Flirting With Destiny(7)

Luckily, the waiter returned with the check, which seemed to calm Chip’s escalating temper. Everything was ticking him off tonight.

I watched, holding my breath as Chip frowned after looking over the bill.

“What is this? I ordered filet mignon, not chicken. This is the wrong check.” He threw the paper ticket down onto the table and mumbled, “Such incompetence,” then called the waiter back in a loud voice.

The poor waiter came back to our table, apologizing profusely as he saw how irate Chip was getting. He shuffled off quickly and returned with the proper check. Chip’s jaw was set as he picked up the pen to scrawl his signature onto the ticket. He exhaled with disgust and said, “Their damn pen doesn’t even work.” He scribbled madly with it on the edge of the check, but it still didn’t work. Finally, he reached into his suit jacket pocket and signed with his $300 Mont Blanc ink pen. Having done so actually calmed him a bit; he relished the opportunity to show off any of his high priced acquisitions. He put the pen back in his pocket and tugged on his cuffs, adjusting the sleeve of his expensive white dress shirt.

“Let’s go,” he said and stood up, walking off without the courtesy of allowing me to go first.

I snatched my purse and sweater hanging over the back of my chair, barely able to keep up as we headed toward his car in the parking garage. I thought about walking at my normal pace, to see if he would even notice I wasn’t right behind, or if he even cared. I didn’t; I was afraid of the results. I sighed, speeding up. I pretty much already knew the answer anyway. Finally, annoyed with his behavior, I yelled to him, “Chip, wait for me. I can’t walk that fast in heels.”

I tried running a few steps to catch up, but my shoes made it impossible. He was almost to his Corvette when he finally slowed. In a couple steps he stood next to his car and spun on his heels to face me. I trotted up to his car and said, “Thanks a lot. What’s so fucking important that you can’t even wait for me? For Christ’s sake, we’re not running a marathon.”

“God, Lauren,” he sneered. “You’re so self-absorbed. Why does everything always have to be about you? I was just walking to the car. Use your brain—if you can. Seems an impossible task, considering you can’t even choose the right mayor.”

“But…” I tried to defend myself, but he held up a hand and continued his tirade.

“What did you do? Let your horoscope decide? Geez Lauren, you should read the newspaper more often. Brush up on your politics so you can impress people instead of embarrass yourself when you talk.”

We were back to that argument again. No surprise there. Chip always changed the subject when he was losing an argument. I opened my mouth to reply, but was so angry I couldn’t think of the right words to say and all that came out was, “You… you…”

“You, you what, Lauren? Perfect example, learn to talk.”

Just then, a car passed by to exit the parking garage. As it passed us, it slowed and the woman lowered her window to say hello to Chip, recognizing him from City Council. The car stopped for a second and the woman and her husband exchanged a few pleasantries with him. They quickly drove off, most likely not wanting to keep us, but I wondered if they realized what they had interrupted.

Chip turned back to me as I stood at the back of his car waiting. I looked down at the gray cement of the parking garage, stained with oil and used gum that was smashed into the pavement under my feet. “They saw that,” he spat, reading my mind.

I looked up, trying to act surprised at his reaction. “What are you talking about?’

“They saw us arguing. How does that make me look, Lauren? Thanks to you, Sheila Cunningham will view me in a different light next Council meeting. I have a reputation to withhold in Granger. I would appreciate if you didn’t ruin it for me.”

Now I’d had it. “What? Me ruin your image? Ha! You’re managing to do that just fine all by yourself, it’s you who…”

As I leaned in to him, finally unfurling my barrage of words, his complexion began to change until it was beet red. With his face contorted in anger, he slammed his fist into the polished metal of his black Corvette. “Shut up!”

My eyes popped open wide and I jumped, stopping mid-sentence. We both looked down and there, where his fist had been a second ago, was a dent, evidence of his temper. Before I could close my gaping jaw, Chip ripped into me again. “You did this. This is your fault. Look at my car, my car…” He leaned over and ran his fingers over the dent.

“My fault? You’re unbelievable.”