The Back-Up Dog

Baxter is sick.

It is probably not his intention to cause me worry and heartache, but I’m worried. I’m heart-ached.

Last week we spent three days in Santa Rosa with my sis, her husband, and the lovely Sabine. Baxter survived the drive – he was eerily quiet in the car, actually; so much so that occasionally Will and I muted the radio to listen for his breathing. He even survived our ill-planned stop in Richmond for sustenance, although he was plainly eager to be on the road again.

While Will and I chatted up my sister and cooed over Sabine, Baxter inspected every inch of their backyard. He burrowed under hedges, rooted through ivy, stared curiously at the goldfish, and then proceeded to drag all of Sabine’s belongings from the deck to the yard. In short, he made a happy fool of himself. It wasn’t until late that night, the adults in bed after laughing ourselves into exhaustion with the New Yorker caption contest game, that he finally relaxed.

Day two included long walks through a hilly Santa Rosa neighborhood, a few sunny hours at Doran Beach and then a lazy afternoon nap. That night I pronounced that Baxter was finally acting like a “real” dog – he wasn’t frantically sniffing or insisting on our attention. He even ignored the allure of Sabine’s diaper and cuddled up, real-dog like, at our feet.

On day three, he wouldn’t eat. This was unusual for Baxter because he’s a beagle, and beagles will eat anything and everything, whenever the opportunity presents itself. Occasionally this means non-edible things like food packaging, but it absolutely means his dog food, served in his doggy dish, at six a.m. sharp. When he finally ate later that day, I chalked it up to the general excitement of new people, the break in routine…

And then on Sunday, back home, he ignored his healthy serving of Beneful. He ate grass instead and threw up, before finally turning to his food. He slept as if were catching up for a lifetime of lost hours. On Monday he seemed fine, if lethargic. On Tuesday, he wouldn’t eat again. “No walk until you eat,” I told him, exhibiting my fine parenting skills. He ate, and once on a leash he went right for the grass again, so he could vomit the food his cruel mother had force fed him.

It was time to call the professionals.

I dropped off Baxter at the vet at nine o’clock, which gave me about forty minutes to make a fifty minute drive in another direction for class. I couldn’t linger for anything more than a “Bye, buddy” – and I was off. I mourned him the whole way. Later that day I was back home with no one to greet me (we have two cats, yes, but for the purpose of this blog there was no one to greet me). I called the vet for a check-up – probably your basic gastroenteritis, but they wanted to keep him over night. I did a load of laundry without worrying that Baxter would snag a sock and run under the bed. There were no toenails clicking on the hardwood, following me from room to room. It was empty-nest syndrome.

“I miss Baxter,” I said, getting in to bed next to Will. I hated to think of him in a cage, too keyed up by the presence of other dogs to get any sleep. I could picture him doped up on anti-nausea medication, pumped full of fluids for his dehydration, letting out the occasional whimper. The evening had assumed a surreal quality – there was no hike through backyard darkness while Baxter gave his last pee of the night. It was too quiet in our room without Baxter settling onto the old quilt and performing his ritual of grunts, moans and snorts. This, then, was what it was like to be dog-less.

Earlier in the week I had been joking about the “heir and a spare” concept – it generally worked for the royals, as it does for most parents today. And apparently it worked for pet-owners – just think of all the happy people who walk more than one dog each night. That’s what I needed just then, a back-up dog.

“You’re not crying, are you?” Will laughed.

“Nnnnhommm,” I mumbled.

“You know he’ll be back tomorrow, right?”

I sighed. It would be a long night until then. “I know.”

Reasons to Dislike the Woman Sitting Across from Me

1. Poor cell phone etiquette. Perhaps she has not noticed that the room is otherwise quiet, that the rest of us are typing madly and importantly on our keyboards, and she is the lone nattering voice, drowning out even The Bangles’ “Manic Monday”. Because I can’t help but overhear, I must also report that her conversations are not even interesting. As a connoisseur of eavesdropping, I know when something is worth recording (i.e. jotting down in my omnipresent notebook or laptop), and her loud, monotonous conversation bores me.

2. Failure to act in the best interest of others. This woman has no sense of community. For proof I offer the following scenario: It was a mild-weathered Saturday afternoon and those of us who appreciate power sources for our laptops over hiking or cycling were indoors, typing away. Logging on, I found that I couldn’t connect to the Internet. Not a big deal – I should be deeply ensconced in the 27th version of my novel anyway, not checking to see if one of my lit sisters has sent me a witty piece of correspondence. I have also come to the point in my life when a few minutes away from the Equifax alert system doesn’t send me into a cold panic. And yet, perversely, I kept trying to connect. Then a fellow caffeine addict leaned over and said, “Are you connected?” “Nope,” I reported, trying for cheerful. A third patron professed unconnectivity, and voila! We had a problem on our hands. The manager, once alerted, looked doubtfully at the WiFi thingamajig and said, “Is anyone connected?” And SHE, the woman sighing importantly across from me at this very moment, said, “I’m online.” Liar! It was impossible. We – the disenfranchised three – pressed her: “Really? You can refresh your page? You can send and receive email?” She gave us this very annoyed glance and said, “I’m sorry. I’m very busy. I don’t have time to talk right now.” Talk? We didn’t want to talk. We wanted validation that the Internet was down. “Well, as long as one person is online…” the manager said, trailing away to other responsibilities. I wanted to wrestle away the woman’s iMac, forcing her to acknowledge that she was looking at an Excel file and NOT the Internet, but I took a deep breath and let it go. Breathe in: citizen of the world. Breathe out.

3. General selfishness and display of coffeehouse bullying. So this morning, inexplicably, all the tables were taken. I shuffled in with my laptop case and noticed that one table was littered with food wrappers and an untidy stack of newspapers. “Excuse me – do you know if anyone is sitting here?” I ask the man next to me. “There was someone there, but I guess he left. That was maybe ten minutes ago.” Aha. I stacked up the papers, brushed the crumbs onto the plate, and prepared to set myself up, when SHE appeared, swooping out of nowhere. “I’m sorry, I’ve been waiting for that table,” she announced. Waiting where? In the bathroom? At another table on the other side of the house? It’s not like we’re in a gym, signing up for time on a treadmill. It’s every woman for herself here. It’s catch as catch can. It’s snooze or loose. So back off, lady. While you were staring at this empty table for ten minutes, I made my move. I will now proceed to type beautiful prose and get on with my life, thank you very much. Except – I didn’t do that. It was like being in grade school all over again. I caved to the bully. Here’s my lunch money – er, coveted seat near the window. While I was standing there not sure how to respond (be gracious, be eloquent, Paula), a man at the facing table announced, “Hey, I’m leaving now. You can have my spot.” Now we face each other over our laptop screens and she jots important notes on a napkin and I type this, my small form of revenge.

I Don’t Understand How Time Passes

Will tells me it’s been a month since I’ve updated this blog. A month? That can’t be. I mean, I know I’ve been busy… but a whole month? So I took a break from my other writing life to figure out where I’ve been. And here’s what I found:

-- I’ve been working on my thesis. Slow, painful work that I haven’t even invited others to read. This involves quick spurts of activity – days where I write ten or more pages – and then a sluggish half-week of revision where I realize that at least half of the “spurt” has got to go. It’s fun.

-- I’ve been blogging elsewhere – at Her Plot Thickens, a group blog with two of my whip-smart writer friends. I insist you check it out!

-- I started a sort of internship/unpaid teaching assistant position at California State University, Stanislaus, and suddenly I’ve found myself immersed in American Modernism. I’m teaching on Wallace Stevens, H.D., William Carlos Williams and T.S. Eliot (insert gulp here).

-- I’ve subbed for 5th through 12th grade – Special Ed, 7th and 8th grade Language Arts, Reading Lab, 6th grade Math/Algebra/Geometry/Algebra II/Finite Math (don’t even ask what they were supposed to be doing… I have no idea), American Government, World History… Most of it is a blur, which is a good thing.

-- I’ve walked Baxter a few dozen times, at least. Once he got out and led me on a wild-beagle chase through our neighborhood and beyond. That was ten days ago and I’m still catching my breath.

-- I’ve collected manuscripts from my compatriots in the graduating class of July 2010 for Stonecoast Lines. Now I’m editing, formatting, stressing when the publisher doesn’t call me back…

-- I’ve cleaned (not enough), cooked (probably too much) and generally neglected the laundry.

-- I’ve worked out at four to five days a week, visited the post office a half-dozen times, and stopped by the library once a week at minimum to recharge my mind.

- I’ve read: not just the stuff I’m teaching, but also A Thousand Acres, A Short History of Women, Olive Kitteridge, Motherless Brooklyn, Americans in Space, When Will There be Good News?, and I’m nearly finished with Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. This book is seriously hilarious, and I often have to put it away at night so I don’t laugh myself into a state of permanent awake-ness. Right now I’m at the part where a fired employee dressed as a clown returns to the office with a paintball gun.

-- I tried (and failed) to keep up with LOST. I discovered a few weeks into the season that Project Runway had started without me. I learned the “essential seeds” for any diet on Dr. Oz.

--I’ve been accepted as an ETS rater (rating college entrance exam essays, etc.) and start soon. It remains to be seen if I will like grading essays – that task used to be the bane of my teaching existence. Now, apparently, all anyone has to do is dangle a money-shaped carrot in front of my eyes and I’m in. I’ve also started to apply for post-graduate fellowships, teaching positions, etc. It’s tiring. I can only write so many cover letters and statements of purpose before I degenerate into silliness.

-- I celebrated Grandpa’s 101st birthday in February. A week or so later, I was on hand to bring him to the ER when he fell and hit his head. I spent a full day with him when my dad was out of town, alternating between FOX News and Animal Planet. I left with a huge headache.

-- I’ve emailed Paige and Beth recklessly, helplessly, laughingly, knowingly. I’ve told Will long, detailed stories that he politely pretends to listen to. I’ve forgotten birthdays, forgotten to comb my hair, forgotten to pay the pest control service. I took a cold shower when the “stem” in our hot water faucet broke. I’ve daydreamed about the shoes I might wear when I cross the stage to get my diploma.

-- I took a two-day, 720-mile trip to Oregon and back with my dear friend Alisha, and loved every minute of it… even the minute when we realized the alarm didn’t go off and we would have to rush to breakfast as we were.

-- I’ve sipped chai lattes at The Queen Bean, like I’m doing at this very moment. Sometimes – like right now – I’ve eavesdropped on conversations. I’ve chuckled to myself. I’ve passed judgment. I’ve stored up tales to repeat to Will over dinner, to Alisha over Guinness, to the dear faithful readers of my sadly not-up-to-date blog.

A Trip to the Discount Store

This girl isn’t afraid of discounts.

I grew up in hand-me-downs, spent my college work-study checks at thrift stores and still make a monthly trip to Wal-Mart for “the necessities.” (I go before six a.m. – there’s less chance of being accosted by toothless panhandlers my own age in the parking lot or by the swarms of unattended, sticky-faced children who roam the aisles.)

On Saturday, I went to another discount store, one I’d only been to once before, a few years ago. I remembered the experience wasn’t exactly pleasant, but I was fuzzy on the particulars. In any case, I was now in search of the same item I’d bought then – a new pillow. The store was basically the same as I remembered – racks upon racks of flimsy clothes made from stretchy synthetic fabric, rows of shoes that looked cute but wouldn’t survive more than a single wear. I made a beeline for the back of the store – home décor.

I’m sort of particular about pillows. My neck needs support – not too firm, not too soft. I love a down pillow, although not necessarily the accompanying sneezes. It’s an awkward thing to try out a pillow in a store – especially when there’s no bed, and thus no way to exactly replicate the experience. I was left to lean my head into the shelves – which was not, I reflected, entirely unlike sticking one’s head in an oven.

Well. I found a pillow I liked, and so immediately grabbed a second one, entirely voiding the purpose of seeking a discount. But Will would like this, too, and even if Baxter had only thrown up on one of our pillows, at some point we would need another.

On the way up to the register – the line, I recognized with a sick feeling, had wound its way halfway through the store – I passed a display of area rugs. Hmm. We do need a new rug at our entryway. The braided rattan rug I loved at the time has sadly proved impossible to clean. This rug, a plush shag that the cats would love to dig their claws into, was only $14.99 and the sort of beige that would hide human and dog footprints. Why not?

And then, I faced the line. Clutching two pillows under one arm and sort of inching the rug forward with my free hand, I waited with a few dozen other Modestans who love a good bargain. Each transaction at the register (only two were open… why? WHY??) took a mini-eternity. I realized that half the population of my line was already clutching a bag; apparently, they were previous dissatisfied customers. I eyed the pillows carefully, considering. But they had felt so good on my neck, at least for the twenty seconds I stood with my head angled into the shelf.

At this point the women in front of me caught my attention. They were a family of four very large people, and they were arguing volubly about the cost of their potential purchases.

“I need these pants,” one of the women said, and – I couldn’t make this up if I tried – held up a stretchy pair of navy blue leggings printed with pink heart-shaped peace signs. There were approximately 600 peace signs on this pair of pants. If she had scratched at one of them with her two-inch acrylic fingernail, I bet the decal would have flaked right off. We’re talking quality product here.

“You’re already getting the balloon pants,” another woman pointed out. Balloon pants? I leaned forward, curious. There was indeed a pair of leggings emblazoned with rainbow-colored balloons nesting in the shopping cart.

“I need those, too!”

I was trying to figure out why in the world anyone would need either the peace-sign or the balloon leggings, let alone both (Tryouts for the circus?), when suddenly the experience I’d been blocking out for the last twenty minutes came rushing back into my head.

I remembered my previous trip to this discount store.

It was three years ago, summer,one of those hellishly hot days when you escape the heat of the parking lot for the chill of air conditioning and feel momentarily sick and disoriented. The store had just opened; curious, I decided to give it a walk-through. I was wearing a pair of flip-flops, my warm-weather uniform, and I had only taken a step inside the store when I slipped. Talk about a slip. It was kind of like being on a Slip-and-Slide (that dangerous, lawn-killing piece of plastic that rarely made an appearance in my childhood), only I was sliding past a row of shopping carts, a laughing security guard and a dozen people waiting in line for the register, all while toting a massive shoulder bag. I eventually caught myself on a display case, which because this is real life and not a movie, did not topple dramatically. It seemed like the whole store was holding its breath during my performance, and when I finally righted myself, straightening my shoulders, they let out a collective sigh. A long, wet, flip-flop shaped streak stretched across the floor behind me.

“Are you hurt?” the security guard said. He tried to cover his smile with a look of concern.

“Only my pride,” I said, laughing it off. I’m sure I was all shades of red, and would have loved to turn and walk right back out (this time avoiding the puddle of mystery moisture), but that felt like admitting defeat. Instead, I wandered the store, and found in the back a very lovely pillow for only $5.99.

On Saturday, I lugged my purchases inside and displayed them for Will.

He admired the pillows, but looked curiously at the rug. “Uh-oh.”

“Oh. Whoops,” I said. The dimensions were entirely wrong. Somehow I had vastly underestimated the size of my own entryway.

So, I guess I’ll have to return it.

Humiliations Galore

Will and I like to play a certain game when we’re out in public – restaurants, bookstores, theatres. It has no official title, but here’s the gist of it: we get points whenever someone recognizes us. At the end of the night, the person with the fewest points wins.

This game was my brainchild, forged during an anniversary dinner where no less than four people (coaches, parents, athletes) stood at the side of our table and chatted up Will, for an average of five minutes each. At the end of the night, I commented bitterly, “Will: 4, Paula: 0.” Then I put in a formal request for eating meals out of his jurisdiction.

My husband, for seventeen years, was a journalist at a daily paper with a circulation of around 90,000, give or take. For the last dozen years or so, he was on the high school sports beat, which put him in regular contact with the coaches, parents and athletes at about fifty-five high schools, not to mention potentially thousands of other readers who read his daily articles and weekly columns. In 2000, we decided to escape California for a European vacation. With Dad D. and Heather as my witnesses, we were in a hotel lobby in San Francisco when I said, “The best thing about this vacation is that for a month we’re not going to see anyone we know.” And then the elevator door opened and a husky guy (wrestling coach, I later learned) stepped out and said, “Will!”

Fast forward a decade.

Will and I were at P. Wexford’s Tuesday night, well into our second pints of Guinness and a punishing trivia loss, when I leaned across the booth. “Do those people at the next table look familiar?” I’d been watching them out of the corner of my eye for a half pint now; I was sure I knew the man from somewhere, and the woman had a friendly, could-be-familiar face.

Will squinted in their direction. “Yeah, but I don’t know from where.”

We continued to answer trivia questions wrong. Apparently we should have brushed up on our Puxatony Phil knowledge, and one of these days I need to memorize birthstones by month.

And then suddenly, the man leaned over. “Will! I don’t know if you remember me… Steve Garfield*.” (*Name has been changed to protect my fragile ego.)

Ahhh, shit. Suddenly, it all came back to me.

A while back, I interviewed for a part-time English teaching job at a local high school. This man was the vice principal; he led the interview. To tell the truth, it was the salary I craved, not the job. Right now I’m substitute teaching and finishing my thesis… I can’t imagine what life would be like were I to bring home a few hundred essays a week to boot. But at the time, I was completely committed. I wore a suit, sharp heels, carried my most expensive purse. I fielded questions like a pro. I rattled off my accomplishments as if they were nothing – six years of yearbook, four years as department chair. I have a cleared credential. I am CLAD certified. And then… I didn’t get the job. Actually, I didn’t even get a phone call saying I didn’t get the job, I had to call them.

“Look, I probably didn’t get the job,” I said by phone after four days. Steve had mentioned that a decision would be made within two or three days. “And that’s fine. I just figured if I did get the job, I needed to start planning right away. That’s just how I work.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We can’t divulge the status of employment applications. That’s an issue for the HR department.”

“I’m not going to come down there with a gun or anything,” I said. “I just want to know.” After all, I’d waited for an hour for my appointment (English teachers do love the sounds of their own voices), then interviewed for another forty-five minutes. An hour and forty-five minutes of my life, and I wasn’t entitled to a quick “yes” or “no” by phone?

Tonight, at Wexford’s, I suddenly prayed hard for invisibility. I was wearing jeans, flats, sparkly lip gloss. Maybe I wouldn’t be recognized?

“Oh, and I remember you,” Steve Garfield said, nodding at me. “Paula interviewed for an English position,” he announced to his companion, to Will, to the world at large.

I smiled back, took a drink. “Yes – hello.”

He made small talk with Will. I checked my cell phone, pretending I had a busy social life.

And then, inexplicably, the conversation came back to me. “You were really good in that interview,” Steve Garfield said. “You know, I think we interviewed” – don’t say it, please – “about a dozen people that day. Very competitive.”

I smiled. Will paid the bill.

“Nice to see you again,” Will and I said in chorus, standing. We shook hands all around.

“Keep us in mind, Paula, if you’re ever looking for a job,” he said.

I smiled again, held in my words until we were outside, out of earshot. And then I let them fly. Keep us in mind???

But on the way home, we laughed. Will pointed out that there could be one person on earth that you just don’t want to see, and sure enough, when you turn a corner, there he is. Why is that, exactly? Why doesn’t the universe serve up a dose of a long-lost childhood friend or a college roommate now living half a country away, someone who could cheer me up or remind me that I’m not such a bad person after all?

We left with a tied score tonight. The me from a few months back would still be burning with humiliation as I type these words. But the me from today shucks it off her back. I’m a writer now, after all.

Thoughts from a Cruising Altitude of 39,000 Feet

1. I wish I could sleep on planes. Even for a minute, or twenty, or three hundred. It’s stupid, but I’m convinced that if I close my eyes, if I’m not absolutely vigilant, there’s no way the plane can stay up. In fact, the second I start to relax and close my eyelids, I immediately snap back awake, worried. Who’s flying this thing?

2. I wish I could read on planes. I read everywhere else – waiting in line at the grocery store, lying in bed, sitting with a bowl of cereal in the morning. I’ve been tempted to read while stuck in traffic. But on planes I can’t seem to focus on plot and character. Instead, I alternate between Hidenko and Sudoku. On this trip, one round of “Fiendish Sudoku” lasts me all the way across Utah.

3. I love the individual mini-screen. Thumbs up, Delta! I keep flashing to the “My Flight” screen to see what I’ve missed. We’ve passed Grand Junction and are flying just south of De Beque. Somewhere in the last ten minutes while I was worrying about whether or not our plane had properly functioning landing gear, our cruising altitude had increased from 39,003 to 39,010 feet. Pretty cool.

4. The man in the seat beside me, Leo, is traveling with nothing other than a jacket. Hello? No book or magazine? No sudoku? No crossword puzzle? I once drove cross country with someone who intended to talk the entire way, so naturally I was worried. But Leo isn’t in a talking mood, either. Instead, we play a dozen silent games of in-flight trivia. I feel bad that I keep winning and briefly consider throwing a game, because everyone should be happy. Everyone should know they are doing well at something, right? But in the end, I just can’t do it.

5. Nothing is free on Delta Airlines. Not the charge for an extra bag ($50), the headphones ($2), or the snack packs ($3 to $5, depending). “Delta Airlines has gone cashless,” a flight attendant chirps into the PA system. “All purchases must be made with a credit card for your convenience.” My convenience? Really, nothing about air travel is geared for my convenience, much less a $1 Visa charge for a $2 purchase.

6. In the first half-hour of the flight, we are fed two packs of peanuts and our choice of beverages. Three hours pass before it occurs to the flight staff to come through with another round. By this time I’ve chewed fifteen consecutive pieces of gum, trying to suck out any possible nutrition or moisture. A flight attendant passes and I say, “Excuse me? Do you think I could get something to drink?” She is clearly annoyed. “We’re coming right through.” It takes her twenty-five minutes to reach me, though, and by this time my lips are one cracked blister. Leo doesn’t look too happy either. “I guess I’ll buy the snack pack, too,” I say, surrendering my credit card.

7. Once the plane lands, I can finally relax. It’s hard work, mentally keeping the plane aloft, and not for weaklings. Everyone stands at once, snapping open overhead compartments and jostling for space in the aisle. I stretch, curling my toes inside my boots. What’s the hurry, people? We’re all getting off this thing sooner or later.

On a scale of one to ten, how do I rate my driving?

“Your brakes are soft,” Will says. We’re pulling out of a parking lot; it’s his first time behind the wheel of my car for a while.

“Oh, they are?”

“And they’re squeaking, too. How long has this been going on?”

“I don’t know. A couple of weeks.” Maybe longer. Somewhere around Thanksgiving I remember idling in stop-and-go traffic, wondering whose car had such squeaky brakes. And then we had a few drops of rain in December, so it was easy for me to attribute the squeaks to… well, maybe not wetness, but definite moist-ness. Denial is a powerful force.

“Babe…” Will says. I wait for the lecture, but get a sigh instead.

“I’ll get it looked at,” I promise.

And so on December 31 at nine o’clock sharp I’m at the Midas counter, being addressed as if I’m a child by a man with too much facial hair who writes “SATTURN” for the make of my car. Elsewhere in life I’m confident and competent; when it comes to all things mechanical I’m your basic stooge. Don’t let him talk you into new rotors or anything, Will had warned me. I parrot his words: “My brakes are feeling a little soft, so I just need the pads replaced. That’s all I’m here for today.”

The mechanic looks skeptical, but I initial for the free brake check and hand over my key. I glance at the magazines littering the table in the waiting area – nothing interesting. Even the weekly gossip magazines are months old, their rumors long since confirmed or shot down by publicists. I’m not even remotely interested in Tiger’s thirteenth mistress.

“I’m going to head out for some coffee,” I say. “Would you call me on my cell to let me know what you find?”

I take a last glance at my car in the parking lot, my beautiful, half paid-for, rain-cleansed car, which will soon be dangling in the air with its wheels off. This beautiful car replaced my last beautiful car, which I totaled in a wreck on I-580 in 2006.

And there it is – the lump. I try to swallow it down, that guilt from an accident three years ago which wasn’t entirely my fault. The truth is, I had a hard time getting behind the wheel again afterwards. I was remorseful, tense, bitter and far too alert, like I’d mainlined caffeine in lieu of breakfast. I regarded other drivers suspiciously, trying to determine the specific point at which they would suddenly weave through traffic to cut me off. I glared at drivers on their cell phones. I honked with little provocation. And over time, I eased up. I’m happy to report that I can now drive through town without needing a good massage by the end of the trip. But the worst part, the self-doubt, is still there.

Last week, playing a game called Split Second with some members of my family, it came up again. The basic premise of the game is that you roll a dice, ask a question that can be answered with numbers or initials, and everyone else has to answer as quickly as possible. The first right answer (or first closest answer) wins. My question was: On a scale of one to ten, how do I rate my driving?

“I need another card,” I said. “This is a stupid question.”

My family members are always supportive of each other’s psychological health and well-being. “No way,” they protested. “Get over it. Ask the question.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “On a scale of one to ten, how do I rate my own driving?”

I had the answer in my mind: Six. Optimistic but realistic.

My sisters were kind – they guessed a seven. Will, in the passenger seat the day I spun through three lanes of traffic, avoiding the concrete median but not the oncoming SUV, gave me a four. After we'd packed up the game, Will drove home, the issue sitting between us like another passenger. I turned up the radio so we couldn’t hear the brakes squeaking.

Back at Midas, the mechanic tells me I have a quarter-inch of brake pad left. “You could probably drive on it another month, maybe two,” he says.

“No,” I say. “Let’s do it today.”

“What we’re going to do is put on these really durable brake pads. You’ll be able to drive forever on these things, and they can withstand a lot of wear and tear.”

“Sounds good.”

He grins at me, the first sign of humanity he’s shown. “You’ll be able to drive the hell out of this thing. You can brake as hard as you want, no problem.”

I narrow my eyes. How much does he know?