2019-11-26 - Car Trouble

"...I'm just saying Grunge and rock in the 90s is more complex than whatever shit was being created in the eighties-" Beth looks away from the road briefly to look very seriously at Ciprian before she looks back. Whitesnake's Here I Go Again is playing quietly on the radio because it's Ciprian's birthday and even if Beth doesn't care for Whitesnake the birthday person picks the music. Clearly. But it's also kept low so it doesn't wake Ashira who is asleep in the back after a long day at the aquarium and then dinner in Tacoma. "Do you even remember the eighties? I don't. Well, let me take that back, cause I remember my fourth birthday cause it sucked, and it was '89. So I guess I do. Barely."

"You're entitled to your opinion," Ciprian says, in the obnoxiously calm way that some people have that makes it clear they think the other's opinion is completely wrong, though he does smile at the end of it which softens the statement into more of a joke than anything else. "I remember parts of it. The first half is hazy, but it gets a little bit clearer for the second half. Mostly a lot of Day-Glo and parachute pants." He looks over his shoulder to watch Ashira for a moment or two before he turns back to Beth. "I remember being really excited about going into 5th grade in 1989. Does that count?"

Beth lets out a snort of amusement. "How do you not agree with me? You were a teenager during the decade. That music was created just for you." She nods her head in agreement when he mentions the fashion. "My mom had this hair. It was like curls and this hairstrayed wave for bangs? And she'd do my bangs like that for kindergarten picture day except I'd fuck my hair up and it would look crazy and then she'd get the pictures and be like-" She mimics a mom voice here, "Elizabeth Jane do you see yourself in this picture?!!" She looks in the back mirror briefly, mostly because she wants to make sure Ashira doesn't hear her cussing, before she focuses on the road again. "I bet you were a damn nerd." She grins as she says this.

Ciprian scoffs, shaking his head. "Maybe created for the hordes of sheep who thought being gross was a fashion statement," he counters, though still with amusement. It turns into a full blown laugh -- if a quiet one -- when she describes her mother's hair, and hers. "But did you see yourself in that picture?" he asks innocently, before his expression dissolves into a smile again. "You know I was a nerd. I was a nerd back then, and I'm still one now, and I don't think I'm in any danger of changing any time soon. I think I'm only getting more nerdy as time goes on."

"You do not mean that. Now you're just being contrarian." Beth retorts, and then she lets out a cackle of laughter at his question. "My mom hung it up. Framed it. It's in my parent's house. But let me just paint you this picture. So I'm six, and I have glasses that are made of plastic, I'm missing my front teeth, and I'm wearing one of those late 80s early 90s dresses for little girls with the flower print and puffy sleeves and white sailor neck thing, and then I have this thing on my head that's like a mix between a cock's comb and I don't know...ornamental grass? Right where bangs should be." She glances at him before she asks, "You know I think you graduated a year before my freshman year so I don't remember you in high school. You need to paint a picture for me. In all your nerdy excellence."

The picture is a good one, and it has to be truly appreciated for what it is, so Ciprian just sits back and lets her description wash over him. Another little snort of laughter escapes him, and he just shakes his head as he imagines it. "I really think I need to see this now," he says as he looks over at her, "just to get the full effect." As for what he looked like in high school, though, any laugh he might have had turns into a groan. An amused groan, sure, but a groan nonetheless. "That's a time that I'd much rather leave in the past," he says. "Think, 'Revenge of the Nerds,' only more so. I probably had more argyle than the rest of my class combined."

"Argyle." Beth mouths, and her lips twitch upwards before she lets out a little laugh. "Now you're fucking with me." She reaches down to fumble with the radio then as they lose their station. There is a loud POP followed by a thud thud thud as the rim and blown tire runs against the road. "Fuck. Really?" She pulls over onto the shoulder, and turns her hazards on.

"If only I was," Ciprian says with a shake of his head, and he might have said more, but then that tire blows, and he starts, looking back over his shoulder quickly at Ashira in the back seat. She mumbles something and turns her head, but somehow she manages to stay asleep. "I hope you have triple A," he says as he turns back to Beth, "because I'm not sure I could change a tire in the pitch dark."

Beth lets out a frustrated puff of air, and tilts her head back against the headrest for a moment. "Well..." She turns her head to look at Ciprian before she says, "I'm a strong independent woman but I do need a man-" Her face splits into a grin, "To hold my flashlight for me." She opens her car door then, and gets out to head to the trunk.

Ciprian looks back over at her, eyebrows raising, but when she says what she says, he lets out a snort of amusement. "That's about what I could be good for," he confirms, and he opens his door, too, casting one more glance at Ashira still asleep in the back before he heads around to the trunk. "Can you be my best friend and drive everywhere with me?"

Beth opens up the trunk of her car and gets out a tool box. She opens it, and hands Ciprian the flashlight to hold while she gets the jack, tire iron, and various other accessories out for changing the tire. She casts an askance look at Ciprian before she says laughingly, "I think you're confusing best friend with chauffeur. I do have a limo, though." She lifts the jack with some strain before putting it on the ground, and moves to position it under the frame of the car.

Ciprian takes the flashlight and holds it like a champion, shining it into the trunk in a super helpful way. Hopefully. "What, best friends can't drive people around?" he asks, as though this is a very surprising revelation. "I thought that was their main job." He can't quite keep a straight face their, though, and he lets out another little laugh, moving with her and making sure that the light is shining in a helpful way.

"Well, sure." Beth says rationally as she begins jacking up the car, "But if it's their main job that is indeed a chauffeur." She laughs as well, but it's a little more breathy because she's doing physical activity.

It is dark so it's understandable when neither notices the change around them. The road stays the same, but suddenly there is an absence of cars.

"Oh, okay. Good to know." Ciprian certainly doesn't notice -- he's focused on holding the flashlight, which is a super important job, as everyone knows. "I feel like I should have woken up Ashira to watch you do this so she can see a strong woman doing something that her father can't do," he says with a little smile.

"Do you know how to do it?" Beth wonders aloud as she kneels down to start taking off the hubcap. "Because I can teach you if you want." She finishes detaching the plastic hubcap, and holds it out for Ciprian to take. "I'm going to give you the bolts. For the love of god do not loose them or we will be here until we can get an Uber to pick us up." She puts the jack on a bolt to break it loose, and begins twisting. "Then you can teach her when she's old enough."

Speaking of Ashira the car is quiet. She hasn't stirred.

"I can do it with the manual," Ciprian admits, "but I never really remember how to do it when it's actually happening. Maybe I just don't trust myself to do it, I don't know." He reaches out to hold the bolts, luckily without dropping them -- so far, anyway. "I'll just get you to teacher her. Or are you saying we won't be friends by then?" He doesn't think anything of Ashira being quiet -- after all, she's asleep, right? She's supposed to be quiet.

"Of course we'll still be friends by then." Beth says, and she turns her head to look at him before she smiles a touch, genuine but small as if afraid of expressing her own feelings on the matter. "You know I think we would have been friends in school if I had been older or you younger." She begins twisting the jack then, straining a little from it, before she loosens it enough to take it off with her fingers. "Weird. What happened to all the cars?"

"Good." Ciprian smiles back, in more or less the same manner -- small, but genuine. Of course, most of his smiles are small, when they appear, so it's probably not surprising, but still. "We probably would have," he agrees. "But you might have been too cool for me, too. Like I said, I was really nerdy."

He might have said something else as well, but her last comment has him looking up, and around. "...huh," he says, a wariness overtaking him quickly now, perhaps more quickly than the situation would warrant.

"Me? Cool?" Beth laughs, and then she leans her back into turning the jack because changing a tire is hard work. After she loosens the second bolt she looks up, "Huh. I figured the kiddo would have woken up by now." She glances towards the back car window through the slit made by the lid of the open trunk before she continues. Soon enough she is taking off the blown tire and rim, throwing it in the back, and grabbing the donut to put on.

"Being cooler than me is a low bar, so I don't know if you can feel too excited about it," Ciprian warns. It's a joke, sure, but that wariness persists, and when she mentions Ashira, he looks toward the back seat again, too. "Yeah," he says, "me, too." That seems to worry him even more, and while he doesn't leave his post to check on her, he does shift a little from foot to foot as though he's suddenly impatient. It's subtle, but noticeable.

Beth is quicker with putting the donut on, and she gathers her tools up as quickly as possible to put them in the back of the car. That wariness is eating at her. Making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in a way she doesn't like. She suddenly wants to get out of there, but can't exactly say why. She shuts the trunk, and just happens to glance through the window. "...Ciprian was Ashira laying down?"

Ciprian is already starting back to get into the car when Beth says this. Her words are like a bucket of ice poured over him. "No." Suddenly he's moving quickly, taking those last two or three steps around the car to yank the door open and lay eyes on his daughter, even as his heart drops into his stomach at the realization of what has happened, and what he is likely to find. Or not find.

Beth is not as fast as he is to the opposite car door, but she's still pretty fast. She yanks the other door open and stares inside. Her eyes widen ever so slightly. "How..." There is no signs because Ashira is gone. Vanished. Surely if she got out the door would have opened. They would have heard it. Still, she has to cling to something at least a little logical. "Does she sleepwalk? Maybe she got out?"

"No!"

It's as if Ciprian doesn't even hear her. He slams the door shut as his head jerks around, the flashlight still in his hand moving back and forth so quickly that it wouldn't really help even if Ashira was around here. But she obviously is not. He has no such illusions. "ASHIRA!" he screams, taking a step away from the car, though only one. His hand stays gripped around the door handle, as though he's afraid to let go, like she might still be here if he doesn't.

Beth looks lost for a moment. Like she has absolutely no idea what she should be doing. Ciprian's yell makes her snap out of it. She turns to stare off into the field next to the car. "Ashira!" She calls out, not as loud as him, but loud enough it echoes back to her. It is eerily silent. There are no cars. No crickets. No wind.

"She's not here! We have to get back!" Ciprian keeps a hand on the door handle as though it's a lifeline to...well, wherever 'back' is. "Oh my god, what if she wakes up?!" He is perilously close to hysterical right now, the normal calm stoicism nowhere to be seen. He looks into the car again, as though he could find some way to get wherever it is he wants to get. 'Back,' presumably.

Beth looks confused. The first part she can wrap her brain around. It's the second part that throws her off. "I don't..." She begins, but then he is losing his cool and she turns a little to watch him helplessly. Finally she snaps out of it, and walks around the car to reach for his arms. "We need to keep level heads if we're going to do that." She says rationally.

Ciprian is about ready to do...well, something. It's not actually clear what he's going to do. What is there to do? But whatever it is, it isn't going to be good. That is, until Beth comes over to him. His head swings to look at her, and for a moment it seems as though he might actually go off on her, or something like that. It's hard to imagine him doing anything of the sort, but there you are.

However, maybe it's her calm that restores his -- barely. It's enough, though. He takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and with that he manages to keep things in check. "This isn't real," he says, his voice still a little unsteady. "Or, well, it's a dream. But we're in the veil. Ashira isn't. She's by herself."

Beth is still trying to wrap her head around all of this. It's clear that she knows something unusual is happening -- has been happening to her and to other people, but she doesn't actually understand it all. "Okay." She says when he tells her it's a dream. This she can wrap her brain around. "So how do we get back?" She wonders aloud.

"I don't know." That's the most frustrating part, of course. Feeling helpless. "I don't know whether there's a way or not. I've only been in a few times, and it's just been a matter of waiting it out. I don't know what else you could possibly do."

If only he'd spent more time with his Glimmer!

Beth stands there for a moment, feeling equally helpless, before finally she has a lightbulb moment. "Well, it happened when we got back in the car. What if we...I don't know, thought about getting out of it and got back in the car?" It's probably not the brightest idea, but it's all she's got. "My...uh, thing is I think of an emotion and I can make other people feel that emotion sometimes? Maybe that's how it works? Like Dorothy thinking of Kansas."

Ciprian looks over at her again a little bit sharply, as though he's going to snap at her for real this time -- but then what she says penetrates, and he takes in a little breath, letting it out slowly. "Maybe," he says, a little helplessly. Hey, it can't hurt, right? So, he closes his eyes, taking in another breath. He holds it this time, as though that's going to help him focus, and who knows, maybe it does!

Beth is used to dealing with people who are upset in high stress situations, and while she is clearly stressed out she is still relatively calm. Then again, it's not her kid who will possibly be waking up in a car on the side of the road by herself soon. She takes a calming breath, shakes out her arms, and then says, "Okay...so, uh get back in the car, and think about going, okay?" She walks around to the driver's side door then.

"Okay." Despite everything telling him to stay there, holding onto the door as though this will help him somehow, Ciprian lets go of the handle and opens the passenger side front door instead, getting back in. He closes his eyes, giving himself a moment to get centered before he begins to concentrate.

Beth opens the driver's side door simultaneously, and gets into the seat. She inhales sharply, and reaches for Ciprian's arm to grip it. Like holding onto him will get them to their destination faster. She closes her eyes, and exhales.

Zroooom A semi passes them so close it shakes the car. There is snoring from the back seat, coming from a little girl who has nose awkwardly pressed into her seat. She never woke up while they were gone.

When he hears the truck zoom by, Ciprian almost jumps out of his seat. The first thing he does, though, is look over his shoulder for his daughter, and there's a sigh of relief that sounds almost like a sob when he lays eyes on her. He reaches his arm around behind him to grab hold of her hand, and while it must be an uncomfortable position, he doesn't let go. "Let's get home," he says, but that's all he says, as though he doesn't quite trust his voice to say anything else for the moment.

Beth looks over her shoulder when Ciprian looks behind him, and she releases another breath, this one relieved. She turns the key in the ignition and puts the car into drive before she takes off. Soon enough they are on the road to home.