Andrew is driving MC home from the Tuesday video gather, when suddenly he says "Want to pick up a hitchhiker?" and before MC can say anything, he's pulled over to the side of the road.
She reluctantly rolls down her window, and Andrew leans across her (oh, brief flicker). "Want a ride?" he shouts, over the engine noise, into the damp. The woman outside the car is sopping wet, despite being dressed in a yellow slicker the likes of which MC last saw when reading her niece Paddington Bear. She seems a little unsteady on her feet, but makes gestures of acquiescence and fumbles with the handle of the back door. MC flips up the lock, and the woman climbs inside.
"Where do you want to go?" asks Andrew.
"Home," the woman replies. "Got a cigarette?"
"Sorry, I don't smoke" says Andrew, starting the car and pulling onto the road again. "Me either," chimes MC, still a little dazed by the sudden, sodden appearance of this stranger in the car. She's less than happy to have these few cherished moments alone with the object of her desire interrupted, as well.
"So where's home?" asks Andrew, as they're tooling down the road, the woman in back humming under her breath. "I was waiting for the bus to my friend's house" she says by way of non-sequitur. It's becoming rapidly clearer that this woman is under the influence of some fairly powerful chemicals - mostly likely with alcohol among the primary culprits, based on the odor wafting forward in the circulating air of the defogger. "Did you know I wrote a book?"
"I did not," Andrew replies. "Where do you live? Where can I take you?"
"Hey, got a cigarette?" she asks in reply. "No," says Andrew patiently, driving on. By now they are on the freeway, headed toward MC's apartment downtown, the original destination. MC is both fascinated and appalled by the turn of events. The poor thing has aroused her sympathy, but she has no idea how to react. Andrew, on the other hand, is calmly trying to pry a destination from the creature, speaking to her as you would to a small child. "Nope, still don't smoke," he is saying. "What's your book about?"
The woman begins a long monologue, most of which escapes Mabel Celeste, who is busily trying to decide what to do. She doesn't want to leave Andrew and the woman alone, as she would have to if he drops her off at her apartment before taking the woman wherever she needs to go. Nor does she particularly want the woman knowing where she lives - for no easily discernable reason, but MC credits her hale and relatively intact existence to regularly heeding such hunches. Turning back around in her seat, she watches the reflection of the woman in yellow in the rear window of the car. As they pull off the freeway into downtown, the brightening streetlights illuminate their strange guest in a funhouse manner not entirely inappropriate to the proceedings. She looks youngish but haggard - bedraggled from the wet, yes, but also worn away around the edges, almost blurry - as though the rain were accelerating some already established process of dissolution.
"Where can we take you?" MC reiterates, attempting to project authority and firmly ignoring another plea for smokes. "I bet you didn't think I look like someone who could write a children's book," says the woman, half angrily. "I need you to tell me where to go so I can take you home," says Andrew - still without rancor, but a mite less patiently. "Where up here should I turn?"
"I don’t want to go home!" the woman now exclaims, "Just let me out here."
"I can't just leave you downtown," Andrew replies. "Tell me where you want me to take you if you don't want to go home."
"I'm not going home," she says emphatically. "Where does your friend live, then?" asks Andrew, "can we take you there?" MC's gratification at the 'we' evaporates as the woman mutters an address not three blocks from the bus shelter where they'd picked her up. Andrew takes the next left and gets back on the freeway headed back the way they came.
The woman is silent for a moment, then begins to semi-coherently explain how she held the state track championship for 25 years - pretty good record, didn't they think? She'd introduced herself earlier by name, and MC tries to burn it into her memory so she can look it up when she gets home. "What do you do for a living?" the woman asks suddenly. "I'm a student," Andrew replies.
"What about you?" the woman asks MC, the first speech she's actually directed to her rather than to Andrew or the car at large. "This and that," says MC, feeling evasive. "I write some." This sets the woman off about her children's book again. She's planning to donate the proceeds to charity, she says. MC is dubious about the whole business; more so when they return to the neighborhood where the woman may or may not live. She continues to declaim that she's not going home, and when Andrew refuses to simply put her out on the street, she grudgingly gives a few directions.
"Turn left - that building," she says finally. It's completely dark, and looks like an abandoned storefront. "Are you sure?" asks Andrew, patient and sounding unconcerned, "do you want me to walk you to the door?"
"No, no" comes the reply from the back seat. "No, not this building, that one."
At least the second choice appears to be an apartment complex - the lights are still all off, though. "Your friend lives here?" Andrew asks, pulling to a stop. "Yes, damn it!" spits their passenger, "Leave me alone!" She slams out of the car and stomps away across the grass, around the corner, and out of sight. "I can't see her anymore," he says. Slowly they round the corner, pull out on to the main street, and pass the bus shelter. It's almost as though the incident never happened.
On the freeway, Andrew and MC drive with silently with their thoughts for a moment. "Why did you lie about your job?" Andrew asks suddenly.
"I didn't lie," MC replied. "Well, you didn't tell the truth," Andrew said sharply. "Why not just say you worked for the government and leave it at that?"
"I write as part of my job," MC returns, a little hotly. "So," says Andrew, "I could say the same thing."
"I didn't lie, I just told the truth selectively," MC insists. She isn't sure herself exactly why she put it quite the way she did, but she's loathe to admit as much to Andrew, and is feeling hurt and challenged by his assertion. After he drops her off at her apartment, she's still disturbed enough to write him an email attempting to explain, though she knows it's probably futile. She can barely explain her actions to herself. Paranoia? Xenophobia? Territorial (hah!) jealousy? The reasons presenting themselves grow progressively less attractive.
Anyway, why did it matter? Why should he care what story she told some stranger who'd been obviously spinning them stories all along? Shaking her head, she tells herself it's no wonder she's confused. Confidant of children and rain-soaked wanderers: Andrew is a master of the mixed signal.
References to 25-year records in track and field, State-held or otherwise, returned by her research: none.