Free Kiss My Name by Calvin Wade

drama with Zara, what that girl lacks in intelligence, she more than makes up for in personality. If she had been a Scouser, she would have been a chirpy, ditzy one. She’s so chirpy and ditzy she makes Sonia look like Leonard Cohen. Before she sat down, she began smoothing the creases out of her towel on my passenger seat.
    “Stop making such a bloody fuss, Zara! Get in and sit down! I cleaned this car up last week.”
    “I didn’t say a word, Flo. I’m just grateful for the lift.”
    “You’re being ever chirpier than usual this morning, you still on a high because of that bloke from the gym?”
    “Martin. I had a dream about him last night, Flo. He was in my shower, soaping his six pack down. I didn’t want to wake up! There were seven muscles I wanted to see working out before I awoke.”
    “I thought water did funny things to a bloke’s throbbing python of love. I thought it turned it into a wiggly worm.”
    “Not in my dreams it doesn’t. Martin’s love thermometer was reaching temperatures that can make a girl go faint!”
    “Well, you best hope the real Martin is just as hot as your imaginary one.”
    “I have a good feeling this time, Flo. Something tells me that Martin might just be Mr.Right.”
    “And you’ve never said that before.”
    “Doesn’t hurt to be optimistic, Flo, rather than an old misery guts like you.”
    “What am I supposed to be happy about, Zara? I work in Penny Pinchers, I wear clothes that would have been too big for Oprah Winfrey in her ‘Color Purple’ stage and I have as many hairs growing on my chin and chest as Billy Connolly. I turn heads, Zara, but not like you do. Men turn their heads towards you. With me, they turn their heads around to see where the exit is so they can sprint towards it as fast as they can.”
    “Aww, don’t be silly Flo, you’re lovely.”
    “You don’t have to say nice things to me, Zara, I do own a mirror, you know. I know what I look like.”
    “But you’re a lovely person, Flo. You’re loyal, you’re honest, one day someone will appreciate you for who you are rather than how you look.”
    “Maybe, I just don’t get to sample every food in the restaurant like you. I have to have the set meal. Anyway, on a brighter note, when’s your courtesy car coming?”
    “They’re dropping it off at my Mum’s at half past three.”
    Zara didn’t live with her Mum. She had moved out a couple of years earlier and now shared a two bed terraced with a lovely Asian guy called Nadeem. He just did his own thing and thankfully, he turned a blind eye to Zara doing hers. Zara’s road is narrow though and often it’s almost impossible to find a parking place, hence the reason the courtesy car was going to her Mum’s.
    “Well, that’s handy. I’ll drop you off there after work. Hope it’s not as busy as it was yesterday.”
    “Mum’s road?”
    “No, work, you daft cow!”
    “Oh right, me too.”
                  We chatted away amiably through to Chorley. Euxton’s only a couple of miles down the road, so it’s not much more than a five minute drive. We should share a lift every morning really, do our bit to save the planet, but the fact that my car is a shithole combined with the fact that I never know which bloke is going to arrive at Penny Pinchers for Zara at the end of a shift, means we tend not to. I was heading to our usual car park, by the Little Theatre and was just about to turn in, when Zara piped up,
    “Ooh, Flo, don’t park there. S ave yourself a couple of quid. Mum told me on Sunday that she always parks along here on the left, it’s free and there’re always places.”
    Alarm bells immediately rang in my head. I drove past the car park and along the road,
    “Zara, have you started parking down here?”
    “Only since yesterday.....shit, my car! That’s where I left it!”
                  Sure enough, as we drove along, on the left hand side, was Zara’s red Corsa, with the stupid, ‘I’m a