Hi everyone,
This is a one-shot that takes place in New York in November 2010, two days after Betty and Daniel have gotten engaged, six months after he met her in London.
For readers who have followed all of my stories, this fits into universe of my other fics—picks up just after the finale of Fall Into Winter. For those who haven't, it reads as a standalone as well.
It explores how a mishap affects an experience that Betty expected would be mundane and that Daniel thought would be fun, and gives them a glimpse into a potentially long future together.
Feedback always thrills me.—Anne
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the original storyline of Ugly Betty, etc.
One-Shot: Backed Into the Future
"Whose idea was this?" Bobby groaned, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel of his old Ford Explorer. At a standstill in the Costco parking garage, he put the SUV in Park while he and the rest of his carload—Hilda beside him; Ignacio, Betty and Daniel on the bench seat behind—waited for a wisp-haired man to load groceries into his sizable olive-green Buick.
The man, who had a startlingly long nose and wore his khaki slacks up around his nipples, shuffled to the Buick's back door to place a 24-pack of eggs on the seat. Mmm, omelets, Betty thought. She wondered what kind of free samples they'd be handing out once they all got inside. Chicken pot pie, maybe?
"Get out and help him," Hilda told Bobby. "He's, like, older than God. Well, older than Papi, anyway."
"I heard that," Ignacio said. To Daniel, he said, "I can't believe the disrespect . . ."
"I'm not going to get out and help him," Bobby said. "He'll be insulted. He'll think I'm just itching to get into his parking space."
"Well, aren't you?" Hilda said. "It's the last one in the lot; we could be here all freakin' day."
"We're going to be here all day anyway." Ignacio shook his head.
"Wow," Daniel remarked, craning his neck to peer at the old man through the Explorer's dirty windshield. Now the guy was setting items gingerly in the trunk of the Buick. "That's a lot of high-fiber cereal."
"By the way," Betty pointed out, "this was your idea, Bobby. You saw that coupon for the laptop Justin wants and were all, 'It's only good through tomorrow!' Then Daniel got all excited about a big trip to Costco . . ."
"What?" Daniel was defensive. "I've never actually been to Costco, okay? When Bobby brought it up, I thought it would be fun."
"Fun? The day after Black Friday?" Ignacio shook his head. "Only worse day to come would've been yesterday. Look at this parking lot. Ay. Elena was smart to stay home and unpack boxes."
"You're sure you're ready for this living-together thing, Pops?" Bobby asked, looking at Ignacio in the rear-view mirror. "Seems like you just got the place to yourself."
"Well, one thing's for sure: Going to finally break down and fix the downstairs bathroom," Ignacio said. His face lit up. "Hey, do you think they sell toilets here?"
"Probably in a four-pack." Bobby, seeing the old man shut the trunk of the Buick, shifted the Explorer back into Drive.
"You've really never been to Costco?" Ignacio said to Daniel.
"Nope. Only heard about it."
"It's not that exciting," Betty said, yawning. She didn't wish to dim Daniel's enthusiasm for his first big-box shopping experience, but—like her father—she couldn't help questioning her own sanity, coming to this god-forsaken place on the busiest shopping weekend of the year. Shopping with Hilda yesterday had been fun—up early, ramped up on coffee, jostling with jovial shoppers to save real money on items she couldn't even get in England. Like her favorite tights. And a new flat-iron just like the one she already owned that didn't get quite hot enough anymore. The sweater sale at Macy's, those adorable boots for 75 percent off. Costco was just . . . dull. And way too big.
"We should check how much the diapers cost here," Hilda said to Bobby.
"Come on, mister," Bobby groaned. "How long does it take to buckle your seatbelt? Hilda, we got four months before we got to worry about diapers."
"Honey, your mother must be rolling in her grave," Ignacio said. "She used cloth diapers on both you and your sister. And Justin."
"Mami used cloth on Justin," Hilda retorted. "I used disposable on him. Cloth diapers were disgusting. I even remember that from when Betty was a baby. I used to have to change . . ."
"Can we not go there? Just this once?" Betty asked, rolling her eyes. Leave it to Hilda to grasp onto every opportunity to mention the fact that she had changed her diapers.
"Oh, don't be so touchy," Hilda said, snickering. "You had the softest little baby butt . . ."
"Oh, my God." Betty stared out the window, feeling Daniel shaking with suppressed laughter beside her. She elbowed him. "Shut up."
Daniel took her hand and wiggled the sapphire ring on her left finger. "We better get this sized," he murmured. "Obviously, my grandmother's fingers were bigger than yours."
Betty put her right hand over his and beamed at him, her sister's ribbing forgotten. She still could hardly believe Daniel had proposed two days ago, and that she now wore this Meade family heirloom. Every time she looked at the ring, she felt her belly do a happy flip. "Soon as we get back to London," she whispered.
"Lovey dovey, lovey dovey," said Hilda.
"Ah, finally!" Bobby lifted his foot off the brake and crept forward as the Buick's reverse lights came on.
Just then the Buick shot backward out of the parking spot, screeching rubber and scraping its front fender on the car beside it.
"Whoa! Shit!" Bobby yelled, at the same moment as the Buick slammed into the Explorer's front bumper, throwing everyone backward against their seats, then forward again.
"Are you okay?" Bobby asked Hilda, who held her hands over her belly.
"Yeah, I think so." Hilda tilted her head, testing her neck. "That was, like, reverse whiplash."
"Everybody?" Bobby turned around. "Aw, hell. Chipmunk, what'd you do?"
"I think I bit my lip." Betty held her hand to her mouth.
"Let me see." Daniel leaned around her, examining the bleeding cut in the center of her lower lip. His own neck was already stiffening and he hoped he hadn't been irreparably damaged when the lap belt cut into his groin. His hipbone throbbed.
"Ignacio? Okay?" Bobby touched his father-in-law's knee.
"Yeah, yeah. Fine. Hilda, you're sure?"
"Yeah, just a little headache from hitting this headrest."
"Daniel?" Bobby asked.
"Good."
Bobby leaped out of the car, heading for the driver's side of the Buick.
"Go with him," Betty told Daniel.
"But you're bleeding. And all . . . shaky."
"Come on. I'm all right. Let's go make sure that man's okay." Betty nudged Daniel with her elbow.
Daniel opened the door and he, Betty and Ignacio tumbled out of the car. Bobby was already at the driver's side of the Buick—back end smashed up against the Explorer, still running. He pulled the door open, leaning in to cut the engine.
"Hey!" he hollered, his head inside the Buick. "Call 911!"
Daniel couldn't believe the man could be injured. He hadn't hit the Explorer that hard. While Betty ran back to grab her phone, Daniel joined Bobby at the car door, rubbing the back of his neck.
The man was unconscious in the driver's seat, his head back, mouth open. Bobby had the guy's wrist in his hand.
"I think I feel a pulse," he said, "but I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Does he look like he's breathing?"
"Jesus. I don't know." Daniel had no idea what to do. "That little fender-bender couldn't have done this."
"No. I wonder if he had a stroke or something. Look, the poor guy . . ." Bobby gestured to the wet spot on the front of the old man's pants.
Daniel crowded in next to Bobby and knelt down. "Hey, mister," he said, touching the man's upper arm. "It's okay, huh? We called the paramedics."
"I don't know if he can hear you," Bobby said, backing away. "Don't try and move him or anything."
Behind him, Daniel heard Hilda and Betty and Ignacio talking with Bobby. Heart attack, stroke, seizure, spinal cord injury . . . He leaned in closer to the old man. Now that he was chest level with the man, he could see that he was, in fact, breathing. And beginning to tremble.
"You've been in a minor car accident," Daniel told him. "Can you hear me? We're getting you some help."
Daniel remembered the car accident he had gotten into with Alexis a few years back. He recalled waking up as he was being transferred to a stretcher, a backboard stiff beneath his spine. His gut-churning terror at tasting blood in his mouth, vomit surging while he was strapped down on his back, trapped inside his own wretched body, his leg feeling as though it might be shattered in half, pain everywhere. Voices talking about him—male, Caucasian, 30s, dislocated something-or-other—but not to him. The swirling trees and shifting lack of control as he was tilted, his whole body quaking, toward the ground in the dark. Radios crackling with flat voices and static. Lights throwing red flashes through the trees. Thinking about old episodes of The X-Files with creatures thrashing through dense underbrush . . .
"You're going to be okay," he said, scooting over on the greasy asphalt as Betty pushed in beside him and held the old man's hand.
"Hear those sirens?" she told the man, rubbing his cracked skin with her smooth fingers, the brilliant blue and sparkly ring glinting in the Buick's dome light. "They're almost here."
"It might be a little loud and scary," Daniel added, imagining what he'd heard in the forest ricocheting off the cars and concrete. "But, really, they're here to help."
The old man nodded, his movement so slight that Daniel almost didn't notice it. Daniel caught Betty's eye, and they exchanged a small smile. She had seen it, too.
By the time the ambulance and police car pulled in and paramedics took over, a crowd had gathered in the parking garage. A woman dressed in a moo-moo sat on a 50-pound sack of weight-control dog food while her guy stood nearby, 20-ounce soda and loaded hot dog in hand, a brick-red stain dotting his extra-large polo shirt. Beside them, an elderly woman holding a rotisserie chicken griped pointedly about "those SUV drivers that race around parking garages like a bat out of hell." When another onlooker—a thin-lipped guy with dark-rimmed glasses and a goatee—informed her that the driver of the Buick had actually reversed into the SUV, the older woman tsked-tsked about senior citizens needing to know when it was time to turn in their driver's licenses.
While the paramedics extricated the driver of the Buick, the police officers captured the man's wallet from his pocket, compared his driver's license—"this expired two years ago," the officer said, shaking his head—with the car registration found in the car's glove box, and gave the man's name as Abraham Goldman, his age 84.
"With a name that common," said the officer, "we'll never find his family." He handed the wallet to the other officer. "Dig through here and see if you can find any other identifying information."
"It's right here on the car registration," the other officer said. "Car's registered to him and one Edna Goldman."
"That'll help."
"Any insurance information?" asked Bobby. The Buick had scraped up the Explorer's bumper pretty good.
"Not seeing any. You the driver of the Explorer here?"
Bobby would need to give a statement. "Why don't you and your dad go on in and get the laptop?" he suggested to Hilda. "This is going to take a few minutes."
After Hilda and Ignacio left, Betty and Daniel watched as the paramedics loaded the man onto a stretcher and transferred him into the ambulance.
"Excuse me," Daniel said, stepping forward. "Where will you take him?"
"ER right up here at New York Hospital." The paramedic ducked into the ambulance, calling up front to the driver, "He's starting to come around."
The ambulance rolled away, its lights flashing, siren off. The crowd began to disperse, people heading back to their cars lugging their purchases or heading toward the elevator and digging their Costco cards out of their wallets.
"Go on inside," Bobby told Betty and Daniel, wagging his cell phone. "Hopefully this won't take too long. Betty, I've got your cell number. I'll find you guys in there."
Daniel took Betty's hand and together they waited for the elevator, then rode in silence with other shoppers to the Costco's entrance. There, Betty talked their way past the door clerk by explaining that her sister was already inside with the family Costco membership card.
Daniel had never seen a mayonnaise jar that big. Or such a huge bag of dry pinto beans—"My God, that's got to be 50 pounds!" he marveled. In his hand, he cradled a small white cup of Jelly Bellys. "Do they sell these things by the bushel, too?"
"No," Betty replied, looking past other shoppers. He knew she was searching out Hilda and her dad. Daniel had led her the wrong direction when they came in and they had somehow bypassed the electronics section and were now trapped in the grocery aisles, where he was gratefully distracted by the large volumes of foodstuffs and, of course, the samples. All the way downstairs in the elevator, he couldn't quit thinking about Abraham Goldman trembling behind the wheel of that Buick.
Betty leaned between a cluster of people and expertly grabbed two paper cups filled with steaming tamales. She handed one to Daniel. "These aren't as good as we make in Jackson Heights, but they'll tide you over til dinner."
Daniel picked jelly bean goo out of his molars, not wanting to contaminate the tamales with blueberry corn syrup. He wondered if Abraham Goldman had real teeth.
Betty nibbled on the tamales, careful not to let the spork touch her cut lip. Daniel noticed it had stopped bleeding, but it was swollen and a little purple. "You okay?" he asked, touching a gentle finger to an uncut part of her lip. For a moment, he wished he were truly alone with her, to check in after the unnerving incident in the parking garage.
"Yeah, fine. How about you?" She snaked her arm around his waist and they stood belly-to-belly next to a display of pretzels.
"Truth? My neck hurts and—" He looked around and waited half a beat for a guy behind them to grab a box of Cheez-Its. "—that lap belt nearly took a big bite out of our sex life."
"What?" Betty stepped back and glanced down at the front of his jeans, her hand resting on top of his hip bone. Funny, he thought, she didn't seem all that alarmed about his neck.
"I'm okay," he said. He leaned over and tossed his tamale cup and spork in a trash can. "But I'd feel better if I knew that guy had someone to meet him at the hospital."
"I'm sure he did."
"I'm not." Daniel reached to stop Betty as she started toward a kiosk of brownie bites, and ended up following her. "Wait. Betty— this . . . just feels wrong."
"What?" She snatched a couple of brownies and handed one to him. "They're samples. It's fine as long as you don't come back, like, a million times. Besides, brownies are never wrong."
"No, I know. It's just—" Daniel cast his hand around, taking in the bags of pretzels that could feed 500 people and the 24-packs of candy bars. "It's just . . . that poor old man backed into our car and was taken to the hospital by himself and we're in here—stuffing our faces."
"Daniel." Betty petted his upper arm as she chewed her brownie. "They said he was coming around. And they were going to call his wife."
"But what if she's . . . not able to come? He's 84."
Betty was beginning to get it; he could tell by the way she lifted her eyes to his and searched. "We don't even know him." Her tone was gentle. "And he doesn't know us."
"I know." Daniel backed up to allow a woman with a flatbed cart to maneuver around him. "But . . . ambulances, hospitals—all that stuff is scary."
"What do you want to do?" Betty squeezed his hand. "Go there? Get a cab? I can call Bobby and tell him we'll just meet them at the house later."
Daniel shrugged. He didn't, actually, want to go to the emergency room. He was terrible with medical scenes and emergency rooms made him especially uneasy. But how could he just stand here while that poor old guy might be in a frightening ER, all alone?
"Leave me alone." Abraham Goldman squinted at Daniel and Betty from the hospital bed. "Who the hell are you?"
Birdlike arms, liver-spotted and mottled with bruises and veins, emerged from the blue-and-white hospital gown, and the man's dark eyes narrowed further at Daniel and Betty—especially Daniel. The room smelled like disinfectant and old urine; it made Betty think of the blue house in Mexico where she'd discovered her maternal grandmother a few years back.
"We just came to make sure you're okay," Betty said. "We were in the car you hit in the Costco parking garage."
"I didn't hit anyone." Abraham Goldman picked at the blanket covering him. "Where's Edna?"
"I'm right here." From the doorway, a frail voice. Betty turned to see a white-haired woman—very short—hobbling in with a walker. "I just went to see about when you can go home. I told you that. Did you forget?"
"No, I didn't forget."
"He forgets," Edna Goldman said to Betty and Daniel. Her eyes were rheumy and blue; Betty could tell she had once been very pretty. "He forgot he isn't allowed to drive anymore."
"No, I didn't. It's just you said we needed more eggs and hay bales—"
"Hay bales?" Daniel mouthed to Betty.
"—you always say Costco has the best price on hay bales," Abraham Goldman accused his wife. Betty thought the man must truly be confused if he thought the Costco in Queens sold agricultural supplies.
"These nice people aren't here to talk about the price of cereal, Ham." Edna Goldman leaned over her walker and pulled the blanket a little higher on her husband's chest. She smiled at Betty. "Why are you here, exactly?"
"We just wanted to make sure he was okay." Now Betty felt awkward. Nosy. Like she and Daniel didn't belong in this hospital room with this man and his wife.
"Mother!" A middle-aged woman charged into the room. "Good thing you called me!"
"Oh, Sarah, we're fine."
"Daddy's obviously not fine." Then, to Abraham Goldman: "What were you thinking?"
"We needed eggs and hay bales . . ."
"Hay bales?" Sarah was exasperated.
"You know, honey, shredded wheat," said Edna Goldman. "You called it that when you were little and—"
"Oh, honestly, Mother."
Betty saw that Abraham Goldman was drifting off, drooling. His daughter still hadn't noticed the two strangers in the room, and Betty was about to introduce herself when Edna Goldman whispered to her daughter, "They think he may have had a little stroke, or one of his seizures."
Edna Goldman sighed then and reached for Abraham Goldman's hand. With his eyes closed, his mouth slack and dribbling, he squeezed his fingers around her hand in return. Sarah dropped her head, her fleshy cheeks wrinkling into her neck, and blinked quickly.
Betty gripped Daniel's hand and backed out of the room, pulling him with her. This was none of their business.
In Jackson Heights, Betty and Daniel sat on the steps, waiting for Bobby, Hilda and Ignacio to return with the house keys. Elena, it seemed, wasn't home. The house was locked up tight; Betty had left her keys in London. The weak late-November sun had set behind the house, and clouds were moving in quickly.
"I think we're going to have to fly out in some weather tomorrow afternoon," Daniel said. "Look at those purple clouds. Sure sign of snow."
"They're beautiful," Betty breathed.
Daniel turned his head, watching her stare out past the houses across the street to the purplish-blue bank of clouds. At the end of the street, the train rumbled by. Was she cold, or was it simply the bruise on her lip that made her look that way? He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
"You're beautiful," he said, stroking her dark hair with one hand.
She gave him a brief smile, then looked down at her hands and pulled her knit gloves off. She held her left hand up, and the sapphire gleamed. "So I've been thinking—"
"What about?" Daniel removed his leather glove and reached up and took her hand.
"A wedding."
"Spring, right?" That's what they had talked about last night over dinner at Madison Six. Where Daniel had dropped his name to get them a table in front, right by the window, and they had finally eaten a meal there. In memory of his father, who had been gone three years this week, Daniel had even ordered a quail appetizer. Betty claimed to understand the gesture, but in the end was too turned off by the cute little bird on the plate between them to actually taste it.
"I'm thinking sooner," she said.
"How come?" Daniel touched the diamonds on either side of the sapphire.
Betty shrugged.
"Why, Betty?" Daniel didn't really care when they got married, but he could tell something was on her mind.
She turned to him, her eyes watery in the cold. "I guess I'm just ready to get on with things. With our life together."
"Isn't that what we're already doing?" Daniel laughed. "We live together. We're engaged."
"I know." She squeezed his hand. "But before you know it, we'll be in our 80s—"
"You're thinking about that old couple today."
"I guess." Betty looked down at their clasped hands. "You think she still loves him?"
"I got that sense, yeah."
"I did, too. But maybe it was just wishful thinking."
"What do you mean?"
"It's just—" Betty twisted the ring on her finger. "I think about my parents and all they went through. And your parents—"
"Hardly a frame of reference there."
"Your mother went to his deathbed." Betty gazed dreamily at the clouds. "Even though they were divorced. Even though he was straight from his wedding to someone else. He wanted her there. When it all came down to it, they were together."
"When it all came down to it, maybe," Daniel said. "But I'd rather be together at the right times, for the right reasons."
"Maybe that's idealistic."
"How can you say that?" Daniel asked. "Your parents were, like, the perfect couple."
"No, they weren't." Betty shook her head. "But they came together for the big stuff. To come to America. To eek out a living. When Hilda got pregnant in high school. When Mami was sick. But it wasn't all moonlight and roses, Daniel. My mother had a nasty temper and my father can be the most closed-up man on earth, and they disagreed on some pretty huge issues."
Daniel shrugged. "I guess that's the stuff good marriages are made of, huh?"
"Well, my dad has a saying."
"What?"
"He says it's not about finding someone perfect. It's about finding someone whose faults you can tolerate."
Daniel smiled. "A wise man, your dad."
As the wind kicked up, he tugged her close again. "But he's wrong, you know. About us, anyway. We will be—we are—the perfect couple."
Betty snorted. "Yeah, okay," she said, resting her head against his shoulder. "Let's remember that next time you're mad at me for leaving the flat a huge mess."
Daniel laughed. "Good thing I like looking at your bras. Although I'd rather see them on you than dangling off the towel rack for weeks on end."
She pressed her cheek harder against his jacket and rubbed, almost like a cat, as she draped her hand along his inner thigh. "By the way, how's that seat belt injury?"
"Hard to say."
She giggled.
"We might need to, uh, try things out." Daniel put his hand over hers. "Although . . . where we staying tonight? Here or at my mom's?"
"Anyone going to be at your mom's?"
"Uh, yeah. My mom."
In Betty's sigh, Daniel heard the frustration of the last four nights spent with relatives. "I have an idea," he said.
"What?"
"Let's go to the Amsterdam. Sick, injured—it's all the same."
She lifted her head and gazed at him, her eyes sparkling with fun. "You really think we could get a room? It's a holiday weekend."
"Hey, I got us into Madison Six last night. I'm sure Mr. Sickington could get us into the Amsterdam."
"You're on."
Just then, the Explorer pulled up in front of the house, its front bumper bent up. Betty moved her hand off Daniel's thigh and started to stand up.
"Hey," he said, pulling back on her hand.
"What?"
"You still going to be able to tolerate my faults when I'm 85 and incontinent and obsessed with—" He shuddered. "—hay bales?"
She smiled and touched his cheek. "Yes," she whispered. "Even then."