The Blonde in the Red Sports Car

A sexy birthday story

It was my birthday. I had no plans — at least no plans that involved other human beings. I had the day off from work as well as the next day off.

My only plan was to celebrate me. To be honest I have to say that I have spent a lot of birthdays in my life alone. These are the birthdays that I have enjoyed the most. My first prerequisite has always been to commune with nature in some way. To celebrate my life I step away from my life and try to get to the very bottom of things; to strip myself of the image I have created for myself — my false self. Nature, for me, has always been the place to go to release everything that is going on in my life and venture into the primal nature of who I really am beneath the facade I live behind on a daily basis. Nothing does this better than nature.

(On this birthday, however, ‘nature’ would take on a whole new meaning.)

I happen to be a nature freak. For years I have tried to connect with nature on a near-daily basis. My nature obsession drastically intensified after a health scare around seven years ago. It was nature that healed me from that scare and ever since it has always been nature that I turn to whenever I am at a crossroads in my life.

And this particular birthday was a crossroads — a particularly intense one.

I skipped my normal hearty breakfast. No eggs, no jalapenos, no meat, no bread, no hash browns, no cheese. All I had was a banana…. And, of course, a couple of tall glasses of lemon water.

I do not currently own a car. My legs have been my sole provider of transportation for the last four years. I walk everywhere.

For my birthday I had decided to walk down to the ponds. Just south of the town where I currently live there are a couple of fairly large ponds around which a public park is situated. Back when I had a car I used to drive down there on an almost daily basis to take a walk around the ponds and thus commune with nature.

Those ponds are utterly teeming with mother nature. One can walk around those ponds and completely forget about civilization. The only sounds are of the symphony of bird sound. It is a cacophony of geese, ducks, pelicans, gulls, herons, swifts, and numerous song birds. Walking around these ponds is like walking into a symphony hall where the symphony orchestra performing is made up totally of birds.

I happen to be a bird freak. I’m not an ornithologist nor a birder nor a birdwatcher. I’m just a bird freak.

I really missed coming out to the ponds every day. Connecting — communing — with nature is one of the most profound things a human can do. I learned this first hand but after selling my car in order to pay the rent it became quite a trek to go down to the ponds. I had to find my nature closer to my apartment and it was only on days off that I could take the time to trek all the way down to the ponds. Often there were so many things to do on my days off that I just could not fit that trek into my schedule.

But it was my birthday and suddenly it was my number one priority.

After the long walk down to the ponds I forgot about everything and enjoyed a delightful walk around those ponds. Mother Nature is constantly putting on a show and it is so easy to just release everything that is going on in the ole noggin and just watch and listen to the incredible show. Forget meditation. This is the real path home.

As I walked around the ponds I stopped so many times just to watch the birds. What a gift it is to watch 30 or 40 geese start flapping their wings like crazy and lift off from the water. It can be rather loud. I can’t move as I watch those geese ascend into the air. I watch them closely as they fly up and form into a group and then fly around in formation in a circle around the ponds. I follow their flight round and round until they suddenly fall from the sky and land back on the water with a very soft sound. The sound of geese taking off and landing on the water are two acoustic gateways into the meaning of life.

I’d like to think that because it was my birthday that I enjoyed the cacophony more than usual but that would be a lie. The symphony was no different than any other day. The only difference was my appreciation.

After a couple of hours of making love to nature I finally headed back towards home. I had been stripped bare of my ego. I had released my mental stories. I was bare and naked before God and I felt better than I had in months. I was rejuvenated.

I was also rather hungry. After only a banana for breakfast, the long walk to the ponds and the long walking around the ponds helped build quite an appetite. This was good because, in addition to communing with nature, the other way I celebrate my birthday is to take myself out to eat.

I walked up the road leading out of the park. I felt light as a feather. I was practically swaying to and fro with some idyllic music that seemed to echo through the world that I walked through.

When I got back to the highway I began my walk alongside that highway back into the town where I lived. I had no thought about how I would spend the rest of my birthday except to stop and get something to eat. I just walked, reveling in the joyful sensations I had picked up in the park.

I was so happy.

As I walked alongside the two-lane highway I was oblivious of the traffic. I was simply enjoying my walk too much.

After walking for awhile a car suddenly stopped right next to me. It was going in the same direction as I was walking. I turned to look. It was a red convertible sports car. Driving the car was a beautiful blonde woman.

The woman took off her sunglasses and looked at me, “You need a ride?”

I was dumbstruck, “Uh…. I…. uh….. well…. I…. uh….. well…. yeah…. sure…. uh…. okay…. I could use a ride….”

The muscles in the woman’s forehead scrunched together and she looked askance.

I opened the car door to her sports car and got in.

Squealing her tires, the woman proceeded down the highway.

My birthday took a very sudden unexpected turn.

The blonde woman never asked me where I was going…. And I never told her.

Her foot pushed deeper on the gas pedal of her convertible sports car and the wind was quickly pummeling my hair. I wondered what I looked like with my hair flowing straight backwards. I also wondered if I had ever been in a convertible sports car before. I suddenly did not remember ever being in one.

The torrent of wind made the notion of conversation seem pointless. I could barely hear myself think. And then she pushed a button on the dashboard of her car and her car stereo began playing very loudly the Tears For Fears song, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World.’

I glanced at her and she seemed oblivious to anything but the road she was traveling. I then looked ahead at the road and allowed myself to melt into the song. It happened to be a song that I really liked. It brought up many distant memories.

As we zoomed down the country road I saw the bridge up ahead. The country road we were on was crossed by the interstate which went in the opposite direction of the country road. To get back into the town in which I lived I needed to proceed under that bridge. But to my surprise, the blonde woman slowed down just a tiny bit and then took the exit to get onto the interstate. Before I knew it we were zooming down the interstate heading east away from the town in which I live.

I glanced over at the woman and she seemed utterly oblivious of her passenger. She was nodding her head to the song on her car stereo — which finally came to an end only to start again. She obviously had the song on a playback loop. It was hard to tell which was louder; the song or the wind gushing past my ears.

I was quickly in a state of utter confusion. I was suddenly being taken away from where I wanted to go. The music and the wind were deafening but I still could have said something — or yelled something.

But I didn’t.

I was overcome with inaction. I was too stunned. I found myself in a state of surrender. The repeating song helped keep me in this state. Out of the blue, I was suddenly in an adventure that was not of my choosing. I was giving myself over to something that defied all my conditioned logic and sense of convention. Any and all caution was blown away by the wind blasting the car and its occupants. I had no idea what was happening.

The blonde drove like a bat out of hell, as the saying goes. She passed car after car after car. I glanced at her speedometer and, although my angle of view could not get an accurate reading, I swear I saw the needle pass the 90 mile per hour mark. What the fuck did I get myself into?

Seeing a road sign that indicated we were just 3 miles from the next town to the east (which was 23 miles east of the town where I lived; 23 miles east of my home) I started to wonder how I would get home on this birthday suddenly gone horribly wrong. I wondered where the hell I was going. I wondered where the hell I would end up. It was becoming like a frightening dream coming to life.

And then the blonde woman began slowing down. She stayed in the right lane for a while and then exited the interstate. Now what the hell was happening?

When ‘Everyone Wants to Rule the World’ ended for the umpteenth time, she turned off her car stereo. The deafening wind tunnel her convertible had been driving through slowly got quieter as she slowed down. I was too wind-blown to speak. Soon, she turned into the parking lot of a country club.

She was quickly in a parking space and the rumble of her red convertible sports car ended. It was not yet a silence as all the sounds continued to echo in my head.

Pulling her keys out of the ignition and putting them into a purse that she pulled from the floorboard of her car she turned to me and said, “I was going out to lunch. Would you care to join me?”

Would I care to join her? Seriously? Would I fucking care to join her? Did I have a fucking choice? Was there really an option?

With no comb or brush on me, I pushed back my hair with my hands. I then wiped both hands across my face. I shook my head back and forth then looked at her and said, “Sure.”

Opening the car door, I got out of her little red convertible sports car — which proved to be more difficult than getting into it. My ears were still ringing from the repetitive music and the horrific wind tunnel. I shook my head several times much as a diver does getting out of a swimming pool after diving in from the high dive. I found that I had to quicken my walk to keep up with her as she walked into the building.

Before I knew it we were seated at a table next to a large plate-glass window looking out over a golf course. My birthday plan was to take myself out to lunch but I really did not budget a lunch at a country club. And I certainly did not plan on eating lunch with someone else.

Looking at the menu I almost had a cow. I had saved for a few weeks and I had twenty bucks to splurge on a lunch for myself. The only thing on the menu I could afford was a salad. And did the woman I was inexplicably with expect me to pay for lunch? I tried to remember how much credit I had left on my credit card. Holy crap, I couldn’t afford this!

The blonde woman placed her menu on the table. She had made her decision very quickly. I liked that.

She must have seen the horror on my face, “Hey, I was going out to lunch and I picked you up and brought you to lunch with me. I’m buying. Get what you like.”

The waiter appeared out of nowhere and asked what we wanted to drink. Without hesitation, the blonde woman ordered a bloody mary. I was temporarily incapable of decision-making so I said, “I’ll have the same.”

As the waiter left, the blonde woman smiled and said, “My name is Janice.”

“Oh, uh, my name is Andrew.”

She leaned in closer to me, “Andrew or Andy?”

I immediately became defensive, “Andrew! I can’t stand it when anyone calls me Andy.”

Janice pulled back and held up her hands, “Andrew it is. I promise I’ll try not to ever call you Andy.”

“not to ever…” Was there a hint of future tense in that? What the hell?

I calmed down, “Hey, you can call me whatever you want….” (What the hell was I saying?)

“Okay, I’ll call you Andrew. It happens to be a name that I like. So can I ask you something?”

“Uh, okay.”

“What the hell were you doing walking down some lonely country road?”

“Well…. uh…. I…. uh…. was going for a nature walk around those ponds as a sort of celebration. I….”

“Celebration? What were you celebrating?”

“I…. was celebrating my birthday. I always try to celebrate my birthday with an immersion into nature.”

“Oh, I like that! That’s why I have a convertible. I love nature.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Thankfully, before I could articulate a response the waiter appeared with our drinks.

“What can I get you for lunch?”

Janice responded without hesitation, “I’ll have a filet mignon with steamed asparagus and a salad with raspberry vinnegrate.”

I had no idea what I wanted. I opened up the menu and quickly perused the options. I didn’t look at the names of the entrees but rather at the prices. I found the cheapest one….

“I’ll have a patty melt and fries…. and a salad with…. uh…. ranch dressing.”

I closed the menu and handed it to the waiter. Looking at Janice I immediately realized that I had picked the wrong salad dressing. The rest of my order was probably wrong, too.

Janice took a strong pull of her drink through the straw in that drink.

I pulled the straw out of my bloody mary and tossed it on the table. I took a drink without the straw. It happened to be a very good bloody mary.

I noticed that Janice smiled.

After taking another pull of her drink through her straw, Janice leaned forward and asked, “So, Andrew, what’s your story?

What’s my story? My story? Holy shit. Could she be any more direct?

“My story? Uh…. what do you mean?”

“What’s your story? Who are you? What’s your path in life? What do you want to accomplish in life? Who do you want to be? Who are you?”

“Well…. uh…. I…. uh…. I…. uh…. I’m a writer.”

Janice reared back in uproarious laughter, “I knew it! I just knew it! I knew you were some kind of fucking artist! Ha! It’s written all over your fucking face! That’s why I was compelled to stop and offer you a ride. I’m uncontrollably drawn to artists. I just knew it! Holy shit, I just can’t help it, damn it!”

Now I was truly freaked out.

Janice took another sip of her drink then she shook her head back and forth, “I just fucking knew it!”

I started feeling like shit. I decided to throw the ball back in her court, “So, Janice, what the fuck is your story?”

Her face turned to granite. She set down her drink. Very seriously, she looked at me and said, “I’m an actress.”

I was immediately filled with dread. The lover I split up with a few years before was an actress.

Janice continued, “But I’m a shitty actress. I’m terrible. I suck as an actress. That is why I’m a director. That is why I am the head director of drama at the local community college.”

“You mean the community college in my town back there?”

“Yeah. I’m the director of the dramatic arts department there. I came here to this restaurant in the next town over because it’s my favorite restaurant in the area. But yes, I live in that same town as you and I am the theatre director of the community college in your town. I’m a shitty actress but I’m a damn good director. I don’t act. I direct. You know the old adage, ‘if you’re not good at something then you teach it.’ Well, I’m a teacher, I’m a director. Instead of acting, which is what I always dreamed of, I direct. I create productions made wonderful by other actors. Instead of being on stage, I stage things…. and I’m pretty damn good at it.”

I was speechless.

Putting her elbows on the table and looking directly into my eyes, Janice asked, “So what the fucking hell do you do?”

“What do I do? I just told you that I’m a writer.”

She snorted, “Yeah, but what do you do to make a living? If you were on the bestseller lists you wouldn’t have been walking down some godforsaken country road.”

She had me. “Uh…. I’m the manager of a bookstore.”

She smiled, “That makes sense. Wait a minute…. which one?”

“Galapagos Books.”

“That’s cool. The independent one and not the fucking chain. Wait a minute, I’ve never seen you in there.”

“It’s all timing I guess. I’m not always there. I have a staff and I have days off…. like today.”

“So you run a bookstore and I run a drama department at some podunk community college. Man, can I pick ’em, or what? I seem to attract starving artists like a hunk of rotting meat attracts flies. …. Not that I’m a hunk of rotting meat or you’re a fly. I’m just saying….”

I smiled and turned to look out the plate-glass window to see a golfer dressed like Bagger Vance tee off. It was something I could not even remotely relate to. I could, however, relate to the ‘starving’ part of being a starving artist because I was actually quite hungry. The waiter arrived with our lunches just as I turned my gaze back inside. Perfect timing.

“Oh, thank you Vincent.”

She knew the waiter’s name.

As she vigorously tossed her salad with her fork, she looked at me and asked, “So you’re a writer, huh? Ever written a novel?”

“Yeah, I’ve written four…. six if you include the two that ended up in a bonfire.”

“Ooh! Fire. I like that. I love fire. What kind of novels do you write?”

“Well…. uh…. all my novels are very different. I never know what is going to come through.”

She said nothing as she was chewing zealously on a mouthful of salad.

I said nothing, too, as I took a mouthful of salad.

As I chewed, I looked intensely at her. She was quite beautiful and sexy — even while chewing food. She seemed intensely fixated on her lunch. She took a fork-full of asparagus then began cutting her steak. She seemed to be in a state of joy. I started wondering how old she was….

I sliced my patty melt and took a bite. It was infinitely better than the last time I had a patty melt at Big Joe’s Diner. I couldn’t figure out what made it taste so much better. There was something about it….

She swallowed her bite of steak as she held her hand over her mouth then she spoke, “So what’s your favorite novel of all time?”

“What? Holy shit, there’s no way I can answer that. I’ve read so many incredible novels that there is just no way I can pick one out of all of them. Seriously, I could never pick one out of all of them.” As my fork contained a heaping helping of salad, I stopped it’s trajectory towards my mouth to volley things back towards her, “So what’s your favorite play of all time?”

She snorted, “Ha! Same here. I can’t pick just one. While I simply adore Sam Shepard and his dripping testosterone, I also dearly love the classics. While I love Tennessee Williams, we did Streetcar last semester and those ignorant, stupid young people ruined it so badly that I don’t think I can ever read or do or watch a Tennessee Williams play again as long as I live. God, they butchered it no matter what I did to try to save it.”

I barely heard what she said. I was intensely looking at her mouth as she spoke, her jaw and cheekbones, her expressive blue eyes, her almost shoulder-length blonde hair, and her one free hand as she waved it about as she spoke. Goddam, she was sexy!

I took a big bite of patty melt.

As a piece of asparagus fell off her fork, Janice continued, “Back in college I tried to write a play. I spent three goddam, fucking months on that play and you know what?”

I was chewing and could not answer.

“It sucked. It was terrible. Everyone I showed it to tried to be nice but they just couldn’t say anything nice about it. I turned it in and got a D on it. That was the lowest grade I had ever gotten on anything in my life. I am woefully incapable of writing the words but I can take the words someone else wrote and put on a play. I thought I wanted to be the one who wrote the words but I’m pathetic. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been attracted to anyone who can actually write the words….”

As she stuffed her mouth with asparagus I looked out the plate-glass window at yet another golfer teeing off. Turning back inside, I saw that she was looking out over the dining room. Was she looking for a recent lover? For a potential wealthy new lover? Was she just looking for someone she knew?

I noticed her ears, which were not adorned with any ear-rings. They seemed so perfect. I watched her push her hair behind her ears as though she knew I was looking at her ears and she wanted to give me a better look.

She quickly turned back to me, “Have you ever tried to write a play?”

I swallowed, “Uh…. gosh no…. I…. uh…. can’t even imagine doing so. For me it would be like writing in a foreign language or something. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Well, you know, some of the best scripts have been taken from prose. Some of the best movies were adapted from novels. It’s a matter of writing the story.”

I gulped.

I suddenly forgot about everything else in my life. I forgot that it was my birthday. I forgot that I wanted to be alone on my birthday. I forgot that I had given up on females. I forgot that I wanted nothing to do with them. I forgot that with my divorce I had sworn off women. I forgot how long it had been since I had been with a woman….

As I finished lunch with this mysterious woman who had abruptly shoved herself into my life on this special day, I became oblivious to all the thinking that had gone on in my noggin for the last few years. I was suddenly in a whole new place.

When Vincent came to the table this mysterious blonde named Janice immediately said, “We’re done.”

Vincent nodded then proceed to write out a ticket which he handed to her. He handed it to her! He didn’t give the ticket to me! (Given my state of poverty I was relieved while simultaneously being ever so slightly rebuked.)

She handed him her credit card then took the last bite of filet mignon on her plate. I had already taken my last bite of patty melt.

“Can I leave the tip, at least?”

She waved her hand, “Hey, I picked you up on the side of the fucking road. You’re my lunch guest. It’s on me.”

I wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or delightfully relieved. I was about to debate her but I smartly remained silent. I wiped my mouth with my napkin and was about to take another sip of my cocktail when I realized that it was empty.

The next thing I knew I was in the blonde woman’s red convertible sports car headed back to the town where, apparently, we both lived in. Thanks to the wind gushing past our heads and the blaring car stereo, there was almost no conversation. Jesus H. Christ, was “Everyone Wants To Rule the World” the only fucking song she ever listened to?

I was delighted to see that she took the turn-off from the interstate at the exit that led to where I lived. Of course, I never told her where I lived and she never asked.

I never said anything.

And, of course, she didn’t proceed to where I lived. I silently watched as she took a different route. She took some different streets and was soon at a condominium complex about ten blocks from where I lived. (I was surprised how close it was.)

Pulling into a driveway, she quickly turned off her hot red sports car. Without a word she got out of her car.

I took a minute to try to figure out what was going on but I got nowhere in my thinking, so I got out of the car.

As I opened the car door, she was there waiting for me. I got out, closing the car door behind me. She reached out her hand and I took it.

When we got to the front door of her condominium, she dropped my hand to put her house key into the doorknob. The door magically opened and I entered her home.

She led me into the chic living room of her home. It was very artistically decorated. It made my living room look like something decorated out of “Construction Site Wood and Cinder Block Home” magazine, if there was such a thing.

“Would you like some coffee and brandy?” she asked.

Coffee and brandy? What the fuck was that? I said, “Sure.”

While Janice went into her kitchen I wandered around her delightfully artistic living room. One whole side of the room was plate-glass windows. I really liked that. I’m a window freak.

I walked up to the windows. While the sun was getting low in the sky, I could see that her windows looked out over a golf course.

Really?

I turned around and looked over her living room. On one wall was a bookshelf which I guessed contained around three to four hundred books.

What a fucking turn-on that was!

But as I looked around the room at all the art objects and vases with dried flowers and TV and over-sized Georgia O’Keefe-esque paintings and wood writing desk and onyx chess set on an ornate wooden stand and coffee table with a ceramic bowl of colorful plastic fruit, I noticed that there was not a single, solitary live plant in the entire room.

No room is a true living room without living plants. I thought about my living room back at my apartment. It was like a freaking jungle. The houseplants were taking over the room. All the rooms in my little apartment were overflowing with houseplants. I was a plant freak. My houseplants were slowly taking over my apartment and kicking me out.

But Janice’s living room did not have a single living plant in it. This was a humongous red flag to me.

But then she came into the living room carrying a tray. Onto the coffee table she placed a coffee mug full of coffee and a brandy snifter full of brandy and then another coffee mug full of coffee and another brandy snifter full of brandy. She sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to her.

Like an obedient puppy I went over to the couch and sat next to her.

For the next few hours we drank brandy and coffee and talked. I told her about my ex-wives and she told me about her ex-boyfriends. I told her about my writing and she told me about her theatrical directing. I told her about the various jobs I’ve had and so did she tell me about hers. I told her about my horrific childhood and she told me about her horrific childhood. I shared my dreams with her and she shared her dreams with me. We shared what we liked and what he hated. We shared what we feared. We shared our frustrations. We shared our addictions. We shared what turned us on. We shared what turned us off. We shared countless stories. We shared how we were feeling.

What the hell was happening? I got picked up on the side of the road and now, suddenly, I was thoroughly opening up to someone I had never met before the day started. Some blonde woman in a red sports car had cracked open my shell. I was suddenly naked and open to someone. It had been so long since I had been in that situation. How could a stranger I had just met open me up like that? This is not at all what I had asked for for my birthday.

We talked and talked and talked. We giggled and laughed.

We connected.

And we kept getting up to go to the bathroom. And she kept getting up to get more coffee and brandy. And soon we kept holding hands as our stories bridged the space between us. It seemed like there was an endless reservoir of things to talk about. It soon seemed like we had known each other before.

The rest of the world seemed to dissipate. A whole new world seemed to be opening up. I was in a state I had not been in for a long time.

Suddenly, she stood up. I thought she was going to go pee again or get more coffee and brandy. But she just stood there with her hand held out to me.

Clearing my head, I stood up and took her hand.

As she led me to her bedroom I happened to look at the clock on the mantel in her living room. It read 8:54p.m. There were still 3hours and 6 minutes left of my birthday.

As I followed her into her bedroom, I joyfully sang out to myself in my mind, “Happy Birthday to me!”

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction.