Dmv lawrenceville

job title	job description	estimated salary	company name	company rate	company location
HVAC SERVICE TECHNICIAN	- $1,000 sign-on bonus for qualified individuals. - 401(K) Retirement Plan with Generous Company Matching. - The HVAC Service Technician will exhibit proficiency in…		Atlantic Constructors, Inc.	3.5	South Hill, VA 23970
HVAC Mechanic	- The HVAC Mechanic is responsible for providing service relating to the maintenance, repair and operation of heating, air conditioning, and ventilation systems,…	Estimated $47.5K - $60.1K a year	Raventek Solution Partners LLC		Blackstone, VA 23824
Hardees of Lawrenceville - HVAC Service Technician	- NOW HIRING - Facilities Management Service Technicians - Our Facilities Management Service Technician plays an important role at Boddie-Noell facilities…		Boddie-Noell Hardees	3.4	Lawrenceville, VA 23868+2 locations
HVAC Technician Master	- Take lead in design and sales of HVAC systems for residential new construction, residential remodels and additions, and commercial build projects.		Grizzard Homes and Buildings, LLC		Emporia, VA 23847
HVAC and Installation Repair Technician	- This position shall perform maintenance and installation of various complex HVAC-R systems for the Maneuver Training Center (MTC), Ft.		Virginia Dept of Military Affairs	4.2	Nottoway, VA
HVAC Duct Installer	- In this role you will install duct, compression, and other HVAC systems in new buildings. - Inspect functioning systems for potential issues.		Gillmann Services Inc.	3.8	Blackstone, VA
HVAC level II Installer	- Provide assistance to lead installer on the jobsite. - The Install Helper Level II mostly relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the…		Lee's Heating and Cooling		Virginia
Experienced HVAC Technicians $10K Hiring	- Industry leading hourly rate paid and far away the best commission plan in the industry! - Various work schedules: five-day work week, four ten hours workdays,…		AllTech Services, Inc.		Virginia
HVAC Controls Installer	- Installation of Building Automation wire, sensors, panels and controllers. - Experience with start-up and commissioning of Building Automation Systems preferred.		S & W Controls, Inc		Virginia
HVAC Residential Service and or Installation Tech	- Minimum 3 years experience of HVAC work (residential and commercial would work), CFC license, Nate certification would be a plus, any formal training is a plus.		Advanced Environment Solutions, Inc		Virginia
HVAC Installers	- Largest Light Commercial Trane Dealer on the Peninsula, Rapidly growing residential & light commericial HVAC company, in need of Experienced Installers.		Bennett Air Conditioning LLC		Virginia
HVAC Service Techs and Installers Needed (DC, MD, N.VA)	- Must have a clean and valid driver's license. - Excellent communication, organizational and customer service skills a must. - High school or equivalent (Preferred).		Air Masters, LLC		Virginia
HVAC Preventative Maintenance Tech	- Up to a $500 sign on bonus for the right candidate!*. - At least 1+ years experience in HVAC installation. - Familiarity with a wide variety of HVAC equipment and…		SMILEY'S HEATING AND COOLING	5.0	Virginia
HVAC Service Technician	- Light Commercial Service Technicians needed for the DMV area. - Medical, dental, vision, 401K w/match + lots more. - High school or equivalent (Preferred).		Seasonair, Inc.		Virginia
HVAC Apprentice/ Technician	- Are you sick of your job and know you deserve better? You're in the right spot! We partnered with the best HVAC companies in the industry to help find you…		SkillCat		United States

Taking my driving test in Georgia in 2 days. I know parallel parking is on the test but heres the thing in the test does it also includes backing up 50 feet, reverse backing up in a parking space or both? Test is at the Lawrenceville DMV

Just a working title at the moment, I guess. It's based on this prompt. I'm mostly just trying to get it all in once place since I...can't seem to stop. I'll add new parts as I have time in the comments of this post.
I also haven't written anything in months, so feedback is welcome and please be brutal.
He hit the cool air like a wall, breaking straight into the street and not looking back into the crowded bar. The music faded, only the steady muffled whump-whump of a bass drum lingering around him as he automatically plucked the earbuds from his pocket, deposited one into each ear, produced his phone and scrolled too fast through its contacts. Lucy.
Always so fucking early.
He might have even spoken the words. He hadn't had a drink in probably six months, and easing back into the practice was an art that remained beyond him. He had already dropped something close to twenty bucks, already found himself caught in the same old ritual from the booth at the back wall - pick up the phone, put it down, pick up the bottle, put it down, provide a momentary stare around the room that was one part hostility, two parts tired confusion. He may as well have gone to the DMV.
"Hey, where are you?" she asked.
"Just got here. You?"
"Oh, we had to go pick up Dan. Something on his car broke today, so yeah. We're almost at his place now."
"Cool. So hey, there's not a whole lot going on here. I was thinking maybe we could go see a movie or something?"
"Nooooooo! There's supposed to be a live band tonight! Jana saw them a couple of weeks ago and she said they're really good. And it's still pretty early, so I bet it'll pick up soon."
"Eh, I haven't seen any band," he said, turning and walking a bit further down from the rhythmic pulsing of the drums before leaning against the brick wall of a small car park. "Maybe they canceled?"
"Eric, stay put. We'll be there in like 20 minutes, and you're gonna have fun tonight even if we have to kill you. Okay? Okay."
"Alright then."
The screen on his phone flashed red and he jammed it back into his pocket, pulling the cords hanging from either side of his head uncomfortably taut. He leaned his head forward off of the wall, opened his eyes, and couldn't suppress a surprised Hey! at the sight of the man standing in front of him.
"Uh, hey," he said again, fighting the urge to pull his hands from his pockets, instead searching with one finger for the button on the top of his phone that would activate its screen again. The man was too close, almost close enough for Eric to feel the warmth of his breath, and staring too directly at him, seemingly through him. Could he unlock his phone without taking it out of his pocket? Shit, that's probably a smart thing to practice. Could he dial 911 without being able to see the screen's keypad? Wasn't there some quick command for that, anyway? Don't think about it, don't try to remember, just try what you know, try what you know. "Can I help you, man?"
"The cops can't do anything. Better to not even try." His voice was distant, dreamy, as if he were talking more to himself than anyone, and the stench coming off the guy - ripe, stark, something like mold but bitter, almost tangible. It wasn't alcohol or pot (The Equalizer, as Lucy sometimes called it), but something like a traveling odor.
Walking rot, he thought suddenly, and decided he liked it. The man's tattered shoes, caked with mud and perhaps something fouler, seemed to corroborate this idea.
"So -"
"I wish I hadn't seen what's really out there," he said, and Eric tapped the screen in his pocket. Gently now. Another tap and he felt the slight feedback vibration of a number being dialed. Okay, okay, so if that's nine, then one should be - "I wish it didn't have to be me, and I'm sorry it's gotta be you, son." The man moved with a quickness that startled him, and suddenly something cold and hard pressed against his belly. He looked down, saw the man's filthy hands wrapped around some dark mass, saw the veins in his forearms standing out like flashes of lightning underneath dirt and skin, felt the sting of his dusty black odor settling on his tongue and filling his nostrils like a toxic chemical.
"Look man I've got money -"
"Take it," the man said, and Eric didn't move. He felt the object dig into him, his shoulders pressing flat against the wall behind him, he squirmed and one strong hand wrapped around his arm and squeezed hard. "You have to take it."
"Alright, man, alright," he said, and brought his free hand out of his pocket, placed it upon the object, felt his fingernails scrape the inside of the man's wrist as he pulled away. Eric watched him walk, his blue button-down shirt stiff, faded with dirt, only half tucked into a pair of frayed grey slacks which hung over the heels of his shoes and scuffed along the pavement as he moved. He was half-starved, beaten, weary and pale, strangely ageless in such a state. Eric held the thing in his hands and followed the man with his eyes until he disappeared around a corner in the gathering darkness of the street.
Jesus Christ.
For the first time, he held up the thing the guy had thrust into his hands and looked down at it. It was heavy, black, cold, metal and rubber and tough woven fabric which spilled out of his palm and hung down around it. Some sort of head gear? He pulled his other hand away from the phone in his pocket and turned the object over into the light of a nearby streetlamp. Goggles. Military, by the look and the weight of them, but still unlike anything he had ever seen before. Mounted on either side of the goggles, positioned right over the wearer's temples, were two identical black boxes, slim and featureless save for a single red switch on the underside of each one.
What the hell?
Undoubtedly some sort of night vision goggles, probably pretty expensive, but what was the big deal? Why had this guy, practically a zombie, found it so important to force them upon him? And what was it he had said? He couldn't quite remember, but it wasn't really important. They were stolen, obviously, and probably from the type of person any sane individual wouldn't want to steal from. Still, what an incredibly odd thing to take from a person. Did the guy not have a television?
Too many questions. Just turn them in, file whatever report you gotta file, count yourself lucky that you're not lying shot or stabbed on the street right now. Fun story, I guess.
Fun story. Right. He turned them over in the light once more, now peering down into them as he would if he were about to strap them on, and noticed a spot of white on the inside of one of the strange black peripherals. He brought them closer to his face and saw two words scrawled hastily onto the box in what looked like white chalk.
LOOK UP.
Huh.
The letters looked fresh, as if the man had plucked a stone out of the street and scraped the message into them just before approaching him. He almost touched them, then thought better of it. It wouldn't do to fuck up what little evidence there may be on these things before turning them over.
Look up.
What a fucking ordeal. He looked down the street to the bar entrance, suddenly further away than he remembered walking, and saw Lucy. Lucy, looking like a dream in her dark purple dress and black leggings. Lucy, so obviously interested and yet still coy enough as to make him second guess himself whenever the opportunity arose. Dan and Jana followed closely behind, and he ducked out of the cone of the streetlight before either of them could look up and notice him there. He watched as they disappeared into the bar.
Look. Up. He repeated it over and over in his head like a mantra, or maybe a spiritual chant that might reveal some important piece of this unfolding mystery to him if he said it enough times. Look up.
Maybe he would walk in the opposite direction. Maybe he could find the guy before he got too far away and throw these things at his feet and run.
"Yeah, let's just be suicidal about it for no reason. Great."
He could just drop them and walk away, right? Just leave them right here in the street. Not his problem, not his responsibility. A perfectly viable option, if only he wasn't so damned curious about them. And it's not like the police could tell him anything he didn't already know. So go waste an hour of your life talking to some dead-eyed cop, filling out paperwork, and what if, god forbid, they actually found the guy? Would he have to identify him? Would he have to go to court? If he knew one thing, it was that he had no desire to see that narrow face and its strained, manic eyes again anytime soon.
So, better to just dump them. Just drop them where you stand and let them become some other fool's errand. Or...
He stared at his feet. He looked up the street, then back down again. He stepped into the light once more, stared down the street where others were now gathering outside of the bar, chatting, smoking, staring at their phones. He crossed the street and walked toward them, goggles held stiff against his leg opposite the group of people. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out to see one new text. Lucy.
I'm going to murder you.
Sick. he responded, tapping the screen with his thumb as he almost trotted past the group at the front of the bar. Sorry.
He walked on, and after only a couple of seconds the phone vibrated in his hand once more.
Lies.
Next time. he typed, and disappeared further down the street.
Alright.
He put a few blocks between himself and his estranged group of friends, not necessarily paying much attention to where he was going, but also careful not to loop back around. Lawrenceville was a military city, but more than that it was a southern military city, a far cry from Nashville or Atlanta but big enough to be dangerous. A few blocks was all downtown had to offer, and before long he was standing on the edge of a defunct railroad the city had paved over and converted into a walking trail which ran behind the businesses on Riverside and parallel to a straight stretch of the Cumberland river for about five miles. He could see the lights of gas stations, diners, old motels and auto shops below him, above him the neutral, towering brick buildings of downtown - the Marriott, the old courthouse, the new courthouse, various law practices and flower shops, and finally, the city's dull and rustic centerpiece, the police station.
Okay. Here we are. Maybe a little further down.
He felt exposed in the open, but there was a small grove of trees leading to an old iron bridge that had been reinforced, repainted, and properly fenced in on either side after a kid he went to school with tumbled off into the small reservoir below, broke both legs and almost drowned in something like four feet of water. Robert Something? He hadn't known the guy, but remembered seeing him wheeling around school for the rest of his senior year.
Still not too late to toss these things. Or turn them in. Or do just about anything but what I'm about to do.
There was a bit of sweat on his brow despite the chilly air. He brought the goggles up again, made sense of the tangled straps and fitted them over his head, one above each ear, one running straight down the middle of his scalp. The goggles rested nicely on his forehead and he felt the ends of his dark brown hair tickle the top of his ears.
"Ah, yessuh, yessuh! Down this tunnel you'll see more sedimentary deposits of, well, some such shit! I don't even know, I'm just the guy who wears the headgear!" he gestured comically with one bent finger and shuffled a couple of wild steps forward. Might as well make a bit of fun of it, eh?
Yeah, and it'll be even more fun once you find out that old fuck had head lice.
"Oh, well shit," he ripped the goggles off of his head and once again liberated his phone from his pocket, searching for the flashlight app. A bright circle of light dawned over the ground ahead of him and he brought the goggles down into it, looking for any signs of tiny alien life on the straps, around the rubber seals, anywhere. The strange message scrawled across one of the peripheral black boxes was now just a faded white smudge, but otherwise there was, as they say, nothing new to report. "Black Tango Four this is Whiskey Fuckass, you are clear to proceed with Operation Sex Helmet, repeat, clear to proceed to objective, over."
He placed the goggles back onto his head, now approaching the trees. Just beyond them he could see the thick iron trestles of the bridge descending into darkness, then the yawning green chainlink fence on either side of the bank. There was a dark green bench just off the path before the bridge and he sat down on it, produced a half-empty pack of Marlboro menthols out of his other pocket along with a blue lighter. He stuck one of the cigarettes into the corner of his mouth, lit it, inhaled, placed the pack and lighter neatly on the seat beside him. He went for the phone once more, pulling the goggles off of his head once again in the process.
"Might as well document this little adventure," he said to no one in particular, holding the goggles up against the night, inside facing his phone's camera, and snapped a picture. He lowered the phone, then raised it again. He put the goggles down beside his smokes and used his free hand to open up the full view of the picture he just took.
"What the fuck?"
The lenses, if you could call them that, were glowing. At least, that's what he thought when he first noticed it. Upon closer inspection he saw that their normal translucence had been replaced with a dark blue hue, totally solid so as to completely obscure any image on the other side of them, and marked with blurry vertical grey lines which ran from top to bottom across both eyes, equidistant from one another. He had seen something similar in old polaroids, kind of like a television with no input signal.
Or a computer monitor, he thought, and shivered without realizing it. He looked around, still seeing pinholes of downtown light through the trees, and somewhere in that moment he came as close as he ever would to simply standing up and walking away. Instead, he switched the phone off again and planted the goggles on his head once more. this time pulling them down over his eyes without hesitation.
"Right, well, here we are."
The rubber was cold against his cheeks and eyebrows, but they seemed to be a good fit. He turned his head from left to right, up and down, then stood and turned in a slow circle. He could feel the cool weight of the black boxes pressing against either side of his face, and all at once he felt ridiculous. Carefully, he brought his hands up and felt for the boxes, covered them with his palms and found the switches with his thumbs, now pointing backward toward his ears.
Left? Right? Both at the same time? Now that's a party.
He pressed the left switch first, expecting the left side of the goggles to come on, whatever that might have meant in his mind, and was surprised to find that it was not the simple on/off mechanism he had expected. He pressed down hard, and rather than flip, the switch moved forward perhaps a quarter of the way and seemed to lock into place. Nothing happened. He pressed it again, felt some stiff mechanical tension begin to let go from within the box and then the switch moved again, now to the halfway point. Again, nothing. He flipped it forward once more to its third and final position, saw no change, then reset it. Click, click click.
"Must be this side, then," he thought aloud, carefully thumbing the switch on the right forward. There was that same sense of tension, then a click, and a sort of faint whirring on either side of his head accompanied by movement. He had just enough time to raise his left hand back up before the straps tightened around him like a coiling snake.
"Whoa! Whoa! Hey!" he yelled without thinking, both hands hovering over his head almost of their own accord, alternating between the back of his head and the front as if waiting for the perfect moment to strike and rip the straps from his head. "Okay. Okay, I'm good." The horizontal strap running above the back of his neck grew uncomfortably taut, pulling the goggles almost painfully against the bridge of his nose, then released a bit. He felt the rubber around each lens compress around his eyes and then contract, creating a seal.
Sizing you up.
He dismissed the thought at once. It was definitely an unexpected feature but it was just that - a feature, an automated process, nothing more. It was actually sort of impressive, even if it almost made him -
The world went white.
He must have cried out again. He must have slammed his eyes shut, stumbled, caught himself, grasping blind and senseless through the air for the top of the bench, swaying and trying to compensate against the vertigo before losing control entirely. His ass smacked the seat hard and he winced, leaned to the right, pulled the cigarettes and lighter from underneath his haunch. His hands hovered again, palms down just over the seat beside his knees. The white light burned bright red through his eyelids, and then there was pain, electric nails of it being driven by the millimeter into his skull. And then it was gone.
He instinctively reached up to rub his eyes, realized his mistake, then gingerly opened them. The white glare still lingered throughout most of his vision, a greying, fading sort of smog which yielded into blue, lighter shades near the peripherals first, then darker toward the center, bending, stretching, melting together into basic shapes growing more complex by the second, forming familiar outlines until they became something sensible again - the shattered glass shard pattern of the leaves hanging from the trees around him, each one a seemingly unique shade of crisp dark blue, a billion blades of trimmed grass painting the ground around the path, the asphalt itself, a linear universe of cracks, potmarks, crevasses, a barren alien landscape poured out and spread like butter across the earth. He could see every detail, every inconsequential stroke that made up this dark painting, each one seeming to tell its own story.
He stood up, carefully at first, only momentarily transfixed by the strange cornflower blue of his khaki pants, then turned and looked down at the bench. It seemed to shift out of focus for moment, then back into vivid detail, and he jumped as two small white boxes appeared on either side of it. They hovered on the edge of his vision, moving up and down in smaller and smaller increments as if performing some basic measurement then, to his amazement, moved horizontally closer, mirroring one another, framing the object in his sights. He watched as they appeared to lock themselves into place, then expanded toward one another like a sort of dual loading bar, gliding quickly toward the center of his vision, meeting briefly, then fading almost as quickly as they appeared. He knew what was happening as soon as it began.
"Oh," he said stupidly as the bench came apart. There was some strange uniform movement he couldn't quite focus upon, which was in fact each individual screw beginning to rotate counterclockwise, coming up out of the wood in perfect harmony, floating in the air for a moment, then moving upward as they were followed by each slat separating from the frame. He gazed on, awestruck as the whole broke itself down into a neat little storm of its individual components, screws, wood, fitted metal corner pieces, the central support of the frame popping outward, upward, then both sides of the frame itself gliding quietly out of the ground and hovering on either side of the collection. They hung in the air in front of him, an impossible vision, now merely an abstract representation of a park bench.
He reached out in front of his face and attempted to pick one of the screws out of the air, but he felt nothing. He waved his hand over it, then through it, then let it fall back limply to his side. The concept, at least, was familiar to him - it was something commonly referred to as an exploded view, which he saw once in a graphic arts magazine somewhere. Where was that? It didn't really matter.
"Oh," he said again. "Oh, holy shit!"
He walked around the bench, poring over all the separate parts from every conceivable angle. Twice more he instinctively reached out to them, but caught himself and laughed. Finally, he pulled the goggles outward from his eyes with a faint-but-audible pop and set them back on his forehead. The exploded bench disappeared like a mirage and was replaced with its more cohesive counterpart. He took a breath, placed his hands on his hips, looking off into nothing in particular for more than a moment.
This can't be good. This is something experimental, maybe something dangerous. Whatever they are, they weren't meant to be put in your hands.
"Just incredible," he said. "Just phenomenal." Standing behind the bench now, the chain link fence leading to the iron bridge caught the corner of his eye. He pulled the goggles back down over his face without thinking, felt the straps tighten around him, turned and closed the short gap toward the mouth of the bridge. He looked, took a couple of steps back so as to properly frame the entire structure within his sights, then gasped audibly when the two white squares appeared once again toward the edges of his vision.
"Oh, no fucking way," he said. He raised an open hand into the air as they performed whatever magic calculus they needed to perform, then clapped it into a fist when the loading bars met between his eyes. "Yeah!"
There were too many parts to count, and even if he could he wouldn't have known all of their technical names. He was a software engineer by trade, and by all accounts only a mediocre one at that. Still, he had a deep and almost automatic appreciation for complexity, and although he didn't quite realize it yet, he was bound to develop a theoretical understanding of the bountiful processes at play within this machine, purely speculative, yet fundamental enough to enable an almost spiritual wonder within him. He was a man who could build his own calculator, and someone had just dropped a warp drive into his lap.
The bridge came apart in layers, sliding upward through the air and quietly separating from itself. His eyes couldn't settle on one segment of the resulting network of components for more than a second before drifting off elsewhere, trying to drink it all up at once. Suddenly, a thought. He focused on an iron beam nearest him, then reached up and flipped the switch on the left side forward once - click. His vision blurred, shifted, and once it refocused the beam floated about a foot in front of him, slowly rotating.
"It zooms!" he said. "It fucking zooms!" He turned his head slightly and the beam slid away from him, several other smaller bits wobbling as his eyes passed over them, and then he settled on another beam shaped like a T - it shot forward to him and began to turn in the air. He closed his eyes and flipped both switches off simultaneously, pulling the goggles off his head entirely.
He took a step back, almost lost his balance, then righted himself and turned back toward the bench. He reclaimed his seat, liberated another smoke from the pack, lit it, leaned back and stared up into the night sky. He looked back down at his phone and checked the time - 10:48PM. He'd been out here a little longer than he thought.
This is dangerous.
"This is unbelievable," he said to himself, turning the goggles over in his hands, blowing smoke up into the cold night air.
As Eric sat with a cigarette dangling between his lips on the Riverside walkway, Lucy Marshall spilled out of the bar and into the dim street with Jana White and Dan Harper stumbling at her heels. She took an awkward step to the side as Jana let go of Dan's arm and hopped over to her.
"Oooooh, so there's a seriously kickass hookah bar um -" she turned up the street pointing straight ahead of her then quickly back down in the other direction, almost slapping Lucy in the process. "That way!"
Lucy waved her hands in front of her face and frowned in mock disgust. "Gross."
"Yeah, not really a fan," Dan said.
"Boo," Jana said, running one small hand through her dark red hair as she walked stiffly down the street away from them. "Coffee then?" she asked after only a few steps. Dan looked at Lucy with one cocked eyebrow and she shrugged.
"Sure," he said. "Jack's?" Jana turned, skipped back over to them and hopped forward once again, landing hard and flat-footed in front of them. The fun parts of her that could jiggle nicely did, and Lucy caught Dan taking in a quick eyeful.
"Oh, just like old times! What a swell couple of pals you guys are," she said, taking each of them by an arm and leading them down the sidewalk to where Lucy had parked her car.
And so they topped off the night at Jack's Diner, a squat, ancient college dive where they had shared many a classic rootbeer float after many a drunken night during their respective careers. And so the inevitable question came up just as they were finishing their second round of Jack's particularly uninspiring homebrew in a cracked red booth near the establishment's only entrance.
"So what do you see in that guy, anyway?" Jana finally asked, raising her disheveled head from the table and staring intently somewhere into Lucy's left shoulder. She didn't see so much as feel Lucy rolling her eyes as Dan looked on. "Oh fuck you, I know, I know. but if you couldn't depend on me to be rude enough to ask then where would you be?"
"He's a good guy, Jana. He's super smart and he's nice and he has a good job that he likes, you know, he's decent."
"Gross."
Lucy threw her hands up at this, but smiled despite herself. "I don't know why I even try."
"He's just so," she began, then quickly gave up on her search for the proper words. Instead, she jammed a couple of fingers into her open mouth, cocked her head sideways and made some sort of obscene grunt.
"Normal?" Lucy asked.
"I heard he was gay. No no, hear me out! You are so totally smoking hot! I mean seriously, that ass has not moved an inch since freshman year. Did I tell you about my lesbian fantasy? I absolutely told you about my lesbian fantasy. Still up for that, by the way. You know, in case you were -"
"Yep, got it. Sorry to report that I am still painfully hetero. And hey, I bet Dan finds all this talk less than riveting anyway."
"Actually I think the world could be a much better place if you two were open to experimentation," he said, then added quickly - "But I'm relieved to hear you're still on my team."
"Oooooh, now there's an interesting proposition! Eh? Eh?" Jana leaned over and jabbed Lucy in the ribs with the point of her elbow. Lucy jumped, then laughed and pushed Jana away from her. "Alright alright, not gonna press it anymore. I'm totally calling a cab, though. Give you two some alone time? Yeah, that's what's happening. Don't you dare offer any protest either, Ms. Marshall. I will cut you." Lucy eased out of the booth and allowed Jana to clamber upward toward the door. "Adios motherfuckers!"
Dan waved absentmindedly, placed a $20 bill on the table, then scooted out of the booth and smiled at Lucy. "You can take the girl out of college," he said.
"Can't take the college out of the girl," Lucy finished. "Actually she's back in this semester. Master's."
"Nice," Dan said. "Next thing you know she'll be moving back into the dorms." He opened the door and beckoned Lucy through. Outside, Jana had already pranced off somewhere down the sidewalk out of sight. They walked to Lucy's car together, a newer white Corolla with a small dent in the back bumper she had incurred at the school, undoubtedly some hapless teenager on a bike or skateboard. Neither spoke until they were out onto the road near the college.
"So he got sick, huh?" Dan asked.
"You know, I am a fucking awesome catch," she said suddenly.
"I know."
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to -"
"No, it's totally cool. I don't understand the guy either. What were you going to say?"
"It's just, I mean, I know it sounds stupid, but 30 is right around the corner, you know? Me and you and Jana and Eric, we're like, the last hold outs. It seems like everyone else has an awesome marriage and vacations and, you know, lives."
"Yeah, I totally get that."
"Sometimes it's just hard not to think that maybe it's just me."
"Oh come on, how long have we known each other? Doesn't even matter. Long enough that I can say with authority that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. And if you're a good fucking catch, I'm a fucking awesome judge of character. Attorneys have to be. So yeah."
"You really think so?"
"I would date the shit out of you," he said, then shrugged. For the first time, she looked over at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Really," she said, and it was not exactly a question. "Well, that is interesting."
And the conversation became much lighter as they drove on, and when Lucy's little white car pulled into the driveway in front of Dan's house that night, it would not leave for several hours afterward. Neither of them noticed the blue SUV deliberately parked in the dark gap between two streetlights less than 50 yards down the street, silent and still.
They might have recognized it if they had.