“You could have told me.”
“I’m sure he preferred to tell you himself.”
“I expect more of you,” I say. I get up from the table and grab my shoulder bag with my driving permit and all of Dad’s tapes that I’m going to return immediately.
Five minutes later I’m on the concrete steps in front of our building. I try to wiggle each of my toes one at a time. If I can get each one to bend by itself without triggering any of the others, Dad will be on time and I’ll pass the test. I start on the right and make it all the way to the fourth toe on the left, but then I screw up and have to start again from the beginning.
I’m about to go back in and try Dad’s number when Mom’s crappy green Chevette pulls up. She honks the horn and then reaches across to roll down the passenger window. “Come on! Let me take you!” she yells.
“Did Dad call?”
“I don’t want you to be late.”
“I’m fine.”
Mom stays parked in front of me; I look past the car, watching down the street for Dad. A few minutes go by and then Mom honks the horn three times like some leather-jacketed teenager picking up his girlfriend on Happy Days.
“You sound crazy,” I say. I’ve never heard her use the horn.
“It’s 9:40,” she says. “It’s come with me now or no test.”
I know she’s right. My appointment is in twenty minutes and the testing centre is at least that far away.
When I get in, all I can smell is Mom’s warmed-up cherry deodorant, her usual panic smell.
“You wanna drive?” She asks.
“Nope.” I’ve spent my whole life being a passenger in Mom’s car, but I don’t have a lot of experience driving it. The last time was in the parking lot.
“You know, it’s a good day for this,” Mom says as she pulls away from the curb. Her voice is so bright it actually makes me close my eyes. “No rain, not too sunny either.”
I shrug and roll up the passenger window; I get cold when I’m nervous.
“I was freaked out for my test,” Mom says. “My father wasn’t an easy man to share a car with. Even after I got my licence, Dad checked the car for scrapes and updated the mileage in a little notebook every time I came home.”
Mom doesn’t talk much about stuff that happened in her life growing up. When I used to ask her about being a kid, she was just like, “All I ever did was swim.” Both her parents were dead before Jed was born. I hardly know anything about her dad except that he liked to grow vegetables on sticks or something.
“Sounds like kind of a dick move.”
She nods her head from side to side. “Just an odd way of showing his concern.”
“So we both had dicks for dads.”
Mom looks at me. “The 400 is murder in the morning. I’m sure that’s all this delay is about.”
“If he’s on the 400 then you’re basically saying he lives in Barrie already.”
“I assume he spends a few nights there.”
“Gross.”
I look out the window at all the drivers alone in their cars — scratching their ears, tapping the steering wheel, leaning elbows against the window all casual. How are they so relaxed? How do they know they’re not about to kill someone?
Mom drives in short jerky movements. Her seat is way upright and she holds her hands straight out on the wheel at ten and two.
“You drive like Frankenstein, you know that?” I tell her.
She peers at the windshield with a constipated look on her face. “Well, this Frankenstein has driven you to school, to tennis, to the orthodontist three hundred times. But just think! When you get your licence, you’ll never have to drive with me again.” She flashes me one of those sarcastic, rectangular smiles. Her teeth are not the greatest colour. I should get her those whitening trays for Christmas. “Just remember that the clutch is a little stiffer on this car, especially going into reverse,” she says. “So take it easy.”
“I know.” But I don’t remember what she’s talking about and her last minute tip tears open a bag of butterflies in my stomach.
“Sometimes it lurches a little when you give it too much gas all at once.”
“OK,” I say. “I get it.”
I try to stick Dad’s Black Crowes tape into the player but Mom’s More Dirty Dancing cassette is lodged in there; I swear it’s been there six months. I pound the eject button. “Have you ever really tried to get this out?”
Mom glances down at the cassette player. “Sure, I’ve tried. It doesn’t really bother me though.”
“So you just listen to the same songs over and over. You’re just like totally OK with that?”
“Mostly I don’t listen to anything.”
“When was the last time you even bought a new tape?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Why?”
“Maybe because there’s actually lots of good music around, Mom.”
“You’re probably right.”
“You shouldn’t be so scared of life.”
Mom looks at me, but I look out the window to avoid her face. She doesn’t say anything for a minute, and then she says, “What makes you think I’m scared of life?”
“It just seems like you are.”
“Compared to who?”
“I don’t know. People.”
“People,” she repeats. She slides her pack of Nicorette gum off the dashboard and pops a piece out. “Well, I’ll buy a new tape if it’s important to you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Mom takes a big breath in and out. She doesn’t say anything else. At the intersection by the testing centre, she stops and turns her left blinker on. Cars zip past like angry bees and my skin feels like it’s tightening up all the way to the top of my head.
“I’m sure your Dad is sorry to be missing this,” she says as we turn into the place.
“If I fail, he’ll have to keep practising with me anyway, so . . . ”
“You’ll do fine.” Mom pats my arm. I don’t like it when she just touches me like that. Her hands are always sort of cold and wet.
Next to our parking space, another mom is hopping around taking pictures of her son in front of a beige station wagon. “Jingle your keys, sweetie,” the mom says. “Show us who’s in the driver’s seat now!” The kid shifts on his skinny red-haired legs, blushing so bad it looks like he might actually be choking. This mom’s going to rush to the drugstore with that film, put her son’s picture in a colourful frame on top of the TV, and maybe even cry about it. She’ll be one of those moms who jokes, “My kid’s on the road, everyone stay home, ha ha ha!” You can tell this is her big thrill of the month, maybe the year. It’s kind of sad.
I follow Mom’s fast walk inside the testing centre, which is crowded and over air-conditioned. A smell like new plastic snags my nostrils and makes me feel like throwing up. I breathe through my mouth.
“You’re late,” the acne-faced appointment lady says.
I look at Mom. She tightens her lips. “My fault,” she says. “Cara here’s all set.”
The woman rolls her eyes and types a bunch. “Really gums up the works when people don’t keep their appointments.”
“Traffic,” Mom says.
The woman ignores her and returns my permit. “Drive round back and wait for your examiner,” she says. I look at Mom. “Go!” the woman says.
Out in the parking lot, I get into the driver’s seat of Mom’s car and immediately stall it. “Go easy,” she says. She puts her hand over mine on the clutch.
I jerk her hand away. “Don’t touch me!” I say. “Please. Ever.”
Mom folds both her hands on her lap. “All right.”
Nothing about this day is how it’s supposed to be. “Let’s just go home,” I say.
“If you think you’d like to be better prepared . . . ”
“So you think I’m not ready? You think I’m going to fail?”
“No one thinks you’re going to fail. You just seem a little . .
. hyper.”
“I’m not hyper.” I hate the word hyper. It makes me think of third-graders who eat too many Oreos. What’s wrong with me is something different. I feel sort of like a skeleton: hollow, shaky, gutless.
Mom looks straight ahead. “OK,” she says. “If you’re going to do this test, Cara, you need to calm down, and you need drive around to the back right now.”
“Fine.” I jerk the car into first and drive, fear inflating my skeleton chest.
Two vehicles are ahead of us, thank Jesus Christ. A skinny guy with a thin brown moustache comes out the automatic doors and goes straight for the first van. He looks like the grade seven tennis coach who made me puke once from running too hard. Afterwards he was like, “And you thought you were so tough.” It was so shitty because I never ever thought I was tough.
“That guy’s the worst case scenario,” I say.
“You know, maybe I should leave you alone,” Mom says.
“Whatever you want.” But my voice is tiny, and Mom doesn’t leave.
The next examiner to come out is a white-haired Santa-looking guy whose uniform barely does up over his belly. “That one looks friendly,” Mom says.
“But someone else is getting him.”
I wipe the sweat off my hands onto my thighs. I shouldn’t have worn shorts. I don’t like the way my legs squish out all pink and white on the car seat. I wish I had Dad’s skin, its cool light brownness, and not Mom’s splotch. I wiggle each of my toes again. Please let me pass. Please let me pass. Please let me pass. When I look up, I see the Worst Case Scenario coming straight toward our car. How could the other van have failed so fast? I turn to Mom, who is actually smiling at him.
The Worst Case Scenario waves me forward and motions for me to roll down the window.
“All righty,” the guy says, taking off his sunglasses and staring down into my window. “I’m George. Let’s take a look at your paperwork.” I hand him my stuff, feeling even emptier than a skeleton now, more like a ghost. My hands don’t feel connected to my wrists; my wrists don’t feel connected to my brain.
George chews his lip while he studies my permit. “OK, Ms. Ketchum. Your passenger can get out now.”
I turn to Mom, and she crinkles up her face in a look of pity. It bothers me that George will see this, that it might make him question how confident I am.
When Mom’s gone, George makes me show him the brake lights, the windshield wipers, the turn signals, and then he moves right into Mom’s spot and clicks on his seatbelt. “’K,” he says. “I’m going to ask you to do a few maneuvers, and you go ahead and do them when you think it’s safe.”
With slippery hands, I wiggle the car into first and George directs us out of the parking lot. Amazingly, I don’t stall.
At our first stop sign, George smacks his lips. “Watch the stopping distance,” he says.
“Sure.” I feel myself going red.
“Naw, naw. I mean move up.” He waves his thick hands in front of him. “You’re like a mile behind that limit line.”
I crawl ahead, remembering to go easy on the clutch. He scratches something down on his clipboard. “When it’s safe, make a right-hand turn.”
I push the flicker up, look to the left, and see a bicycle farther down the road. George watches me closely, tapping his pencil while I wait for it to pass. When I finally turn, after there are at least four cars behind me, George groans and rubs his eyes under his glasses. “Practically needed a telescope to see that bike.” He hates me; I know it. “Straight ahead, first left.”
My leg wobbles as it comes off the clutch. I make the left, feeling every rumble of the road under my feet.
“Change lanes to the right.”
I look that way, it’s clear, but I don’t move. It’s like I’ve forgotten how. I swallow a few times like Nolan from SafetyFirst, but my throat gets all constricted, like I can’t actually breathe. It’s happening: I’m going to fail.
George puts down his pencil.
“I’m sorry.” I sound like a five year-old.
I feel his eyes on the side of my face. “Turn onto that little street and pull over.”
Somehow I manage to signal, do a fake look to the right, and move to the side street. There’s no way he can’t hear my heartbeat.
When I stop the car, George puts his clipboard down on his lap. “Listen, kiddo,” he says. “You gotta relax.”
I look away and nod. On the driveway across from us, two little girls get out of the backseat of a car. They’re probably the same age as Shari’s daughters. Maybe Dad will teach Shari’s girls to drive one day.
“All you need to do is show me you can drive safe,” George continues. “You don’t need to be perfect. Everyone makes mistakes.”
“I was supposed to drive my Dad’s car.”
One of the girls looks over at us. I stare back, my fingers shaking on the steering wheel. I wish I could switch places with her, just be, like, eight. What’s so great about getting older, getting a licence? Where do I even want to go?
“I can tell you’re a cautious driver,” George says. “Just take a deep breath. When you feel ready, drive us back into traffic.”
I try to wiggle my toes again but my feet are too slippery inside my shoes. There’s no time to count. I take the breath he wants, curl my left hand around the wheel, and shift us back into gear.
For the next few hazy minutes, George directs me in circles around the neighbourhood. Everything I do, he notes with the loudest writing I’ve ever heard. When we’re back at the testing centre, I reverse into a parking space the way Dad taught me: slow car, fast hands.
George sets his clipboard down on his lap. If I fail, it won’t be so bad. It’s the summer, so no one at school even needs to know. Mom can drive me home, and Dad’s not here to argue with anyone about it or think I’m not confident. He’ll understand that I just failed because of Mom’s car. And now that I have the test route down, Dad and I can go through it over and over on Friday nights until I get it right. No matter how long it takes.
“Number one is you gotta keep those eyes moving,” George says.
I move my eyes across the parking lot, wondering if Dad did actually show up. There’s a line of people out the door of the testing centre, but no Dad. Mom is sitting on a bench outside, looking across at the cars turning in on the other side.
“Hey,” George says. “I’m talking to you.” But when I look at him, he’s smiling. He unclips my papers and hands them to me. “Number two is you gotta relax.” There’s a happy face drawn at the top of the papers. “You’ll do that for me?”
“Sure.” I can taste the sun on my chin through the windshield.
“Make it official.” George nods in the direction of the testing centre and then opens his door.
I cross the bright parking lot with George’s papers, watching my reflection ripple past on the parked cars. I feel like I have my body back, but it also feels a little like Boxing Day, like everything I waited for is over and wasn’t quite how I wanted it. I look around and try to make my own memory like Dad said I should: the shiny black pavement, the hedge trimmer whining at the side of the building, the pink and white plaid of Mom’s shirt in the distance. I have no idea what I want to do first thing now that I have my licence.
Mom is still staring off in the wrong direction, but I’m close enough to see her red Kodak camera dangling from her wrist. She always closes the wrong eye when she tries to use it. The thought makes my chest muscles tighten. I squash the keys in my fist and blink up at the snappy blue sky, my mouth twisting in every direction to stop myself from crying.
Then Mom’s right there, walking toward me, the camera swinging back and forth. She wraps her arms around my shoulders, and I hide my face in her armpit. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“Oh, honey, it’s your first time,” she says. “We’ll come back.”
My tears press into the soft cotton of her shirt. Part of me wants to tell her the truth right away, make her laugh. But ther
e’s a big lineup for the testing centre, and people get held longer when they’re sad.
Arrangements
Winter, 1995
Lorna decided to walk to Ballantyne’s. She had an hour and half to kill, and she hated the sound of an empty apartment. It was also a pretty night for walking, the kind of snowy city evening that could get you humming “Silver Bells” under your breath, even though Christmas three weeks earlier had been muddy and warm. Tonight, a light flurry turned under street lamps, and the wet road cast back a slick honey glow. Parked cars were dusted like pastry. Lorna could take the slow walk through the reservoir.
Lorna was going to meet Alex. He’d called her office earlier that week to say he had a small part in a TV pilot and was getting a free Friday night at the Delta Hotel. He said it might be nice to grab a drink. It was interesting because Lorna had planned to call Alex herself right after New Year’s, but as time marched into the second week of January, she’d still not done it. She agreed immediately to the drink, but spent the next few days in a quiet panic. Alex was first on her list.
Lorna walked carefully up the winding path to the reservoir, her hands jammed in the pockets of her coat. Once she’d avoided the park after dark for fear of rapists and muggers, but getting cancer and getting assaulted in the same month seemed unlikely. Besides, the only people she could see on the path were a couple of teenagers, hunched under the weight of oversized backpacks. There was a time when kids like that might have intimidated her, when she would have worried about what they carried. Spray paint? Butterfly knives? What was a butterfly knife, again? All these things she still hadn’t really learned.
But the backpacks were just security blankets. Cara wore one everywhere. Always a backpack, never a purse. She and her friends looked like a deflated platoon under the weight of those things, whose secrets she knew now were only notebooks, broken makeup, the occasional bottles of fruity beer wrapped up tightly in a sweater. They dragged themselves around food courts, parks, coffee shops. Bored seeming but with an undercurrent of snappish energy, ready for some unplanned excitement that could happen anytime.
Catch My Drift Page 21