Cadillac Ranch

To be honest, the only reason I noticed her following me was the noise her damn shoes made. For someone so waif thin, she sounded like a Lipizzaner stallion on its hind legs when she walked. I stopped looking for my car, faced her, and said, "You really don't need to come with me. He was joking... seriously." I turned back around and found my car about three rows over. My car was a big, white, square, powerful, American deal. Not new, but not old enough to look old. White to keep it cool in the sun and tan leather inside, just to be different. I kept it clean and in top shape. In fact, up until that morning it had never had a scratch. I was as proud of it as I was of anything I owned, and I did own it. I had bought it outright the previous year at the end of college basketball season. I thought that because it wasn't brand new, that I wasn't really acting like a degenerate gambler by paying cash for a Caddy at 3am in Vegas. I have to say, it still looked good on the driver's side, you couldn't see the dent where the guy's bike had hit it, and white cars are pretty good at hiding the scratches Matt's goons had keyed into the trunk. I hit the clicker and popped the trunk. Took off my jacket and pulled my wallet, phone, and keys out of the pockets. Small miracle, I still had my room key so I could get out of the garage. I slammed the trunk and turned to get into the car and jumped fifteen feet into the air. The Russian had somehow managed to close the gap to about two feet and was moving at blazing speed toward the passenger side of my car. She had cleared about two hundred feet of parking lot in the time it had taken me to pop my trunk, and I hadn't heard a thing. I was thinking I had better start working on my situational awareness. She grabbed the passenger door handle, looked at me like it was covered in dog poop, cracked the door and disappeared inside the car like butter melting on a cast iron skillet. I said, "Hey..." and her door slammed shut. I pulled my own door open and dumped my wallet and crap on the seat. I bent over so I could see inside and said, "look, this is ridiculous, he was making a sick joke. Go on back upstairs." She matched the upholstery perfectly. She turned a bit, gave me the dog poop look again, then turned back toward the door. I thought she was getting out, but instead she grabbed the seatbelt and hooked up. Then she turned to face the windshield and sighed the way a Kindergarten teacher does on fingerpainting day. I moved my crap and got in the car. As I backed out of the parking spot, drove through the garage, and used my key to exit, I kept up a one-way, incredibly profane conversation about how I would drop her off anywhere that she asked and she needed to ask, because this bullshit needed to stop, and people aren't pets and what the hell? I probably hadn't stopped talking for a good ten minutes when I remembered that I had had nothing to eat since yesterday's lunch.