Anindita's Escapade Part 3 : Good Driver. Bad Driver.

Sitting in his SUV at the open air parking lot entry, he patiently gestured her to drive forward. 

“You smug bastard. You don’t tell me what to do” murmured Anindita under her breath inching her car forward. She noticed that the Hyundai behind her was also inching forward along with her. What she didn’t notice was that her car had touched cheeks with the WagonR on the side and was making a slight noise. She hit the brakes when she felt the resistance from the WagonR on her side. She pulled down her window and glared in the direction of the Hyundai. It backed up a bit. She backed up and tried to maneuver her car on the acute L bend around the WagonR, this time, without touching. 

The ‘smug bastard’ was sitting there, serenely looking at her. Now smiling. ‘I HATE men’ she thought and quickly, as always, appended ‘not my Dad or brother or .. oh stop it Ani. This is hardly the time to list men you love! We shall not be embarrassed today. We shall drive out of this fucked up parking lot where people use the same fucking route for entry and’ “Exit!”. She hadn’t thought the last word. In fact she had yelled it. The man walking past her car quickened his pace looking back at her nervously.    

“Great..now even he thinks I am crazy. Yelling crazy lady in the parking lot barked at me” she murmured. She put the car back in reverse again and inched back. That’s when she noticed the SUV guy in front of her was reaching for his seat belt. ‘Don’t!’ she thought. ‘If you offer to drive my car for me like I can’t bloody drive out of this mess on my own, I will fucking break your knee!’ she raged inside her head. On the outside, she just glared back at him. This must have transmitted some sort of message to him telepathically because he didn’t take off his seat belt. 

She finally put her car in first gear, made three quarters of an L and inched ahead only to feel the tires bump lightly into the pavement. She took a deep breath, backed up and turned her car a little further so that the SUV was now on her side. The Esteem that was now in front of her wasn’t moving. She craned her neck to look at the driver and possibly glare at him too with the magic of his rear view mirror but the night time darkness made it hard to see. She honked. Nothing. ‘No lights, no movement, nothing!’. 

She realized that a bunch of men and women, standing on the pavement, were now watching her. ‘No doubt, judging my capability of driving out of this situation’ she assumed. She got out of the car to go have a word with the resolute Esteem’s driver. The driving seat was empty. ‘Some idiot has just parked the car in the aisle and left to drink at one of the bars’ she rapidly formed opinions about this man. One of them was that the driver was most definitely a ‘man’. Out loud she said in a slightly elevated pitch, “Are you bloody serious?!” The onlookers now discussed the matter in low whispers with smirks.  

She hoped to god that the guy at least had the sense to leave his Esteem in neutral gear or she would be in this parking lot till god knows when. She pushed the car tentatively. It moved. She took her slippery silk dupatta off her shoulder and put it around her neck so it would not fall off. The look on her face, of pure determination, wasn’t far off from the one on a man’s face sitting with a rifle on a roof top, just about to pull the trigger on his target. She pushed the Esteem with her full might only to realize that it was moving fairly easily. She got it out of her way as much as possible and turned around to go back to her car. The smirk on her face changed to a look of slight surprise when she realized that the SUV guy had gotten out and was standing right in front of her. 

“You are leaving right?” he asked politely. She looked at his tall structure and handsome face looking down at her. His crisp white shirt added on to the intimidation she felt. 

“Yes!” it came out faster and harsher than she had intended it to be. 

“Well you can drive out now, there’s space”. He smiled. 

But what Anindita heard was, ‘Any guy could have driven out of here much sooner.’ 

“Yes, I am trying, thank you very much” she barked out getting in her car. He had started to go back to his SUV but turned around instead. He walked back to her open car window and said, “It’s alright” with a full smile.

More than the soothing deep voiced ‘It’s alright’, it was the unnerving, honest smile that hit her. ‘Could it be that she was needlessly on the defensive? That he had only wanted to help all along. Unlike those wretched onlookers who did not move a muscle to help’, she instantly felt bad about her behavior. 

He was still standing there covering the street light behind him, one hand on her car. She meant to say ‘I am really sorry’ but instead what came out was, “Aren’t you a lill too cute and young to be this humble? Don’t you have a boss or job you hate? How on god’s green earth are you so happy and nice to strangers on a Friday evening on this god forsaken parking lot?!”       

“Uh..no” he said, a little taken aback at this weird concoction of appreciation and hostility.

“Yeah well that’s what I thought. Thank you.” at least she could manage to say this nicely, with a ‘I-am-sorry’ smile.   Then she turned the ignition on, changed gears and drove off. 

She maneuvered a few other cars, standing and moving and finally made it to the main road. She turned on the air conditioning and switched on Bublé crooning about love. She changed the song to something a little more ‘vengeance-ful’, a lot more pacey and took a deep calming breath. Free at last! She smiled to herself thinking about him. She had settled on calling him ‘Cute Boy’ in her head after having evolved through ‘Smug Bastrad’ and ‘SUV Guy’. She thought of five other smart ass compliment – cum- taunts she could have delivered instead. She laughed out about one that was about his sexy beard. That’s when she heard a loud honk right behind her that almost made her jump. She glared at the rare view mirror and saw a black SUV following her. It took her a split second to realize who it was. Smug Bastard was following her and smiling at her. She lowered her speed without really thinking about it. His car was now adjacent her’s and his shotgun seat window came down. 

“I do” he yelled, smiling. 

She would generally be afraid of a stranger following her in the dead of the night. But somehow she could not get herself to be afraid of this guy. She lowered the volume and got her speed to below 10 and asked, “You do what?”

They had stopped. He parked his car ahead of hers on the road side so traffic wouldn’t be held up. Got out and walked up to her car window. “I do have a job and a boss. I just don’t hate them”.

There was roaring laughter inside her head and a very warm hot feeling of happiness rose through her entire body. She turned the ignition off, unlocked the door and stepped out. She wished she had chosen her heels this morning while getting dressed for office. 

She closed the car door and leaned back against it, looking directly into his eyes, smiling. Her continued silence moved him into speech again. “I..ah..said no before which was a little ambiguous in its meaning”.

“Okay” she said, resolute on giving him a hard time. 

“Umm..okay then.. now that I have cleared things up, may be I should..” he finished with a thumb flicking gesture that signified leaving. 

“May be..” she agreed, nodding, smiling. 

He turned to start walking towards his car. 

She looked at his receding figure and half yelled, “Do you always chase people around, clarifying things?”

“Only when they call me cute” he turned back with a hopeful smile. 

“Caught that part too, did you? Next time this happens, lead with ‘So you think I am cute, huh?’ Much better chances of success”. 

“I see. That was a nice tip, thanks!“ he was now walking back to her. “Do you think..um.. I could interest you in a coffee? I am hoping to pick up a few more tips”. 

She stopped smiling at this suggestion. This changed his broad open grin into a tentative smile. When she spoke, she could not believe her own ears. “I am not driving into that fucked up parking lot again.”

“No problem” he said. “Let’s just leave the cars here. The coffee shop’s right over there”. 

“What? Here? On the road? What if it gets towed or stolen?” she shot back.

“It won’t. You have my word”

She smiled at this desperate assurance. “Hmm.. and what if it does?” 

“Well, it’s parking-at-owner’s risk even in that parking lot so your car could have been stolen from there as well. So, what we are left with is the threat of getting towed. Hmm.. if your car gets towed, I will help you get it back” he offered magnanimously. She did not look impressed. So he continued, “..but if that is not good enough for Miss, I will buy her a new car. In any case she has scratched this one in at least three places while trying to get out of there. She needs a new car” he said, appraising the car from where he was standing. 

“SHE HAS NOT!” she chided him with mock anger turning around to look at her car.

“So will you have that coffee, Miss?” his voice was now a sexy whisper from behind that sent a chill down her spine.

She opened the car to pick up her purse and roll up her window. She locked the car, turned around and said, “maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Let’s see”.