Chapter 34 In Which I Am Incompetent
IN WHICH I AM INCOMPETENT
“No,” Joe said again, in what I’d begun to call his “Patient Voice.” I rather loathed this voice. “OK, we’ll start over. First, you put the key in the ignition.”
“I’m well aware of this step,” I said. We were in the vast and empty parking lot of the high school, and it was very early on a Sunday morning in late August. The perfect time for a driving lesson. “And then I give two pumps to the accelerator, as so.”
“Yep,” Joe said. “What next?”
“It would help,” I said, “if I could refer to my notes.”
“Well, you can’t,” Joe said. “You’re driving.”
“I know,” I said. “I was merely remarking. Next, the choke. I pull it all the way out, because the engine is cold, and this closes a plate in the carburetor, restricting the airflow and thus creating a fuel-rich mixture.”
“You’ve got one thing going for you,” Joe said. “You’re one heck of a memorizer.”
“Thank you. Next I pull out the hand throttle knob, but only slightly. This allows the engine to idle more quickly while it’s cold. Although it is not cold today.”
“‘Cold’ just means it hasn’t been driven in a few hours,” Joe said. “OK, what now?”
“Now,” I said, “I start the engine by turning the key. And then I push the choke knob back in.”
The engine coughed and promptly died. Joe said, “You gradually push it back in.”
“I did,” I said.
“Start over and do it more slowly this time,” Joe said.
Ten minutes later—yes, ten, for Joe would not allow me to begin driving until I was able to start the car smoothly, although one only had to start it once each time one drove—I had progressed to shifting gears.
Where we stayed for another thirty minutes while I attempted to work the clutch and the gas in the correct sequence, all while remembering how to shift to the correct spot on the column without looking.
“Because you’ll be driving,” Joe said. “You can’t be looking down while you’re driving. ”
“It would help,” I said, “if the car were smaller.”
“Your feet reach the pedals fine,” Joe said. Patient again. Soothing, in fact, which was rapidly becoming annoying. “It’s a new motion for you, that’s all. Let’s try again. Shift into reverse and back up.”
“Back up? But how will I see where I’m going?”
“In your mirror.”
“But I’ll be confusing my brain!”
Joe sighed.
How many times did we inch around the parking lot, with the car lurching and stopping like a recalcitrant horse as I attempted to manipulate the clutch? I said at last, “I must stop and wind down the window, for it’s very hot in here.”
“Go ahead,” Joe said, and wound down his own without pointing out that it was in fact rather cool, and I was only sweating because I’d made so many mistakes. “OK, try again. Let’s go forward this time. You’re doing great. You’ll get the hang of it soon.”
We’d picked up the car a week ago, but Joe had just begun his final exams at the time, so it had sat undisturbed until now.
All week, though, I’d been gazing at the shiny, bulbous, deep-red monster parked behind our newly refurbished apartment building and imagining myself behind the wheel.
The car was called the Chevrolet Fleetmaster Deluxe and had the most enormous chrome grille on the front, like a locomotive.
I saw myself driving great distances in it, perhaps across the Golden Gate Bridge.
I’d begun to wish we’d chosen the convertible, for if I had a scarf around my head and a pair of sunglasses, I would surely appear a glamorous, confident woman of the world.
As you can see, this illusion was diminishing by the minute.
It was perhaps an hour before I was shifting confidently without stalling, and able to pull in and out of designated parking spaces, too—they seemed so small, and the car so large!
—and shift into first gear without the engine dying from inadequate clutch action.
The third time I managed this successfully, Joe said, “That’s good for today, I think. ”
“What?” I said. “But I haven’t driven anywhere!”
“It’s better to take these things more gradually,” he said.
“And did you train for the Army more gradually? Did you practice crawling in the mud and—and shooting and using your bayonet for one hour, and then hear the instructor say, ‘You must all be very tired. Please go have a bath and a nice rest’?”
Joe laughed. “Nope. I sure didn’t. I’m not sure boot camp is the most comfortable model to build your life on, though.”
“Surely,” I said, “I can accomplish more than this. Look; it’s only fifteen minutes to eight. I could drive back to the apartment building, at least, perhaps via University Avenue? I need to get the feeling of being on a street.”
“OK,” Joe said. “Let’s do it. You’re right; the street is different. Just remember, the red light means ‘stop.’”
“Ha, ha,” I said, maneuvering toward the street with great determination and very little speed.
“Blinker,” Joe reminded me.
“Yes.” I pushed a lever. The windshield wipers began to move. I said, “Wait, no,” and tried to turn them off.
Joe said, “Brake. Brake!”
I said, once I’d done so—and restarted the car, for I’d forgotten about the clutch once again—“It’s a great many things to do with one’s hands and feet all at once, isn’t it?”
“Yep. Still want to try?”
“Of course.”
Up University Avenue, then. I stalled at the first traffic light, but fortunately, there was only one driver behind me. He hooted his horn, which made me jump, but I got the car through before the light changed again. The other driver wasn’t so fortunate.
“Everybody was a student driver once,” Joe said. “He’ll live.”
I said, “You’re able to be so calm because you have been in battle so many times, I think.” I braked gently for the next intersection, then decided to brake harder, which threw Joe forward a little.
He’d had to brace himself against the dashboard, but he still laughed. “You’re probably right. It does tend to give a guy some perspective. So far, we’re still alive. There you go; green light. Nice and easy.”
The other car was behind me again. He hooted again, a longer blast this time. Fortunately, we were both able to get through, although only just.
“Good job,” Joe said. “Let’s practice your parking and let him get around you. Put on your turn signal; it’s on your left, remember, and you push it up to turn right. Now pull into a space, right between the white lines. It’s an angle; just follow it on in.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Here,” Joe said. “Right here.”
“Oh!” I swung the car hard to the right.
“Brake!” Joe said. “Brake!”
I stamped on the brake.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the brake.
“Marguerite,” Joe was saying. “Marguerite!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” My hands were fluttering on the steering wheel, my legs shaking. I tried to stop them, but couldn’t. This was very odd.
Joe was at my door, then; how had he got there so fast? The door was open, and he was pulling me out, saying, “You hit your chest on the wheel. How bad is it?”
I felt it now; why hadn’t I done so sooner? “It hurts,” I said. “A … a bruise only. Joe. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Braced myself.”
“Oh. Good. But—oh, no. The car.”
“We’ll get it fixed. Not a big deal. Nobody else hurt, and no damage other than to the car.”
“Are you … are you sure? The pole. The—” I couldn’t think of the word.
“The parking meter’s going to be just fine,” Joe said. “You didn’t even dent it.”
I had, however, dented the beautiful chrome bumper, the one that looked like a locomotive. “Your beautiful car,” I moaned. “Oh, no.”
“Our beautiful car. Cars can be fixed. Come on. Let’s head home so I can take a look at that bruise.”
“I don’t want to drive, though.”
“No,” Joe said, “I expect you don’t.” He didn’t say, I don’t want you to drive either, but I’m sure he thought it.
Of course Susie and Fred were coming out of the front door of the building when Joe pulled into the curb. Of course they were. And how they stared!
“Brother,” Fred said when we climbed out to join them—I’m afraid I’d wished very much to hide in the car with my face covered—“you’ve had the thing a week. I knew the Army couldn’t drive worth a darn, but—”
“Be quiet, Fred,” Susie said. “What happened? Are you two OK?”
Joe said, “I am. Marguerite’s a little banged up.”
“I used the … the wrong pedal,” I said. I was trying very hard to act normally, but my chest did hurt rather a lot, and I was also very embarrassed. “The car went up over the curb and hit the parking meter.”
Fred laughed. Susie said, “Shut up, Fred. Oh, Marguerite. How terrifying.”
“Terrifying for Joe, you mean,” I said.
Joe said, “Let’s get you inside and take a look at that.”
Susie said, “I’ll help. Fred, take the list and do the shopping.
” She opened her purse and drew out a piece of paper.
It would, I knew, be written up systematically, with the items in order of their appearance in the supermarket, right to left, all through the aisles.
Susie was, to nobody’s surprise, a marvel of a homemaker.
“Yes, ma’am,” Fred said, and took the list.
“And don’t buy anything that isn’t on it,” she said. “Last time, you came home with beef jerky, pimento cheese spread, and marshmallows. Marshmallows!”
“I hear and obey,” Fred said, and sauntered off.
I laughed. It hurt.
For once, I barely noticed the beautiful floral green wallpaper in the hallway, or the dark-green chair rail separating it from the sage-green paint above.
I didn’t even register my so-pretty green-and-yellow kitchen, which was dearer to me than any part of the five-hundred-room Dresden Residenzschloss, because I had created it myself.
Well, dearer than anything but the kitchen of the palace.
Kitchens, I thought irrelevantly as Joe sat me down on the couch and began to unbutton my blouse, were indeed the best rooms in a house, no matter how grand. Kitchens were where the heart lived.
Wait. Joe. I said, “I can do it,” and brushed Joe’s hands away as Susie, hovering, said, “What did you hit?”