Becoming Chloe

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Chloe says, “So what do we do while we’re waiting?”

  “Oh. Let’s make some more notes in your book.”

  “Okay.” She takes it out and waits with the pencil ready.

  “Um . . .” I’m trying to think of something good in all this. I don’t want that ugly category getting too big.

  “Rain,” Chloe says. “Ugly.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think the rain is beautiful. It makes the grass grow. There’d be no trees without it. The world wouldn’t be green.”

  “It also keeps us from sleeping out in the truck bed. We can’t put our sleeping bags anywhere tonight.”

  “True.”

  She writes “rain” in both the “beautiful” and “ugly” columns.

  “It’s cold,” she says. “Cold sucks.”

  I find that hard to debate.

  We have our sleeping bags up front, behind the seats, because we wanted to keep them out of the rain. It isn’t easy to pull them free without stepping out of the truck, but we manage. We unzip them and wrap up tight. We don’t debate any more columns or categories, but it’s hard not to think about it. The sun is almost down. It doesn’t seem likely that anyone will come by until morning. Maybe not even then. Maybe in the morning we’ll have to get out and hike this monster grade. Maybe even in the rain.

  Is a truck good or bad? Is a broken truck good or bad? Should I be grateful for this shelter even though it’s not even big enough to sleep lying down? Are there other people who don’t even have a tiny dry space and a sleeping bag tonight? And then, the biggest question of all: Even if there are, does that really mean this doesn’t suck?

  Dear Dr. Reynoso. This is more complicated than I thought. Did you know it would be this complicated? Never mind. Don’t answer that.

  We fall asleep twisted strangely around each other, half comforted and half disturbed by the drumming of the rain on the roof.

  * * *

  I wake to a tapping on the window. It’s light outside. I’m lying twisted onto my side on the seat, my head in Chloe’s lap. When I sit up, I’m in a lot of pain from the cramped position.

  It’s still raining. There’s a man standing in the rain at the driver’s-side window.

  I roll it halfway down, taking spatters and drops into my hair and eyes.

  The man is standing drenched, no hat. No coat, just coveralls. He’s missing one front tooth on the top. In my peripheral vision I see his big flatbed truck pulled level with us and parked in the middle of the road. It has a tractor tied down onto the bed. The wind and rain are so loud, or I was sleeping so soundly, I didn’t even hear it pull up.

  “You folks all right?”

  “Not really. We broke down. Can you give us a lift somewhere? Anywhere, really. Just so we’re not in the middle of nowhere.”

  The man smiles broadly, displaying the bare stretch of gums. “Aw, you ain’t in the middle of nowhere. There’s a town just right over this grade. There’s a great little coffee shop and a gas station that does good mechanic work.”

  “Great, can you drive us there?”

  “Well, don’t you want your truck to go there, too? Can’t do no good mechanic work on a truck if you don’t get it there.”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Piece a cake,” he says. “You leave it to me.”

  He swings up onto the back of the flatbed truck. The tractor is tied down with five or six enormous chains. Huge links with big metal hooks on the end that can be hooked back through the chain at any point. The guy frees one, then rearranges the others so the tractor is still secure.

  I roll my window up all but an inch or two to keep the rain out of my face, and I watch him through the inch of opening. Now and then a drop still splashes me in the eye. But all and all, I’m dry. The guy on the flatbed is soaked through and through. I’m wondering if I should have offered to help him. Then again, what do I know about tying down a tractor?

  I look over at Chloe, who is, amazingly, still asleep. Sitting up, but fast asleep. I stretch and think of how happy she’ll be to wake up in a good mechanic’s shop. Especially if I can hand her a cup of hot coffee and tell her there’s a café with good food nearby.

  The guy hooks one end of this gigantic chain somewhere under the front end of our truck, then secures the other end to the towing ball on the back of the flatbed.

  He comes back to the window and I roll it down.

  “Turn your key to ‘accessory’ and put your wipers on. You need to be able to see the back of my truck. When we crest the hill, put on your brakes so’s you don’t roll down and smack me. I’ll come back and unhook you. You can coast all the way down into town. The gas station is at the bottom of the hill on the right.”

  “We really appreciate this,” I say.

  He smiles another gap-tooth smile. “Ain’t no thang,” he says.

  Then he climbs into the truck and I take off the brake. There’s a lurch as the slack comes out of the chain, and then we’re rolling. Not fast, but we’re rolling.

  I turn on my wipers and watch the back of the truck. The tractor is facing me, alarmingly, like traffic going the wrong way in my lane, coming right at me. We must never get beyond first or second gear, because we take the hill at just a few miles an hour.

  But, hell, we’re going a lot faster than we were without his help.

  Then we crest the top of the hill and stop, and he comes out into the rain and takes his chain back. I roll down my window and try to yell “thank you” to the guy but he doesn’t seem to hear. I look over at Chloe but she’s still fast asleep. The guy waves at me through the rear cab window. I wave back. He pulls away, and we coast. The license plate on the back of his truck says West Virginia, so I wonder if that’s where we are already.

  We coast at maybe thirty-five, forty miles per hour, rocketing through the rain, and then suddenly there is no rain. Suddenly the air is clear, and one single beam of early sun finds its way out of the heavy clouds and lights a spot on the dark valley below. Farmland. Then I look straight ahead of us, down the road, and there’s a town. Services. The kind of town that would have a restaurant and a good mechanic, just like I was told.

  I look over to see that Chloe is awake. Somehow the sheer momentum got her attention, even in her sleep. She woke up to feel us going so fast. Past her face I see there’s a rainbow stretched across the valley. The sky is still black in that direction; even the air looks black. It’s probably still raining over there. But there’s a rainbow.

  “There, Chloe,” I say. And I point. “Right there.”

  I’m sitting on a tire just outside the service bay, drinking hot coffee. Watching Chloe win over a dog. A skinny little blue-eyed dog with an all-over itch and hardly any hair on its rump and docked tail.

  The mechanic, Jim, is leaning into our engine compartment, but he sticks his head out and says, “That dog won’t come near you, miss, don’t take it personal. She’s just shy.”

  I give Chloe three minutes to win that dog over.

  We’ve had breakfast. I have to admit I feel better. Just getting fed and settled somewhere. Even though I know in my gut that we still have big problems. Unless the problem with the truck is something small and cheap. Thing is, I don’t think so. It didn’t sound small and cheap. It sounded big and expensive.

  The mechanic waves me in. I get up and walk halfway into the service bay, then stop dead when I encounter a sign that says, ABSOLUTELY NO CUSTOMERS ALLOWED IN THE SERVICE AREA.

  “Pay that no mind,” Jim says.

  We lean into the engine together. He’s taken something off or apart. I can see engine parts that I know are normally covered. They shine with blackened oil. I try to look at the engine intelligently. As if I will be clear on what I see.

  “I’m bad at this,” Jim says. “I hate to give bad news. I only like to tell people what I know they want to hear.”

  “Okay, fine. Tell me what I want to hear.”

  “Wish I could, dude. Wish I could.” Long beat
. “Know anything about engines?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. It’s like this. The timing chain keeps the cam and the crank running together. That’s why it’s called a timing chain. Keeps the timing right between the valves and the pistons.”

  “I thought it kept the timing right between the crank and the cam.”

  “Right. Camshaft runs your valves. Crankshaft runs your pistons.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “Okay, let’s go at it another way. You got to have the timing right between your compression stroke and your exhaust stroke, and if you don’t . . .” Jim looks at my face and realizes I’m no closer to mastery. “Okay, maybe I’m trying to explain too much. You got serious damage inside this engine. It’ll have to be all torn down. Hard to say what we’ll find till we open her up. Maybe new pistons and valves and valve stems, and then maybe we’ll find out that the cylinder walls are scored and then maybe we can bore and sleeve, or maybe the engine is just trash and you’ll have to start all over again with a new short block.”

  I recognized about three English words in all of that, and they all sounded expensive.

  “How much money are we talking?”

  “I’m not sure you even want to know.”

  “What’s the very least it could be?”

  “Well, we’re talking labor and machine work. Even with no nasty surprises I can’t see you getting off for less than eleven or twelve hundred.”

  “Oh.”

  “More than you can handle?”

  “Oh, yeah. Truck’s not even worth that. Is it?”

  “Hell yeah it is. Are you kidding? ’54 Chevy pickup? People kill for these. They restore ’em. Worth a fortune all cherried out. I know two guys within forty miles of here who’d scratch each other’s eyes out for this truck. Everything all original. Body in good shape.”

  “But it doesn’t run.”

  “But these guys, even if it did run, first thing they’d do is haul the engine out and rebuild it. Anyway. I’m not saying that a busted engine brings the price up exactly. But lots of people’d still want it.”

  “What do you think I could get for it?”

  Jim scratches his head. “I’d give you eight hundred for it right here right now. But I got to be honest and say you could maybe do better. If I was to give these guys a call . . .” He smiles. Then he smiles even wider, like he’ll break into a laugh any minute. “Well, that might be fun to see. These guys don’t like each other any too much. One of ’em is just sure the other stole a set of factory original hubcaps off him in the dead of night. If they both knew this truck was for sale, it might just be interesting to see.”

  We walk out into the light to tell Chloe.

  She’s sitting on one of the pump islands with the little blue-eyed dog half in her lap. The dog’s whole front end is sitting on Chloe’s lap, the little stump tail going.

  “I’ll be damned,” Jim says.

  They come roaring up at almost exactly the same time. Like they were racing each other in. One is riding on a big, chopped motorcycle. He has a full beard and that kind of helmet that only covers the top of his head. No faceplate or anything. More for looks than safety. The other guy drives a really shiny, sweet-looking red El Camino. He wears a gold wedding ring and has neatly trimmed gray hair. I have a pretty good idea who thinks who stole parts from who.

  Chloe and I stand off and listen while Jim talks to them in a foreign language. Something about the engine number matching the VIN number, and not a trace of Bondo. I don’t know what it means but he makes it sound like a compliment.

  I look at Chloe and she looks sad.

  “I know, Chlo,” I say, “but there really isn’t much else we can do.”

  “Otis would be sad.”

  “Otis was a practical guy. He’d understand.”

  “Yeah, but he’d be sad.”

  “Yeah, okay. We’re sad, too. But we have to just do our best here.”

  “How will we get around?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll have more money. We can maybe hitchhike sometimes. Maybe we can afford a train or a bus if it’s cold.”

  Just then I hear the motorcycle guy yell, “Bullshit! You know it ain’t worth that not running. You know I don’t have that. You’re just doing it to spite me.”

  We don’t hear any response. A minute later his big bike roars to life and off the lot and down the highway. The guy with the neat gray hair comes and stands over us.

  “Son,” he says, “I’ll give you twenty-four hundred dollars for that truck.”

  The guy who bought the truck gives us a lift to the main highway so we’ll have half a chance hitchhiking. Then a couple named Carlos and Elena stop for us, our first actual ride.

  “You’ve got so much stuff,” Carlos says, looking at Otis’s old duffel bags and sleeping bags and backpacks. They’re young, maybe as young as Chloe and me. They’re clean. Inside and out clean. I can’t decide if it’s scary or nice. “We felt bad for you—you have so much stuff.”

  “I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. Is there room?”

  “There’s all that,” he says, pointing to the bed of his pickup. It’s a tan-and-brown truck, not really old like Otis’s, but old enough. Maybe from the seventies. It has an extended cab, so Carlos and Elena and their new baby, Maria, and all their luggage—which isn’t much—fit up front. “You and your wife and your stuff can fit back there, you’re more than welcome to the ride,” he says. “Where are you going?”

  “As far west as you can take us. Where are you going?”

  “Lexington,” he says. “Home. We were just in West Virginia visiting Elena’s parents. We were there to show them our new baby. Their first grandchild.”

  “A baby,” Chloe says. “You have a baby.” Her voice is full of wonderment and awe. To Chloe, a baby is nearly as splendid and exciting as an overweight geriatric Doberman pinscher. A close second, anyway.

  Elena steps out to let us see the baby, who is sleeping in her arms. She’s a very new baby. Maybe a few weeks, tops. Chloe can’t stop looking.

  Meanwhile, Carlos is throwing our stuff in the back, so I join him and throw stuff, too. “We appreciate this,” I say.

  “Happy to help,” Carlos says. “Boy, that’s a nice coat. That’s a beautiful coat. That just might be the nicest one I ever saw.”

  Then we’re out on the highway, and Chloe and I are on our backs looking at the sky. It seems like we’re racing one way under clouds that seem to race the other way.

  Chloe is making notes in her book, but I don’t look over her shoulder and I don’t ask.

  After a couple of hours we stop for lunch.

  I’m looking at Carlos, thinking he’s attractive. Dark and lean, with a kind face. Reasonably handsome, but more than reasonably attractive. Actually, I’m trying not to think that. He’s a husband and a father, and anyway, it embarrasses me.

  “You should let us help you with the gas money,” I say.

  They’re sitting across the table from us, and the baby is a little fussy. So I’m thinking in a minute Elena will have to go someplace private to breast-feed.

  Elena shakes her head no about the money.

  “We wouldn’t hear of it,” Carlos says. “We had to make the trip anyway.”

  “We can afford to help out a little.”

  “Come on. Stop it. You guys don’t have much.”

  Elena is beaming at little Maria. Smiling and making faces and cooing and looking down lovingly. And, you know, tiny and new as this baby girl is, I swear she gets it. I swear she’s taking every bit of this in.

  So is Chloe. She stares all through lunch. Carlos and Elena look up and smile. Then after a while I can see that Elena is not sure about the staring. It seems like too much, even to me. And I know Chloe. I know how intense she can be.

  Finally Elena looks to Chloe questioningly. “What?” she asks.

  “That’s so great,” Chloe says. “I never saw anything like it before in my life, but it’s
great.”

  “What is?”

  “The way you’re looking at her. It’s so great. She knows, too.”

  “All mothers look at their babies like this.”

  “Oh, no they don’t,” Chloe says. She obviously considers herself an authority. “My mother never looked at me like that. I’m not sure she even looked at me. Then she had six more babies and she never looked at any of them like that, either.”

  “Oh,” Elena says, clearly not sure what to say. “Well, I wish all mothers looked at their babies like that.”

  “You and me both,” Chloe says. She turns her attention to me. “What about you, Jordy? Did your mother ever look at you like that?”

  “Are you kidding? You met my mother, Chlo.”

  “Oh. That’s right. Never mind.”

  Carlos wakes me up by shaking my shoulder.

  “Sorry, buddy,” he says. “Sorry to disturb you. But I need your wife.” I open my eyes and see that we’re at a rest stop on the side of the highway. “I have to get some sleep,” he says. “I’m too tired to drive anymore. I’m going to sleep back here with you. Elena can drive if Chloe will sit up front and hold the baby. Her car seat’s broken. Or you can drive if you want.”

  “I want to hold the baby,” Chloe says. She doesn’t sound sleepy. Maybe she was never asleep. Maybe only I was asleep.

  Next thing I know we’re cruising down the road again and Carlos is lying beside me, which makes me happy and uncomfortable in ways I can’t quite sort out. I haven’t been with many men my own age lately. I’m looking up at the sky, and the stars are out in force. I mean, there are billions of them. I swear, I didn’t even know there were so many stars.

  I know Carlos is not asleep yet. He’s looking at the stars with me.

  “It’s almost enough to make you believe in God,” I say.

  “You don’t believe in God?”

  “Maybe I do,” I say. “I’m not sure.”

  “Elena and I have been born again.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  Oh. I hate this moment. I hate it when this happens. I hate to have some warm feeling for someone, a feeling that seems almost wholesome to me, and then suddenly find out that if he could look inside me he’d see something that looks dirty or sick or shameful to him. And then that same nice feeling, I have to try it on through his eyes. Or maybe he would like me anyway. He’s a Christian, right? Christians are supposed to be good at that.