Can't Buy Me Love

Chapter Nine

After fifteen minutes of silent driving Nathan apologised, “I’m sorry, this is all just so raw, and I hate my parents for dragging us into the world, my sister had no chance of doing anything more than she did.”

                “You obviously did...” she offered, surprised at this insight into Nathan’s psyche.

                “I ran away!” he announced with self loathing, “I ran and left her to a fate worse than death!”

Marina tried to hide her amazement, “was it that bad?”

He laughed and it almost scared her with the animosity it contained, “worse than hell! My parents didn’t deserve the title of mother and father. Selfish and self absorbed, me and my sister suffered. The result being that I ran away, she bombed out. And I’ve spent years bailing her out since.”

                “It’s not your fault, you know?” she touched his arm, “you’ve no need to feel guilty.”

Shrugging her hand off violently he turned to her, “you know nothing little girl, absolutely nothing!”

She wasn’t allowing him to do this, brush her off, “I know that this is hard for you and you’d change if it you could. All I know is that she had the same opportunities as you, that it was her choice to take the route she did. You think I’m a kid Nathan, but you also know I’m not. I can see how much this hurts you, and I’ll ignore your nastiness because of that.”

Nathan didn’t respond, instead he scowled out of the window not wanting to acknowledge that the erudite Marina had more than a valid point.

Marina dozed for a little while after that disastrous confrontation, and when she woke Nathan was humming along to “All I wanna do is make love to you” by Heart. She opened one eye, unsure whether she could believe her ears, then laughed, reaching to flick radio stations.

Nathan laughed a gravelly laugh, “I was enjoying that!”

                “Well then you need a music appreciation transplant!” She flicked through the channels and then looked at him with a grave expression, “I’m afraid that we have to officially grieve the death of music on this part of the route!”

He laughed, “you can plug your mp3 player into this radio if you’ve got one with you?” he offered.

Grinning she retrieved it from her bag and he showed her how to plug it in, then she selected a mixed play list. It kicked in to some White Stripes, the Foo Fighters, and that was followed by ‘While my guitar gently weeps’ by the Beatles. Nathan had been driving in silence through this; Marina had her eyes closed, head dropped back against the headrest, humming along to the various songs.

                “What’s this play list called ‘Eclectic’?” He asked as Fleetwood Mac burst out of the speakers, Stevie Nicks’ gravelly voice filling the car.

She opened her eyes turning to look at him, “actually it’s called ‘Music Re-education for old men’!”

As Marina closed her eyes again, she was warmed by the chuckle emanating from Nathan.

The second half of the journey passed more amicably than the first, and by the time the skyline of Las Vegas was viewable on the horizon they’d both talked at length about music likes, hers alternative rock, his anything verging on heavy metal, favourite films, his Anchorman, hers West Side Story, celebrity crushes, favourite TV shows, there were vast differences in their answers, but that only began to account for the ten year age gap.