Smooth Ride

After college and still living up in Moscow, working three jobs, I found myself without a car. The Subaru I'd purchased two to three years prior had finally decided it was through with the strain of pistons, injections, shocks, and sudden stops. Its control panel on the left side of the steering wheel was tied to the wheel by an old shoelace. It overheated, so in the summer, I drove with the heater up full blast and the window down. One morning, I turned the key and my decrepit Subaru clicked an apathetic click: the last sound it ever made.

"I told you not to buy that Subaru," Monga reprimanded through the phone when I called to tell her my stranded-in-the-desert story. She had, in face, warned me. I didn't listen because the Subaru had headlights that flipped up when you turned them on, and a gear shift that looked right out a spaceship.

I knew better than to not listen to her. Monga took annual jaunts to the Cadillac dealership and paid cash for a brand new crowning emblem to announce her arrivals. She talked the dealers down, down, down and left lifted up. She'd pull in the driveway beaming, her rings and eyes in a contest to out-shimmer each other.

"I talked them down 5,000. They tried to sell me a coupe for a lower price, but I don't want that little hunk of junk. I talked them into this for the price of the coupe." There'd be an allotted pause designed for us to soak up the glory that was Monga's. "Who wants a ride?" she'd ask, jingling her keys. We'd run to the car and fill up the Cadillac, the leather seats squeaking under our denim jeans.

I sighed on the phone with her; I sighed the next morning as I walked twenty blocks in the Palouse wind to Wendy's Restaurant. To distract myself from the cold, I counted my steps and thought about Monga taking me down to the DMV.

She showed me how to register my Subaru and paid to get my insurance started. I told her I'd pay her back. "When you can," she said.

For over a week, I walked more than the average Moscowvite, and floundered for rides.

One afternoon, hot and sweaty from working the grill, I re-tied my apron and approached a customer at the counter, who I'd noticed out of the corner of my eye.

"Can I help you?" I asked without looking up.
"I don't know. Can you?" a familiar voice fired back. Monga.
I looked up, smiled. "What're you doing up here?"
"Some grocery shopping," Monga answered, "When you get a second, come out with me to the parking lot. I wanna show you something."

To be honest, I was a bit annoyed. When I got a second? We'd been swamped all day, and I was the only person covering the front of the store for the next hour, until shift change.

"I'll see what I can do," I said, "Want to sit down? I'll get you a root beer. I need to clean all these table."
"I suppose. But no ice in my root beer. You don't get-"
"-As much pop that way. I know."

I handed her the lukewarm root beer and went around the counter to do tables. Monga followed me around to each one.

"You have to do all this?"
"Yep."
She made her yuck face. "I wouldn't like that."
"I don't like it, Monga. It's my job."

As I scraped gum from the bottom of a table, I remembered Monga telling me she'd once held a job at a candy factory...for one day. She stood there watching chocolates pass her on that belt, and just couldn't do it another second. She said all that circular motion made her sick.

"I'm gonna go see if I can take my break," I told Monga. When I returned without my apron, Monga's eyes lit up. I followed her to the parking lot, where she stopped next to a white Oldsmobile.

"Yes?" I said. She just pointed at the white car. "What?" I said.
"I bought it for you this morning. It's got a brand new engine, new tires and brakes. I drove it up here. Smooooth." She said smooth like she was talking about a tall, handsome cowboy.
I was shocked. "You drove it? Then, how will you get back home?"
"Cecil's here. He's out in the car." He'd been sitting out there by himself this whole time. I looked around. There he was, sitting in the passenger side of Monga's maroon Cadillac. We waved at each other.
"Take it for a drive," Monga said.
"I can't. I'm still on the clock."
"Oh, pooh. Just around the block. They'll never know." Monga raised her eyebrows. I looked around. The manager wasn't outside smoking. Monga handed me the keys and we fled salt and grease, feeling like bandits. It was a smooth ride.

After work, she went with me to the DMV (Cecil in the back seat) and signed over the car, then to the insurance place where she again paid to get me started. I drove Monga back to the Wendy's parking lot, walked her and Cecil to the Cadillac.

"Well, I'd better get back. I've got groceries in the trunk," Monga said. She unlocked the car and stood in the open door, clinking her rings.
"Well, thank you, Monga. This is amazing. I don't know what to say."

We both stood there looking at the ground. Cecil got in the car and sat looking straight ahead with hands folded neatly in his lap. I don't remember a hug or I love you. She backed out of her parking spot, her car beeping with an installed beep like semi trucks have for safety reasons when they're in reverse.

I sighed.

As she signaled left, I could hear like I still can now, the tinny Elvis song Love me Tender, installed to play when a blinker was flipped. It wouldn't stop until she was half a block down the road.