Cameron had announced to me that he wanted to do something fun. We headed down the
driveway, with Tiny straggling. Rain pelted down on us, and we had to pick up speed.
When we came to the bend in the driveway, something at the back of the property had caught my
eye. Griff and Spider were standing near the tree line at Griff’s usual spot. Spider’s face
and his shaking finger were very close to Griff’s face. His chest was pumped, his face was beet
red. His lips were moving rapidly, angrily. Griff had his back to me, with his head bent in
submission.
While I was quickly taking all of these things into account, I hadn’t noticed that my pace had
slowed. Cameron had come back to get me.
“You don’t have to wait for Tiny,” he told me, grinning.
Tiny had caught up to us, panting. He glanced knowingly to the back of the property before
catching my eye, but remained silent.
When we got to the garage, Cameron stood by with an even larger grin on his face.
Na?vely, I smiled back. “What?”
“Which one?” he asked, waving his hand back and forth along the lineup of cars like a game-
show host.
The smile was washed from my face. I shook my head in disbelief. Was this Cameron’s idea of
“fun”?
Cameron nodded as if he heard my thoughts. “They’re your cars. You should know how to drive
them.”
I’d only had my driver’s license for a few months. Getting a driver’s license was one of
those Real World things that I had wanted to achieve. I celebrated my feat by buying a car from
our landlord for a little less than two hundred dollars. It was a baby blue 1991 Buick
Roadmaster station wagon, with wood-grained panel sides and a sunroof that was covered with a
garbage bag because it leaked when it rained. Sometimes I could even afford to put a little bit
of gas in it. The car was made of real steel, which was crucial. The bent stop signs, the
crushed garbage cans on my street testified to my driving abilities.
I remembered the recently added dents on my Buick and looked at the shiny, frail cars lined next
to me. I imagined the kind of damage someone like me could do to them … I lost my breath and
leaned against one of the colored toys to steady myself.
“Ah!” Cameron said waking me from my nightmarish trance. “The Maserati! A bold choice.”
He smiled with approval and went to grab the keys from the back wall.
“Cameron, I can’t … I have no idea how to drive … this … thing …”
“It’s amazingly easy,” he reassured. “I’ll show you.”
Not even Cameron could reassure me at this point.
Cameron climbed into the driver’s seat. Tiny squeezed into the backseat, setting his handgun
next to him. I grudgingly got into the passenger side. Cameron spent the next few minutes amused
with my frustrated attempts at closing the trick door. When I gave up, crossing my arms and
huffing like a five-year-old, he got back out of the car and closed the door for me.
My mood was darkening with the impending doom. This seemed to amuse Cameron even more. Tiny was
in on it too. I was sure they were making faces when my head was turned to struggle with the
stupid seatbelt. Cameron ended up leaning over me to help me with this too. While he pulled the
strap over to my lap and our eyes locked briefly, I let my smile reach my eyes. His cheeks
colored a bit; he looked down and then away and fumbled to get the strap secured as quickly as
possible.
Driving out of the garage, Cameron looked at everything and anything that wasn’t in my general
direction. At the end of the driveway, he decelerated just long enough for the soaking-wet armed
guard to peer in and quickly step away. Within seconds, the car was racing at an incredible
speed down the gravel road. I held on to the door handle and the middle console for dear life
while Cameron explained over the rev of the motor how the gears worked. But I heard nothing. The
trees on the side of the road were a big emerald blur, and I was seated so close to the ground,
it was like sliding on a bobsled.
The rain was hitting the windshield hard. We raced through sharp curves, never slowing down.
Cameron was completely, frustratingly calm. And then he happened to look over at me. He slowed
down a bit, and I was able to swallow again.
We had been driving for quite a while, at least fifteen miles, I thought. Though I wasn’t sure,
I didn’t think that I had seen any other exits off the pebble road. I definitely had not seen
any other houses. We were in the middle of nowhere.
When the gravel driveway turned onto the paved highway, Cameron spun the car around and stopped.
“Ready?”