A moment ago I was sweltering from the inside out day after day and suddenly it's dark at 3:30pm and I have to scrape my car in the mornings, and then sit in it shivering while I wait for the inside of the windows to defog.
PJ has offered, no less than every single morning to have the car warmed up, scraped and ready for me but I like him warm better than cold and I need to keep him that way.
Besides, I'm beginning to think I'm on a roll here. Should I build just enough character in this lifetime I can give it a face and a name and just maybe, I'll get my Jacob back. But don't tell them I told you this or they'll pad the walls of my room with feather-down mattress pads.
Don't laugh. We have a big squared off eight-inch-thick mattress pad on our bed that makes you feel as if you're falling asleep in an actual cloud. Or maybe that's on an actual goose, I suppose since clouds aren't made of feathers.
But that's okay, neither are Bridgets. Bridgets are made of rusted thumbtacks and linty pulls of cotton candy, loose strings of pink yarn and stray tortoiseshell buttons.
Or maybe that was magazine prizes, popcorn boxes, lollipops and dried blood. I don't even know, Lochlan changed it every single time he described me and he would always include some ingredient that surprised and ultimately dismayed me.
(Why do you say these things?
So you don't get full of yourself.
Well, that's silly, who else would I be full of. I'm Bridget to the very top of my head.
Yes, you are.
When I grow up will you start my car for me on cold snowy days?
I asked him this as we sat in his mother's car in his driveway while on this day he decided I was full of frozen pennies, stuck in a mudpuddle, broken popsicle sticks and one single left mitten.
No, because I hate doing this. I'm freezing. Maybe we can find someone to do it for both of us.
Huh?
Like a neighbor or a person who rents a room from us. We'll be landlords.
Oh, I see, like of all the land before us. Like kings. But wait! Why would they do that for us?
Maybe we'll do something for them too.
Like what?
I don't know, exactly. I guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there.
We're going to live on the other side of a bridge?
Probably.
Like on an island?
There are all kinds of bridges that don't lead to islands.
But the good ones do.
It's an idiom.
I thought it was called an island.
No, no. The phrase.
All good bridges lead to islands?
You know what? You're right. Let's leave it at that, Peanut.)
Hey, PJ? On second though, would you mind starting it for me? I think that would be nice. And I'll bring you home some of that roast beef you like so much from the restaurant.