Ramone cruised slowly through town, not used to the silence that had settled around the buildings and alleys. Usually by this time a romantic song for couples would be broadcast over the loudspeakers strung around the city streets, warning honeymooners that the stores were about to close their doors for the evening and this was the last chance to fuel up before the lights went out. With not a soul on the streets tonight, Red hadn't even bothered to turn on the music.
The lowrider paused under the tall neon sign advertising his business. Custom made and shipped from the West coast a decade before, it hadn't been cheap, and tonight it only attracted confused moths. Profoundly disappointed, Ramone made a sharp turn onto a side street toward the tidy little cottage he shared with his wife. Everyone else was still out, probably trying to make themselves believe that at least one solitary visitor to the town would still make his way in as long as they kept their shops open just a few minutes past closing time. He already had accepted it wouldn't happen, but the speed with which the town's tourism industry had died had shocked him nonetheless. The wire trash cans on the curbs were still overstuffed with the litter from the bustling crowd the day before. Luigi and Guido patiently stacked some tires at their shop, though Ramone secretly thought the merchandise would dry-rot before they ever sold any of it.
"We'll get through one way or another," Flo promised after dinner, which had been eaten without so much as a word exchanged between them. "All we can do now is find some way to make this a good thing." Ramone grimaced, thinking glumly of how many times he and Flo had watched with misplaced optimism from the ridge as the Interstate had slowly snaked its way through the nearby valley, cutting through the hills that their local roads had weaved around. They had seen it from its birth to completion, like a creek that had cut through layers of rock in one season alone.
From their vantage point the trucks toiling far below had looked like a child's toys, and the occasional grumble of a motor could be heard, along with clattering rock that gave way to blasts by the demolition team, all the while reminding them of progress. To think that he and Flo had actually thought the Interstate might be a positive change for their town!
Think of the weary travelers, Flo had urged him. Now they'll be driving across the state without stopping and with the right kind of sign, we can entice them to go a few miles out of their way to Radiator Springs. She had meant well, but her prediction had been wrong. Now the lowrider felt the roadside signs, painted by himself and paid for by the town treasury, were destined to fade into oblivion, unnoticed by nearly everyone. He only hoped the town he loved so much wouldn't suffer the same fate.
"Flo?" He finally found the courage to express what had been gnawing at him all day, for the solitude had given him more than enough time to dwell on things. The former showcar pulled up alongside him on their back porch, a tray with two untouched glasses of wine sitting near them. "Maybe we'll find some way to bring the tourists back, but I doubt this place will ever be the town that you were willing to leave the Motorama tour for."
"Ramone!" corrected his wife sternly. "If you're thinking for a moment that I came here for the quaint atmosphere, you're sadly mistaken. I didn't abandon the tour so I could serve a crowd at my restaurant for the rest of my days, I left it for you." She gave him a reassuring nuzzle. "If you think I'm moving on, you are sadly mistaken. We've always looked after each other in this town. Lizzie needs someone to keep an eye on her, I can't begin to think what Red would do if his only friends left him, and Doc came here when we most needed a medical clinic. He could have gone anywhere, but he chose to be here. I think we owe it to stay."
Ramone gazed at his wife, thinking. He had been fearful she would suggest they leave and give up on the town as a relic of an era that had met its abrupt end, but he loved her even more for agreeing that their place was right here.
"We don't have to let life pass us by, even if the Interstate did," Flo said, merriment in her voice. "I've got at least ten gallons of ice cream and every dessert you can imagine in my freezer case, and it would be a sin to let all that good food go to waste. If you can gather everyone at the Café, we'll just have a party to lift everyone's spirits."
Thus the "first night" party was held at Radiator Springs, and though to some grim-minded townsfolk it seemed more of a funeral than a celebration, the core group of friends did remain just as Flo had predicted. They became even more tight-knit than they had been, and helped each other pull through the rough times. The new highway may have cut them off from the rest of the world and frozen time, but it would take much more than that to sever the ties between them.