The Hula Girl

“Just a minute!” Cathy hollered, tossing a questionable-looking apple into the gaping zippered mouth of her Kool Aid-purple lunchbag. She knew Andrew couldn’t hear her from his car on the street, but she always yelled anyway. Some instinctual habit, she figured.

She grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, then yanked open the fridge door and groped for a Slim Fast. Andrew’s horn honked again as she dumped the contents from her hands into the lunchbag and half-closed the zip. Looping her arm through the strap, she hit the lights and headed to the front hall, where she snatched her handbag up from the floor like an arcade claw.

The glass storm door hissed closed behind her as Cathy galloped through a fog-wall of heat to Andrew’s ancient (though he called it “vintage”) Oldsmobile, the lunchbag swinging wildly on her arm. With her only free hand, she quickly pried open the skillet-hot passenger door and all but fell into the air-conditioned safety of the front seat.

“What took you so long?” Andrew asked, chuckling at the state of her.

“Oh, my god, I don’t even know! I could have sworn I had extra time at some point,” Cathy answered, a note of irritation in her voice. “And I was outside for all of eleven seconds, but I’m already sweating like I’m an estate gardener.”

She pulled a wad of McDonald’s napkins from the purse in her lap, flipped down the sun visor, and began patting her face in the mirror. “I’m telling you, if I need to be somewhere, tell me a good twenty minutes before I actually have to be there. Or I’ll be late.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that!” Andrew teased.

“And you’re such an asshole for honking, too! What is this, a date in 1974? If my father were home…” Cathy snarked back.

Andrew pulled away from the curb. Five minutes later, he was merging onto the expressway and sidling into the carpool lane. The only sound in the car was the occasional rattle from the plastic hula girl rooted to the dashboard. The faster he drove, the quicker she swayed her grass-skirted hips.

“This thing is such a cliche,” Cathy finally said, flicking Ms. Hula into a deeper frenzy. “People don’t have these anymore, you know.”

“What—do you find her offensive or something? A threat?” Andrew smirked, stealing a look at her.

“No, it’s just… lame?” Cathy sputtered. “It’s so ‘high school boy’ of you. Or legendary douche bag, maybe. Definitely not cool. What, do you think you’re going to lure women home having her up there—or help them confirm they’ve made a great choice once they’re in the car—Shakira-ing ’til the cows come home?”

Andrew suddenly roared with mirth. “Shakira-ing?!”

“Well, she is!” Cathy quipped in defense, gesturing at the dancer. “That skirt would straight-up fly off her if it wasn’t attached!”

Andrew zoomed up the carpool lane, he and Cathy exchanging ever-more ridiculous ideas about the role of the hula girl in Andrew’s supposed secret love life with other women. The more incredulous the stories became, the harder they laughed. Andrew glanced over and watched Cathy pull out more napkins to dab tears from the edges of her eyes.

“Now who’s lame?” he countered, poking fun at her “old lady” napkin-hoarding habit.

All of this is probably why, as they whipped by in their own world, neither of them noticed the traffic crawling to a stand-still—not just in the right-hand lanes, but in their usually obstacle-free carpool lane, too.

“JESUS!” Andrew yelped and slammed on the breaks. Cathy barely had time to register what was happening, the echo of her last laugh cascading into shocked silence. They’d almost hit the little SUV in front of them. Cathy was willing to bet that if she got out to look, there’d barely be a hair’s width between the two bumpers.

“I’m so sorry, Cathy. I—Jesus Christ, I wasn’t paying attention. I’m so—god. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Andrew turned to his girlfriend, a mixture of horror and shame on his face.

“I’m fine,” choked Cathy.

“You don’t sound fine.”

“No, I am. Just, I don’t know, shaken up… That came out of nowhere.” Cathy stared through the windshield, taking in the apocalyptic stretch of cars ahead.

“Yeah,” Andrew agreed softly, turning back to look at the Rav4 he’d almost hit.

Cathy reached over the old car’s emergency break between the front seats—the place she always complained about not having a middle console—and put her hand over Andrew’s where it gripped the steering wheel.

“We’re okay,” she said. “I’m okay, you’re okay. They’re okay.” She tilted her head toward the SUV, her voice quiet, but sure. “It’s really okay.”

Andrew turned to look at her, his gray eyes meeting her sage-green ones. Cathy’s gentle assurance washed over him.

“You sure? I’m really, just, so—”

“I know,” Cathy cut him off. “I know. But we’re safe. That’s all that matters.” She squeezed his hand before pulling away, letting her words console them—filling the nonexistent middle cupholders with grace and tenderness.

The right side of Andrew’s mouth ticked up, his love and appreciation for her apparent on his glowing face. He turned his attention back to the traffic pile-up. “It’s weird that even the carpool lane has stopped moving,” he said.

“Something must have happened,” Cathy agreed.

As soon as she said it, Cathy knew it was true. The wondering had gone just as quick as it had come—replaced by a deep sense of certainty. Something had definitely happened up there… and someone was dead.

Cathy seemed to have been born with an ability to know when others were inching closer to death, or when she was in a place where someone had passed. It wasn’t a “sixth sense,” and she wasn’t a psychic. She just… knew.

This was the first time she’d felt someone’s passing while she was with Andrew, and it was comforting to have him there. He had no idea of all the thoughts now banging around in her mind, but soon, she might need to tell him. She’d have to, wouldn’t she?

“I hope there weren’t kids involved, either in the car or at home,” she murmured. Andrew hmmed in distracted agreement. “Those poor kids,” she whispered to herself. Because just like she knew someone had died, she knew smaller someones were left behind.

She would have to tell him. But not today. Not now, in his battered, old car—the setting of what had been so funny and full of life before.

The Rav4 parked. Andrew followed suit. The hula girl stood, statuesque, between them. Both lost in their own thoughts, there was nothing to do now but wait.