Notes from the Backseat. Jody Gehrman

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      Dannika apparently doesn’t share my road phobias. She tore through Los Feliz and over to Silver Lake like a New York cabbie on speed. Her hands rarely landed on the wheel. She was perpetually adjusting the radio, playing with her bracelets, swigging water, toying with her hair as it whipped about like a bright gold streamer. I gripped the armrest with one hand and pressed my feet into the floorboards to keep from flying through the windshield.

      The only thing that saved us from a four-car pileup was that everyone—men, women, babies—stopped what they were doing as she drove past and stared at her golden beauty. It kept other cars from ramming into her and it cleared pedestrians from her path. As she tore up onto the sidewalk in front of Coop’s, steering with her knees while she applied her lip balm, I started to see what people mean by the phrase a charmed life.

      “Hey!” Coop came bounding toward us, down the steps of his craftsman bungalow and over to the Mercury, a big smile taking up the better part of his face. “If it isn’t my favorite girls!”

      Dannika screamed and bolted from the car as soon as she heard his voice. She leapt into his arms as if they were long-lost lovers separated for decades by war and famine. I felt this molten lump of something taking shape in my chest—jealousy, I guess, or rage or psychosis—whatever it was, I could feel it congealing and sizzling inside me, like doughnut batter dropped into a vat of boiling grease. I let myself out of the passenger’s side, hoping that by the time I walked calmly around the car the hug would be over, but when I got there Dannika was still clinging to him, her blond hair shining more brilliantly than ever in the sunlight, her slender tan arms clasped around his neck fiercely.

      Over her shoulder, Coop’s eyes met mine and when I saw the apology there the dangerous lump inside my rib cage broke apart a bit. His face was saying, “Sorry, she’s…like this sometimes,” and somehow just sharing a secret look with him while Satan clung to him pathetically made me feel more poised again.

      “Wow,” he said, when she finally loosened her grip enough to allow some air into his lungs. “Long time no see, huh?”

      “Months!” She looked at him with an appraising eye, now. “You look different.”

      “Really?” He stepped around her, then grabbed my hand and surprised me by leaning down and planting a firm, warm kiss on my lips right there in front of her. Not that Coop and I are stingy with kisses—it’s just that we don’t have much practice doing it in front of other people. Three months doesn’t give you loads of PDA opportunities, I guess.

      “Hey, kitten,” he said into my ear. “You look so great. Love those shoes—God, what an outfit.” His voice made the already half-dissolved doughnut in my chest dissolve completely. I realized then that Dannika hadn’t commented on my travel ensemble. That’s the genius of Satan. You don’t recognize the affront until it’s too late to retaliate.

      “You do, you look different,” Dannika repeated, sounding annoyed that he’d even greeted me. “Something’s changed. What is it? Did you lose weight?”

      Coop patted his stomach, barely existent. “Don’t think so…”

      “Shave or something?”

      He touched his face, always sporting a couple days’ worth of stubble. “Yeah, right,” he laughed.

      She shook her head, mystified. “Your aura’s different,” she said. “Are you getting enough vitamins?”

      “Wait a minute, my aura needs vitamins?”

      She slapped his shoulder. “Two separate observations, you moron!”

      He looked at me. “I’m really happy for the first time in my life. That’s all.”

      “Huh,” Dannika said. “Well, it doesn’t suit you.”

      He shot her a look.

      “It doesn’t! What can I say? You look underfed or something.”

      I tried not to gloat, but I doubt I pulled it off. “I think he looks great.”

      “Huh,” Dannika said again, and the irritation packed inside that one syllable only added to my joy.

      Right. So that’s pretty much the good part of the day, in a nutshell. What followed was an arsenic cocktail with a ground glass chaser.

      Where to begin?

      Well, I doubt it escaped your attention: I’m in the backseat.

      Which was okay, at first. I mean you know, Dannika was driving and I was hardly going to ride shotgun anymore with her behind the wheel—the view from up there was just too terrifying. The passenger seat isn’t nicknamed “the death seat” for nothing. I was just about to volunteer when Coop beat me to it.

      “I’ll ride in back,” he said, tossing his duffel bag in the trunk and scooting in next to the surfboard. “Sweet!” he said. “You brought your board.”

      “Where’s yours?” Dannika asked.

      He hesitated. “You think there’s room?”

      “Well, Gwen did bring four suitcases.” She said it sort of jokingly, sort of not. It was like she was tattling but pretending not to tattle, which really ended up being more annoying than if she’d just tattled outright.

      I stared at her, unsmiling. “A hatbox is hardly a suitcase.”

      Coop laughed and slung his arm around me. “Gwen’s a good Girl Scout—always prepared.”

      Dannika flipped her hair over one shoulder. “Go get your board and suit—we’ll just shove it in somewhere. We haven’t surfed together in a million years! That’s half the reason I even agreed to come.”

      Coop, being amiable and, really, so in love with surfing I could see he was salivating at the very thought, did what he was told. In a few minutes, he returned with his board under one arm and his wet suit under the other.

      “I don’t know,” he said. “I grabbed my shortest board, but it’s going to make the backseat sort of cramped.”

      “Gwen’s got short legs,” Dannika said, eyeing me.

      Considering that she had long, lithe, slender legs, it seemed like a pointedly bitchy comment. When I looked her in the eye, though, she winked, like getting Coop to bring his board was this really fun mutual goal of ours—a sisterly effort—and her making me feel like a midget was all part of our coy, girlie plot.

      “Gwen?” Coop said. “You going to back me on this?” He nodded at his board. “It’ll be in the way, don’t you think?”

      I shrugged. “If you guys want to surf, bring it.” I’d be a sport. What was the big deal? I brought a trunk of shoes; he could bring his board if he wanted. “I don’t mind the back. That way you two can catch up.” There! I’d be generous. He’d think I was incredibly confident, not threatened in the least by the demonic blonde.

      “Great!” Dannika’s eyes gleamed with victory. “Thanks so much, Gwen. We haven’t seen each other since…that night in Malibu?”

      I felt my throat seize up. It was like a giant СКАЧАТЬ