I shifted into third gear and turned the wheel. The road flowed underneath the TT smoothly, not even a chirp. The wind blew, not hard, just a dull background of white noise underneath the smooth vocal stylings of Kenny G. She sat in the passenger seat, staring hard at the CD player, mentally willing it to change to something less evil.
“I can change it, you know,” I told her, “it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Yeah? Could you?”
“Sure,” I said, reaching for the button that would end one source of madness and bring forth another. My cell phone rang, interrupting progress. I reached down, looked at the dimly lit screen announcing who was patiently waiting for me to pick up the phone, and hit the red button to cancel the call.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“Oh, nobody. Just my agent.” I replied.
She turned a little in her seat. “Agent? For what?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m acting now. Well, not yet, not really ‘acting’ right now. But when I get a gig, I’ll be acting then.”
“So that’s what the agent’s for?”
“Yeah. I heard that’s the thing to do when you want to act. You get an agent.”
“But… can you actually act?”
I squinted my eyes at her in my best imitation of Clint Eastwood. She had to be kidding. “Of course I can act. If I couldn’t act, I wouldn’t have an agent, now would I?”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” She looked back out the window.
I downshifted again to take a turn, then brought it back up to 4th gear on a nice straightaway.
“I’ll make a damned good actor, you know,” I told her.
“I’ll bet you will. Just now you sounded just like that actor… what’s his name, from Planet of The Apes…”
“Charlton Heston?” I supplied.
“Yeah, that guy. The NRA guy. Do you like guns too?” she asked.
“Not as much as he does.” There was something I was forgetting. Something I had to do.
“Well, then you probably won’t be as good an actor as him. All good actors have a cause. Do you have a cause?”
“Not yet. I figure my agent will give me a cause. Or I’ll find one along the way. Like Tom Cruise.” What the hell was it? I was right about to do something, and it seemed important.
“Can you do that line he does?”
“Who?”
“Charlton Heston… in Planet of the Apes.”
“Which one?”
“The one about the ‘damned dirty apes.’ Can you do that one?”
“Uhm, I suppose I could, if that’s the kind of role I wanted to play.” She was taunting me. I could tell. She had that little half-smile on her face, like at any given moment she was going to bust out and laugh.
“This is serious business, you know,” I told her, “I’m really doing this.”
“No you’re not,” she said.
I remembered what I was about to do, and reached forward again to change the CD. I pushed the button and swapped the CD for the next one in line. Dangermouse started flowing from the speakers.
“You’re right, I’m not.” I hate it when she’s right.
