They looked like any other couple arguing in a parked car. They were both in their late twenties, maybe their early thirties. Even though they were obviously pissed at each other, they still had an aura of helpless optimism nobody can hold onto forever. She had on a tank top and jeans, rested her feet on the windshield. He wore a dusty black t-shirt with HERO stenciled across its front in ironic block letters. If they were in love, you couldn’t tell it. The radio was on, had some kind of classical music going so low you could only really hear the violins.
“Just ask somebody — like that guy,” she said, pointing at me. I smiled sort of guilelessly, trying to pretend I hadn’t heard them while I was walking up the street.
“We’re trying to find Monticello Lake,” he said. “Do you know where it is?”
“Montebello,” she corrected.
“Montebello,” he repeated, hating every syllable.
I’ve only been to Montebello Lake once, just drove a lap around it near dusk while a friend was showing around that part of town, a part I almost never visit. It was strange, driving around the pedestrian track like I was some kind of chase vehicle for an imaginary race.
“Sort of,” I said. “It’s over on the east side of the city but I forget what road it’s off of. Eastern? You should take Pratt across to President, and then it intersects there with Eastern.”
They seemed sort of satisfied at this, if only because it gave them a direction to move toward.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked. “What are you doing over there?”
“His dad left something behind there,” she said. “It’s a freaking curse.”
“Well — good luck,” I said. I realized an hour later that they should take was off Harford Road, not Eastern, and I’d sent them completely the wrong way. But — I guess I was just one more unreliable village native to them, another interlude before they got to the interesting part.
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Tagged cars, misdirection
