more real life Mario Kart, regardless how pretty the woman behind the wheel.  Chasing her into a quiet neighborhood had been dangerous beyond Frank’s liking for adventure.

     So that was that: no more taking the bait.  He was a trained bachelor after all, a proud veteran in the trenches of singledom.  No chick in a German hotrod was going to coax him into doing anything.  Besides, he really wasn’t into the NASCAR thing.  No road runner was Frank.

     Yet in the days and weeks and months to come, as Frank commuted his way around town he couldn’t help but glance at the passing traffic for the black Mercedes.  He never forgot those two encounters with the mystery woman.  But Frank never saw Snow White or the midnight black Mercedes with FRANK on the plate again.