This time, hearing Trisha Boyle pronounce some tremendous laughter didn’t scare him. Instead, he thought her laughter was quite amusing. At first, George couldn’t restrain himself from laughing, but eventually, he began to feel guilty for laughing at her, rather than with her.
Trisha wiped the tears from her eyes. “That’s good stuff. So, what you think?”
“I thought it was funny.”
Didn’t you hear me laughing—at you?
“I know it was funny,” Trisha said. “But are you going to use it?”
“Use what?”
“My idea,” Trisha said with a proud smile. “And you promised you’d share credit. Don’t you forget that, George.”
George wasn’t sure if Trisha Boyle was seriously suggesting implementing a discount based on the size of women’s breasts, or if her comment was just another attempt at humor. However, judging be her expression, she appeared to be serious.
“That would be illegal. I mean, we can’t break the law,” he said hesitantly.
“No, it can’t be illegal, can it?”
Judging women by the size of their breasts, isn’t illegal?
But on the other hand, men appear to be doing so on a regular basis.
Well, not all men. I mean, I do no such thing.
“Trust me, it has to be illegal.”
“No, it can’t be illegal to lie to the press. It’s not as if we’re lying to the cops or anything,” Trisha said. “It’s not our fault if they’re gullible.”
George just realized he’d somehow misinterpreted Trisha Boyle’s plan.
“Wait, you didn’t think I meant to actually implement the discount, did you, George?” Trisha asked, and then pronounced a short laugh.
George felt dumb, and now, ridiculed. “What exactly is your plan, Trisha?”
“I’m merely suggesting you trick the media into believing so. And once the news goes viral, you can disclose that you only did it for the media exposure.”
“But that plan would solely depend on the media writing a retraction,” he said. “I mean, why would the media set people straight, once they’d realized they’ve been manipulated?”
“Oh, yeah.” Trisha slumped down. “I never thought of that.”
Even if Trisha’s suggestion was both absurd and inappropriate, the possibility of provoking people in order to get their attention was not. If George could get the press to misinterpret his intentions, then they’d have no choice but to write a retraction. And if the media didn’t see the need to correct their mistake, then he could even threaten them with a potential lawsuit. George started to wonder as he thought of the possibilities of such a creative marketing strategy. Perhaps he could use words with different meaning in order to lure the media into drawing the wrong conclusion?
What words associated with airline travel can be misinterpreted?
As his mind wandered, he lost his focus on the road. Fortunately, the automatic braking system engaged and slowed down the car just enough, to avoid a collision with the other car crossing the intersection. George felt relieved with today’s chain of events; his own car didn’t have an automatic braking system.
Trisha, however, was boiling over with rage. George tried his best to keep her from sounding the horn, but his attempt was futile. As he carefully drove through the intersection, his much younger co-worker kept screaming out the passenger window even though the car in question was long gone.
“Why aren’t you upset?” Trisha asked with wet eyes.
“I’m really sorry. I should have been paying better attention to the road.”
“You shouldn’t be sorry, George. You should be angry,” Trisha said. “It’s not your fault. It’s his fault. You had the right of way.”
“I prefer not to get angry.” he said. “And I’m pretty sure it was a woman driving.”
“What do you mean by you prefer not to be angry? You can’t choose when to be angry. It’s not possible to choose your emotions.”
“I mean, why assume the worst?”
“What are you talking about?” Trisha asked loudly.
“I know I had the right of way, but I don’t know the reason why the other driver failed to give it. Perhaps the driver had a good reason.”
“Like what?” Trisha yelled.
“Perhaps her son was bleeding out in the backseat, and they were on their way to the hospital. Or she could be chasing a person who abducted her child. I mean, who knows?”
Trisha Boyle suddenly went all quiet and looked out the passenger window.
“The point being, I’ll never know why the driver didn’t give the right of way. However, I can make one assumption and keep driving with a sense of compassion and understanding. Or I can make another assumption, and keep driving with a sense of anger and frustration,” he said. “I prefer not to assume the worst, because it makes me feel better. I prefer not to get angry.”
Trisha Boyle kept staring out the passenger window and didn’t speak. George could tell by her reflection that she was really upset, but he wasn’t sure why.
“I’m not saying we can control our emotions. I’m just saying we can choose how to think. You know what I mean?”
Trisha didn’t respond to his question. George then went through a mental transcript of what he’d said in the past few minutes, but he didn’t find any reason for why the so-talkative Trisha Boyle suddenly went quiet.
“I have a son,” Trisha eventually said in a gentle voice.
“Yeah… Well, good for him,” he said.
George noticed a smile in her reflection, but Trisha never turned around.
“I’m sure he’s just fine, Trisha.”
“He’s with my mom,” Trisha said and looked him in the eyes.
21 SOLITUDE
Tuesday afternoon
She had stopped screaming their names.
She was all alone.
As the rain had picked up, she’d curled up closer to the tree trunk under the odd-shaped tree that resembled a crooked mushroom. She had her arms around her legs, and she kept staring at her swollen ankle with puffy and tired eyes. Then she glanced at the branches free of tree bark, and just at that moment she burst into tears.
Eventually, she looked at the mountain, her eyes scanning endlessly across the terrain. She wondered if Kevin and Jack had found a road, and that was the reason for them not returning.
She felt vulnerable and scared. The feeling reminded her of her childhood, and how she’d had no other choice but to accept her life as it was—she’d had little or no possibility to change her life back then. But she didn’t blame her parents for not being there. Instead, she blamed everyone else, and especially teachers and social workers whose job it was to keep her safe. She thought of all the pain she’d had to endure because people didn’t do their jobs properly. Now, sitting in solitude, she felt just the same way. Her pain was yet again caused by people not conducting their jobs properly. People who weren’t able to perform the simple tasks they’d been trained to do.
“I hate you!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Then she picked up a stone about the same size as her hand and threw it across at the lake, in the same direction as the hillside and the tree where Andrew had spent the night.
“I hate you!” she screamed again while her lips trembled and spit was dripping from her mouth. “It’s all your fault,” she mumbled and resumed crying.
22 THE PASSENGER