!f!NT size=3>”Where the hell are you?” Tom asked his ringing cell phone out loud. It was somewhere underneath the swamp of papers and business documents on his passenger seat, hiding. His left hand found the button to pop the gas tank, and his right one clumsily fumbled through the mess until he grabbed hold of the elusive sonofabitch.
!f!NT size=3>In one quick and marvelous second of dexterity, he tossed the phone between hands, balanced it to his left ear, hit the Receive button with his thumb, and, with his right hand, turned off the ignition.
!f!NT size=3>”Hello,” he said, paying particular attention to the first syllable. His eyes caught sight of the half-eaten Egg McMuffin on the dashboard.
!f!NT size=3>”Tom, it’s Gregg,” the voice said.
!f!NT size=3>”Oh, don’t even tell me-” Tom started. He tossed his keys onto the dashboard and grabbed the muffin.
!f!NT size=3>”Yeah, he’s here early.” Gregg said, concerned.
!f!NT size=3>”Oh shit,” Tom said as he closed his eyes and threw his head back.
!f!NT size=3>”Yeah, shit is right.”
!f!NT size=3>Just great, he thought as he took a bite of his fast-food breakfast. “O-hay, I juff gotta get shume gash and I’ll be wight there.”
!f!NT size=3>”Gooood luck, I hope you make it,” Gregg said in a singsong voice.
!f!NT size=3>Man, Tom thought, he sounds like he’s wishing luck to a goddamn Kamikaze pilot.
!f!NT size=3>He hung up with his business partner and threw the phone down. Why do they always get there so early?, he thought as he got out of the car, hit the power locks, and shut the door. He pulled up his trousers, and speed-walked into the Minimart. I hate clients, I hate clients, I hate clients, they wake up too early, I hate them, I hate them.
!f!NT size=3>”Ten on pump four,” he said, handing the clerk two Lincolns and running back out. C’mon Tom, come oooon, he thought as he sped out to his car. His necktie flailed in the wind.
!f!NT size=3>He grabbed the pump, set his breakfast on the roof of the car, unscrewed his gas cap, and started to fill up his 96 Acura. The color looked like champagne, maybe a little darker. It had smooth leather seats a shade lighter than the car. It was definitely the kind of car you’d lock up at night, or even on a short trip to the mall. Even on a trip to the gas station.
!f!NT size=3>Makes me look pretty good, he thought, checking out his car. Haha. Hahahaha. He imagined what the people going in and out of the MiniMart were thinking about him and his car. ‘Oh, he must be smart. Oh, he must make good money. Oh, how ideal. Oh, Oh, Oh.’
!f!NT size=3>He turned to look at the pump. Five dollars, Five fifteen, Five twenty-one. He watched the digital numbers crawl upward, painfully slow, like each number was taking time to stop and laugh at him. Come ON, you bastard. You remind me of my grandmother.
!f!NT size=3>He glanced into his car. On the backseat laid a brand-new appointment book and organizer, still fresh in its packaging. His wife had given it to him for an Easter present – on Sunday morning when the kids ran downstairs to see what candy and trinkets were waiting for them in their baskets, Tom saw a basket for himself. The planner sat in there, glowing, giving him a sense of relief. He looked at it, dumbstruck and smiling, arms at his sides. What a wife he had. His kids loved their candy and started the beginnings of week-long sugar highs as Tom ran upstairs to find his wife still in bed, and kissed her, smiling.
!f!NT size=3>The organizer, however, belonged in a museum. It’s too…nice-looking to use, he thought, just as he’d thought when his family got back into the swing of things after the Easter weekend. It sat in his car, waiting to be taken to work, but it’d taken up permanent residence on the back seat. Easter, I’ve had it since Easter! And it’s June! And I’m late! he thought, half mumbling his thoughts out loud.
!f!NT size=3>Seven dollars, Seven seventeen, Seven twenty-nine.
!f!NT size=3>I’m not late, they’re early. Christ.
!f!NT size=3>Seven eighty-four.
!f!NT size=3>Where’d I put my muffin?
!f!NT size=3>Eight dollars.
!f!NT size=3>Roof. Yeah, he said, grabbing his breakfast with his left hand, still holding onto the pump with his right. Gas is getting expensive. I hate fast food. I hate my middle name, he continued, randomly thinking. Before client meetings, he always had to formally introduce himself. Thomas Shelby Cinori. He used to date a Shelby back in junior high school. She, of course, was a girl. Tom had never really known before of the unisex nature of his middle name, and had always considered it a boy’s name. But in the seventh grade, after meeting Shelby – gorgeous girl, with a head full of medium-length blonde hair & a nearly matured body at thirteen – he became very insecure about his middle name. It became girly. A name assigned to girls with widening hips. A name that wore a touch of eye shadow and lip gloss. He was ruined when his seventh-grade English class had a substitute one day, and the sub took roll call by reading everyone’s full names from the class list. Shelby. Oooh Oooh, pretty in pink, Shelby!! Tra la la, let’s be girly as hell, he thought, remembering crude jokes by classmates. He threw his left hand up into the air in consternation.
!f!NT size=3>Nine seventy-five.
!f!NT size=3>He checked his watch. The minute hand seemed to be in a race to catch all the numbers. Oh look. Great. They’re playing tag. Number tag! Yeah, well I’M playing tag here, and my game’s just a bit more goddamn important. He swore his watch was going too fast. Late late late late late, he the thought as the last of the gas sputtered into his car.
!f!NT size=3>Ten dollars.
!f!NT size=3>FINALLY.
!f!NT size=3>He took the last bite of his Egg McMuffin. It takes like I’m eating a tire, he thought. He hurridley pulled the gas pump out, hung it back up, screwed the gas cap on, and shut the lid. A good ten minutes to get there, dammit, he thought, as he let the food wrapper from his breakfast fly away into the parking lot. !f!NT size=3>I don’t have time to grab that.
!f!NT size=3>Okay, all set.
!f!NT size=3>He pulled the handle.
!f!NT size=3>Need keys.
!f!NT size=3>He patted his pockets.
!f!NT size=3>Where’s my keys?
!f!NT size=3>He checked the roof.
!f!NT size=3>WHERE’S MY KEYS?
!f!NT size=3>He checked on top of the trunk.
!f!NT size=3>No, no, not now! Oh for Christ’s sake, Tom, when are you going to get yourself together? he thought to himself, hearing his wife’s voice invade in his mind.
!f!NT size=3>In the store? he asked himself. He walked around the front of his car, giving the hood a nice loud smack out of frustration, which made him do a double-take to make sure he hadn’t actually dented the car. And then he saw them. They sat behind the windshield, carelessly tossed up onto the dashboard. Two car keys, a house key, a garage key, and a briefcase key, taking a rest on the dashboard. And, of course, they were on a keyring with a lovely, goldtone set of initials – TSC – that his grandmother had gotten him for his thirtieth birthday last year.
!f!NT size=3>Shit.
!f!NT size=3>Thomas S. Cinori slowly retraced his steps back to the driver’s side door. Just to make sure, he lifted the handle and pulled. Nothing.
!f!NT size=3>He slowly lowered his throbbing head onto the beautiful, darker-than-champagne roof of the Acura. The car that made him look professional not only held his keys in captivity, but boasted a back-seat organizer, a handy cell phone, and a full tank of gas.