She had expected the drive to be unbearable, but in a different way. She had expected blasting bubblegum pop, dangerous speeds and turns, and an almost endless stream of consciousness chatter. But as they got in the car, Sarah’s demeanor changed. Karyn was not surprised when Sarah pulled out a pair of sparkling pink sunglasses. Heart shaped, of course. She was surprised when Sarah buckled up, put her phone on silent, and checked all around the vehicle before putting it into drive. Sarah was a much safer driver than Karyn was. Granted, Karyn had a car that if it got in a wreck, it might improve in value. Aesthetically, if nothing else.
The silence was the hard part. Karyn’s beater of a car was on the opposite end of quiet. So far on that end that it sort of looped over. Not that you could listen to things while driving, but the noise became background. It’s absence, on the other hand, was LOUD. And it was rather unsettling.
Sarah appeared to notice, which was the top ten, maybe top five, list of things that Karyn didn’t want to happen when she wasn’t feeling comfortable. They pulled up to a light, with more space to the next car than was strictly necessary, and Sarah spoke for the first time that trip.
“You can put some music on, if you want. Daddy doesn’t want me to be dealing with the radio while I drive, but if I have a passenger and it doesn’t impact my ability to hear, it’s fine.”
Okay, Sarah being nice about Karyn’s discomfort was in the top three, but she turned on the radio. It had digital radio, of course, so thousands of interesting channels instead of having to listen to one of the four local stations that sometimes played a vaguely music-like thing in between the commercials. Landing on an alternative rock station, she heard the opening chords of one of her favorite songs. She started mouthing the words as she looked out the window at a man walking a large fuzzy black dog while straining to keep a laughing little girl from running between his legs.
We are building a religion
We are building it bigger
We are widening the corridors and adding more lanes
She turned back to Sarah, and was surprised, yet again, to see her singing along with the words as well.
We are building a religion, a limited edition
We are now accepting callers for these pendant keychains
It was surreal, to sing something like this with Sarah
To resist it is useless
Sarah had to be doing this intentionally, right?
It is useless to resist it
But what was she doing?? The song played on through the verses, with Sarah getting more and more into it, even though she was trying to fight it. But Comfort Eagle was just such a banger.
There's no need to ask directions if you ever lose your mind
We're behind you, we're behind you
And let us please remind you
We can send a car to find you if you ever lose your way
That final line before the outro was sung loudly, both girls projecting strongly, perfectly in sync for that one moment.
The words of the intro began playing again, as the song faded out. Sarah signalled, then pulled into a parking lot. A man with white hair and skin of deep bronze stepped out of the doorway towards them as they pulled up near the entrance. Sarah put the car into park and unlocked the doors.
“That was fun. Great song choice, Karyn. Comfort Eagle is one of Daddy’s favorites. He puts it on virtually every playlist he makes.”
Karyn was a bit shocked and suspicious at the compliment, especially since Sarah was already out and moving to give the approaching man a half-hug.
“Ali! Are you supposed to be walking around on that foot?”
Karyn felt a little lost at their conversation, as the man’s English was certainly… not local. She felt her face flush a little as she realized she had no idea where he would be from. She hurriedly unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door.
Unloading the remnants of the bake sale didn’t take long at all. Ali was up to carrying more than Sarah wanted to let him, but he was stubborn and wouldn’t be dissuaded. It took a few trips to bring it all inside. It was already being served to some people who looked very down on their luck, and probably had been for a lot of their life. The cake was making them smile, and that brought a small smile to Karyn’s face as well.
Which didn’t feel deserved. What had she done? Ridden shotgun and helped carry a few boxes? This wasn’t her victory. She was still suspicious of the person whose victory it was. A person who had certainly made comments about her wreck on wheels that seemed to classify her not as the well-to-do in-crowd, but closer to the people here.
The people that Sarah seemed to be happy to help. Who she knew by name.
It was a very conflicted Karyn who sat back in the passenger seat.
“Can you find another song for the drive back?” Sarah asked. Karyn glanced at the girl beside her, heart-shaped sunglasses perched on her head. It was almost worded in a way to permit Karyn to not feel uncomfortable, but it sounded more like a plea. The car had an amazing sound system, one that Sarah drove around with not using. This was sort of doing her a favor, wasn’t it.
A flip through the channels brought up the first verse of “Short Skirt, Long Jacket.” Sarah beamed.
“Great find! You’ve got the radio touch.”
“Is this really that exciting to you?”
“Of course! The weather is amazing, the school spirit is the highest I’ve ever seen, we got to do some good in the community, and on the way back to school-” she gestured to the radio.
“Who doesn’t love a bit of Cake?”
