Pia grabbed the microphone from the CB radio, “Calling Adam, calling Adam.”
“Roger and out.” I clicked off.
“Are you old enough to drive?” she asked.
“I know how to drive,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”
This struck Pia as being unbearably funny. “Oh, my! Hardy-hardy-har.” Even if she was mocking me, I enjoyed the attention.
“How about California?” she added. “We’d better do something before the driver calls the cops.”
“I don’t think the Institute would like the publicity,” I said. “We’d be on Channel 11 in minutes. But it will take them an hour to send someone with an extra key.”
Happy sounded tired as he shouted toward the windshield, “Hey, Mr. Problem.” He added another name to my collection. “Unlock the door or I’m calling the cops.”
“Great. I’ll call the media.” I waved the CB mike for him to see through the windshield. There was not even a wave as he shuffled off. “Later, alligator!” I sang.
This time Pia cracked up. “After a while …” Her laugh, a clear peal of delight, emboldened me. I sat up and clutched the wheel with both hands, assuming control of our hijacked vehicle.
“You don’t look like you know what to do,” she said as mockery edged back into her voice.
“Watch.” I turned the key, and the van came to life with a pleasing rumble. I pulled the seat closer to the steering wheel until I could reach the pedals with the tip of my foot. I stretched as high as I could to get a better view out the windshield, shifted to D, and we were off, rolling slowly on the gravel driveway.
Chapter Four
At this point I hadn’t yet decided we were going anywhere. It was enough to be moving around the circular driveway, steering the van as big as a truck, while Pia hooted with delight. When we passed the front door, Happy Harley and the Haggards were standing in our way waving for us to stop. Obediently I stretched for the brake pedal but pushed the accelerator instead, lurching forward and causing the three to scramble to safety. I jerked my foot back, and the van slowed down. Just as we were about to hit a tree, I stomped on the brake pedal and the van slid to a stop. When I saw Happy Harley in the rearview mirror, running toward us, I nudged the van forward, waited for him to come closer, then hit the gas, and so on. It had started to snow big, fat flakes. After three cycles of this routine, Harley retreated to the front door. Not funny, he mouthed as we passed by one more time. Sorry, I mouthed back with an abashed shrug, as if to communicate that this thing was sliding and twisting on the slippery pavement beyond my control. Big fun.
“Watch out for the circle jerk!” cried Pia.
I gained confidence and sped up. By the tenth circle I was swerving and fishtailing on the loose gravel. I loved peeling out and then slamming on the brakes and skidding to a stop. There was a smell of burning rubber and gasoline. I turned on the headlights, and the high beams swept ahead, lighting up the road, the fountain, the front door, and the three jumpy adults waving at us to stop.
I tuned the radio to KPNK and turned the volume way up. Slipknot screeched from speakers all around us. Pia and I bounced on our seats. I liked the domestic picture we made, a nice couple out to view the neighborhood’s Christmas lights, glowing since before Thanksgiving. Happy kept running after us as if he expected to catch up. I eased the van out the gate and onto the street. We were free.
Time to get serious, I decided as I concentrated on staying on the right side of the street and easing to a stop at the first intersection. I looked right and left and broke loose from the pull of the big house behind us. Pia’s earlier rowdy mood was replaced by a pensive quiet. She pulled the seatbelt across her chest and clasped it securely, as if preparing for a long ride. “Take a right at the next corner,” she instructed. “We’ll get on Snelling and then it’s a straight shot all the way to Rosedale. We’ll be there in less than fifteen minutes. We can park in one of the mall lots, and nobody will find us for days. I always go to the mall when I want to be alone. I like the trees and planters, the fountains, the food court, and the Sticks and Wicks store. The mall is my favorite place for solitude and reflection.”
I didn’t admit that I’d never driven on a street before. On that snowy night, I felt squeezed in by trucks and buses bearing down on me with their blinding headlights.
“The police will come after us,” I said.
Pia shut off the CB. “No radio signal for them to track,” she said, and I was again impressed by her sophistication. “We’ll be safe once we get to the parking lot,” she insisted. “It’s going to be packed for the biggest shopping weekend of the year. People camp out to get their first crack at the bargains. Some stores are opening at midnight. It’s a great time for shoplifting.”
“You are evil.” I couldn’t contain my admiration.
“Let me know what you’d like for Christmas.”
I could tell she was starting to like me. “You’ll get me a present?”
“Better, I’ll show you how to steal it. If you can carry it, wear it, or swallow it, you can own it.”
I realized I was in love for the first time in my life, if you didn’t count Cousin Iris, whom I loved only theoretically because she was unreachable. With Pia, my lust might be satisfied one day. I wondered what it would be like to taste her tongue, feel her budding chest, wear her clothes. I was looking at her with adoration when a chorus of honks and beeps alerted me to the van swerving and sliding away from me.
“What we don’t want to do right now,” Pia said coolly, once I’d regained my place in the middle lane, “is to get noticed because of your stupid driving.”
“I got distracted.”
“I’ll let you know when you may gaze upon my bosom,” she said. “For now, keep your mind on the road as if our lives depended on it.”
“What made you think I was looking at your tits?” My attempted sneer turned into a stupid grin.
“That’s a very disrespectful term. You are to refer to them as ‘breasts,’ or you can believe you’ll never get to see them.”
“Yes, breasts!” I nodded but didn’t dare look away from the road. The entrance to Rosedale Mall was right ahead. And so far no sign of cops.
“Look for the Alligator signs,” she said as we circled the parking area. The lots are marked with cute animals to help people remember where they left their car. Zebra lot, Lion lot, Hippo lot.
“Why Alligator?”
“It’s near Marshall Field’s. Easier to be invisible if we’re jammed in by cars.”
I found a space between two fuck-you-vees, proud that I did not scrape their sides. Pia covered our license plates with handfuls of snow, then climbed back inside the warm van. I think she had done this sort of thing before. Fortunately, Loiseaux had avoided putting any identification on the sides of the van to protect the passengers’ privacy on their way to the madhouse. Very thoughtful. A Megan Alert APB for missing children likely had patrol cars cruising the freeways, our names flashing on LED screens. Help find the joyriding children in their stolen van, which looks just like a million other vans on the road. Soon our pictures would be out there on TV screens and milk cartons. But for now we had happily vanished into the frenzy of the big shopping night.
As we burrowed in the backseat, scrunching down below the window line, laughter poured out of us, a cascading mix of triumph and relief. To be in love and driving at the same time is a giant leap, a rite of passage rivaling the second birth of the Christian, the satori of the Buddhist, the transformation of the alchemist. Eureka! I drive, I love. I was way ahead of myself, becoming the prodigy I knew I was.
“When