Since I had beer on my breath, I avoided my parents and headed to the barn, where I still had chores. Dave the Jailbird had taken over my garden and yard duties, but feeding the calves remained my job. Janet soon found me. “Great haircut!” she said.
“Are you kidding?” I muttered. I felt the top of my head; it bristled as tight as a garage broom.
“It’ll grow back.” She giggled.
“Sure. In about a year.” One of the bigger calves butted away a smaller one; I rapped him sharply with my stick.
She watched for a while in silence. “I hate Is’s hair. My real dad had short hair, like yours.”
I looked up. “Your real dad?”
“Is is my stepdad,” she said, her eyes on the calves.
“I didn’t realize that.”
“Most people could tell by looking.”
She had a quick, sharp side to her. I shrugged. “I don’t know anyone who’s divorced.”
She looked at me. “You’re kidding.”
“No,” I said. I returned her stare.
She looked out the window toward the peace van.
Its rear was tilted upward. “Is and your father—mostly your father—took out the engine today.”
I looked at her. She wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“After I’m finished, you want to go for a ride or something?”
“On the tractor?” she said, her smile returning.
“No. The truck. I’ve got to practice for my driving test on Friday.”
Later I drove the pickup, alone, down the lane. Beyond the gate, Janet popped out of the bushes and climbed in.
“Where to, miss?” I wore a baseball cap because my scalp still felt missing—like my brain was exposed—and now I jammed it low over my forehead.
“Central Park.”
“Got it, miss.”
“After that, down to Union Square and the Village.”
“Roger!” I drove us, jolting, flying down the cow lane. The curving single trail threw the truck from side to side.
“Faster!” she said.
I brought the truck up to thirty, and the barbed-wire fences flew close along both sides. There was an upcoming gate, and I skidded to a stop inches from the wires. I got out, opened the gate, and we drove on.
“Once in New York this taxi driver, a foreign guy, tried to kiss me.”
I looked over to her. “What did you do?”
“What could I?” She shrugged. “He tasted like curry.”
I drove on. We were silent for a while.
“How far does your farm go?” she said, looking back at the buildings, which were small in the mirror.
“Still farther,” I said, and pointed.
“Wow,” she murmured.
I slowed alongside the woodlot, where there was an open space between two oak trees. There were tire tracks worn between the trees.
“What’s this place?” she said.
“It’s where I practice parallel parking.”
“Can I try?”
“Have you done it before?”
“Sure,” she said immediately. I didn’t believe her.
“I’ll go first,” I said. “You watch. You can be the license examiner.”
She straightened up and assumed a scowl.
I pulled carefully alongside the far tree, then backed up, trying for the perfect forty-five degree angle, when suddenly she leaned close and kissed my neck. My foot slipped on the clutch and the truck lurched backward between trees and into the brush. Limbs scraped underneath. “Jesus!” I said.
“Jesus won’t help you park, Mr. Sutton.” She frowned and pretended to write on a clipboard. “Sorry. You failed.”
“That was unfair,” I said with a stupid grin. My neck pulsed where she had kissed it.
“A good driver, Mr. Sutton, must be ready for any distraction,” she said sternly. “Please try again.”
I eased the pickup from between the two trees and reoriented it for another try. I kept glancing at her as I began to angle the truck backward.
“Please focus on the task at hand, Mr. Sutton,” she said gravely, then suddenly slid over and kissed me again. This time she kept her lips on my neck—gave it a long, slow, sucking kiss. I swallowed, forgot to brake, and the bumper jolted against the oak tree.
“Sorry,” she said, straightening up, marking her imaginary clipboard. “Another failure.”
I sat at the wheel, smiling.
“One more chance, Mr. Sutton. Three times and you’re out,” she said in her deepest examiner’s voice.
Once more I straightened the angle of the truck and readied it in reverse. I kept looking at her.
“Proceed,” she said.
I began to back up.
And she began, slowly, to unbutton her blouse.
“Keep going,” she said. “Nothing distracts the safe driver.”
As I drove backward, she looked straight at me and continued unbuttoning her blouse. I couldn’t not watch—until there was a scraping sound as the nearest oak tree jammed itself against her door. The engine died.
“Sorry, Mr. Sutton,” she said in her examiner’s voice. “You have failed the test.” She clutched her blouse together and laughed.
I reached out for her and pulled her hard against me, harder than the oak tree lodged against the door. Then we were kissing each other all over and she was tugging at my belt. We kissed frantically, wrestling each other as if to press away any space, any air, any light between our skin.
“No, wait, let’s …” I breathed, and only at the very last moment pushed her away. My shirt was off, my jeans tented up like a silo.
“What’s the matter?” she said, drawing back suddenly.
I paused. “It’s just that …”
“You haven’t done it before?”
I was silent.
She laughed. “I have,” she said. “I can teach you.”
“The truck … we should get back,” I mumbled. I could feel myself falling back toward her body. I grabbed the steering wheel and steadied myself, then started the engine.
“Okay, no problem,” she said easily, and quickly buttoned her blouse.
Near the grove I stopped to let her out.
“I like driving with you,” she murmured, and kissed me, hard.
I watched her slip through the trees, then I drove back into the yard, past the barn with its square-eyed windows and its tall, blank face. My head ached, and I was tired and slightly drunk and very, very lost.