Faces in the Rear-View Mirror

Omar was my first. He was a PhD student at Brown and rented a Ford station wagon for the occasion. We met outside North Station where I spotted him in the Montreal Canadiens T-shirt he had promised to wear. Three other people were in the car - Kristina, Andreas, and Winston. Kristina studied Spanish literature at Brown and was Omar’s neighbour. Andreas was a “random” they had hooked up with through the Brown graduate student website. Winston studied Spanish at Harvard and was Kristina's friend, although the backseat hand flirting I witnessed while crammed in with them led me to believe they were more-than, or intended to be. Omar blasted Kanye West and politically-tinged underground hip-hop for most of the ride. Except every now and then he’d add some Frank Sinatra into the mix which raised eyebrows all around.

***

I didn’t think I would like Jason at first. From my vantage point behind the passenger seat he looked like Ryan, the smarmy intern-turned-boss from The Office. But Jason turned out to be a nice guy, a sardonic violinist and German teacher who described himself over the phone as “pretty much as safe a driver as they get.” We listened to Led Zeppelin and Phish and commiserated about being in long-distance relationships. On the way back to Boston we were joined by a sweet girl with blonde hair and big eyes, an art student in her early 20s. When Jason dropped her off near Boston Common and asked for her 35 dollars, she handed him a cheque, explaining the rest-stop ATMs she had visited would not accept her cards.

“Who travels with a cheque book?” Jason said as soon as she left the car. Incredulous, he promised to text me if the cheque didn’t bounce; I’m still waiting to hear from him.

***

My last Rideshare was with Raj. She picked me up in front of Dusty’s, the Montreal breakfast joint I’ll only frequent on New Year’s Day. She drove a beat-up grey sedan and hadn’t printed out Mapquest directions; we were making our way to Brookline on instinct. Neither of us had brought CDs but the conversation flowed from real estate to Barack Obama to travel epiphanies without hesitancy. Raj ran “math camps” for inner-city kids at Boston public schools and, in the summer, for wealthy businessmen at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Recently the McGill alumnus decided to move back up north despite not speaking any French. She said she loved the city and was determined to give it a go.

I hope it works out for her.