Hannah Pittard - Listen to Me

But back to the car, the perspective is closer, tighter. The air-conditioning inches in humid and funky, a loamy mixture of wet soil and soft asphalt. The car — a tiny capsule of dryness — pushes forward awkwardly, hesitantly, with none of the finesse and speed suggested from above. There are no sounds from the radio, and perhaps no sounds either of any particular heartbeat, but the rain lands hard on the roof and the windshield wipers hit their marks with a troubling rhythm and the dog sits wide-eyed and panting, an uninterrupted string of drool extending from his gum to his shoulder. From the car, there is no sense of the bruise-y purple majesty battling in the ether overhead. From the car — the headlights its only guide — there are just the few dozen radiant feet of constantly moving rain and fog and road. Nothing more.

“What does that mean?” Maggie was leaning forward in the passenger seat. She was peering up at a road sign passing overhead.

“What?”

“That sign.” Maggie pointed.

“Which sign?”

She pointed again.

“Are you pointing?” said Mark. “If you’re pointing, I can’t see what you’re pointing at. I can’t take my eyes off the road.”

The windshield wipers were once again on full speed.

“You’re right,” said Maggie. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She turned in her seat as they passed beneath the sign, as if turning might bring it back into view. But all she could see through the rear window was a glassy blackness. She wished Mark had been the one to notice the sign.

“Be specific,” said Mark. “It’s fine. Just tell me what it said.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Maggie. But it did matter. Of course it mattered.

Mark pressed the brakes and the car slowed even more. They were going — max — twenty-five miles an hour now, but even this felt too fast.

“What did it say, Maggie? Please.”

“It’s just—” Maggie looked down at the map on her phone.

“Is this our exit or isn’t it?” Mark said.

She wanted to use her forefinger and thumb to zoom in on the tiny graphic, but she was afraid she’d lose the original image.

Mark said her name again. “Is it or isn’t it? Do I turn or not?” His voice was quick, which left her flustered.

“It’s just—” Maggie slapped at her forehead twice, like a child jockeying forth the words. It was a gesture she knew Mark hated, but she couldn’t help herself just then. “Yes.” She spat out the word, slapping herself one more time. “This is our exit, or it should be, but what does it mean that there’s no reentry? What does it mean that it’s a northbound exit with no reentry?”

“Jesus,” said Mark. “Did it say that? Is that what the sign said?”

The exit was only a few hundred yards in front of them now.

“I didn’t see any sign that said that. Are you sure you did?”

Of course he hadn’t seen the sign. The highway was black. There were no streetlights and the sign wasn’t illuminated. It had been a fluke — a ridiculous combination of quality headlights and serendipitous timing — that Maggie had seen it at all.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.”

“Should I pull over?”

“I don’t know,” said Maggie. She felt like a teenager. She felt she shouldn’t be the one answering a question like that; felt he shouldn’t have been asking in the first place. Why couldn’t Mark show some confidence for once, some real wherewithal? It was draining sometimes, being always expected to be an equal in everything. She longed to be taken care of.

“I’ll pull over,” he said. “That makes the most sense.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

Mark steered the car to the right shoulder, the rear tires skidding, and came to a rough stop. To the left was the empty dark highway. To the right was a veritable rain forest filled with unknowns and unsavories. The sound of the hail was nearly deafening now.

Maggie turned again to look out the rear window. “Is this safe?” she said. “This can’t be safe.”

It was true they hadn’t seen another car since the hail had started, but all it would take was one truck, one semi with a driver asleep at the wheel, and they’d be a crumpled box of sardines.

“Let me see your phone,” said Mark.

She handed it to him.

“Where are we?”

She pointed.

“Here?”

“There.”

Mark held the phone closer to his face.

“I can’t see anything,” he said. “Can’t you zoom in?”

“I’ll lose the original image,” she said. “Or I might and then what?”

Gerome, who had been sitting, now stood and took a step forward toward the front seat. Maggie scratched beneath his chin. “It’s okay, boy,” she said. “You’re a good monkey.”

Drool hit the center console.

Mark said, “Can you do something about him? Please? I’m trying to make sense of all this.”

“He’s scared,” Maggie said. “The rain is so loud. He doesn’t know why we’re stopped.”

“Jesus—” Mark put an elbow into Gerome’s chest and manhandled him into the backseat. “Just — Just get back. Sit down. Yes, sit. Sit. You know the word. That’s right. Good boy. Good monkey. Shh. Yes. Now just — Yes. Good boy. Stay there. Good.”

Once the dog was repositioned and calmed, Mark turned to Maggie. He let out a deep breath and then switched on the overhead light. “What did the sign say exactly? Close your eyes. Tell me exactly.”

Maggie switched the light off. Mark turned it on again. Maggie switched it off and — against her better judgment — let slip, “But they’ll see.”

Mark cocked his head. Even in the darkness, she saw him do it — the same slow deliberate cock as whenever he caught her at something less than ideal: canceling an appointment, overcooking a steak, walking the dog in her robe.

“What do you mean: They’ll see? What do you mean by that?”

Maggie shook her head. “I didn’t say that.”

“You did.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“But you did, Maggie. You meant something.”

Maggie shook her head more aggressively. She was desperate to get going again. She was desperate for Mark to put the car in gear and take the exit — reentry or no — and get them to a hotel. A safe, dry, quiet hotel with doors that locked and windows that closed and ( oh god ) what she wouldn’t give just to have time speed up! She would trade anything for the sun suddenly to rise, for the darkness to immediately give way, for the rain simply to stop. As easy as changing a channel. Just let it be tomorrow already. I’ll give anything, she thought. A baby. A firstborn baby. Anything. I’ll make a deal with the devil. You name it; I’ll give it.

From the backseat, Gerome let out a moan, half whistle, half sigh. He too was anxious for tomorrow.

“I just meant…” Maggie sought to explain, but she couldn’t. To clarify — to correctly elucidate what she’d meant — she would have to go too far back. She would need to begin with childhood and imagination and the way, on occasion, she had indulged in letting her mind wander: the thought of a minor break-in turned a hideously bloody event; the notion of a car crash that saved a squirrel but left her family lifeless and limbless only blocks from their home; the idea of a kidnapping in which she, Maggie, was tortured, abused for years. She would have to explain how the fantasies had made her feel. But in order to do that, she’d have to find a way of expressing the disturbing chemistry of fear and attraction. She’d have to admit that the fantasies which led to the fear — or the fear which led to the fantasies; she didn’t know; she was stymied even now! — she’d have to concede they felt good. She had liked, as a child, the way her heartbeat would quicken and her body’s temperature would rise and fall abruptly, a dizziness akin to fainting. She had liked the night sweats and the way her skin felt sticky between her T-shirt and stomach. She’d enjoyed all of it, every bit of it, and she couldn’t as a child shut a fantasy down until she’d let it reach its natural, most punishing resolution — a sort of orgasm, though she’d never have been able to describe it as such back then. But she couldn’t shut it down until she’d pushed it so far that she was sure — quite sure, quite deliciously and deliriously positive — that no one in the world had ever imagined her particular fantasy before.