Girl's Best Friend by Kelk Lindsey

Author:Kelk, Lindsey [Lindsey Kelk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘Where to?’ the taxi driver asked as I struggled to stuff my dress’s train into his car.

‘It’s downtown,’ I said, trying to remember the street sign I’d clung to so hopelessly the night before. ‘Um, Stanford Street? Is that a place?’

‘You mean Stanton?’ he barked, pulling into traffic to a chorus of honks and beeps.

‘Probably,’ I replied as I was hurled across the back seat. Clambering upright, I grabbed hold of the seatbelt and stared. Ruin the dress or break my neck? Tough choice.

‘Stanton and what?’ the driver asked, changing lanes with joyous abandon. ‘What’s the cross street?’

‘Oh,’ I replied, staring out the window and watching Manhattan blur by. ‘I don’t know. Is it a long street?’

‘You don’t know?’ He turned to look at me, foot still firmly on the accelerator. ‘Lady, are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?’

The blank look on my face was all the answer he needed.

‘What, you want me to drive up and down the Lower East Side while you try to work out where you’re going?’ he asked, taking a drag on a cigarette.

Rather than ask whether or not smoking while driving a taxi was legal in New York, I simply shrugged. ‘That would be lovely,’ I said. ‘It’s an apartment building next to a bar.’

‘The whole damn street is an apartment building next to a bar,’ he said, hammering his horn at a pedestrian stepping into the street. Silly him, imagine you could cross the street safely when you had a walk signal. ‘You gotta do better or I’m kicking you out when we hit Stanton.’

‘But I don’t have a coat,’ I protested. ‘And it’s freezing!’

‘That makes you the dumb one, not me,’ he pointed out. ‘If you don’t know where you’re goin’, why you goin’ there in the first place?’

‘It’s a long story,’ I said, gazing into all the Christmassy shop windows and letting my eyes lose focus until it was all one pretty, illuminated blur. ‘I’m sure I’ll know it when I get there.’

‘We got time,’ he said. ‘And if you want me to drag my ass around town looking for a needle in a shitstack, it better be good.’

Dropping my head back against the sticky plastic seat, I looked up at the stained ceiling of the taxi and wondered where to start.

‘So,’ I said, holding my hands up in defeat. ‘I met this bloke …’

‘You sure you don’t want me to wait for ya?’ Jerry the cabbie asked as I opened the passenger door. ‘In case he ain’t home again?’

‘No, it’s OK,’ I said, fishing a fistful of bills out of my clutch and shoving them through the window. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘Naw, man,’ he said, a big cheerful smile on his beardy face. ‘I’m a sucker for a love story. Y’all take care now, you hear me?’

‘I will,’ I promised. ‘You have a lovely Christmas. I hope Karlena says yes.’

‘Me too,’ he said, gunning the engine. ‘Maybe she won’t be so mad about me working so many nights when she’s walking around with a rock on her hand.

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