"How I Met Rosemary," a noir romance, parts one and two

ONE

I was standing in the middle of a highway next to a dead body in the rain.  I was pretty sure it was my car that killed it. Killed him. I think. The head was a mess, but the body wore men’s trousers, button up shirt and tie, and a black, long overcoat.  But enough about the corpse. It’s not about the corpse.

It’s about her.  Cause this is the story of how I met her, and how she saved my life, and made it a lot more fun over a short period of time.

You know what I’m talking about.

A car was coming fast towards us.  I had stopped in the middle of the road when I felt that sickening bump, and the awful thump the body made as my tires gave it the once over.

The headlights blinded me, and I instinctively put my hand up in front of my face even though it did fuck all to help.  The rain made everything worse. I could see the car stopped. I heard a car door slam.

And then there she was.  Just her outline as she stood in front of her headlights.  I couldn’t see any detail, but the detail I saw was enough to make me forget the rain, the blinding light, and the corpse bleeding all over my shoes.

Then, just to make it all the more interesting and improbable, there was a flash of lightning and thunder.  I saw a flicker of a face, but it’s the full lips I noticed.

“What happened?!”  She had to shout it over the rain.

“I think I killed him!”

She only nodded.  “You want a lift to a phone to call the police?”

It took me a minute to swallow that she didn’t seem concerned at all that a man got crushed to death.

In her car, which was a sweet little roadster, I asked her name.  She said, “Rosemary” with an emphasis on the R, and weighting the S into a Z, which made my palms sweat.  

I forgot my name.

I figured out later why she wasn’t so concerned about it.  After all, the dead man wasn’t going to get any worse. She drove me to her house to use the phone.

The one in her bedroom.
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