June, 2014

Part II is dedicated to Susan, who, like Sandy (and Aunt Kitty!) also needs a key-per. ;-)

Caution: I Drive Like You Do

My brother and I never went through the 'happy family memory' of having Mom or Dad teach us how to drive. The high school we both attended offered Driver Education and Practical Training. Just like in Mr. Holland's Opus, it was taught by a teacher needing extra cash over the summer—in Ray's case, Mr. Pornbie (the calculus and physics teacher—and, yes, the kids utterly destroyed his name behind his back); in mine, Mr. Cosgrove (foreign languages—I learned some good cuss words).

Ray taught Sharon and Allison; Barb taught Cory and Kevin (who almost put her in the happy house). When we were discussing the possibility of children, Ducky had half-jokingly said, "If I fathered a child now, I would be eighty or thereabouts when that child learned to drive, and I don't think those two demographics should be in a vehicle with a learner's permit between them." After Lexi was born, the topic of driving came up and he pointed out that at 82 he might not even be driving, let alone able to teach Lexi. I didn't relish the task and looking at some of our extended family and their driving habits made us say, "Driving school" (Driver's Ed having dropped in both quality and availability over the years).

Charlie was another matter.

Before Charlie hit sixteen that February, Ev had decided Charlie would inherit her Saturn wagon and take it off to college. Charlie was honestly too busy to work on her driving during her last year in high school; she only got a learner's permit at 16 because there was no way she could pass the driving portion of the test. She got behind the wheel two or three times a month during her last semester, but once school was out she worked daily at practicing her skills. Since our neighborhood is quiet, Charlie got a lot of practice time circling the blocks and, as she grew more confident, driving us to the store or on other errands. Any licensed driver was fair game as the shotgun seat, so she got tips from all manner of driving, from Ducky (despite Mother's complaints, the best driver I know) all the way out to Ziva and Gibbs—once we were sure they wouldn't pass on their bad habits. I was looking forward to ten years hence, when Lexi would be my chauffeur. But until then…

"Please can Auntie Charlie drive me to the mall?" Lexi begged.

"Honey, she's sixteen, she still only has her learner's permit and an adult has to be in the car with her. Daddy isn't home, and I'm up to my elbows in getting dinner started. Maybe after dinner?"

"They close at eight!"

"Or tomorrow?"

"But my gift certificates expire today!"

Crap.

As incentives for whatever they're pushing in school at that moment—spelling improvement, math improvement, attendance—the teachers handed out envelopes with a surprise gift certificate: $5 at Crown Books or an individual pizza at Pizza Hut. It was luck of the draw what you got. Lexi would rather the book certificates; most of the kids preferred pizza. She and a few other bookworms had a nice trade system going on (one enterprising soul tried to do two for one—two of your book certificates for one of my pizzas; the principal squashed that quickly). It was a great idea.

But the darn things had a one-month life span. Lexi had three from the end of the school year, due to turn to dust today. $15 in book credit was nothing to sneeze at.

"Grandma could go with us," she suggested hopefully.

"It has to be a licensed driver," I reminded her. "Grandma doesn't have a license." (Merciful Zeus.)

"Suzy does," she said with a desperate note in her voice.

"Suzy isn't admitting to anything until she sees the charges," Suzy said with a laugh, bringing in Mother's tea tray. "What have I missed?"

"My book certificates expire today and Mommy can't drive me to the mall but Auntie Charlie said she will but she has to have a grownup with her, so can you? Will you? Please? Be the grown up?"

"Too many places I could go on that. Well—" She shot me a look; I shrugged. "We'll have to take your grandmother along," she cautioned. "Taking care of her is my job."

From her perch at the kitchen table, Charlie grinned. "I doubt Grandma will backseat drive."

As dents go, it wasn't that bad.

And nobody go hurt.

"It wasn't Charlie's fault," Suzy and Lexi said in chorus.

"Who hit you?" I managed to get out the words without too much of a gasp. There was a cave-in dent smack in the middle of the bumper and the back hatch. It was bad—but not bad enough that the airbags had deployed.

There was an uncomfortable silence. "The light pole," Lexi blurted.

"The light pole… hit the car…?" I said.

"No," Charlie sighed. "I hit the light pole."

Ev will have a cow. So will Lily. "How?" I asked evenly.

Uncomfortable silence: the sequel.

"Um…" Lexi hemmed.

"Well…" Charlie hawed.

"It was… Victoria's fault," Suzy finally said, shoulders slumped. "I am so sorry."

I had a flash of Victoria grabbing the keys and joyriding to California and banished it. "How?" I asked again.

Charlie looked like she wanted to cry. "I've been working on my parallel parking and backing up. Next to Taylor Ridge Mall is Jefferson Medical Complex. After we bought the books—and a few other things," she added in a mutter, "We went next door," she continued in a louder voice. "It's empty after five, so the parking lot is perfect for practicing. I have a hard time balancing the clutch in reverse, I was backing down the row trying to see how far I could go without going crooked or stalling…" She bit her lip.

Suzy gave her shoulders a squeeze. "Victoria thought she saw Clark Gable. She yelled, 'Stop!'—"

"And I mashed the accelerator instead." Charlie bit her lip again and it quivered.

"Well." I put on my best Pollyanna smile and gave her a hug. "Your first accident is always the hardest! You got back on the horse and drove home. Nobody got hurt. I know you're normally a very good driver. The car isn't damaged that badly. And since Mother was the cause of the accident—well, we'll just fix the car and everything will be shipshape and Bristol fashion." And we aren't letting Mercury Insurance in on the situation.

Victoria had hurried into the house under her own shaky steam and was sitting in the chair in her room, surrounded by the dogs and both cats on her lap. They had no intention of letting anyone close enough to badger her.

She looked up as I slipped into the room. "I'm sorry." Her voice was very small.

Over the years her mental acuity has been going downhill. Severely. But sometimes the cylinders are all firing in sequence and she's right on target. This appeared to be one of those times. "The girls explained what happened."

"I never meant to frighten Charlotte." She looked at me pleadingly.

"I know…" I climbed over her canine protection detail and perched on the arm of the chair. "Nobody got hurt. And the car can be repaired."

"I was so certain I saw him…" She shook her head, confused. She looked up as I draped an arm around her frail shoulders. "I've lost so many names." She looked frightened.

Time for more Pollyanna. "Well, we'll just remember them for you."

She managed a smile. "You are… my favorite daughter-in-law."

I grinned. "I know."

She held up a shaky finger. "Han Solo said that."

I couldn't help but laugh. "You've been hanging around Tony DiNozzo too much."

She gasped. "That's an Italian name!"

Back on course, Cap'n.

/ / / / / / / / / /

When Ev formally handed her beloved, pampered wagon to Charlie (she even had Charlie drive them to the body shop while Lily followed), she went out shopping for a 'new' car. I could say that proximity to the Hippy Gypsy influenced her choice, but she has always been big on the 3 Rs—Reuse, Renew, Recycle. After some careful shopping, she drove home with a 5-year-old Prius in sea foam green (and it went perfectly with her hair).

Summer brings more customers and occasionally short staff, so I frequently put in more hours than normal. (A business owner actually attending to business. Shock.) A couple of days after Ev bought the car, we had enough people on deck that she could take me for a quick spin—especially since we were swinging by Shari's and bringing back lunch as my thank you to people coming in for extra shifts and rearranging their personal lives.

The car is a Tardis. It looks dinky on the outside—well, moderately-sized outside. Inside it is roomy and comfy. "I got a ride from Baron Brian, he has a Prius, he said it's almost as comfortable as the gas-guzzling old Caddy he gave up," Ev said, smoothly maneuvering through noontime traffic. Baron Brian is in the SCA. He's 6'6" and garbs as Darth Vader at s-f conventions… without padding and lifts. Saying he's comfy is saying a lot.

It handled like a dream, and— "It's so quiet!" I marveled.

"Yeah, they've had some issues with visually handicapped people not being able to hear the car at the crosswalk. You have to really look out for pedestrians. This is definitely not like the trip to Gray Haven," she laughed

"Oy." I groaned at the memory. The catalytic converter went out halfway to the fantasy fair. A frantic call to her mechanic and a diagnosis over the phone that we would be okay for the trip—but it would sound like a bad garbage disposal eating a 12-place setting of flatware until it got replaced. For the rest of the trip we did the only sensible thing: we cranked up the radio.

I had been toying with the notion of expanding the store for a couple of years. I had run out of lateral room—I had slowly but surely bought every shop from 1st through New Jersey—and there wasn't a larger building available (well, not one I could afford); the only option was up. Ev has a genius for remodeling, so we turned the radio off and tossed around ideas from Shari's all the way back. We sat in the back parking lot going over floor plans, city permits, ADA restrictions (installing an elevator; oh, joy) and so forth until my phone chirped with the one word message: FOOD?! We quickly scrambled out of the car, hauling in boxes of goodies.

Everyone took turns manning the front counter so we could eat in the privacy of the break room (and the customers didn't filch any fries). Evelyn got a chance to catch up with a lot of the people she had worked with for so many years… and we all had a grand time until she caught sight of the clock. "Oayog! Oggaickuharlee!" she said, choking on her chiliburger.

"Come again?" I laughed.

"Gotta pick up Charlie!" The wagon was in the repair shop from Charlie's mishap the other week and due for pick up that afternoon. She stuffed a last gob of onion strings in her mouth and grabbed her purse, shoving her hand in her pocket—and stopped. "Huh." She shifted her purse to the other shoulder and dug into the left pocket. She went from mildly puzzled to mildly miffed. "Okay, I put the keys down somewhere…"

We tossed the break room, looking for the hard-to-miss translucent sparkly red plastic rose with only two keys on it. Nowhere.

"Maybe you dropped it while we were juggling boxes in?" I suggested. We retraced the path from the back door. Nothing.

"Maybe you looked them in the car," Alan suggested off-handedly. (He did it so often I had a dup key to his Honda in the cash register.)

With a faint groan, Ev hurried to the back door. I followed in her wake, ready to call AAA. "I hope I'm not that stupid," she muttered. She had ragged on Alan for being an absentminded professor without the degrees; he would return the favor with interest due.

"Ducky!" My one-and-only had arrived early and was casually walking around Ev's new car, eyeing it thoughtfully.

"Hullo, dear." He inclined his head toward the car. "Your new toy, I assume?" he said, glancing toward Ev. She nodded, a little glumly. Before she could say anything about her boo-boo, he cocked his head and asked, "Is there a reason you left the car running and unattended?" His tone was one of gentle disbelief.

"What?" Ev hustled over to the car. "Oh, my god! Oh, my god! How the—" She broke off and clapped a hand to her forehead. "We turned off the radio while we were talking. The engine is so quiet, I didn't realize it was sill running!" She opened he door, shut off the engine and pulled out the keys. "I'm an idiot!"

I could understand her feelings. I was still smarting over losing my keys… in my pocket. "And since it was running, you didn't get the, 'hey, doofus, you left the keys in the ignition' ding," I finished. Ev just groaned again and leaned her forehead against the roof of the car.

"You're quite fortunate that nobody stole the vehicle," Ducky scolded lightly.

"In this neck of town? Yeah," I agreed. It had only been running, oh, an hour and a half. Yikes.

"Please don't tell Alan," she moaned. "He'll never let me live it down."

"Oh, absolutely…" Ducky folded his arms on the top of the car and propped his chin on them, his baby blue eyes so angelic. "But what am I offered to keep this from your wife and daughter?"

He's been hanging around me too long.