The Curious Prayer Life Of Muriel Smith

by Raj, Carol;

  Muriel opened the glove compartment. A nail file would do. Or a screwdriver. Anything too small for Kevin to wrench away from her arthritic hands. She’d have to aim for a vulnerable part of Kevin’s body. If she failed to incapacitate him on her first try, she wouldn’t get a second chance. Her best bet was to blind him. Or go for the groin. She’d learned that in a self-defense course Howard made her take at the local police station. She couldn’t remember the other techniques they taught. Either way, she might get enough of a head start to escape.

  What in the world could she be thinking? Kevin was just a child. Fifteen, maybe. How could she inflict such horrible damage on a child? Kevin wasn’t even particularly rude. What if the carjacking was just a spur-of-the-moment mistake? What if he weren’t really as bad as circumstances made it seem? Could she live with herself knowing she had permanently damaged another human being? Right never came from doing wrong. But what if harming Kevin was the only way she could escape? If only she could ask Howard what to do.

  “Hey, Mrs. B. Look at this.” Kevin’s voice came from behind the raised trunk.

  Yeah, right, Kevin. Do you really think I’ll make it easy for you to push me into that dark, cold death trap of a trunk? She gave a perky lilt to her voice. “What?”

  “Come look.”

  “I don’t think so.” The lilt was gone, replaced by a tone of resignation. He’d have to drag her out of the car. He must think her a fool. He was young and she was old. When she was his age, she thought her elders were fools, too. Her mother, her father, her teachers. Now it was her turn to be on the wrong side of the generation gap. But if Kevin managed to lock her in that trunk, it would be because he overpowered her, not because she was stupid enough to stand in front of it.

  Kevin’s footsteps came from behind toward her door.

  There was no place to run and no one to hear if she screamed.

  She was doomed.

  3

  “So, you just going to sit there or what?”

  “Yes, I’m just going to sit here.” Muriel had locked the car doors. Unfortunately, the driver’s door was still wide open. And Kevin had the key. Two negatives. In real life, two negatives did not cancel each other out. Not like they did in the more logical world of multiplication. But surely there was a plan in there somewhere. If only she could think of it. Right now, nothing came to mind.

  “You don’t happen to remember how far away the last gas station was, do you?” Kevin asked.

  “I told you. I wasn’t paying attention. I was steering.”

  “How hard can steering be? You turn the wheel.” Kevin swept his long hair out of his eyes. When he shook his head in apparent exasperation, the strands fell right back down. “OK. Well…we can’t take a chance on walking for gas. Not if we have no idea how far a station might be. Maybe we can walk tomorrow. But not tonight. It’s going to be dark in a couple of hours.” His tone changed from resigned to angry. “What in the world...look around you. There aren’t even any street lights out here. We can’t just stumble down a pitch-black road. You should have paid a little more attention to what you were doing. You’re the grown-up. You’re the one who was driving the car. You should at least have watched the fuel gauge! ‘E.’ ‘F.’ How hard can that be?”

  “I was enjoying the ride.” Muriel hadn’t realized that before, but once the words slipped out, she knew they were true. She had been enjoying the ride, which had been so much better than sitting all alone in an empty house hoping Natalie would call or Chloe would drop by.

  The fields on both sides of the country road stretched out to the horizon, identical oceans of close-cut green grass. Just the way her grass back home would look if she could find somebody to cut it. Here and there cows stood chewing their cud. Horses had raised their heads as the car went by, looking curiously over split rail fences. Miles back, a tractor on the road was heading the opposite direction, going even slower than she was. An old gentleman with a grizzled beard tipped his floppy straw hat to her from way up in his little seat.

  Roxanne never wanted to go anywhere fun or new or picturesque. “You know, Kevin, you could have been watching for gas stations if you thought they were so important.”

  “Why should I be watching for gas stations? You were the one driving the car. Oh, never mind. Now the ride’s over. And now we have to move the car.”

  “Move the car? Why?”

  “Because it’s just sitting here on the side of the road waiting to be found. And once it’s found, it won’t be hard for somebody to track us down. We can’t get very far on foot.”

  “And being found would be a bad thing because?”

  “I am not going home.” Kevin folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what anybody says. My father’s rules are just plain stupid. And he’d better not call me irresponsible one more time. I can’t stand it. I’m going to hide out until I’m old enough to join the army. Get a GED if I have to. That’s my plan. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Typical teenage plan. They didn’t like rules, so they thought to join the army where there were a million rules, and they’d better have shoes shining like mirrors and their bedspreads tight as a drum, or they’d be peeling a mountain of potatoes.

  She taught teens like Kevin for fifteen years. The proofs always made sense. The teens never did. “But I want to go home, Kevin. Or at least I want to go somewhere a little more civilized. I don’t want to stay out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  Kevin spread his arms wide and turned around 360 degrees. “Don’t complain to me about being in the middle of nowhere. You’re the one who picked this road. You’re the one who refused to merge. You see any motels we can walk to? Because we’re not going to drive to a motel in this junk heap of a car, are we? So where you going to go?”

  Where would she go? If only she could move in with Natalie. Natalie had such a nice, big house. A four-bedroom colonial with a den downstairs that would make a perfect little guest room. Muriel and Natalie and Stan and Chloe could all rattle around that huge house for days and hardly even catch a glimpse of each other. And Chloe’s wedding was only months away. Once she was married, Natalie would have three unoccupied bedrooms instead of two.

  Muriel had suggested moving into Natalie’s house after Howard died.

  And Natalie made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want her. Little Natalie, who clung to her mother from the age of six months to the age of two. Who would have thought?

  So where would Muriel go?

  Nowhere.

  The house she shared with Howard wasn’t a bad house. It had two bedrooms upstairs and a full basement. More room than one person needed. It was just so lonely since Howard died. He was always hammering away at something in the basement or asking her to help him weed their small vegetable patch. Now that he was gone, the house was too quiet. Only the chatter of the TV gave the illusion of life.

  “I don’t know where I’ll go, Kevin. I can’t think straight right now. It’s been a long day. My back hurts from sitting in the car too long. My right knee is cramped from pushing that gas pedal half the afternoon. I’d give anything for a nice soft bed with crisp, clean cotton sheets and a fluffy down pillow. And a ladies’ room. I’d especially like a ladies’ room.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’re going to get any of those things. Not tonight.”

  “So what’s the plan? I do hope you have a plan.”

  Kevin threw his arms up. “You mean besides getting on the highway and going west? Because I did have a plan. Montana or Wyoming. That was my plan. Remember? If you had merged like I told you to, we’d be halfway to the west coast by now. There are lots of ladies’ rooms on the highway. Lots of motels, too.”

  Kevin was right. There’d also be diners on the highway. But it was too late to do anything about that now. “So going west was Plan A. Didn’t you have a Plan B?”

  Kevin scowled. “Plans B, C, D, and E all involved a car that actually runs. We’re like up
to Plan Z by now, and that plan is to move the car, just like I told you. We can’t let it sit here.”

  “I still don’t see why not.”

  “Just think about it. This isn’t even a real road. It’s more like a country bumpkin two-car lane. It gives me the creeps. What if a drunk rams into us in the dark? What if someone decides to use the car for target practice? Who knows what kind of losers live out here in the boondocks. Or what they do for fun. Staying here is like asking for trouble.”

  “We can’t move the car if it has no gas, can we?”

  “I think maybe we can. At least we can try. I saw it in a movie once. But I’ll need your help.”

  “My help? Again? Doing what?”

  Kevin pointed to the copse of trees on the right-hand side of the road. “See that field? There’s a slope going down to it. And see that bunch of trees? If I push the car down the slope, we might get enough momentum to get it over to those trees. I think we’ll be safer there. At least we’ll be off the road and out of sight. All you have to do is steer.”

  Muriel looked out over the field. Again, she thought how nicely the grass was mowed. Like a green crew-cut done by an experienced barber. Each blade was exactly the same height. The quarter of an acre around her house looked nothing like this. What in the world could she do to get her lawn mowed? Suddenly, she felt even more tired than before. “I’ve been steering all day. Can’t you steer?”

  “While you’re pushing a ton of metal by yourself?”

  “OK. You’re right. I steer, you push. Then what?”

  “We’ll worry about the rest in the morning.”

  “The morning? You mean we’re spending the whole night in the middle of nowhere?” Muriel looked wildly around. There wasn’t a bit of indoor plumbing in sight.

  “Yep, the whole night,” Kevin said. “Now move over to the driver’s seat.”

  “Again? I just got out of the driver’s seat.”

  “I know. But you’re going to steer, remember? I’m going to push. We just agreed.”

  Muriel put her hands on the car seat again, one on each side of her rear, and pulled herself toward the dashboard.

  “What in the world are you doing?” Kevin sounded exasperated.

  “Moving over to the driver’s seat. That’s what you just told me to do, isn’t it? There’s no reason for you to get huffy all the time.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean you should go over that center console again. That didn’t work out so well last time. Don’t you remember getting stuck?”

  “What do you want me to do then? You want me to get out the passenger door and walk around to the driver’s side?”

  Kevin raised his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead in the process. He shook his head slowly from side to side.

  Howard used to have that exact same expression on his face at least twice a day.

  Muriel pressed the switch to unlock the doors. All four doors clicked.

  “You locked the doors?” Kevin sounded as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

  “I was afraid.”

  Kevin looked around. “What are you, crazy? There’s nobody out here for miles. OK. I probably don’t even want to know. Some old lady kind of reasoning. Just get out and walk around to the driver’s side. Please.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Please, Mrs. B. We have to get the car off the road. I can’t manage it by myself.”

  “Are you one hundred percent sure?”

  “I’m one thousand percent sure. There’s absolutely no way I can push a car and steer it at the same time. Just think about it.”

  Muriel swung her legs out the passenger-side door then rose and stretched. She arched her back and rubbed it. She didn’t like to sit for so long. Especially not without her lumbar roll. Now her back hurt and her legs tingled so much she was afraid they might buckle. She limped to the front of the car. She shook out one leg and then the other.

  “What’s that? Some sort of old lady dance?”

  “I’m stretching my back and legs. I get stiff from being in one position too long. You’ll have the same problem when you get old.”

  “I’m never going to get old. Not in a million years.”

  “That’s what I thought when I was your age.”

  “Why don’t you do that shaking thing after we move the car?”

  Muriel walked to the driver’s seat and plopped down. “There. Are you happy now?”

  “I don’t think happy is the word I’d use.” Kevin sighed. “OK. This is what we have to do. First put your foot on the brake. Hard. Is the brake all the way down?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure? You don’t have it on the wrong pedal or anything?”

  Muriel looked down. “Nope. My foot’s on the left pedal. The brake.”

  “Good. Next shift the car into neutral. Now I’m going to walk to the back of the car, close the trunk, and then push. I don’t think I’ll have to push very long. I think the car will get enough momentum going down the slope. At least it did in the movie I saw. When the car starts moving, you’re going to steer it toward those trees. Try to get the car into the grove without hitting anything. Do you think you can do that?”

  Muriel was pretty sure she couldn’t. Then Kevin’s words from earlier in the day came back to her. Your driving ability’s the only thing keeping you alive. She was determined to stay alive until after Chloe’s baby was born. “Sure, I can do that.” She forced a smile onto her face as she spoke.

  Kevin walked to the back of the car. “OK. I’m going to start pushing.”

  Muriel stared out the windshield. The trunk slammed shut. The back of the car moved down a little, a slight rocking motion. A second passed, then two, then three. It seemed the car should be moving by now. She glanced in the rearview mirror.

  Kevin’s lips were pressed so tightly together they were barely visible. His face was turning the dark red of a ripe Bing cherry.

  The back of the car rocked up again.

  Kevin’s footsteps came toward her. His face dripped with sweat. He brushed away the hair on his forehead with the back of his hand. “Bad news, Mrs. B. The car’s not budging. Not even a little bit. It’s not at all like it was in the movie. I thought I’d be able to push it what with the slope and all.”

  “Maybe if we both pushed?”

  “That might work,” Kevin said. “But after it started moving, one of us would have to jump into the driver’s seat to steer. Otherwise we’d hit those trees and ruin the car.”

  Muriel shook her head. “Roxanne wouldn’t like it if we ruined her car. She’d probably never speak to me again.”

  Kevin continued as if he hadn’t even heard. “The problem is, I don’t know how fast the car will end up moving when the force of gravity pulls it down that slope. I don’t think you could get back in the driver’s seat if it were going at a snail’s pace. No offense.”

  “None taken. But you could manage it. I’m sure you could.”

  It seemed Kevin hadn’t been complimented much in his life. At her words, he smiled, the left corner of his mouth going up a little more than the right. “I suppose I could get in. And I guess I could steer the car. It can’t be that hard. Do you need a license to drive on private property? My father will kill me if I get in trouble for driving without a license.” Kevin looked at her as if she ought to know.

  “I’m sorry, Kevin. I have no idea what the rules are for driving on private property. Not a clue. The question hasn’t come up once since I took my first driver’s test fifty-five years ago. But your popping into the driver’s seat sounds like our best bet. So you want me to get out of the car?”

  “I guess. There doesn’t seem to be any other choice.”

  “So should I take my foot off the brake then?”

  “What? You mean you’ve had your foot on the brake all this time?”

  “Yes. All the way down. Just like you told me.”

  Kevin banged his forehead with the heel of his hand. “I can’t believe it. No w
onder the car wasn’t budging. What in the world were you thinking? Work with me here.”

  “You never said I should take my foot off the brake. How was I supposed to know you wanted me to do that? You said push the brake down hard. All the way. Don’t you remember?”

  Kevin closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side in apparent disbelief. He opened his eyes and spoke more slowly this time, enunciating each word as if Muriel were a not very bright toddler. “OK. Look. We’ll try again. Keep your foot on the brake, all the way down. But just until I start to push. Then take your foot off the brake. All the way off. You got it?”

  “I got it. But how am I going to know when you start to push?”

  “I’ll knock on the trunk three times. Then I’ll start pushing. OK?”

  “OK.” Muriel gripped the steering wheel with clenched fists.

  Kevin walked to the back of the car and knocked on the trunk. One, two, three. The car’s rear moved down.

  Muriel took her foot off the brake. Now that she thought about it, it made sense. Brakes were supposed to keep the car from moving. Even on a slope. But he was the one giving directions. Was it her fault he hadn’t communicated the details more clearly?

  The car started moving. Then it began building up speed.

  “Use the brake,” Kevin shouted. “Use the brake! Forget what I said! Don’t keep your foot all the way off. Use the brake! But don’t stop the car. Just slow it down! You have to be able to control the car. Slower! Slower!” Kevin was running alongside.

  She dared not turn to look.

  The grove of trees up ahead formed a barrier around three sides of a bit of pasture, creating a small peninsula of mown grass. Muriel turned the steering wheel to the right, going parallel with the trees. Then she turned the wheel to the left, heading the car straight into the opening. She pushed the brake all the way to the floor. She was going to crash. She squinted her eyes shut, tensed her muscles, anticipated the sound of metal meeting wood, anticipated a jolt that would rearrange her internal organs, anticipated death. Oh, God, please don’t let me die. Not until after I’ve seen Chloe’s baby. And not until I’ve accomplished something on earth. Something important.