Flash fiction by Sudha Balagopal 

Desert Squall

In the split second before the rainstorm unleashes, I see your neon-yellow, oblong vehicle. You’ve arrived early. 

            I click my tongue, release seat belt. Water drips over my arm, plop-plop-plop―the moonroof needs sealing. I’ve never thought to fix the problem since this is Phoenix, with 300 days of sunshine a year. Today, a rare desert squall pounds and my compact sedan shudder-judders, reminds me you and I met in a tube-like elevator that rattle-shook in the seconds before it halted, suspending us between floors five and six. 

            I squint through the downpour. Becky’s office is dark―the wedding planner isn’t in. We’re here to hand our separate guest lists so she can organize the seating chart for our daughter’s reception. You open your car door and I hiss, “What on earth?” 

            Much later in our failed marriage, I understood you turn into a Bollywood hero when you’re trying to score. In that stalled elevator, you reassured me first before taking charge. You banged on the metal door, then called for help, first from your phone then mine―cell phones were relatively new then―and when you couldn’t find a signal, you hit the emergency button on the panel, again and again. After marriage, you tossed all desire to impress me. 

            You run on the wet concrete, an out-of-shape man in his fifties, a triangular box held over your head, computer bag slung over your shoulder. Shirt soaked, hair dripping wet, you open my passenger-side door, slip in. 

            “No point waiting in separate cars,” you say. “Did you have time for lunch? I got you pizza.” 

            I stare at the odd-shaped box, likely the doggy-bag from a meal you shared with your girlfriend. 

            When the elevator jolted to a stop, I wobble-crashed against your strong, muscular frame. In that moment, I couldn’t identify what petrified me more: being alone with a stranger in the enclosed space, the sense of suffocation, or the cloying darkness. We disentangled quickly, but once you’d contacted building maintenance, you reached for my hand, held it in your warm palm, speaking comforting words in a husky, intimate voice. My stupid heart’s runaway emotions betrayed me, swelling and filling my ribcage as we dangled between floors five and six, until rescue arrived. For years after, your dinner-party conversation started: “When I met my future wife, I was so stunned, not just my pulse, but the elevator stopped too.” 

            Odors of aftershave and dank, wet clothes overwhelm my car. I notice the bald spot on your crown and that you’re wearing a pink shirt. Your girlfriend’s younger than I am by a decade; she likely picked that shade. I open the pizza box. The slice is a tight fit; melted cheese has slid off the pie, glued itself to the cardboard. “Pizza should come in a square box,” I say, fling the box with its unappetizing contents on the back seat. 

            You hold a hand up to my car’s ceiling, capture dripping water. “Why don’t you get this repaired? I’ll call my auto shop.” There it is, that long-discarded exhibition of attention, of caring, that once captivated me. You grab my box of Kleenex from the floorboard, wipe dashboard, gear shaft, console. 

            You unzip your computer bag, fish out a document. “My list isn’t long,” you say, adding, “How can I help with the wedding? ”

             I play with the car’s turn-signal lever: up-down-up-down, peer at the wedding planner’s still-dark office, shrug. “Ask Becky.” 

            “Why won’t you eat the pizza?” you press. Ache-filled images pop into my head: a laden dinner table, a kitchen clock that displays 10:00 p.m, me curled up on the couch, rectangles of cut-up lasagna in Tupperware containers, rows of stacked dinner leftovers in my freezer. 

            Today, you’re urging me to eat soggy, cold, cheese-denuded pizza in my leaky car.

            “By the way, my mother’s coming a week before the wedding.” Deft as a fencer, you slide in the information.

            I massage the circle of the steering wheel with my fingers. 

            “She’s the bride’s grandmother,” you say.

             I grip the steering wheel tight. The mother-son strife is not my concern anymore, nor the fact that nothing about you pleases the lady: not your job, not your home, not your appearance. 

            “Umm. . .” your hesitation makes my breath shrivel. “I didn’t tell her we’re divorced.” 

            A howling gust of wind hits the car. You place your hand on mine, like you did in the elevator. Your large palm is warm, like it was then. You lean close, like you did then. I can feel your breath fanning my ear, like I did then. By the time the elevator doors opened, I’d succumbed. 

            I extricate my hand from under yours.

            “Didn’t or couldn’t?” I bang my fists on the steering wheel. 

            “How can she stay with us in the apartment?” you ask. Us: you and your girlfriend. “Can my mother stay with you, please? Let’s avoid unpleasantness.”

            After that rush of words, you place your hand on my cheek. 

            I’m about to shout, “Unpleasantness for whom?” when I see Becky walking up to her office.

            I brush your hand away. The rain has ceased as suddenly as it arrived. When the elevator doors opened, I offered you my phone number. Now, I step out. I’ll give Becky my guest list and leave. At the office entrance, I turn. You continue to sit in my car, wiping down fogged windows with Kleenex.