Candy

Travis is parked under the central freeway in the SoMa district. He can’t get Candy’s face off his mind; no matter how many passengers he picks up, she’s still there, smiling, beautiful.

This is a good spot to let his mind relax. With his car sitting under the overpass, he feels like he’s Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle, from the French Connection, waiting for the chase scene to begin.

The Overdrive emoticon lights up, “You’ve got a rider!”

Travis heads to 3rd St. and eventually sees Candy in front of Golden Goat Coffee with her hand raised flagging him down. He takes a few deep breaths and pulls up to pick her up. She gets in, followed by — let’s check the app — it says Benjamin, the CEO of Overdrive, no less!

Travis gets a little ruffled and starts looking in the mirror at Benjamin. Candy notices and she catches his attention. There’s that pretty smile again, and it’s sitting in my car!

“Ah shir ni, uh huh, tai hao le!”, Benjamin’s been on the phone since he got in the car. “Tai hao le”, now he’s rubbing Candy’s leg, saying it really gruff, like an old Chinese money lender!

Candy continues to watch Travis in silence. He can see the street lights illuminating her face.

“No, I need more servers. And not the cheap ones, the thinking models!”, Benjamin repeats himself in Chinese.

As Candy stares at Travis, Benjamin’s voice fades out along with the street sounds — there is a moment between them in the silent vacuum. Travis is slowly realizing that Candy is unhappy. With that realization he’s struck in the heart with an arrow. He looks in the rearview mirror, and she mouths, ‘help me’ — he does a double take.

“Right up here”, Candy says as she sits up and touches his shoulder intimately. Travis makes a funny face.

“19th & Van Ness “, is all the Travis can think of saying.

Benjamin gets out of the car and starts walking down the street, still talking on his phone. Candy lingers in the back seat for a second.

“My name’s Candy”, she says, her momentary somberness is broken by the return of her smile — now familiar and sweet. She gets out and Travis watches them walk off.

“My names Travis”, he says to himself.

The App lights up, “Hot damn, she’s a keeper! Right, Travis? Travis?”

Travis is watching Candy walk down the street with Benjamin. Benjamin’s on the phone — not holding her hand.