The Convertible - Another Road

A bazillion thanks to thatsbogus, as good of an editor as he is a writer.

This is the second Convertible story, written as a standalone - the first story is recapped in the intro, but I encourage you to read the first one anyway.

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My name is Jacob Leopold. I'm 32, and live in Menlo Park, California. I'm a Penn State grad with a Master's Degree in Materials Engineering, and I work for QuoVadis, one of the world's largest multi-disciplinary engineering and scientific consulting firms. To put it in layman's terms, when something big goes wrong involving a billion dollar project - a bridge collapses, a building with state-of-the-art fire safety systems goes up in flames, a dam bursts, a chemical plant blows up - the billion dollar companies behind these projects call QuoVadis. A team of scientific experts is assembled, and we fly out to the scene and gather data to determine exactly what happened and why, and if necessary, help defend the clients in court.

My twin brother Joel lives about 23 miles away in the upscale Willow Glen district of San Jose, and is a mechanic/co-owner of a luxury car reseller in nearby Sunnyvale, California. He and I like to say that when our mother's egg split, I got the brains, he got the brawn. I'm smart at figuring out things like how metal support structures fail, but I can't do something simple as change a car's oil to save my life. When it comes to internal-combustion engines, however, whether it's a lawnmower motor or a Rolls Royce engine, Joel can make those damn things sing like angels. Our mother used to swear Joel came out of the womb with a wrench in his hand, and I came out with a slide rule.

I'm still single, while my brother is happily married to his second wife, Charlotte. Even though she's 48, 16 years older than Joel, she's one of these tiny women who's hot as fuck! They have an 8-month old daughter, my niece Gabriela, and another on the way, believe it or not. Joel tells me - confidentially and brother-to-brother, of course - that Charlotte is so good in bed they fuck almost every single night, even when she's pregnant! If you ever saw Charlotte, you'd totally believe it.

Now here's where it gets crazy: Charlotte - his wife - used to be his mother-in-law! This sounds nuts, I know, but his first wife Arianna - a real beauty to behold, but an absolute bitch on wheels, believe me - leaves my brother after 6 months of marriage, shacks up with her boss in New York and divorces Joel!

A month or so later, Arianna calls Joel from out of the blue and asks him to drive her mother all the way up to St. Helena and drop her off at a resort for a 'girl's weekend'. This is a fucking two-and-a-half-hour trip, IF traffic is light, which it never is! Keep in mind also that the whole time he and Arianna were married, Charlotte was a total cold bitch to him; this woman could make a fucking polar bear shiver, I swear!

Being the soft touch that he is, Joel agrees because he stupidly hopes it might help convince Arianna to take him back. Anyone who knows her would predict that was never going to happen, but between us two brothers, Joel was always the starry-eyed optimist. (If it was me instead of my brother, when Arianna asked I would have emphatically stated "AWWWW, HELL NAW!", right before I told her to fuck off and never call again.)

And so, sap that he is, Joel drives Charlotte up to St. Helena in his classic British sports car, and wouldn't you know it, she and Joel talk and really get to know each other. She reveals she's very lonely, and how her cheating husband Rob won't bang her but has zero problems banging his 20-something side piece.

Charlotte confesses to my brother that she's always thought he was a sweet guy (he really is, trust me!); all this time she wasn't upset because she didn't like Joel, but because she knew her selfish brat daughter Arianna was going to break Joel's heart. (Ohhhh, yeah, give that lady a prize, she called it.)

By the time they get to St. Helena, Joel and Charlotte are falling for each other. Hard. Instead of merely dropping her off, he stays with her and they screw like bunnies; next thing you know, Charlotte divorces her cheating husband and tells her daughter to fuck off, she and Joel move in together, she gets pregnant, and I get invited to be Joel's best man at a City Hall wedding.

After Joel knocks up Charlotte, a two-seater doesn't make sense anymore, so he buys a Volvo 850 T5 turbocharged station wagon capable of 150mph a station and gives the sports car to me, his workaholic engineer brother, who gets excited about bridges collapsing but doesn't give a rat's ass about auto maintenance.

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The car is a restored British racing green 1955 Triumph TR2 convertible; Joel used to brag to me (and anyone else who'd listen) that a similar model had raced at Le Mans. The first time I got in it, I was not impressed. It's a for-real sports car, not some junky Honda Civic with a spoiler bolted on; this meant comfort was not a consideration. Steering wheel, stick shift, hand brake, speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge, oil pressure gauge, temperature gauge, battery gauge, starter knob, choke, buttons for the wipers, that was about it. No A/C, no satellite radio, no seat heaters, and no windows, just side curtains for inclement weather. For longer road trips Joel had installed an AM/FM radio hidden in the glovebox, but aside from that it was fairly spartan.

When I drove it, however, my views on the TR2 changed entirely. Simply stated, the car's a fucking blast! It was hardly the fastest car on the road (the four-cylinder engine gave it a top speed of 105 mph), but it was quick! It accelerated like a bat out of hell, it cornered like a demon, the full-throated rumble of the exhaust damn near made me deaf, but people sure knew I was coming. Not to mention it was a head-turner; every time I took it out for the day, people on the street would make offers to buy it.

The only downside? With me being on the road 95% of the time, I didn't have much time to drive it, much less anyone in my life to fill that passenger seat. Most of the time it sat parked in my garage, while I used my 2002 Toyota Corolla as a daily driver. Since I travelled so often, Joel would go take the TR2 out for a spin once every two weeks. He would frequently lecture me, "You want to treat a classic car like you treat your dick, bro: keep your fluids topped off and use it as often as you can. It's not good for your dick OR a classic car to sit unused." (Full disclosure: the last real date I had was taking a woman friend to a national football playoff in late 2018, not exactly high up there in the 'romantic' date category. The last kiss I had was with some woman who flirted with me at a bar while I was on an assignment in Great Falls, Montana. It was very nice kiss, but I never got her name or number; turned out she was just trying to make her boyfriend jealous.)

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My life took an interesting turn recently when my employer, QuoVadis, got a call from a construction company in New Jersey. The wall of a high school gymnasium they were building had collapsed, and a team of us were assembled to fly there and determine why. To save the client money we were booked into an inexpensive hotel (The Ramble Inn, get it?) near the site, guessing we'd be staying about two weeks, to determine what went wrong. That first week, the eleven other QuoVadis team members and I would arrive at the site around 7am to take samples and measurements, then go back to the hotel mid-afternoon, sequestered in a hotel conference room to compile the day's data; it would then be sent back to headquarters in California for more detailed analysis. I was typically finished and back in my room by 4pm, where I'd order room service and watch pay-per-view movies until I fell asleep.

That first Friday, about an hour before we arrived on site a second wall of the gymnasium construction collapsed, and the team spent 3 hours scrambling the new rubble for additional samples. As a result, it was nearly 7:30pm when I left the conference room. As I crossed the empty lobby, I stopped dead in my tracks; there was a too-familiar face behind the front desk. It was Arianna, my brother's ex-wife.

She was still tall and slim with blue eyes, although her long raven-black hair was now styled in a pixie cut. Despite wearing the mandatory 'white-shirt-with-nerdy-red-vest' hotel uniform, there was no hiding those 32D breasts underneath. Joel told me they were implants, but although they were fake, they did look good. Her face, however, looked older than her 28 years. There were more lines and wrinkles in it than when I'd seen her last.

She looked up and saw me, and her reaction was pretty much the same as mine, stunned disbelief. I walked over to the front desk, and said "Arianna, is that really you?"

"Hello, Jacob. Yes, it's really me." She lowered her voice to an almost inaudible murmur, "I work here now, thanks to my probation officer getting me this job." Then she returned her voice to a normal volume. "It's really good to see you."

"Yeah, OK then," I replied, not quite sure what the right thing to say was at this awkward moment, "I guess I'll see you around." I turned to leave.

"Jacob, wait," she said, "I meant that. It's really good to see you after all this time."

My suspicions aroused, I lowered my voice so others in the lobby couldn't hear, "Don't take this the wrong way, Arianna, but I'm not Joel. I was never too keen on you, and frankly didn't like you much even before you cheated on my brother and divorced him. I'm not sure what you're wanting, but I'm not interested."

She took a deep breath, her eyes moistening. By this time the guests had passed through and the lobby was empty again. "Jacob, please," she pleaded, "I'm a long way from home and I'm not the same person as I was. Being in jail for three months while I was waiting for my trial was an awful experience; that first two weeks I cried every night. As bad as it was, it was also an eye-opener. Some of the other prisoners in there were like me, all by themselves, cut off from family and friends. We supported each other through the awful food and the boredom and the loneliness. I even learned how to make prison toilet alcohol. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you ever want to taste some..."

I shuddered, then said "Ummm, BIG no on that one, thanks."

She chuckled sadly, "Relax, I was just kidding. Anyway, I'm not looking for anything from you except a few minutes of companionship with a familiar face. If you want to come over to my apartment over on Hauxhurst Avenue, I'm off Sunday night. I can't offer you much except a frozen dinner, I'm afraid, but I promise it'll be microwaved with care." She wrote down the address on a scrap of paper and pressed it into my hand.

While I knew full well that Arianna was an accomplished manipulator, the look on her face and the slump of her shoulders made me suspect that she might actually be sincere. It's like Tom Cruise once said in Risky Business - 'Sometimes you just gotta say... what the fuck.'

"Sure, Arianna, I'll see you Sunday night, 6:30pm."

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Sunday at 6:15pm found me knocking on the door of her apartment with my foot; my arms were full of carryout bags from Piñas Locas. Arianna opened the door, and her eyes went wide. "Jacob, you're early! What is all this?" She was barefoot, wearing an oversized pink t-shirt that read, 'Money Can't Buy Happiness, But It Can Buy Coffee!' and slim-cut Wrangler jeans that accentuated her legs and ass nicely.

"Dinner's on me tonight," I announced, "save the frozen dinners for later. I hope you like Mexican food!" I don't know why I was suddenly so jubilant, but was feeling quite giddy, like a little kid after the end-of-day school bell rang. Since I'd talked to Arianna on Friday, my anticipation about having dinner with her had built steadily.

She laughed, "After eating prison food for three months, believe me, anything else is fantastic!"

I went over to her table and started pulling the food out. "Okay," I declared, announcing the containers as I pulled them out, "Tortilla chips, guacamole, salsa, chiles rellenos, chimichangas, pork fajitas, fish tacos, beef enchiladas, and chicken quesadillas. Did I get enough, do you think?" Arianna giggled, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed my cheek.

"Jacob, there'll be leftovers for days! Thank you!" She quickly let go of my neck, and I found myself sorry she did.

I sat down at one of the two chairs at her table. "I hope you have soft drinks. I was going to grab a couple of beers, but I thought because of your probation and all..." I suddenly felt awkward, bringing up an unpleasant subject.

A momentary flash of pain crossed her face, but she quickly resumed smiling. "Naw, it's cool, I'll pour us some diet soda." She walked to the cabinets, grabbed a couple of tumblers, and poured us each a soda she'd pulled from the fridge.

Trying to recover from my faux paus, I commented "You know, Arianna, you look great. Better, even, than when I, um, I knew you before."

Arianna turned towards me, a diet soda in each hand, and blushed a little. "Why Jacob, what a nice compliment, thank you! Not true, but it's appreciated anyway!"

We sat and gorged ourselves silence for a while. It was a good thing her little refrigerator was mostly empty, after we packed up the leftovers they pretty much filled the shelves. After we finished cleaning up Arianna made coffee, and we moved over to sit on her futon sofa. It was one of those with a backrest that folded down so she could use it as a bed at night.

Arianna tried to initiate conversation. "So, Jacob, fill me in on what you've been up to. What brought you 3,000 miles from home?"

I gave her the quick answer. "A wall fell in on the gymnasium of that private charter school they're building, and the builder hired our company to analyze the failure. HQ sent a team of us here, including me, and here I am!"

"It really is a small world that you're staying at my hotel. It really is good to see you." She hesitated, then asked, "How are Joel and my Mom doing? Did she have her baby?"

I had to tread lightly here. "Everyone's happy and healthy. Would you like to see a picture of the baby?" I hesitated to say 'your sister' out of fear it might upset Arianna; we'd been having such a nice evening so far.

"Yes, I'd like that very much," she replied quietly. I opened up the pictures on my phone, bringing one up of Charlotte holding my niece.

"Her name's Gabriela," I told her, and handed her the phone.

"Gabriela," she repeated. "Oh my God, she's beautiful. And Mom looks so happy." Tears began making their way down her cheeks. Suddenly Arianna burst out, "I really miss Mom. I want to go home and hold my baby sister, but I can't because I'm on probation. I can't leave New Jersey." She began to sob, and instinctively I put my arm around her. She buried her face in my chest, and suddenly her small sobs turned into big ones. Unsure what to do, I held her with one arm and gently stroked her back with my other hand. After a bit, she stopped sobbing, and I handed her a tissue. Then her story came tumbling out.

"I was released from prison on probation about two months ago. The Feds confiscated my car and froze my bank accounts. I was too ashamed to call my Mom and Daddy refused to post my bail, so I had to stay in jail for three months until my trial. What little savings I had left after the trial went to pay my lawyer."

She looked into my eyes; I could see the pain in hers. "Jacob, jail was awful. I was a fish out of water, scared every day. While the guards didn't beat us, they did everything they could do to demean and belittle the prisoners. You go in feeling like you're at the lowest point you could be in your life, then they treat you like shit and make you feel worse. On top of that, being so far from home with nobody that could come visit, it was just absolutely, crushingly lonely."

"What about your Dad, why couldn't he visit? He used to travel all the time, didn't he -?" Before I could finish my question, Arianna laughed bitterly.

"Oh, his bitch wife Tammy has him by the balls, no more travelling for ol' Robby. He's tied to the homestead in Minnesota, taking care of my infant baby brother and waiting on his new wife hand and foot. She managed to steal him from Mom, you better believe she's not about to let him out of her sight for another homewrecker to take a run at. Since I had no money after I was sentenced, Daddy said he'd pay the fine, but said he wanted nothing more to do with me." Arianna's eyes welled up again; she quickly wiped the tears away and kept going with her story.

"Jacob, while I was behind bars I had a lot of time to think; I was stuck with my memories, thinking about all of my mistakes, shitty choices, and treating good people like Joel and Mom so badly. In that environment, I was forced to face reality; there was nothing to distract me from facing the fact that I put myself there. All I want to do now is go home and apologize to everyone, but I'm stuck here legally. I can't afford a cell phone, so calling Mom is out of the question. I've tried to write her letters, but I can't get through it without crying so I gave up."

Although Arianna had stopped crying, she didn't try to move away. In fact, she snuggled even closer in to me and murmured, "Jacob, I'm sorry, I've been so lonely, and haven't had anyone to hold me for..."

I stopped her with a gentle kiss. Then another. Working almost nonstop for the past couple of years, I had been able to ignore my own feelings of isolation. But not now. Tonight, the scab had been torn off my loneliness, and my heart was an open wound. Arianna and I were two lost souls, grasping for comfort and shelter. This was a far cry from the anonymous flirtation in Great Falls, Montana, that was for damn sure.

After some time passed, felt like ten minutes, could have been an hour, we took a break in our kissing. "Wow," I gasped, "I think the last time I kissed a girl like that I was 17, in the front bench seat of my Dad's 1968 Ford Galaxie. You are one great kisser."

"Thanks," she giggled, "You're not too bad yourself!"

It was my turn to chuckle. "Arianna, 24 hours ago if anyone had told me if I'd be having a make-out session with my brother's ex-wife, I would never have believed them."

She snuck in a light kiss on my cheek. "And yet, here you are."

"And yet, here I am." I bent down and kissed her once more; when I happened to look at the clock, it read 11:45pm. "Shoot, I'm sorry Arianna, but I have to get back to the hotel. I have to get up at 5am for work tomorrow." I stood to go, but Arianna grabbed my hand.

"Jacob, it was really nice having you over. And I don't mean just the kissing part, although that was great, but connecting with my old life, feeling halfway normal, having fun again. I don't want it to end. I want to see you again. How long are you going to be in town?"

"I'll be here for another two and a half weeks or so. I'm usually off by 4pm. What time do you start your shift?"

"I start at 6:00pm, so I usually leave here by 5:30pm."

"Given the choice of ordering room service and watching TV or spending time with you, the latter is much more appealing. If I drive over as soon as I get off work, we could squeeze in a good 90 minutes to go out and grab a bite before I take you back to the hotel to work your shift."

A big smile broke out on her pretty face. "I'd like that very much."

"Well, then, I'll see you tomorrow around 4:30pm." Thus began a series of dinners that made the Weehawken project the most enjoyable project of my QuoVadis career. We began to learn and share little factoids and secrets about each other, although 'Jacob's Secrets' would probably hold the record for the shortest book ever written.