Twelve #4
“Let’s use mine then,” Jude said, reaching for his phone sitting in a cupholder.
“You’re killing me, Jude. Killing me! Faster!”
“I’m already speeding!” he cried as the speedometer crept up to three whole miles over. Just as he picked up his phone, I unlatched my seat belt to the furious warning dings of the car.
“Wait, what—” Jude began, baffled as his phone went clattering to the floorboards.
I climbed over the center console into Jude’s lap, and stomped my foot against Jude’s, sending the SUV lurching forward straight through a stop sign. The steering wheel pressed against my stomach, but I didn’t care.
“Watch it! Wait!” Jude protested, but now I was in his lap. I grabbed the steering wheel and tugged it left, toward the lake. The Wagoneer blew past the stop sign as well. Game on.
“He’s following us! I knew it!”
“He probably wants to make a citizen’s arrest. Ahhh!
Parked car, parked car!” he screeched, trying to warn me that the lane narrowed and I was about to plow into a parked hatchback.
I careened left, missing it. Lake Sanguis’s quaint shopfronts and hanging flower baskets zipped by, shadows stretching and twisting under the golden glow of the old-fashioned streetlights.
The Wagoneer’s engine roared as it closed the gap, its headlights flashing on-off in the mirror.
“That’s a threat,” I said, sure of it.
“Right now, I’m more worried about your driving!” Jude shouted as he tried to wrest the steering wheel from me. I won, and I pushed his foot harder on the gas. The bright lights of the Ferris wheel up ahead rotated through the dark, cloudless sky.
“This is not defensive driving!” Jude cried.
“No, it’s definitely offensive driving,” I said as I whipped the steering wheel left, careening us down an alley. The Wagoneer behind us almost missed the left but managed to screech down the alley behind us, knocking over a trash can and sending a raccoon scurrying for cover.
“Please, stop. Please, let’s stop!” Jude wailed as I tried to figure out what to do. Slam on the brakes? No. Too easy. I took a right out of the alley, again toward the lakefront. I thought—the more people, the better.
“This road is blocked off!” Jude pointed through the dash to the orange-and-white police barriers and loads of pedestrian traffic on the other side, people sauntering through carnival games, holding steaming cups of cider.
“Do you have insurance?” I asked him.
“Of course I have insurance,” he said. “But what are you—”
The Volvo warned me about the need to brake right before I hit the brakes hard. I swore I could smell the tires burning as we screeched to a halt, inches from the orange-and-white wooden barricade.
“He’s going to hit us!” Jude cried, tensing up and squeezing his eyes shut.
I heard the screech of tires behind me as the Wagoneer came screaming to a stop, headlights filling up the entire car. There was no impact. Then I flipped the Volvo in reverse. The large screen in the dashboard made navigating a bit easier.
“What are you doing?” Jude cried, terrified.
I hit the gas. Every light on Jude’s dashboard lit up. The Volvo didn’t approve of these kind of antics. Every warning bell dinged.
The Wagoneer shifted, too, and we were both going reverse, full speed, down an empty street. The Wagoneer went faster.
“We’re going to die. So dead. So very dead,” Jude moaned.
“We’re going to get this asshole,” I promised.
“We should definitely not do that, and we should let him go instead,” Jude countered as he tried to reach downward to the floorboards to get his phone.
“Hang on,” I said as the street widened to four lanes, since hardly anyone was parked on the street this time of night. We reversed past Gordon’s Frozen Custard and Bullshirt.
“I can’t watch,” Jude moaned, covering his eyes with his hands. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Do not throw up on me,” I warned.
I sped up, trying to maneuver. Then I flipped the steering wheel and initiated a perfect J turn, whipping the car around from reverse and now heading straight.
“How did you learn to do that?” Jude asked, astonished.
“Spider-Man Mateo.” I hated to admit it. I never thought I’d be so glad for those nights in the Lowe’s parking lot, fishtailing in his green Pinto.
Jude relaxed for only a minute, but now we were headlights to headlights, us going forward, the Jeep Wagoneer still in reverse. I could only see the top shadowy part of the driver’s head.
“You see the driver’s face?”
“I’m trying not to see anything,” Jude said, ducking again and covering his eyes. Up ahead, I saw we were headed to a railroad crossing. The flashing lights came on, and the warning bell clanged, as the red-and-white bar started to lower.
“Is that a train I hear?” Jude opened his eyes again. “You’ve got to stop! Ella!”
The Wagoneer swept under the wooden bar just before it came down, skimming across the railroad tracks in reverse. We wouldn’t be so lucky. Jude wrapped his arms around me as I heard the blast of the horn. The white light blinded me temporarily, and my ears filled with the roar of the train.