“Hey, thanks for stopping,” Uzman said, climbing in and shutting the door. In his worn jeans and wrinkled T-shirt, he knew he looked questionable in his own right, expecting only some rough, hard-looking dude to be willing to pick him up. To his surprise, now that he was past the tinted glass, the driver was not only a woman, she was in a wedding dress.
“No problem. You been trying long?” she said, nervously double-checking the empty highway in her mirrors.
“Not long,” he managed.
“I’m Rachel.”
“Uzman.”
She nodded, smiling crookedly as she pulled away from the shoulder.
“This is a really nice car,” Uzman said then. It hadn’t taken him until now to know that much, but while from the outside he might have expected the owner to be a wealthy businessman in an expensive suit and matching Rolex, perhaps making it foolish in the first place to assume he was going to find some tattooed bodybuilder in the driver’s seat, the inside felt less like your basic jet-black limo and more like the most luxurious environment to ever exist. The leather seats might have been tanned unicorn hide, stitched and embroidered by a fairy princess. The trim on the dash and doors had to be solid gold, and every inch of the interior was strategically lit in such a way that he couldn’t find the source.
“It’s just a rental,” Rachel said. “My dad thought if he spent enough money on the wedding I’d forget what he was making me do.”
“But you didn’t?”
“Almost. Got this far,” she said, nodding ironically to her dress. “Then my mom had to whiz on the way to the hall.” She had a nervous grin, her eyes almost maniacal. “I wasn’t there when she came out, I’ll you that.”
Uzman watched her as she steered them down the road. She was tense, to be sure, but she also looked determined, to the point that he didn’t need to wonder how she had outsmarted the driver. “Good for you,” he said.
“Really?”
“Hell yeah.”
Strangers as they were, she appeared comforted.
“God, I can’t tell you how good it is to hear somebody say that. Even my friends were trying to talk me into it.”
“They don’t sound like very good friends.”
Now her smile was much more relaxed.
“You hungry?” she said. “We need gas anyway. I guess I can change now, too. You should’ve seen the looks I was getting the first time I filled up.”
Despite her previous state, which he had to assume was only now improving, Uzman was suddenly excited to imagine how far she must have driven already. He saw the sign for fuel and food up ahead. “Sounds like a plan to me.”