Driver's Ed

by Caroline B. Cooney

  The person who most got in his way was his sister, Remy.

  Remy sensibly avoided the subject of her brother Mac. “Henry isn’t a life sentence,” she said. “He’ll outgrow the car seat eventually.”

  “Left,” said Mr. Fielding.

  Remy clicked her signal and carefully studied the unfamiliar left turn. Two lanes of oncoming traffic, but there was a stoplight. She halted exactly behind the white line. The light turned green. Remy didn’t give the intersection any more thought. She had the green, so what was there to think about?

  Remy spun the steering wheel left and accelerated. She loved accelerating. It was so neat how you just flexed your ankle and the car sprang across the road.

  “Sure, when you’re in college, Henry’ll be out of his car seat,” said Lark. “It’s Mac who won’t outgrow anything.” Lark turned to Morgan and added, “That subhuman stage lasts so long in boys.”

  Oh, to have a brother like Morgan, thought Remy. Morgan had never gone through a subhuman stage. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell were not the kind of people who would give birth to a primitive savage like Mac. The Campbells had put in an order for blond, slim, athletic, brilliant, articulate, successful children and gotten them. Starr and Morgan Campbell were without flaw.

  Remy studied Morgan in her rearview mirror. If Morgan were her brother, he would be worth keeping, which was a rarity in brothers.

  And if he were her boyfriend …

  However, boyfriends were even rarer than worthy brothers.

  Regrettably, while she was observing future boyfriends, Remy did not observe the median. In spite of a gaudy yellow line painted on the curb, Remy did not notice that the road onto which she had turned was divided by a raised cement strip.

  “Remy, stop!” shrieked Lark.

  Remy’s heart leaped. Stop for what? There were no cars aimed at her! She had the green.

  “Look out!” shouted Morgan. “Turn! Pull to the right!”

  Her nervous foot slammed down on the accelerator.

  Mr. Fielding, of course, said nothing. Driver’s Ed was largely self-taught.

  Remy drove into eight vertical inches of solid cement.

  She screamed. Lark screamed. Morgan groaned and slid out of sight.

  The low-slung Driver’s Ed vehicle was not a Bronco or Jeep designed for this. The car went up, but not across. From its underside came a horrible grinding and crashing.

  Remy accelerated, because that’s where her foot was—on the gas. The engine roared. What am I doing? she thought, doing it.

  The car would be hung up on the divider. People would point and stare and laugh. They’d take videos and sell them. She’d have to pay blackmail.

  In front of Morgan! Oh, please, God, where are you? Don’t let me be a jerk in front of Morgan. No wonder Kierstin won’t drive in front of boys. God, get me out of this!

  The horror of being stranded in the middle of the road forced Remy’s foot down even harder on the accelerator. The car lurched over the cement, scraping and tearing, leaving some of its innards behind. By now Remy was giving the car so much gas, it vaulted through the air as in a movie stunt.

  She kept going. She couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  The engine continued to throb.

  Morgan reported that it was just part of the muffler Remy had deposited on the divider. Nothing essential.

  Remy’s heart developed a new rhythm, like some Caribbean dance nobody had learned yet. Her fingers turned to ice and her face was a beet of shame.

  “Why’d you do that?” said Mr. Fielding curiously.

  “I didn’t see it!” she wailed.

  “What if it had been a person standing there, instead of just cement?” asked Mr. Fielding.

  “I would have seen a person!”

  But what if it had been a person? What if she’d left a body behind, instead of tailpipe?

  She’d be a hit-and-run driver. A criminal. Leaving the scene of the accident. No excuse but a heavy foot. “Don’t tell,” she said urgently to Lark and Morgan.

  “Of course we’re telling,” said Lark. “This is the best mistake yet.”

  * * *

  Of the two types of magazines Morgan liked to look at, only car magazines were permissible in public, so he kept a Car and Driver with him at all times, memorizing, studying, and yearning.

  He had stood on the threshold of being sixteen ever since he could remember. He ached to be the driver. He wanted long journeys. Total freedom. Complete control. He’d leave town, leave the state, drive every turnpike in the nation from start to finish.

  He had no destinations. He didn’t care about destinations. He just wanted to drive. Fast.

  He came from a family that specialized in yearning for things.

  His father yearned for power, and was going to try to move up in the world: from statehouse to governor. His mother yearned for money, and had just become full partner in her law firm. His sister, Starr, yearned for both these things, but she called it popularity.

  Starr was cruel in the way of twelve-year-old girls, going up to people on purpose and telling them their teeth were crooked, their jeans were dumb, and their jokes were pathetic. Starr was the most sought-after girl in junior high, which in Morgan’s opinion was due to fear. She had terrified the other girls into submission. Starr didn’t have a friend in the world; she was just popular.

  Experience with Starr established that girls were awful. And yet girls were the wonderful and desirable focus of the other magazines, the ones he kept in the cellar, behind his weight-lifting equipment. Sometimes he thought even more about girls than cars.

  Class, food, parents, television, music, wheels—some days he could hardly even see this stuff. The world was redolent of the possibilities that were out there, that he was not getting; that he had no idea how to get; that he was sure to mess up when he did get them.

  Being so close to both Lark and Remy confused him.

  Lark was a bubblehead who laughed at everything from surprise quizzes to field-trip buses that broke down five miles from a bathroom. You couldn’t be with Lark without having a great time.

  Lark was very slight, however, and gave off an aura of being breakable that did not appeal to Morgan.

  Remy, now. Her figure had matured in seventh grade and Morgan had been studying it ever since. Remy was given to wearing sweatshirts over jeans, and her figure beneath the sweatshirt was pronounced and unmistakable. When they talked, Morgan had to discipline himself to meet her eyes instead of her curves.

  Now, sitting behind her, he thought about her hair. It was absolutely straight, cut one hair at a time, each golden strand fractionally shorter than the one beneath. If he touched the shorn edge he would feel the soft back of her neck at the same time as the bristles of her cut hair.

  What if he went out with Remy?

  First he would have to ask her. A problem as hard to get over as cement road dividers.

  Whoever he went out with, he would drive. Period. There would be no discussion on that one. Morgan didn’t care one bit about equality when it came to driving.

  He was grateful to Remy for being a jerk back at that intersection. He could hold it over her. Probably stretch it out for years. Now if Lark would just screw up, too, he could really wallow in his masculine superiority.

  Remy’s eyes filmed over, blurring the road so badly it was just a matter of moments before she drove over a second, probably pedestrian-occupied, cement divider.

  “Remy, pull into that parking lot,” said Mr. Fielding. “The one in front of that strip mall.”

  There were hundreds of strip malls. The entire world was a strip mall. Remy was too rattled to study buildings by the side of the road. “Which one?”

  “That one,” said Mr. Fielding helpfully.

  “Put on your right turn signal,” said Morgan loudly.

  “Put on your left turn signal,” said Lark, louder.

  Remy continued straight ahead, which involved fewer choices.

  I
can’t even choose left or right! she thought. My pulse is blowing up like fireworks over left or right. How am I going to pick a college if I can’t even pick left or right?

  “Calm down,” said Mr. Fielding. “It’s no big deal. Nobody’s dead.”

  That was the dividing line between big deal and little deal? Death?

  Remy could not transfer her foot to the brake, choose a turn signal, and pick out a mall. Like Christine she just gave up, hauled the car off the road, and sat panting on the shoulder.

  “Your turn to drive … Christine,” said Mr. Fielding.

  It was a good thing Lark opened both doors for Remy. Close-callness peeled off her poise like skin from a sunburn. She got into the back with Morgan and forced herself to look over, see how big of a deal he was going to make of her pathetic driving.

  Morgan was smiling his distant sweet smile. He must have learned the smile from a father in politics. It made you feel loved, but just generic love, not you in particular. Remy wanted to be loved in particular. She especially wanted kisses. She kissed her baby brother continually for practice, but a one-year-old’s forehead did not count.

  “You okay?” said Morgan. His voice was his father’s too: warm and reassuring. Don’t worry about the economy or global nightmares: just elect me and all will be well.

  Don’t worry about Driver’s Ed and popularity: just look into my eyes and I’ll make everything better.

  “Oh, Morgan. You just saw me. I’m okay but I’m stupid.” She wanted to cry so Morgan would comfort her, but she wanted not to cry so Morgan would think she was strong.

  Morgan took her hand and tightened his muscles against her cold palm. “Calm down,” he said softly. “Mr. Fielding’s right. No big deal, nobody’s dead.”

  She didn’t let go of Morgan’s hand. It was remarkably larger than hers. His thumb was immense. Even his hand had muscles. He had more muscle in his hand than she did in her whole arm.

  She drifted into dreams of Morgan. She was now acquainted with his thumb. This would be a meaningful experience for Morgan and he would ask her out. She let herself be thrown against Morgan when Lark miscalculated cornering speed.

  Morgan responded by shoving her back in place and finding her seat belt for her. “You want to die?” he said disapprovingly.

  No, I just want to sit in your lap.

  Their faces were very close. Morgan’s smile turned into a wicked grin. A junior-high-boy, worthless-younger-brother-Mac, I’ve-got-you-now grin. “How’s Jesus?” he said.

  Remy laughed.

  When Remy’s mother had become pregnant again at forty-four, the family had been both horrified and thrilled. Thrilled won. Medical tests assured them the baby would be a girl, so they spent months deciding on a girl’s name. It had to be romantic and unusual and melodious. It had to please all four of them, since they all would have to live with it and change its diapers.

  They settled on Andressa, only to have a boy. They had not spent a nanosecond on boys’ names. The baby went into hospital records as Baby Boy Marland. Of course, during the Name Decision Period, they still had to call the baby something.

  Remy called the baby Sweet Prince, because he was so adorable.

  Mac, nauseated by what a kid would go through with a name like Sweet Prince, called him Matthew, since all the Matthews Mac knew were good athletes and fit in socially.

  Remy’s mother called the baby Jamie, which Dad wouldn’t accept because it could also be a girl’s name, while Dad held out for Jason, which Mom wouldn’t accept because there were too many Jasons in the world already.

  So there they were, calling this eight pounds of person Matthew or Jamie or Jason or Sweet Prince, when Mr. and Mrs. Marland came to a decision out of nowhere and decided on Henry.

  Henry? everybody complained. You call that a name? That outdated, out-of-fashion pair of syllables?

  When the baby was a few months old, Christmas arrived.

  Naturally a real live baby was more desirable for the Christmas pageant than somebody’s old doll. Baby Boy Marland, who that week of life slept well, took the starring role and lay placidly in a manger. Remy’s mother was maybe a little too proud of Baby Boy Marland’s role.

  The pageant came and went. The name Jesus did not. “Night-night, Jesus,” Mom would croon over the crib. “Sleep tight, Jesus.”

  The rest of the family certainly hoped this was a habit Mom would get rid of before they had to have her committed.

  Shortly after Christmas the baby stopped sleeping, as if sleep were a vice he did not intend to have. If he ever got to sleep, he certainly didn’t sleep tightly; this was the loosest-sleeping baby in America.

  Now he was over a year old, and nobody had surrendered on the name front.

  “Henry’s pretty good,” she told Morgan, “but we’re name-training Mom now. Jesus is out.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Morgan. “I thought it added a little to Sunday school to have Jesus attending.”

  Remy thought it would add even more to have Morgan attending.

  Lark went through a red light.

  Brakes screamed.

  Horns blared.

  Single middle fingers pointed upward.

  Windows rolled down.

  Swear words were heard.

  Lark drove quickly on. For the next intersection she began stopping several hundred feet early. They didn’t get rear-ended only because there was no car behind them to do it.

  Mr. Fielding said to her, “I know you saw that red light back there. You stopped.”

  “I know, but I forgot to stay stopped.”

  Morgan was delirious with pleasure. What a quote. He couldn’t wait to tell the other boys. I forgot to stay stopped.

  Masculine superiority. Nothing like it.

  “My turn, Lark,” he said. “Get out. Switch. We’re practically back at school and I haven’t had my chance.”

  “We’re in the middle of the street, Morgan. I can’t get out here.”

  “Nobody’s behind us.” Morgan leaped out of the backseat, raced around the car, ripped open the driver’s door, and unlatched Lark’s seat belt. In case she had not realized that he was serious, he uncurled her fingers from the steering wheel and yanked her by the elbow.

  “Well! Really!” said Lark. “Just because you’re afraid for your life.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Now, this new piece,” said Mr. Willit, “is a love song. And therefore, dear chorus of mine, we will perform it lovingly.”

  Concert Choir regarded him nervously. The music teacher had an unfortunate tendency to embarrass them in public.

  “We’re going to choreograph this number. Not only will we sing,” said Mr. Willit, “but right here on the risers we’re going to waltz the waltz, hug the hug, and kiss the kiss.” He demonstrated his air hugs and air kisses in three-four time.

  Sixty-eight singers made various expressions of horror and revulsion.

  “Mr. Willit,” said Lark, “try to be normal.”

  Mr. Willit jerked dramatically to a halt. “Normal?” he cried. “Excuse me, Lark. In this room, in this gathering, did you actually use the word normal?”

  Remy loved this stuff. Mr. Willit was always a bit player in a skit he wrote on the spot. She glanced at Morgan, to see Morgan’s wonderful easy grin, but Morgan was mesmerized by the music folder in his lap, which in fact held his driver’s manual, so he could study rules of the road when the tenors weren’t singing.

  “Look around you!” cried Mr. Willit. “Do you see any normalcy lurking?”

  They imitated him, scanning the room for normal people.

  “In fact,” said Mr. Willit, “you students here at East Line High don’t need to worry if anybody gets into Harvard. You just hope two or three of you will be normal by graduation.” He looked carefully through sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses. “Normalcy is so far out of reach for you people, I fear I shall have to narrow the field.” He squinted and shaded his eyes. “Aha! Morgan! Come!”

 
Morgan Campbell. Normal.

  Morgan’s parents had far greater plans for their son than normalcy. They expected straight A’s, brilliance in field and gym, leadership in student government, astonishing achievement in some unusual and fascinating activity, plus a clear complexion.

  Remy prayed to the God Who Restrained Music Teachers not to let Mr. Willit embarrass Morgan. Remy had a large selection of gods, each with its own specific duty in life: a god to protect her from the dark, a god to endanger Mac’s existence, a god to make Morgan fall in love with her.

  The chorus was delighted with Mr. Willit’s choice, because Morgan was perfect and needed to be the butt of a joke.

  Mr. Willit took Morgan’s cheeks in his hands and turned Morgan’s head left and then right for the chorus to admire. Morgan was measurably taller and wider. Mr. Willit looked like a skinny shopper buying a big garden statue.

  “Kid,” proclaimed Mr. Willit in a huge, rolling voice, “this is your year. I am going to make you normal. Nobody else here is going to achieve this pinnacle of success. Normalcy. Think about it, Morgan. Thank your lucky stars.”

  The chorus went wild. Stomping, whistling, catcalling.

  “Wave at the crowds,” Mr. Willit instructed. “Poor twisted little beggars. At least they have you to look up to now.”

  Mr. Willit taught Morgan to wave like the Royal Family. Swiveling from the wrist, so as not to tire out the whole hand.

  Morgan accepted the applause with dignity.

  Remy quivered with wanting him. She wanted to be his girlfriend, and get applause with him, and be applauded by him.

  But he didn’t glance at the sopranos on his return to his seat and when chorus ended she got swept up by Lark. The two girls arrived at Driver’s Ed first. Remy was forced to sit without knowing where Morgan would be.

  “Did you see the mailboxes?” said Joss.

  Christine nodded. “Who’s doing it?”

  Mailbox baseball had swept the city. Hundreds of mailboxes had been trashed during the night.

  “Nobody knows,” said Lark, making it sound as if she, of course, knew perfectly well.

  Chase and Morgan came in together, too broad to fit through the door. Morgan dropped back, and Remy’s heart skipped thinking of how much the boys had grown this year. Why couldn’t Morgan participate in a bare-chested spectator sport?