Joy School (16 page)

“Put your foot on the brake first, and then put it in drive.”

I look around. We’re on a deserted suburban street. No one is out. I put my foot on the brake. The car grows fifty times bigger.

“Now put it in drive,” Taylor says. “Move that red line to the D.”

I pull the stick down, feel a little clunk, jump. Well, now, there. I have broken the car. I look over at Taylor, sick. How will I pay?

“What? You’re doing fine!” Taylor says.

Oh. I breathe out, get re-excited.

“Now just press down gently on the accelerator,” Taylor says. “That other pedal.”

“Okay.” I push down and suddenly we are going across someone’s front lawn and everyone is screaming.

“Stop!” Taylor yells. “Put your foot on the brake!” I do, and Taylor goes flying onto the floor. I look at her, scared she is bad hurt, but she is only laughing, holding her head. Gwen is laughing, too. And then so am I. “Put it in park,” Taylor says,
“P.”

I do, like an expert if I do say so myself.

“And get out.” She is still laughing. She opens her car door and starts for my side. I get out, too, head for the backseat.

“No, just stay up there with Taylor,” Gwen says. “The two of you belong together.”

Well. I think I am flattered.

Taylor drives slowly off the lawn, bumps down the curb. There are bad tire tracks all over the place.

“They’ll go away,” Taylor says, seeing me look back at them. “By tonight, they’ll be gone.” I don’t know if that’s true. But she knows more about cars than I
do. And anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it now.

Taylor drives all the way to the store. She does everything right. Once, a police car pulls up behind us. “Cop,” Gwen says. “Watch it.” Taylor looks into the rearview mirror, smiles. I look slowly behind me. The cop is smiling back. And then we lose him without even trying.

D
ear Katie
,

There is everything wrong with New Year’s resolutions. First, you make a list that is plain impossible because
you are in such a good mood thinking you can turn over a new leaf just like that, just because the ball drops. Then you have to watch as each one does not work out, which makes you very disappointed and discouraged, which is the opposite of what the resolutions are supposed to do. I had down to lose weight, one. But all that has happened is I have
gained
. I got on the scale and saw the number and wanted to punch it. But it is my fault. And Ginger’s. I am getting some Metrecal.

Next was to dress better, which you cannot do if your clothes are still the same thing on January 1 and your father says, What for? when you say you need more.

Third, I have gotten nowhere fast with Jimmy. I visit him and he thinks, What a nice kid when I walk away instead of Oh, in my heart is a secret love and soon we will be together. Well, there is one thing, which is that I said to him on January 3rd, “The fifty-four Jaguar had a double overhead camshaft unit.” He looked at me like he didn’t quite know what to think about what he’d just heard. Then, quick, before he could ask any questions like “You know what a camshaft is?” I said, “Of course it wasn’t that much more powerful than the Corvette engine, only smoother.”

“That’s right!” he said, smiling broadly, and he was so happy he forgot to think about whether I really knew what I was talking about. Which I of course did not. I found that stuff in a library book, memorized it like French vocabulary. Later when I have time I will find out what everything
means for real. I would be willing to take a summer class in cars. But anyway my saying this about Jaguars did not really bring us closer. I would say in the end it was a failure.

The one and only resolution I have lived up to is to be nicer to Cynthia. I went to see her last week and we actually had a good time and it made me see that you can have more than one friend in your life, and ones of many kinds, it is just a matter of scheduling. Nona is bad sick, even her voice is weak. She can’t yell at her daughter anymore and I think this is the thing she liked most in life since her husband died. I sat on a chair by her bed for awhile, I’d brought her a Hallmark card. I asked, How are you feeling? though it was plain to see the answer without her saying a word. “I’m-a death warm over,” she said. And then she said, “Well, whattya gon’ do, go complain-a city hall?” She is so funny even when she is sad. I have taken to writing down certain things that she says. She has a bucking-bronco spirit that I think Cynthia will inherit. It seems that as Nona fades, Cynthia gets brighter. Naturally her mother is fit to be tied. She is going around with her vacuum rubbing those carpets hard, thinking, How can I get that girl back under my thumb. But Cynthia is not going back to that old place, you can see it. She hung a picture from
Photoplay
on her wall with Scotch tape, Sandra Dee. When her mother said, Well now, Cynthia, do you remember what tape does to the wall? Cynthia
hung up another one! Actually, it was Cynthia’s New Year’s resolution to ignore her mother when she acts crazy, which is about 90 percent of the time. I have to admit that I helped a little with this resolution, but it was already just lying in Cynthia waiting to get born. And Cynthia is doing just what she promised she would.

But not me. I started out grand but now I feel like I am just sitting at an empty desk, fingers drumming and drumming. And also nervous, like I am about to explode.

T
oday is the day. He is getting stuffed angel cake. I cut a generous piece, put it smack dead center on a nice paper plate, silver foil over it. I was going to tape a pretty picture from a magazine on top of the foil, but it doesn’t pay to push too hard.

The walk to the station is nice today. The sky is full of puffy kinds of clouds that don’t seem to go with winter, but there they are. It is bright enough to wear sunglasses, which I don’t have. When Cherylanne was here she advised me to get some because they add a sex appeal. But I don’t know. When I wear a hat or sunglasses I feel stupid. Same thing with nail polish. I am more a plain type.

Jimmy is not in his office, and I don’t see him outside either. I put the cake on his desk, go to look for him in the garage. And there he is, sitting in his Corvette. The top is down. It looks nicer with the top down. You want to get in.

“Hey,” I say.

He startles, which makes me feel so tender toward him like he is a little boy.

“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just me.”

“Is anyone else out there?”

“No. But guess what, I brought you a surprise.”

He climbs out of the car, closes the door as though it were made of glass. Well, Corvettes
are
made of Fiberglas, he told me, and I said, Uh-huh, I see, even though it seemed like a stupid idea to me to make a car out of glass. He stands looking at the car for awhile, and then he looks over at me. “Hey, Katie,” he says. There is mystery fun in his voice. Diane used to sound like this sometimes before she did bad things. Well, dangerous things. Sometimes it comes like a pinch to the heart how I miss her. Letters are not the same as when you are hip to hip watching television in the gray light and sharing a box of Good & Plenty. Plus one thing Diane does not like is writing letters or anything else.

“Want to go for a ride?”

“Me?” I say, pointing to myself. I wish, I wish, I wish I would stop this, but it comes out like a hiccup and there you are, it is too late.

“Yeah. You.”

“Well…It’s still winter.”

“I know.”

“It’s pretty slushy.”

“I’ll wash it after. You can help, if you want.”

“Sure!” I feel like a happy dog, who goes nuts just because you say the word
walk
. But Jimmy would not let just anyone touch his car, I know it for a fact. This is a real step up the ladder.

Jimmy goes out front to put a note on the door and
lock up. Then he comes back into the garage, smiling, his jacket on and zipped high. “Button up,” he says, pointing with his chin to my collar.

He takes care of you, it is in his nature. If he came to a dying flower dropped on the street he would still move it so it wouldn’t get stepped on. I button the top button of my coat, which chokes me to death but who cares.

“Okay!” He opens my door for me like the coachman for Cinderella herself. Then the garage door opens, and we back out slowly. The sound of the engine is so cute and mumbly. He puts it into gear and we take off. We are way low to the ground. I love this car. It is so bright on the inside like lipstick. I wish I could watch us from the outside, going down the road together.

It’s cold with the top down, but it’s fun, too. The heater will not exactly win any awards, but when you know in a little while you’ll be warm again, you’re all right. I love the sight of Jimmy’s profile, his bare hands on the wheel. The wind is whipping his hair around, his ears are bright red. We go up and down streets, turn left, turn right, go wherever we want. People look at us, especially men. The women look like, Oh isn’t that cute, but the men stop and stare till we’re gone and I would bet one million dollars I know what they’re thinking, which is, Boy, I wish I had one, I want one too. Yes, I say back a little snobby, it’s a ‘54 Corvette, it’s a Blue Flame 6. When we head back to the garage,
I am disappointed. I know he has to work, but I wish we could stay out till the sun went down and then some.

The garage door shuts, and I climb out of the car, close the door gently, push my hair out of my face. I feel like I’ve been on a good ride in an amusement park. Exhilarated, and a little out of breath. Jimmy sits behind the wheel saying nothing. He doesn’t look like he feels the same way. Finally he gets out, grabs a rag, throws one to me. “I’ll just get a bucket,” he says. Something is wrong. His walk is too heavy.

“Want me to take the sign down off the door?” I ask.

“Oh, man, I forgot. Yeah, would you? Thank you. Unlock it, too, okay? Keys are in the door.”

While I’m in the office, I dump old coffee out of his cup, then wash and dry it. I put it upside down on his desk so he’ll know it’s ready to go. This is something I’ve seen in restaurants and it always made sense to me. I straighten his books and papers, line his chair up even with his desk. I take the broom and give the floor a little sweep. This is all the house we have for now.

Finally, I take the foil off the cake. And now my flying spirits take a dive. The whipped cream is all thinned out and melting. The cake doesn’t look delicious at all. It looks like garbage, the kind you don’t want to pick up because it will give you the willies to touch it. The pretty colors it used to have, a red-pink mixed with white, have now blended together to look like an accident.
It’s is a good thing I got here first or Jimmy would think, That girl is not ready for anything. I throw the cake in the garbage. Well, you would think they would say something in the recipe about this, do not leave out too long.

When I go back into the garage, Jimmy is done with his side of the car and starting on mine. “I got it,” he says. “I’m almost done.”

He finishes, stands up and stares at the car again, one hand on his hip. Watching him, I feel as though I can see the car with his eyes: its smooth, rounded lines, its tires with their whitewalls and red stripe and decorated hubcaps, its shiny dashboard dials lined up neat, the little wing off the taillight just to be fancy. It reminds me of when you watch a person who knows a lot about music listen to a record, how they close their eyes like they’re in a good kind of pain, and all of a sudden you hear things you never heard before, just from the love way they move their eyebrows. Oh, you think. I get it.

Jimmy sighs. “Well, say good-bye to it.”

“To the car? Why?”