A Charming Couple

***

The were charming. Mid thirties. Good looking. In shape. Fashionably dressed. They were heading to Gary Danko's for dinner before night clubbing.

The woman did most of the talking. She wanted to know how I was and how the night was going. She was smart enough not to ask me how long I'd been driving a cab.

"I'll bet you do something else," she said, leaning her forearms on the back of the suicide seat and nestling her head on top of them. I could smell her perfume. Delicious.

"Yeah," I told her, "I drink a bit and I sleep."

"No no no," she said laughing and gently pushing my shoulder with her hand, "you know what I mean. You must be a musician, an artist. With that voice, I'll be bet you're a singer."

"Yeah - in fact I do sing a bit."

"I knew it!" She exclaimed rubbing my arm.

"But," I added sheepishly, "what I really do is write."

"I knew it!" she exclaimed again, this time squeezing my arm. Then she turned to her husband. "Doesn't he look like a writer, Bob."

"Yeah," he said. "You know ...  you sound just like William Buckley."

"Nobody's perfect." I sotto voiced.

They burst out laughing.

I sucked it in.

I'd had a horrible night. I'd been on a negative roll and had had one asshole after another after another work me over. I was fairly new at the time and didn't know how let things slide or how to quietly take revenge. I felt anguished, degraded and lonely.

The couple  introduced themselves to me. He was Bob. She was Caroline. We talked about my writing. Caroline had been a lit major before going into law.

"I'll bet you get a lotta material driving a cab?" Bob mused as we pulled up the restaurant.

"You know," Caroline said, leaning closer to me, "Bob and I both forget to ask for receipts sometimes."

"And sometimes," Bob said, "cabbies don't have them."

"Is there any way," Caroline continued, "that we could get a few blank ones."

"Of course," Bob added, "they'd be a good tip involved."

I reached into my briefcase and gabbed a stack of receipts. There were maybe - I didn't count - 75 or a 100. I felt such gratitude toward Bob and Caroline for breaking my isolation that I held out the stack toward them saying,

"What you have to do is catch a cab driver in a good mood."

Their eyes dilated. They held their breath. Caroline's mouth stayed slightly open in a smile. She reached out slowly and carefully, not too fast, as if not to frighten my hand away and gracefully relieved me of the receipts.

The exchanged a quick look. Non-verbal communication. What the look said was "smuc."

The meter read $9.40.

Bob gave me a ten.

"Don't forget the tip," Caroline said.

"Of course I won't forget - whatdaya think I am?"

Bob peeled off two one dollar bills and handed them to me. Then with a twinkle in his eye, he peeled off one more.

"Thanks for the receipts."