“I can’t stop crying—whatever bionic sunscreen is in my eye right now is making me go blind. I can feel it,” I said. My friends casually looked up at their exaggerating Cyclops of a friend to see the faucet where my right eye used to be; and then went back to sitting quietly on the curb waiting for our ride. It was clear that the talking portion of our weekend had come to a close. I needed a little more attention than that; it was taking a lot out of me to scrunch up an entire side of my face.
“Kate, c’mon; it feels like I put
a contact dipped in Frank’s Red Hot on my eyeball.” That got her—she gave me a
sympathetic wince, at least. For some reason, the conversations between Katie
and I always resulted in an analogy about contact lenses. Sounds strange to everyone
but us, but the root of most stories can be traced back to just that. For example: “Kate, it was like I was
in the hunger games—except it was a desert instead of a forest—and my sponsors
sent me fresh contacts & solution in one of those flying boxes with the
bell on it. I know! Amazing.” Or, “…it’d be like if someone took your contacts,
threw them into a lap pool and told you not to come out of the water until you
found them” to which she’d naturally reply, “That is SO effed.” It’s too hard
to translate 22 years of weird, but somehow I felt better; and then our ride
appeared.
It was one of those cabs where you
could smell the color of the interior before you even got in. “Maroon velvet;
my favorite,” I thought. Sure enough, it was burgundy, plush interior as far as
the eye (no pun intended) could see as Katie, Jordan and I piled into a Buick
born well before any of us were. Caitlin had left for the train already, but
not before calling us our own cab. What a doll. It felt like Sunday evening
post an unforgettable weekend trip in Montauk—except, unforgettable doesn’t
really do it justice. When the 4 of us are together, it’s just… something
awesome. For now, I’ll call the weekend historical because I plan on turning
this one gem of a photo into artwork that’ll be hung on my wall and passed down
to my children’s, children’s, children—THAT good.
I was in the throws of a BBC/sun
tan hangover, Sunday weirds, and feeling nostalgic from being down to 3 vs. 4
when the faux-red velvet backseat enveloped me. I sunk down uncomfortably
far—like that sensation of falling in when you were being potty trained and you
realize too late that some asshole in your house left the seat up. Jordan
interrupted my ranting inner monologue.
“Hi, thanks for taking us to the
ferry. We have $5 each, just like you said,” she confirmed with our cab driver.
God, I love Jordan, I thought. She’s like my life seat belt; even her questions
aren’t questions. Our cab driver responded with a
stifled maniacal chuckle, mumbling something that sounded an awful like “we’ll
see.” I couldn’t be sure; too distracted by the giant overstuffed cigar hanging
from his mouth and the cloud of smoke burying into my cornea, adding insult to
injury. I wondered what he meant by “we’ll see” and nervously laughed. I have
this tendency to immediately equate awkward situations with scenes from movies
I’ve watched—it helps lock-in my photographic memory, and then be able to
instant replay anytime I want to for my own entertainment. Then, all I have to
do is think about it and crack myself up. It’s fail proof, and gets me into
trouble more often then not because I can’t really turn it off. This guy
sounded identical to the mumbling farmer Fran guy from Waterboy.
“Ohhhhhkay. We go, but the scenic
route…” he giggle-choked out between puffs of his stogie as big as a subway
footlong. He turned up the music uncomfortably loud and pressed hard on the gas
so that we lurched forward. In the background was the most intense angry chick
rock I’ve ever heard—it sounded like if dark Fiona Apple and Courtney Love had
a child who was tone deaf and played the pots and pans. And it was LOUD.
Holy. Crap. Attention. Grabbed. I
could feel all of us immediately tense.
I took my fingerprint-smudged
sunglasses off for the first time all day and turned to Jordan, my good eye
wide in fear—Katie and I are flanking her on either side. She looks at me and
mouths “What the Natalie Holloway?!” as all 3 of us immediately transition into
self-defense mode, instinctively leveraging tactics we’ve learned growing up.
Jordan was the first to react. She
started a conversation with the cab driver; asking (read: yelling) him
questions about the cigar he had in his mouth. He was totally psyched. Very
smart, I thought; initiate a discussion so that he sees us as people. Jordan
could sell air if she wanted to; every self-defense teacher in the world would
have given her a gold star.
Katie was next—I watched her,
unsure of what she was doing at first—and then realized she was putting her DNA
ALL over the backseat of this cab; touching everything within the 2 foot radius
around her. Definitely something she picked up from watching The Bone Collector
way too many times. She even took her hair down and shook it out like a
sheepdog to make sure follicles would scatter every which way. I honestly half
expected her to start licking the window yelling “the snozzberries taste like
snozzberries!” before she started tracing her hand along the pane; checking the
locks on the way to see if a moving ‘tuck and roll’ would be a last resort
option. When had she fit in these police training, I wondered. But again, a
very smart maneuver.
That’s when it dawned on me that I
was the Brick of the group. I had done nothing but grab my phone. My PHONE.
That’s it. What was I going to do with it, exactly? Ask Siri to hand me a
weapon? Fire up my virtual knife-throwing app? That’s the ticket! Ugh, moron.
So then I did the only thing I could do; initiate a group text between the
people in the car and Caitlin, who was en route back to New York City. Because
that’s what I could bring to the table. My Olympic texting skills.
Between the lightening bolt emojis
and “You screwed us!!! We’re not going to make it home now, EVER! :P” messages
to Caitlin, who could literally do nothing to help us, I figured out my role. I
was going to text Caitlin vivid descriptions of everything—and she could use
those details in a report if she had to. That went a little something like
this:
Me: “You did us dirty. We’re
probably going to die. Wish you were here, we miss you already :(”
Caitlin: “What?! Ok, focus. What’s
happening. You need to describe the scene.”
Me: “Ok let me just caveat that
this is from a one-eyed viewpoint so it’s not going to be perfect or anything.
Thanks for making me sunscreen, by the way. What I wouldn’t do for an emergency
eye-wash station from Chem Lab right now.”
Caitlin: “MEG.”
Me: “Alright. Our driver is large,
speaks Montauk-ian, loves cigars and Lilith Fair rebels from what my ears are
gathering.”
Caitlin: “How large? What’s
Montauk-ian? What’s he wearing, kind of car etc.?”
Me: “Well, let’s just say if we
were taking attendance, he would be counted twice. And he’s literally wearing a
baby tee, so I wouldn’t say he has negative body image issues. He said he
wanted to take us on the ‘scenic’ route to the ferry, but all I’m seeing now
are grassy fields and no boats. We’re basically in a shaggin’ wagon; I don’t
know what else to call this tripped out cab. Oh and I don’t have evidence of
this, but I’d bet my life that our driver has a rabbit’s foot key chain on his
keys.”
Caitlin: (typing…)
Caitlin: “I… don’t know what I’m
supposed to do with that.”
Me: “I don’t know! That’s not good
enough? Want me to ask him about his childhood?”
Caitlin: “I think you’re going to
be fine. Jordan and Katie are doing…what exactly?”
Me: “Not blowing it, clearly.”
Katie: “Guys I figured out a way
we can Macgyver an exit with my extra hair bands if we really need to.”
Me: “See? Shit.”
Caitlin: “Ok let me know when you
get to the ferry. Miss you all!!! Xoxo”
Me: “Wait! Bu…”
My eye started spurting our tears
like a broken sprinkler; it was so intense I had to stop ferociously battle
texting. I started sniffling in the backseat in reaction to all of my sinuses
going ape on me; and somehow, over the blaring lyrics to “I hate everyone,” our
cabbie heard me.
“Don’t need to cry, we’re here,”
he coughed up. It was true; we had made it to the ferry. As the car slowed, I clicked
the door handle open and jumped out of the crawling Buick, not before throwing
my $5 to Jordan and yelling “Thank you!”
The 3 of us stood in the sandy
dock area, not speaking. Our nerves disappeared with the cab as it bucked down
the road.
“I can’t believe I could fake
cigar knowledge like that,” laughed Jordan.
“I can’t believe I left my
headband in there,” Kate whispered.
“I can’t believe I was the one who
saved us with my tear ducts,” I gloated.
“I can’t believe I missed this,”
texted Caitlin.
