Chapter 18
18
Eleanor
Sometimes I loop my thoughts, as if repetition will convince me to believe what I’m thinking. Which is why I remind myself, over and over, that renting a car for the day has nothing to do with Carson joking about my walking everywhere. Walking is great. So is public transportation. I just want to cover more ground than my two feet will let me, and I don’t want to be limited by train or bus times.
It also has nothing to do with trying to find a way to pass the time until tomorrow’s picnic, or about distracting myself from wondering what Carson is doing with their day.
This is all about me.
An employee hands me the keys to a bright orange hatchback. It’s a hideous vehicle. Bright, oddly shaped, demanding of attention. It makes me even more determined to have a real spectacle of a time somewhere other than Trove Hills. Maybe I’ll spend the day driving the part of Route 66 that begins here. Who knows? Cue the Shania Twain and Let’s go, girl .
It doesn’t take long to discover that cars have changed a lot since the last time I drove one. Which was…twelve years ago? I’ve kept my driver’s license current for moments like this, which are few and far between. Nonexistent, to be more specific, but this kind of spontaneity is what the license is for, and I’ll be damned if I don’t use it for once.
The first change to throw me off is the ignition. I’ve seen this from the back of cabs and ride shares. It’s a whole new thing to experience as the operator of the vehicle. There’s no place to insert a key. I press a button with my foot on the brake, and somehow, the engine turns on?
Then there are the sensors. They are everywhere , shouting at me for failing to buckle in as soon as I shift out of park. Beeping whenever someone comes near me in reverse. Chirping at me to stay centered in the lane as soon as I make it onto the road. The speed limit here is thirty-five, but driving it outrages the other vehicles around me. Drivers honk in frantic succession, then speed past me like I have sought to personally offend them.
I make it all of one block from the rental lot before I panic.
Cutting over as hard as I can, I pull off onto the grass beside the road. To my right, oak trees stretch as far forward as the eye can see, a forest of lush green unknowns. On my left, cars fly by, as rude and loud as they were when I was operating one alongside them. It’s a nightmare. Why would anyone want to operate a vehicle every day?
“You’re okay, Eleanor,” I say, hands still death-gripped around the steering wheel. “You’re okay.”
Forcing myself to problem-solve instead of continuing to waste time by freaking out, I reach with shaking hands for my phone. How do I get this car back to the rental property without having to drive it? Do Lyft drivers do that? Maybe if I pay them extra?
The knock on my window startles me into a scream, and I drop my phone in the space between the seat belt and the middle console.
It’s Carson.
Somehow, it is always Carson.
I roll down my window, caught between relief and terror. “How are you everywhere I am?” I ask, breathless.
“I followed you,” they tell me.
“You what ?”
“I went over to my parents’ house to see you,” they say. “I pulled up right as you were getting into the back seat of a car. I don’t have your number, so I couldn’t text to ask where you were going. So I followed. Which, yes, that was weird of me. I just do things, I’m telling you. But I was thinking about how you don’t know anyone here, and sometimes you hear scary stories about what happens with rideshare drivers. I got worried.”
A blush begins crawling up their neck, like their nerves are somehow as potent as my own.
“Anyway, when you got out at a car rental place, I was invested,” they continue. “I told myself I’d leave when you did, and I wouldn’t keep track of you after that. But you gunned it out of the lot like a twelve-year-old who’d gotten into their parents’ car without permission. I started to wonder if maybe you were drunk or something. You cut off a bus to swerve onto the grass. And yeah. I knew you needed help.”
“I don’t need help!” I shout. It’s so emotional and untrue that I almost break down again. “I’m sorry.” I slap my cheeks to stop myself from crying. “I’m not drunk. I just haven’t driven a car in a very long time. I thought it was like riding a bike.”
Carson reaches in through the window and unlocks my door. They pull it back, then step into the open space, squatting down beside me. Before I know it, they’ve grabbed my hands, stopping me from touching my face.
“Eleanor,” they whisper, voice so tender it coaxes my suppressed tears back to the surface again. “It’s okay.”
“This is ridiculous,” I say, eyes welling. “I’m embarrassed that you’re seeing this.”
“Don’t be,” they reply. “I just told you I followed you here. I’m winning the embarrassment Olympics.”
“Why on earth did you follow me?” I ask.
“You were getting into a car when I pulled up, and—”
“No, I heard all of that. I mean, why do you care what happens to me?” Carson reacts like they’ve been sucker punched. “I know, I know, we all deserve care and attention,” I say, stumbling in pursuit of a joke that will take me far away from this accidental vulnerability. There is no space in my life for their pity. “And you’re a good person. You’d do this for anyone.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” they tell me.
“You might not rescue your parents’ intense neighbor, but I bet even Denise from over at Rita’s Diner could get you to invest in a low-stakes car chase. If the situation was juicy enough.”
Carson stands up again. It’s a drastic improvement to piercing my soul with a devastated gaze while holding a perfect heels-flat and ass-to-the-grass squat. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” They reach over me and unbuckle my seat belt, taking my hand again and guiding me around the front of the car and over to the passenger side.
They aren’t being forceful. I’m being compliant. I could resist, and they’d stop without hesitation. Part of me wants to. But another part of me wants, for once, to have someone else think on my behalf.
“I’m going to drive this orange monstrosity back to the rental place with you in the passenger seat,” they continue. “We will return it, explaining what happened. If they still make you pay, we can figure that out too.”
“I don’t care about the money,” I say.
“Cool. Then we will return this and walk back to my car. Hopefully the boys in blue don’t see us doing it, but if they do, we will be brave and defy them by continuing to walk. And then we will find a big, empty parking lot, where I will teach you how to drive.”
“I know how to drive,” I tell them.
“Okay. Sure. Let’s just practice getting you more comfortable behind the wheel.”
“I’m not uncomfortable, I just—”
“ Eleanor. Please. It’s clear you’re going to go through this kicking and screaming, but I promise I won’t tell a single soul that you have weaknesses.” They lower me into the passenger seat, even going as far as to buckle me in again.
“Thank you,” I say, doing my best to accept the help I know I want, even if my actions don’t seem to match my desire. “The sensors would’ve screamed at you if you didn’t do that part. They’re very sensitive.”
“Just like me,” they say.
“Not me, though.”
Carson picks up the conversation once they’ve gotten seated in the driver’s seat. “No, no. You’re a pillar of insensitivity. You definitely haven’t committed to distracting me from my family for the week or anything thoughtful like that. You’ve never left a one-hundred-dollar tip at Rita’s Diner for no reason either.”
It’s helpful to be reminded I’ve agreed to be their distraction. It re-centers me. Deep down, I know there could be more than that between us—that there already is more than that—but what good would come from giving that any headspace? I’m just a visitor here.
“Who told you about my tip?” I ask.
“My sources are confidential.”
“By the way, my phone’s stuck,” I say.
“Of course it is.”
“Nothing’s ever easy with me.”
“It’s not that difficult either.”
I sigh. “Just drive. Please.”