Take the Wheel

One

Ari Stark woke with a start, her head pounding like it was trying to stage an escape. Fluorescent hotel lighting flickered overhead. She blinked, trying to remember where she was, but her brain wasn’t playing ball.

Groaning, she sat up, rubbing her temples. She remembered the start of the evening just fine. Drinks at The Wobbly Stool with colleagues.

That had petered out before she was ready to stop, but she soon found another lily pad to leap to.

Some of her old buddies were making a night of it at Vault, a club on the water. Things were hazy after that.

She scanned the room for clues, but the only thing clear was that she’d slept in her dress, which was twisted at such an alarming angle it looked like it had been flung from a moving vehicle and landed on her by accident.

She had a disturbing thought and checked the other half of the bed. She was glad to see she was alone, at least.

Muffled voices passed outside the door: ‘No, Michael, I don’t know where your clean pants are, and if you ask me again, I’m divorcing you. No, I mean it this time.’

Southern English accent. Helpful. Not definitive. Could be London, could be the depths of Kent.

Maybe she was still in her own city. That would be considerate of drunk-Ari.

Sober-Ari could not always rely on that sort of consideration. Once, she’d been partying in London and woken in Amsterdam.

She hadn’t even had her passport. To this day, she didn’t know how she’d achieved that.

She’d spent all day in the consulate until she was issued a temporary passport and packed off back home.

She staggered to the dresser, looking for the usual hotel stationary crap. Something that would say, ‘Welcome to the Wherever You Are.’ Nothing. Not even a passive-aggressive note about towel reuse.

Wait, what was she doing? She just needed her phone. Maps would fix this predicament. If she had it, that was. Again, phones tended to vanish when she made a night of it.

Ari’s eyes darted around, panic simmering beneath the headache. She tore the duvet off, rummaged through the sheets, checked under the pillows… nothing. She rifled through the bedside table and found nothing but dust.

Dropping to her knees, she checked under the bed. More dust. A lone sock. Not hers.

She sighed and plunked herself down on the bed… and heard a faint clink. Her heart leapt. She reached between the mattress and the wall, fingers brushing cold metal—her phone.

She yanked it free. The screen was uncracked, surprisingly. She tapped it. The lock screen lit up with a message from Jake:

Where is this shitshow, anyway?

An apt question in the present situation, but he was talking about a separate shitshow she didn’t have brain space for right now. She’d get back to him.

Maps. Open. Loading… and there it was. She was at the Rest Easy Hotel. Twenty minutes from home.

‘Oh, thank fuck,’ she exhaled, collapsing back onto the bed.

Next thing was next. It was time to text Nancy.

I’m at the Rest Easy Hotel. Can you pick me up? And bring some stuff?

Nancy replied almost instantly:

Of course. What stuff?

Ari could practically hear the cool, detached tone. Nancy, unflappable as ever.

Clothes. Makeup. She glanced around. Shoes too, please.

What’s the room number?

Ari went to the door and peeked outside, wincing against the hallway’s oppressive lighting.

28.

Be there ASAP.

Thank god for Nancy. Reliable, discreet, and nonjudgmental. It was a shame Ari had to pay for those qualities in her life. But better than nothing.

Feeling a surge of bladder-related urgency, she stumbled into the bathroom. A bottle of Grey Goose floated in a half-full tub alongside the damp hotel paperwork. She chose not to investigate further.

As she handled her bladder’s business, she fired off a text to Jake:

The wedding is at her family’s estate in Scotland.

Jake replied instantly:

How are you getting there?

Driving, she shot back, omitting the detail that Nancy would be doing the actual driving while Ari napped in the back seat.

That’s gonna take forever. Can’t we fly? he whined.

You can fly, she replied. I don’t do flights within my own country. Bad for the carbon footprint.

A lie. She just hated flying. She could manage it for, say, a tropical paradise, but not when ground travel would suffice. There were trains, of course, which were the fastest way to get somewhere inland. But trains were full of people, and people were the worst. She didn’t exclude herself from that.

I will, then. Give me the details, Jake said.

She had a shot of the invitation in her camera roll and sent it to him.

Ari went to lie down on the bed with her eyes closed. That felt worse—too much spinning. She put on the TV in the corner of the room and watched a daytime show. A woman found out her boyfriend was her long-lost brother. Ari found herself rooting for them. On the proviso they didn’t try to breed, of course.

‘Ari, it’s me,’ a voice said through the door.

Ari jumped up and turned the TV off. She opened the door to Nancy.

Her dark green eyes were calm and unreadable, with just the barest hint of amusement at the corners of her mouth. She was a touch older than Ari, though didn’t quite know her age and would never ask. Ari would place her in her late thirties if pushed.

Not a hair was out of place in her sleek blonde bob, the sharp ends brushing just below her jaw. Dressed in a crisp, tailored blouse paired with neat trousers in muted tones, Nancy’s posture and outfit radiated a quiet authority.

‘Thank god for Nancy,’ Ari thought. She was the safest of hands.