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Thirty-five minutes.
That’s how long it’s taken Belly to drive two miles.
She has her convertible top down, leaned halfway out over her door’s edge, inhaling dangerous amounts of diesel exhaust, demonstratively craning her neck in an attempt to see how close she is to reaching the Bay Bridge Toll. It’s been the longest day, and she’s been on the road for what feels like half of it; closing in on four full hours of stop-and-go. She’s exhausted, and hungry, and she knows it’s only a matter of time before she has to pee.
She had a job interview this afternoon at UC Berkeley. She figured it a was a long shot when she applied, but her confidence shot through the roof when she'd received a call the day before yesterday asking her to come in for an in-person interview. Short notice, but she managed to get the day off. The position was with the Cameron Institute, a Golden Bears run program aimed at helping develop student-athletes. Belly was up at five this morning running through every possible question and reviewing her resume. She thought she had sufficiently hyped herself up; she was qualified, she was motivated, she was exactly who they were looking for.
She had this.
Well, as it turns out, she did not have it. She bombed- hard. She was all but certain she would not be hearing back from the Athletic Director who, after Belly had stumbled over her fourth softball (and then spilled her complimentary Dixie Cup of coffee), had given her a devastatingly sympathetic smile and told her they’d "be in touch". So she’s pretty much completely heartbroken, but she’s trying to make it back to her apartment before she actually breaks down. And that’s really all she wants; to get home, make some ramen, take a bubble bath, and cry.
But her wants don’t matter to Caltrans, who have chosen right now, during rush hour traffic, to do whatever it is that they’re doing. They have her side of I-80 narrowed down from five lanes to two, squeezing her and half of the state of California (or so it would seem) onto a converted shoulder. She wants to scream.
And to top it off, she’s apparently the only driver on the road today with a brain. Because, it’s like, clearly we’re all getting over. Why is everyone acting surprised, and unprepared, like there wasn’t a massive 'ROAD WORK AHEAD' sign alerting them to the lane closure all the way back near 64th Street? Like you couldn't see the reflective delineator posts coming up from half a mile away?
She currently has her FasTrak transponder perched on the steering column of her sky blue 1979 Volkswagen Beetle (her going-away present from her parents; the car she learned how to drive stick for; her baby), pressing her palm flat to the top of it to keep it there every time the line of cars she’s parked in inches forward. She can see the end in sight now. Coming out of the turn, right after the IKEA that furnished the entirety of her apartment, the road begins to open back up; the brake lights ahead are still dense, but at least it isn’t bottlenecked. As she slowly moves closer to being released from this purgatory she briefly glances in her rearview mirror, and her jaw retightens.
This idiot in a Range Rover, who is taking 'bumper-to-bumper' literally, has been one slip of his foot away from rolling right into her the entire time they’ve been trapped on this stretch of interstate together. She knows that one full car's length is a bit much to ask for in traffic like this- but she shouldn't be able to literally see his fucking adam's apple. She’s been glaring at him on and off for like twenty minutes, and she thinks it has to be obvious- but if it is, he seemingly hasn’t noticed.
He looks like your typical neurotic tech bro; white knuckling the wheel, only releasing it to periodically dust off his dashboard if he sees so much as a skin cell, or to impatiently run a hand back through his hair, shifting restlessly in his seat- clearly very eager to get out of this logjam. Aren’t they all. But she needs him to back up; every time they move she holds her breath, worried this is going be the moment he gets a bit too lead-footed and taps her bumper.
She looks back in front of her. Three cars, that’s it. She’s so close. She doesn’t bother with her blinker, she knows they’re all gunning it and dispersing the second they get the chance- and finally it’s hers. She feathers the gas as she begins to move into the lane to her left; she could cry-
Abruptly Belly is forced to yank her wheel to the right, overcorrecting back into her lane as that same fucking idiot darts out and snatches the opening she’d just been eager to slot into. She looks over at him, trying to calm down, but she’s seeing red. He’s aloofly staring straight ahead, not even acknowledging the fact that he just cut her off- that he almost just clipped her in the process. She knows it’s the failed interview, and the empty pit in her stomach, and her having been up for over twelve hours now- but she doesn’t care; Belly lays on her horn. It works, and he looks over at her through his closed window. By some karmic miracle her lane begins to move a bit faster than his; she’s just barely able to get out her “Fucking asshole!” before he’s two car lengths behind her. She’s still seething when about three minutes later she hears that merciful beep as she passes between the unoccupied booths, and now she’s entering the bridge. She takes a deep breath and looks out at the Pacific in front of her.
Belly had always longed to live near the ocean, it’s partly why she chose to go to school out here. Sure Philly was only about a ninety-minute drive, and yeah, her family had done their annual trips to Atlantic City or the Jersey Shore- but California, she realized after only about a week, is singular. And living so close to the water, being able to go anytime she wants, is something out of her wildest dreams. Despite the fruitless job hunting, and the apartment she can barely afford, and the traffic, she's happy here. She could see herself staying after she graduated; building a real life.
(She has no idea.)
Only about five minutes have elapsed since her near miss, and she's actually over the water now, her car rolling along steadily as she’s in her head waxing poetic about the West Coast, when there's another slowdown. It's typical, they're approaching the arch, it usually happens right around here. Belly applies her break, still admiring the view to her right, when all of a sudden her car is being forcibly jerked forward, thankfully stopping before it nudges the Subaru in front of her, and she's gasping. It wasn't a hard hit; it felt akin to being knocked from behind in a bumper car (if you ignore the muffled sound of scraping metal).
She'd never been in a fender bender before; she'd never been in any accident before, and definitely not in this car. She was trembling, her heart sinking into her stomach.
She immediately whips her head around and-
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Well, good, is Belly’s second thought, I'm suing. Range Rover? Reasonably deep pockets; good insurance. She’s mentally rehearsing how she’s going to act faint and then claim whiplash tomorrow after she gets off of the phone with her adjuster.
And then, Belly’s third thought is (shamefully), if I had a little less self control I would park, jump out right here, and swing this Hydro Flask into your windshield. But she doesn’t do that, of course; she resigns to merely staring daggers back at him, watching as he rips off his sunglasses, panicked and apologetic from what she can see. Belly doesn’t care if he gets on his knees and begs, she’s calling Anh Phoong.
As soon as their eyes meet she’s angrily pointing to the sign reading Exit 4, onto Yerba Buena, and he’s nodding, following her down the off-ramp when they come to it. Belly eventually finds safe parking in front of a condo complex off Macalla. She’s still bubbling with rage when she finally kills the ignition and steps out, all five-foot-six (and a half) of her, in her classy navy mini and slingback pumps. She immediately storms around to the back of her bug after slamming her door.
“Fucking great,” she mutters under her breath, her hands still a little shaky as she holds her phone at her side.
“Hey, are you-” she hears from just behind her on the sidewalk, turning back around to finally come face to face with this-
…oh.
So, face to face isn’t accurate, actually; more like face to chest, at best. Belly has to look up as he approaches her, squinting a little from the sun overhead.
“Uh..” the very tall man starts again, clearing his throat, “Are you alright? I’m…I’m so sorry,”
As Belly begins to take him in, with his hands contritely twisting in front of him, and his bangs falling boyishly into his now visible eyes, and his sincerely concerned tone, she thinks maybe she was slightly hasty in her judgement.
“Y-yeah,” she says, a bit of her ire extinguished, swallowing around the dryness in her throat, “You’re..a really shitty driver,” she adds, trying to refortify herself by straightening her posture a bit. Her bold honesty immediately elicits a breathy chuckle from the man.
“Yeah,” he says, and then, “Here,”, almost to himself, taking a few steps to his left to block the sun from her eyes with his shadow, inadvertently giving himself a full body halo in the process. Before Belly can process how gentlemanly that was to do, she’s being confronted with the sight of him unimpeded for the very first time, and-
Oh.
He’s..he's really hot.
She knew he was brunette, and tan- but he has the palest green eyes she’s ever seen. His lips, now that they're not being antsily chewed and viewed through a bug splattered windshield, are perfect; pale pink, plush, and she thinks he has a beauty mark right above his cupid’s bow (but she tries not to linger on it). His navy blue cotton t-shirt is being accompanied by medium wash denim jeans- Levi’s, she thinks. Appropriate. And they fit him like they were made for him- maybe they were, she considers; maybe he’s a model.
It occurs to Belly after about five full seconds that she’s staring, just silently blinking up at him. Before she's able to open her mouth and put her foot in it, he kindly asks again,
“You’re sure you’re okay? Is your..neck stiff at all?”
Belly slowly shakes her head. People are far too litigious these days, she thinks.
“No, really I’m…I’m fine,” she says, steeling herself once more so she can add “My bumper isn’t, though,”, nodding toward the slightly lopsided metal, and shallowly dented wheel well. She crosses her arms over her chest as she does, petulantly, and she swears she can see the faintest grin as the man nods and reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, sliding out his license.
“Insurance paperwork is in my glovebox,” he says before walking around to his passenger door to grab it. Belly watches him for a moment, and then looks down at the laminate rectangle in her freshly painted fingertips.
Conrad Beck Fisher. 2004...twenty-two.
She looks back up watching him nearly bend in half to duck down into his car.
“So..” she says, loudly enough for him to hear as she brings her phone up to take pictures, “In a hurry?” she asks, refusing to allow herself to let him off the hook. He still hit her, regardless of how tall, and handsome, and seemingly kind-
“I have-” Conrad starts to say, standing up straight and beginning to walk back over to her, paperwork in hand- but Belly interrupts him when something on the corner of his front windshield catches her eye.
“You go to Stanford?” she asks, and Conrad stops, turning to follow her line of sight to his parking sticker.
He looks back, continuing over to her,
“Yeah…I was going to say, I have a..” he begins again, but trails off as if it’s unimportant, shaking his head, “Doesn’t really matter, I was being reckless, in a rush..no excuse,” he says, and Belly looks up at him from under her lashes after she finishes snapping a photo of his license plate.
“You late now?” she asks, moving on to taking pictures of his registration and insurance card.
Conrad sighs, with a wry smile, shrugging a “Yeah,”, and Belly quietly quips,
“Well, it serves you right,”
(Belly doesn’t know this, but Conrad was actually just struck by lightning on this sunny Bay Area sidewalk.)
“Oh, yeah?” he asks, and Belly looks back up again.
“Mhm,” she nods assuredly, holding his belongings back out for him to take. Conrad doesn't move for a second; he just stands there, still, looking down at her, and Belly feels a prickle of heat rise on her cheeks. He very quickly recollects how to use his arms, taking back the documentation, and then smoothly says,
“I’ll, uh, tell my patient that,”, and Belly lifts an inquisitive brow.
“Stanford medical?”
“Yeah,” he says, looking down as he folds the page back in half, and then after a pause adds casually, “I mean hopefully I can tell her..she was coding, so..”
Belly’s lips part, her entire body from the neck down running cold as Conrad glances back over at her. She's flashing back to every episode of Grey's Anatomy she's ever watched.
“Oh…I..” Belly begins to say, feeling like the biggest bitch on the planet- but then she sees that subtle grin Conrad was sporting a minute ago reappear, growing, and her jaw fully drops.
“You’re sick,” she says, trying for sharp but landing just shy, and with a damning smile tugging at her own lips.
Conrad smirks at her then, actually fucking smirks, and it knocks the breath out of her.
“I was actually just late for a lab,” he concedes, “Distracted and..I really am sorry…..” he trails off, questioningly, and Belly feels something flutter in her stomach.
“Isabel,” she says after a moment, and she knows she's in trouble.
“Isabel,” Conrad says, nodding to himself as if he liked the way it sounded on his tongue. She does too. She really, really does.
“It’s..it’s okay,” she says, her hand coming up of it’s own volition to shyly tuck a strand of wind blown hair behind her ear.
God I’m so fucking easy, she thinks.
“Y’know..” Conrad starts, and Belly tries to appear not as suddenly enamored as she feels. He momentarily glances back down at the folded papers in his hands, and she thinks briefly that he might be nervous. “I should probably…give you my number,” he says, and Belly feels like she's just been thrust up onto the apex of Medusa.
“Oh, yeah?” Belly echos back at him, and she feels pretty good about it.
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging again, “if you..have trouble filing the claim,” and Belly finally permits that small smile to cross her lips, “if you need to get in touch with me,” he finishes.
“That's…probably a good idea,” she acquiesces, her tone not belying just how twisty her insides feel, pressing her lips together as she hands him her phone, thinking it looks exceedingly tiny in his absolutely massive hands-
Fuck.
She watches as he types in his details, chewing on her bottom lip, releasing it only when he finishes and hands the device back to her, her fingertips brushing his knuckles.
“Cool,” he says, very uncooly, and oh, Belly might be fucked.
She nods, adding a soft “Cool,” back at him, almost teasing. They stand there for a beat, on this sidewalk on this tiny island, and she can feel something shifting- something potentially larger than the San Andreas.
“I uh…I really am sorry, again,” he says, and now Belly means it when she says,
“It’s really okay,” and Conrad nods at her one last time, taking a single step backward like he’s willing himself to go.
“And you’re..okay to drive back?” he asks, and now Belly’s smile is growing.
(There’s that lightning again.)
“It’s not totaled,” she lightly chides, and he laughs self-consciously.
“Right,” he says, and then another step.
“Okay,” Belly nods, as if she’s giving him permission to actually get into his car.
Conrad finally manages to tear his eyes away from her, turning, and-
God, she thinks, completely and utterly endeared.
She takes two steps toward her bug now, heels clicking against the pavement. Two more-
“Actually,” she hears, and her heart drops into her stomach again, this time in the most thrilling way.
Yes, she thinks.
“This is…probably..insane,” he says, another nervous chuckle, and Belly thinks this is one of those moments; the ones you’ll think about when you’re old.
“Would you..” he begins.
Yes, she thinks again.
“Would you..consider letting me take you out to dinner?”
Belly has to compose herself now. She’s the prize.
And like, okay, for a fleeting moment it does occur to her just how truly insane this really is- and, like, potentially dangerous. I mean she doesn’t actually know this guy- and he literally just rear ended her. But..
“I’d..I'd like that, yeah,” she says instead, and watches his face instantly transform.
“Great,” he exhales softly, his tone one of relief, and Belly can feel her heart leaping in her chest, her entire body humming. She tucks a few more strands of hair behind her ear as they get blown about by another soft breeze, and he adds, “Just..text me?”
Belly nods, a seriously unhinged smile threatening to overtake her mouth in the next few seconds if they don’t separate soon.
“I will,” she says, flushed as she finally pops open her door. She slides right in- but he lingers, for just a second longer, before finally opening his own. Belly thinks she’s definitely insane for the things she’s thinking right now- like, seriously life altering thoughts.
She buckles, her hands a little shaky again as she slides her phone back into her bag on her passenger seat, and watches as he very carefully pulls away from the curb. He turns right, back out onto Macalla in the direction of the on-ramp, and as soon as he’s fully out of view Belly beams- like fully, unabashedly, beams, and lets out a small squeak.
A tall, hot, kind doctor. Her mother is going to-
“Hammy?!” a little voice cuts in, and Belly stops, smiling as she looks down, fingertips brushing through the little hairs at the nape of his neck identical to his father’s.
"Mhm," she hums softly.
“My hammy?” the small voice asks then, and Belly nods.
(Halmeoni. Laurel almost cries every time he says it; she’s besotted.)
“Your hammy,” Belly says, then hears a lighthearted, much deeper voice come from the doorway.
“There is no way you’re still awake,”
“Daddy!”
Belly's smile widens as she watches their son scramble toward the end of the bed, Conrad reaching down instantly to scoop him up into his arms. She watches those identical pairs of green eyes crease at their corners, Conrad squeezing him tightly.
“Missed you,” he murmurs into his cheek as he presses a kiss there.
“I missed you too Daddy,” he says, and Belly’s chest floods with an indescribable warmth.
“It is way past your bedtime,” Conrad says then, a smile on his lips as he does, and their son ducks his head into Conrad’s neck.
“He wanted to wait for you,” Belly says, leaning back into the pillows with a soft sigh, her hand running over her five month bump beneath Conrad’s tattered Stanford pullover.
“Wait for me?” Conrad asks playfully, and he feels a nod against his throat, beginning to walk around to Belly’s side of the bed still holding the tiny weight on his hip. He leans down and presses a soft peck to Belly's lips, his free hand warm and wide as it rests on her bump beside hers. “Well I guess that’s okay then,” he says softly, pressing another kiss, and then another before mournfully straightening back up, their son now a noodle in his arms.
“Say goodnight mommy,” Conrad says as his limp mini-me slumps further into his chest, little balled fist twisting against his eye.
“Goodnight mommy,” he says, and the love in Belly’s eyes is so profound as she says,
“Goodnight bug,”, Conrad leaning him down once more, smiling as he puckers his little lips for her. Belly watches as Conrad takes him to bed, and by the time they make it down the hall and flick on his dinosaur nightlight, he’s fast asleep.
About five minutes later Conrad walks back in, and Belly's smiling mischievously up at him, watching him undo his tie.
“Daddy!” she says, and Conrad chokes on a laugh, closing his eyes as his hands still on the two tails, listening to Belly knowingly giggle from their bed. When he opens them again he’s smirking at her in a reprimand, tossing the silk onto their shared dresser, beginning to work on his buttons. “He loves you so much,” she says, and Conrad smiles, one of Belly’s favorite smiles.
Belly had never thought much about kids- well, no, that’s not true; Belly had thought about kids, mostly that she didn’t know if she’d ever have any. And then she met Conrad, and everything she thought she knew about herself and what she wanted was blown to pieces in the best possible way. Belly did, actually, end up being offered the job at Berkeley; and just seven months later, when her lease was up, she was moving in with him. Is that insane? Yes. Is it even more insane that two weeks after Belly graduated, only a little more than one year after they met, they were eloping in Monterey? Again, yes, absolutely.
“I love him more,” Conrad says then, and Belly blinks back to the present. “And how is she doing?” he asks, nodding toward Belly’s bump, and she runs her hand over it in a small circle.
“She was also waiting up for you,” she says, and Conrad smiles pridefully.
“Active today?” he asks, and Belly nods.
“Very,” she says.
Conrad sighs softly, “Like her dad,”
“Bad?” Belly asks, leaning her cheek back against her pillow, and Conrad shakes his head, walking toward their bathroom.
“Just hectic,” he says, and Belly smiles, “But we didn’t lose anyone,” he adds gratefully, and her heart warms.
“That’s great,” she says, and means it, and Conrad stops with his shirt half undone, walking back around to her side of the bed. Belly watches him, closing her eyes as he leans down to press a real kiss to her lips this time.
“I love you so much, do you know that?” he asks, the hand not on his bottom button coming up to cup her cheek, thumb caressing the hollow.
“I do,” she says, and Conrad kisses her again, breathing her in before he reluctantly drags himself away.
She watches him strip the rest of the way down as he walks into their bathroom, her eyelids beginning to grow heavier. She listens as he gets in, the running water acting as a sort of white noise, sleep almost having claimed her by the time she finally smells the very husbandly scent of his body wash and feels the bed dip just slightly as he carefully climbs in beside her. He reaches up and behind to turn off the sconce, and then his arms are around her, pulling her onto his chest. She feels his hand run up under her(his) pullover, protective, his lips peppering kisses; forehead, temple, cheek, temple. She smiles.
“He wanted to hear how we met again,” she mumbles softly into the warm skin over his heart, and Conrad grins.
“Again?” he asks, beginning to run his other hand's fingertips gently over the little wisps of hair in front of her ear, and Belly nods.
“S’so cute..” she slurs.
“Mommy wanted to kill Daddy,” Conrad smiles into the crown of her head, and she jostles with a soft snort.
“Mm,” Belly hums, “Mommy did almost kill daddy,” she corrects. A total lie, they both know, and Conrad smirks.
“I think I made it up to you..” he whispers, and Belly shivers.
He did.
The Friday after the accident he took her to dinner, in Napa. To say Belly was wooed by the evening would be an understatement. By the time he dropped her off, unknowingly breaking her (somewhat recently established) ‘No Kissing on the First Date’ rule on her stoop, she was dying to call Taylor. She had met her future husband, she was sure of it.
She was right.
The following weekend they went on their second date; he took her to Han Il Kwan, a Korean restaurant on Balboa. She had mentioned once, only very briefly during their first date, that she hadn’t found a favorite spot in the city yet, having not lived here for too long. (Belly wouldn’t know this until a year into their marriage, but Conrad spent three hours that night after he got home looking for the perfect place.) He ordered everything she seemed even vaguely interested in, and left an extremely generous tip. They’d go back again for their fifth date, midday this time, and then make the ten-minute walk to Golden Gate Park. He’d hold her hand as they crossed Fulton, and kiss her next to the Rose Garden. Belly would tell their daughter that was when she was sure; she was in love.
He’d say it first, six weeks to the day after that day on the bridge, while they were pedal boating Blue Heron Lake, something Belly had joked about wanting to do that day at the Rose Garden. Conrad thought she was serious.
Oh, and is six weeks insane? Yes yet again.
Belly thinks that's just what they are, and she no longer remembers what it feels like not to be.
He said it while she was laughing at him; at his long legs folded nearly in half to fit into the cramped seat, knees rising to his chest with each turn of the pedals. He just blurted it out, right in the middle of her teasingly telling him through a fit of giggles that he was scaring the geese with his grunting. She stopped breathing when he said it, watching as he stared back at her with wide eyes and opened his mouth ready to frantically apologize- but then she kissed him, and when she pulled back her eyes were a little glassy and she softly shoved his chest before pulling him back in and saying, shakily, “I love you too”. To that point, it was the greatest moment of Conrad’s life.
“I really was in love with you the second I saw you,” he says then, as if reading her mind, and Belly smiles sleepily.
She knows. He’s told her countless times. That, and,
“When you got out of that bug, in that dress, and told me that I drive like shit, I knew I was going to marry you.”
“Y’know,” Belly mumbles into his chest, shifting slightly as their daughter presses a foot up under her ribs, “I think we would have met anyway,” and Conrad tips his head a bit to look down at her, smiling.
“Do you really?” he asks, and Belly nods against him, eyes still closed. He cranes his lips down a final time, pressing one last tender, lingering kiss to her forehead, murmuring,
“Me too.”