Weather Girl - by Brian Watkins
STACEY:
He's really wealthy, attractive, and kind, but soft, and we're supposed to have dinner. We go to this very
California place, and I take a lot of time looking at the wine menu just to get some non-conversation minutes in.
I tell him about my promotion, and he says congrats, very charming, but I can't remember his name, so I say,
"Thanks, Mark!" He's kinda confused and chuckles like it's some inside joke that he's afraid he's maybe
forgotten about. But what he doesn't know is that I've actually forgotten his name, so I tried out Mark, and it
was wrong, but now I've just gotta stick with it, and for the rest of the night, I'll call him Mark.
He uses words like "brand" and "onboarding," calls people "users," and tells me he's part of a startup building
six hundred 'smart-homes' nearby. I ask, "What about the water crisis? Where will they get their water?" He
says, "I dunno, someone'll figure it out." I say, "Well, I don't know about that. Maybe there shouldn't be homes
here at all. Maybe you should make a startup that makes water instead of homes, haha," and he just says,
"Huh?" So, I ask about his hobbies, and he's really into cars, nice cars. I say, "Oh, cool." We finish, and he
asks if I want to go back to his place to see them. I say I'd love to, even though I absolutely don't want to, but I
smile anyway.
While he's making margaritas, I look around his house. It's like a dozen guys' places I've been in before. He's a
tech bro—the kind with all the looks and money but zero social skills, oblivious to the fact he's actually
destroying the world. There are devices perfectly synced, clean floors, and a total absence of printed materials.
Then he takes me to his garage, where he's got these really nice sports cars—like, pristine cars, five or six of
them. He grabs my hand, and I can tell he wants to make out on these cars or something, so I oblige, and we
make out on this bright yellow speedster. My body is being pulled from inside again, in this crazy way by
something I can’t quite name, so I say, "Can we go for a drive?" He says sure, and we're both quite drunk. I
say, "I wanna drive."
We pull the car out, and I've become an excellent drunk driver. We're not far from my place—I know this
area—so I go faster. You can smell the earth burning, dying. It's night, it's dark, it's quiet, it's hot, and I turn to
him and say, "Can I wreck it?" He looks deep into my eyes, and there's a long silence. Then he says, "Yeah,
sure, you can wreck it." So I speed up, and we're both smiling. Our stomachs tighten; I'm driving him crazy. I
grit my teeth, pushing down the pedal because we're all gonna die anyway. With a little fling of the wheel, we
skid. I correct us—too much—and fling it back. And bang. We crash right into a parked car. It's remarkably
loud.
Five seconds... ten seconds... I regain my bearings. He's crunched up on the dashboard, moaning. There's
some glass in his hair. I've got blood in my eyes, not sure from where. I clean it off my face, and I smile
because I can still feel the wine and margaritas. He's still moaning, his body half the size I remember. He looks
me in the eye, unable to speak. I look at him and say, "I love you, Mark." Then I get out of the car and begin to
walk.
