Chapter Two: Another Gas Station

Blair Freeman, a month younger than Lily, was sitting in the corner of a gas station at one of the unusually clean four booths. The booths were near a trashcan and microwave--both stained with truly immovable nacho cheese. The eating area of the gas station was usually only occupied by truck drivers and middle school students. For both peoples this was a convenient break from the outside world. Fittingly, as the only two patrons, Blair and her boyfriend, Seph, sat at the tables needing a similar break. The two of them had sat in a number of places around the city, careful to never fall in a same-place-different-day rut. Regardless of the place, they would be seen sometimes talking, sometimes laughing. They both appreciated the effortless companionship of each other.

-You know, the word ‘bandana’ derives from Hindi origins.

-My god that’s tedious trivia.

Seph smiled, knowing he had struck the golden balance between impressing and annoying his number one fan. Blair felt her red bandana above her forehead holding a foot-length of hair back from her face. Untold numbers of women paid uncountable amounts of money to get hair as wavy and coal-black as Blair’s. Blair paid two dollars for a red bandana to keep her hair back. Like her jeans, her genes were more than suitable hand-me-downs. Blair’s hand moved from the tips of her hair to cover her mouth as she studied Seph in response to being studied by Seph.

-You’re like a frappuccino, Blair.

-Icy?

-Well-blended.

-So you like frappuccinos?

-More than coffee—whoa—I’d like to back away from the racial undertones.

Seph was of a similar vague age where adulthood seems harder and harder to ignore. He kept looking just over Blair’s shoulder, through his glasses, to the rounded mirror in ceiling corner. Nobody came into the gas station. He thought about reaching across the table to touch Blair’s silky hand, but then changed his mind. Instead he felt his own cheek. His beard was leaving the stages of manliness and entering the stages of mangy-ness.

Seph, unlike Blair, didn’t have a last name. Last names were for teachers and athletes. And because one name-based spark of individuality wasn’t enough for Seph, he had shortened his birth name, Joseph, in seventh grade. It took nearly a year for anybody--besides Mitch--to call him “Seph,” but by this time most of Seph’s friends would be more confused that Seph’s name was Joseph than most strangers are to learn that a Joseph goes by the name “Seph”.

-Want to keep playing the metaphor game, asked Blair.

-You’re like nacho cheese.

-Hot?

-You burn me pretty good.

-I’m also expensive to have at baseball games.

-And good with chips, but there’s never enough of you.

Blair and Seph hadn’t been dating for as long as it seemed like to them. They both talked about the future so often that sometimes they felt like they had lived it already. More and more, Seph was beginning to wonder if he was boring Blair. He didn’t know for sure, but he did know Blair would deny it and call Seph paranoid. But being paranoid didn’t make him wrong. When Blair watched boring movies she’d play with her finger tips. Seph wasn’t an artist but he was a creative debater. It was about seeing just far enough into the future, interpreting precedent and rationalizing. However, with Blair, he found his knowledge and counter-knowledge paralyzing, because, in the end, what’s the point of proving to Blair that she’s bored?

At the table, they had each finished drinking their coffee--though neither had an empty cup--and entered in their own worlds. Blair started etching a circular pattern around her half-full Styrofoam cup, wishing it could become worth more than the pollution it would later create. Or perhaps it was already trash. Seph went back to drawing a parking lot blueprint on a napkin to show Blair, or at least himself, how the gas station could repaint its parking lot lines to accommodate more cars. Both had their intellectualized rebelliousness interrupted when Blair checked the time on her cell phone, looked up, saw Lily, and dropped her cell phone into her tar-like dregs.

-Lily?

-Blair?

Shortly after entering the city limits, minutes ago, Lily pulled into an operational gas station she remembered and envisioned like a Norman Rockwell painting. She got out of her car and tried to stretch away that grimey, travel feeling. When on this side of town, Lily used to come to this gas station because the owner had some form of OCD. This meant that it was generally the best-maintained gas station in the city. The restrooms were the cleanest, the donuts were the freshest and the coffee was both. Lily knew the gas was a little more expensive but she didn’t mind paying the price of loyalty. She also wasn’t entirely convinced her car could have made it to another gas station; the car’s gas gauge didn’t work either.

Lily looked at her last twenty dollars before handing it over to a lackadaisical cashier whose nametag read “Superman”. Some previous holder of the twenty-dollar bill had added a zero to each number on the bill. Lily hoped Superman would give her $180 back in change. He didn’t. Lily smiled with disappointment.

At some point between Lily entering the gas station and not getting away from the gas station $180 richer, Blair recognized the best friend she hadn’t seen in three years. Physically, Lily hadn’t changed, though her aura had. Gone were the days of dent-free confidence. But Blair had admirable vision, vision that was matched only by Lily’s memory. Since a teenager, Lily had made a habit of not looking at people when entering certain establishments, a rare trait that Blair uncharacteristically remembered. Conversely, Blair had made a habit of turning invisible, a not-so-rare trait Lily characteristically remembered.

-Lily?

Lily turned to the voice she remembered as quickly as she heard it.

-Blair?

Blair stood up, took her cell phone out of the room temperature coffee, threw the cup away and gave her phone a single drying shake before Lily reached her and they hugged. Blair would never say she was unhappy in life, but this was the best surprise she’d had in weeks. They got over their excited what-are-the-chances gibberish while Lily led Blair outside to her car parked at Pump Number Two. Seph, after feigning unbelieving amusement at Lily’s return, stayed inside as the girls went to the car. Lily’s back in town, he thought. That’s cool, I guess. Blair needed a surprise.

While Blair and Lily tried in vain to catch up on each others’ lives in as long as it takes eight gallons to get into a car’s tank, Seph finally realized what Blair meant earlier that day: she and Seph are very similar people. He had been thrown off by the observation and didn’t have an immediate thoughtful or dry response--which was uncharacteristic of him. She had said it so plainly that he didn’t know what she realized they had in common. He didn’t even know if whatever they shared was a good or bad thing. He liked her a lot because he thought they were so different. And she liked him but never felt she had to justify why. Seph now planned pre-emptive defenses if the issue resurfaced. We’re no different than any other two people. We can be united by our individuality. No, realized Seph, there’s no way I’m actually going to say that.

Seph looked outside at the girls by the car, pretty sure he knew what they were saying.

-Lily, it’s been over three years. This is incredible, said Blair.

-Three years? Oh yeah. You weren’t at the ten-year reunion.

-Yeah, well…life.

-Yeah, life.

-When did you get into town?

-About nine minutes ago.

-Wow.

Lily finished pumping gas. Yeah, back home. Exciting, she continued.

-Exciting, Lily? We must not be in the same city.

-Right.

-Seriously. The city is the same.

-I don’t know, you see that Superman works behind the counter?

-Yeah, I guess stopping crime doesn’t pay.

Blair smiled. Lily laughed.

-You haven’t changed.

After twenty-dollars had been liquefied and pumped into the car, Lily parked her car in one of the poorly designed spots and they rejoined Seph inside. During this time, Blair explained that she had been having a rough day and one problem required her to go to Emmit’s place for some tools. You remember Emmit?

-Of course, Lily beamed.

Blair still considered Emmit a friend but she wasn’t sure on what terms Seph and Emmit had last talked. She just knew neither talked about the other around her anymore, but maybe they never had. Forcefully shaking away any skepticism, she was convinced Emmit would be happy to see Lily again, so Lily should come with. Blair never knew a girl who disliked Lily and plenty of guys had liked her, so there was no reason for Emmit to be any different. Lily and Emmit used to be friends, right? Emmit might have even mentioned a personal interest in Lily a couple of times before, Blair couldn’t exactly remember.

Seph threw away his parking lot blueprint and the three of them took three cars to one location. Lily didn’t want to stay in the city too long, as she still had to get to wherever it was she wanted to go. She noticed a pizza place she had noticed many times before.

In her car and up the road, Blair didn’t notice the pizzeria but was thankful Lily was behind her. If Emmit was planning anything, Lily would be Blair’s wildcard. Emmit wasn’t likely planning anything but Blair couldn’t shake the feeling she was gambling. She stood to win a hammer and nails but had no idea what she stood to lose.