“Seriously, this apartment is like twice as big as our last place and I still don’t know where to put anything.”
“Ugh,” Matt said, leaning over to look into one of the boxes, which was filled with the most random of our possessions—Post-it notes, a shower cap, a pair of wooden lovebirds. “Let’s just toss it.”
“Deal,” I said. I stepped over the pile of stuff around me and sat on the couch as he went to the kitchen to get himself a beer.
“How was work?” I asked.
“Good,” he said. He sat down on the couch with a sigh and leaned his head back. “I’m so tired.”
“Too tired for a trip to the grocery store? I was thinking we could go to the Giant up on Connecticut.”
“Why do you want to go all the way up there?”
“We need so much stuff. It’s not that far. I can’t eat Chipotle again for dinner. The employees are starting to recognize us and it’s getting embarrassing.”
“I know,” Matt said. “The manager seemed genuinely excited to see me last night.”
“We basically have no food in the house. I just think the Giant is our best bet.”
There were two Safeways within walking distance of our apartment, but they were both disappointing, full of dirty produce and questionable meat. In DC, all of the Safeways had nicknames—the one in Georgetown was the Social Safeway, because apparently it was a good place to find a date, although I never met anyone who actually got picked up there. There was the Stinky Safeway (self-explanatory), the Underground Safeway, the UnSafeway. The two closest to us were the Secret Safeway, because it was tiny and hidden away on a side street, and the Soviet Safeway, because the shelves were always bare.
People found these nicknames charming. I found them stupid. When I went to the Soviet Safeway for milk and had to walk away empty-handed because the dairy case was empty, I wasn’t amused. I just wanted them to get new management.
“We need a real grocery store,” I continued. “One that has actual food on the shelves.”
“Do you think you could take the car and go?” Matt asked. He gave me an apologetic look. “I’m so beat.”
Matt had started insisting that I drive as soon as I got to DC. “You just have to get used to it again,” he kept saying. But I disagreed. After living in New York for seven years, I’d pretty much completely forgotten how to drive. When I went home to Madison, I sometimes dared to take my parents’ car a few blocks, gripping the wheel at 10 and 2 and riding the brake the whole time.
Even when I was a teenager, my dad had to beg me to practice driving, taking me to empty parking lots where I coasted along at fifteen miles an hour, slammed on the brake when it was time to turn. Some people love driving, love the feeling of being in control, swerving in and out of lanes; I’ve always preferred being a passenger.
I’d driven exactly once since I’d been in DC, when we went to brunch in Georgetown. I’d panicked as I tried to parallel-park and a line of cars honked at me like I was purposely holding them up. Matt and I had to switch places so that he could pull the car into the parking spot, which was mortifying. And now here he was, casually suggesting that I “take the car” like he was going to trick me into driving.
“I don’t really know where I’m going,” I finally said.
“You have the GPS. And you know where you’re going.”
“I really don’t. I have no idea where anything is.”
“Beth, it’s like riding a bike. I promise. You just need to get back on.”
“I think you mean, it’s like a horse. The saying is, get back on the horse.”
“Yeah, sure, okay. Driving is like that. You need to get back on the horse.”
“Well, I hate horses. You know that.”
Matt looked at me, like he couldn’t decide whether or not to be amused.
“Fine,” I said, grabbing the car keys. “I’ll go.”
I walked out the door, waiting for him to come after me. When he didn’t, I said, “Fuck,” and went to the car, which was parked in an alley that was home to the biggest rats I’ve ever seen. Just a few days earlier, one had charged at me and I’d screamed bloody murder. Matt said it sounded like I was being assaulted, and I said that’s what it felt like. It was something no one had told me about DC—the rats are bigger there. And bolder. I think the warm weather makes them this way.