Jess

The yellow car crawled along in front of them. It was acceptable to go at this speed when the tractor had been going ten miles an hour but it had turned off a while back. Jess watched the tarmac for potholes; she didn’t want to pay for another new tyre. She wished the council would fix the pot holes; not that you could call them holes anymore, they were like craters on the moon.
The car in front decided to speed up, leaving Jess in a cloud of dirt. She put her foot down and waited for her car to respond. Five minutes later they had reached forty miles an hour and had been overtaken twice. She felt guilty for being annoyed with the yellow car for being so slow. Jess slipped her black aviators up her nose and blew upwards in an attempt to unstick her dark fringe from her forehead. Accepting defeat as another car sailed past; she rooted around in the side pocket for a cigarette. She fumbled through lots of empty packets, rattling each one beside her ear in desperation before throwing them forcefully into the passenger foot well. Finally she was successful and inhaled the rich smoke, enjoying how it caught in the back of throat. She glanced at her IPhone as a familiar song came on – it was Ben Howard, one of her favourite artists. She turned the volume right up and bobbed around to the beat. She liked to pretend no one could see her in her car and she was pretty sure other people felt the same when they were in theirs. It was only back at the last traffic lights that she saw the man behind her shove his hand up his nose and have a good dig.
Jess was so into the music that it was only when it finished that she realised she had driven straight past the petrol station. As if her car knew it was a while before the next one, the petrol light pinged on and glowed dangerously. “Fuck off!” She openly swore, sticking her middle finger up at it. Unfortunately the man who was casually walking along the pavement opposite thought she was swearing at him and shouted abuse back. Jess blushed deep red and looked the other way. How embarrassing! She shuddered, flicking her fag ash out the window but of course it just blew back in. Cursing again she pressed skip on the CD player and Nelly blasted from the speakers. She sunk down low in the seat and leaned one arm out the window. Jess had always fancied herself as a rapper even though she only knew a few words to the song and she would randomly shout them out and so she sounded like she had tourettes instead of being down with the ‘east side’.
After a few more roundabouts and rap songs, they arrived at the petrol station. Jess spotted a hottie in the white van next to her and she tried to get out of the car seductively. This failed straight away when her door swung into the petrol pump with a loud thump. She could see him sniggering in the passenger seat. Well he wasn’t even good enough to drive anyway! She thought crossly before unscrewing her petrol cap and ramming the nozzle into the tank. What seemed like a year and a million pounds later, she felt the nozzle click in her hand to indicate the tank was full. The white van was replaced with a jaguar and the owner was an older gentleman with salt and pepper hair combed over to hide his receding hair line. He wore beige shorts that finished under his sagging chest and a white polo shirt tucked in. Jess spied the logo but it didn’t matter how cool Ralph Lauren was – old salt ‘n’ pepper certainly wasn’t and just to fully confirm this so that no one in the surrounding area would doubt it – he pulled out two plastic gloves from the dispenser and slowly pulled them on before filling up his car with fuel. Jess shook her head in disbelief before heading in to pay. On the way there she twisted her head round so she could see what number pump she was at. Why did they make the numbers so bloody difficult to see! A loud beeping made her jump and she turned back to see the white van man in a freshly washed van making hand signals at her that would make the ‘disposable gloves man’ blush.
When she had grabbed an energy drink and made faces at the price but still refused to have the cheaper one; she joined the queue. Why did they always put the chocolate on offer right by the till? It was as if they never wanted to her to have skinny thighs. Well the Indian man behind the counter didn’t seem to mind as he spoke to her chest while she was paying and waved her off with a, ‘Thank you, please!’ as she hurried out with an armful of chocolate, energy drink and cigarettes. Back in the safety of her black Renault Clio she groaned as she unloaded her goodies onto the passenger seat. Out of the corner of her eye she spied a half empty Russian Vodka bottle in the side pocket – thank god she hadn’t been pulled over by the police! What part of ‘no alcohol in the car’ did her friends not understand?! She shoved another fag in her mouth before driving past the cashier’s window; he eyed her and her unlit cigarette disapprovingly. ‘What? It’s not even lit, bloody thank you tits, please!’ She muttered, putting her foot down and nearly running straight into an old lady.