Susan
“Stop! Stop!”
My driving instructor barely allows me any time to shift my foot from the accelerator before pressing down on the second brake. The car jerks to a stop, nearly a foot away from the stop sign, where it’s supposed to be.
“I was stopping,” I say under my breath.
“Not fast enough. You are never fast enough. You would have rolled over the line again. In the road test, that results in an automatic fail.” Joseph Kuruvilla takes off the baseball cap he always wears to these lessons and wipes off a trail of nonexistent sweat from his bald head. “How many times have I told you this? How many times?”
I say nothing in response. Joseph never compliments me on the days I do well; half the time his yelling drives me up the wall. But Amma trusts Joseph because he talks to her in Malayalam whenever he’s on the phone, almost puppylike in his efforts to squeeze out more practice lessons (and more money) to make sure that I pass on my very first attempt.
“Joseph Uncle means well,” Amma told me the last time, when I complained again about his yelling.
“Stop calling him that.” While I don’t mind the Indian tradition of calling unrelated adults “uncle” or “aunty,” Joseph isn’t an adult I particularly like. “He’s not really my uncle.”
“Susan! How dare you speak to me that way?”
“You don’t see him in the car. You don’t know what he’s like when we’re alone.”
“Well, I’ve already paid for these lessons with the driving school. They don’t have any other instructors available during the time slot we need.”
Or, in other words, I would have to deal with it the way I dealt with many other things, with gritted teeth and white knuckles, willing myself not to simultaneously blast Joseph and crash the car in the same instant.
“Move,” Joseph says. “Take the next right.”
He makes me parallel park behind a school bus on a hill, and criticizes how far I am from the curb.
“At least I won’t fail,” I snap. “Doesn’t touching the curb mean you fail as well?”
Joseph’s nostrils flare. “I see there is no improvement. Not in your driving. Nor in your attitude.”
“Sorry to ruin your track record. What was it? Eighty percent pass, twenty percent fail like you keep telling my mother? Or is it really the other way around and you’re trying to rip students off by charging for more and more lessons?”
It is the first time I have ever talked back to a teacher, to any authority figure who isn’t a parent, and I think this surprises Joseph enough to shut him up for the remainder of the lesson. He doesn’t wait around to schedule my next lesson and I don’t ask. I step out of his Honda Civic, my shirt sticking to my skin. Instead of going into the condo complex, I walk around to the back, where the deliveries are made, and sag against the wall, watching a pair of men loading a white truck with boxes and old furniture.
The air in October is cold and carries the scent of firewood. I feel myself grow calmer when I breathe it in. I am grateful that Amma isn’t in this afternoon, waiting by the door to ask about my progress, but instead out with Bridgita Aunty and a few of her friends.
“Come, Aruna,” my father’s cousin objected, when Amma tried to weasel out of going. “Susan is a good girl. She will be fine on her own.”
Amma gave me the house key before she left, along with a lecture on not letting strangers into the condo. You would think I was seven, not seventeen.
“Sometimes I think you’re seventy,” a voice to my left says.
My spine tingles when I see Malcolm grinning at me, an unlit cigarette dangling from his fingers. His hair is no longer in spikes, but a mess of waves on top of his head. There’s a streak of white dust on the front of his black hoodie.
“Did I say that out loud?”
He nods. “Do you make a habit of it?”
“Only when I’m stressed.”
“Ah.” He pockets the cigarette again without lighting it.
I ask, “Were you here to see Ahmed?” when he says something at the same time.
We both smile. He indicates me to go first and then nods. “Yeah, I was here to see Ahmed. We were planning to … do homework.”
“Smoke weed you mean?”
He grins. “Ahmed doesn’t smoke weed. And I stopped months ago.”
We stand in silence for a few moments, watching the movers load the last of the furniture on the truck. It’s a quiet that somehow does not feel uncomfortable. A stray draft ruffles my hair.
“The reason for your stress. Was it the bald guy? Your driving instructor?”
I shrug. I wonder how much he saw, if he could tell how badly I did at my lesson, if he was wondering why I was still struggling with something that seems so easy for the rest of the student population at Arthur Eldridge.
“He must be a jerk,” Malcolm says.
“How can you tell?” I ask, even though a part of me is relieved by this assessment, that someone can see the possibility of Joseph being a bad teacher.
“Let’s see: You’re not a slacker and you catch on to things pretty quickly in class. I can’t imagine you getting stressed over something like driving unless your instructor is a class-A jerk.”
“Is Mr. Zuric a jerk to you?”
I don’t need to look at him to know he has stiffened. I can hear the defensiveness in his voice. “That’s different.”
A few weeks ago, I might have backed off at his response or changed the subject. But today, I’m feeling a little reckless, my tongue loosened by lashing out at Joseph.
“I don’t understand why you’re so nasty to him. He doesn’t do anything to you.”
Malcolm’s mouth curls into a sneer. “That’s what you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“He bugs me. I think of it like a science experiment. Testing a subject’s reaction to an external stimulus. In Zuric’s case, I like seeing how far I can go before he snaps.”
“You’re saying you really don’t have a reason.”
Malcolm simply shrugs, even though I get the feeling he isn’t telling me everything. There’s a strange, sad look on his face, which simultaneously puzzles me and makes me want to comfort him. But before I can say anything, Malcolm says: “Do you want me to teach you? How to drive.”
The question is so surprising, so out of left field, that I am unable to form a coherent response. “You want … what did you say?”
He laughs. “I’m offering you a driving lesson. With me. See, driving’s a lot like math. You need lots and lots of practice to get it right and to let your body memorize the sort of reflex actions you need to operate a car.”
Another math analogy. But this one makes sense. “I don’t know…”
“Is your mom at home?”
“No—I mean, why are you asking?” My voice comes out sharper than usual.
Malcolm laughs. “I’m not asking for an invitation upstairs—though I wouldn’t necessarily say no if asked.” Upon seeing my scowl, he hastily adds: “What I’m saying is that if your mom isn’t here, I can teach you.”
“What? You mean now?”
“If you’re up for breaking a couple of rules. And a law or two.” His tone, though not sarcastic, clearly suggests that I’m not. And while the idea of losing my license before I even get one does bother me, something else has been nagging me a lot more.
“Why are you doing this for me?” I ask him. Why do you even care?
“Because I want you to see driving the way I see it—not as something to be scared of, but something to enjoy.”
I say nothing, surprised by how sincere he sounds.
“Besides,” he continues, “from what I can tell, there is no contest. Anyone can teach you better than the bald guy.”
I laugh. “Maybe I’m just as bad as he says.”
“Oh really? Then I’m just gonna have to try my best with you.” He gives me a cocky grin.
“I didn’t know I was special.”
“Of course you’re special. You’re my first.”
I feel my face turn red, wondering if there’s a double meaning to the statement. But instead of laughing or teasing me the way Alisha would have, he reaches out to gently tap the side of my cheek with a finger.
“My first student, Susan. And I promise I won’t let you fail.”
* * *
“Maybe we should go to an empty parking lot?”
“Don’t be silly,” he says. “How are you going to learn anything in a parking lot?”
Malcolm does not have a car. Which means our only other source of practice would have been through Ahmed, whose fancy sports car frankly scares me to death with its manual gears, or Steve, who I do not trust to keep quiet about this.
“It’s bad enough that you know how terrible I am,” I tell him. “I don’t want everyone else to know as well.”
Malcolm rolls his eyes, but does not argue. Even he knows how big a gossip Steve Patel is. Thanks to Steve, I have now caught up on various stories about most of the popular kids in school—the fights, the makeups and the breakups, even silly things like how much time some guys on the basketball team spend doing their hair.
Gossip fuels Steve the way it did my old friend Mishal Al-Abdulaziz at Qala Academy. It lights up his face, makes him blurt out things about his friends that he should have been keeping secret. Steve was the one who confirmed my suspicions about Malcolm and Afrin, with a passing reference one afternoon to Ahmed about Malcolm losing his mind when he found out about Afrin and some other guy.
It is that—sympathy, really—and the disappointment on Malcolm’s face that makes me offer an alternative solution without entirely thinking it through.
“My dad got us a car before he left for Jeddah. I’ve never used it though.”
Malcolm’s eyes widen with excitement. “And you’re telling me this now? What are you waiting for? Let’s go get it.”
“What? No, I can’t.” I try to backtrack. “I haven’t really driven it and—”
“Is it automatic?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it belong to Ahmed or Steve?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t see what excuse you can have.”
“What if I crash the car? I mean, it doesn’t have extra brakes. And you’re only seventeen. You don’t have a full G license yet!”
“So what? We’re not going on the highway. Do you wanna go home and cry instead?”
I grow silent. Embarrassment and rage battle each other in my rib cage.
“Hey, Susan. Susan.”
I refuse to look at him.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t…” He sighs. “Look, if you don’t want to drive your dad’s car, it’s okay. But remember that if we’re going by the law, with a G1 license, you really can’t drive with anyone who doesn’t have a full G and four years of solid driving experience. You wouldn’t be this worried if it was my car, would you?”
Guilt muddies my embarrassment. It’s true. What I’m really worried about is the car Appa bought for us to use here.
The movers are long gone and their space is now occupied by a brown UPS delivery truck. The driver, a woman in her twenties, leaps out with a package and gives us both a smile before heading into the building. I think of Jeddah, where women can still be arrested for driving a car, where I have seen unlicensed eleven-year-old boys chauffeuring wide-bodied Cadillacs filled with their mothers and older sisters.
Think of the opportunities you’ll be getting once you immigrate, Alisha and Appa always told me. And now, here it is: an opportunity presented on a platter, boy and car combined, and I am being the same old scared Susan.
“Okay, let’s do it,” I say finally. Just this once.
“Are you sure?”
“It will probably be the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever done. But I think it’s necessary.”
“You’re serious.” Malcolm does not smile; he probably does not believe me. I hardly believe myself.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I am.”
I am not in Jeddah anymore.
* * *
Breaking the rules and the law is surprisingly less eventful than I thought it would be. Once on the road, Malcolm grows calm, taking me as promised around quiet neighborhood streets, littered with cars parked against curbs and frequent all-way stop signs.
His directions are clear and succinct and he keeps a light conversation flowing in between. As he talks to me, I feel myself relax behind the wheel, for the first time not worrying about the exact pressure I’ve applied on the brakes or about not handling the steering wheel gracefully.
He asks me to make a right onto a road Joseph uses fairly often during our lessons and, as always, I end up shooting too far and going a little wide. I feel the first curlicues of panic—this is the part where Joseph starts shouting at me—when all of a sudden Malcolm says, “You need to start watching hockey now that you’re in Canada. The Leafs could use another fan.”
“The Leafs? Don’t they always lose?”
“As a lifelong fan, I take serious offense to that!”
I smile slightly, my head automatically tilting to glance into the rearview mirror. “I don’t care much for sports, honestly.”
“What? Not even cricket?”
“Not unless India’s in a World Cup final. Besides, it’s not even the national game—field hockey is. Or was, according to every school textbook, until the Sports Ministry made a sudden announcement a couple of years ago, saying there was no national game at all. Cricket’s just more popular. And lucrative.”
“Susan Thomas, the girl who knows words like ‘lucrative,’ do you realize that you’re driving quite well right now? You haven’t frozen up once behind the wheel.”
My heart beats hard against my ribs. My fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “Uh-oh, you jinxed it.”
“No, I didn’t. You’re overthinking as usual.”
I wait for the jinx to take effect. But after long moments pass and my car remains steady in its lane, I can’t help but feel a little proud of myself.
“So this is what it feels like to drive.”
“This is exactly what it feels like.”
The confidence in his voice boosts mine. With Joseph no longer yelling into my ear, my hands smoothly cross over while taking the turns Malcolm asks me to, my eyes scan the mirrors automatically every few seconds. I don’t even panic when a car cuts us off without signaling.
Malcolm tells me that my biggest problem is changing lanes. I take much too long, he points out, and I know this is true. Even while driving with Joseph, I often lost opportunities to make easy lane changes because the driver behind me got tired of waiting for me to make a move.
“You know how they always tell you in driving classes not to drive aggressively?” Malcolm asks.
“Yeah.”
“Well, in your case, screw that rule.”
I frown. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Imagine you need to get to an exam real quick,” Malcolm says. “You’re late, Susan. Very, very late.”
“You sound like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.”
“Yeah, and my pocket watch tells me the Queen of Hearts is following us with an ax, about to chop off our heads.”
I try not to laugh.
This time, when he tells me to take a left at the traffic lights, I decide to follow his advice. I replace the Queen of Hearts with Amma, heading back home after her spa day with Bridgita Aunty, her face fresh and glowing, only to grow pale with fear on discovering my absence.
My shoulders tilt forward. I check my mirrors and give the signal. I turn my head once more to check my blind spot. The car in the left lane almost instantly speeds up.
“Push.” Malcolm’s voice is soft, sure. “Move and push or he’ll never let you pass.”
I glance once more into the mirror and take a deep breath.
I don’t know who’s more shocked, Malcolm or me, when I successfully manage to cha
nge lanes without cutting the other car off and slide to a stop at the red light.
Malcolm
“What…” Freny sputters when she sees me entering through the front door again. “Where…? Weren’t you…?”
Normally I am not this sloppy. But it’s a pain skinning up the pipe and back into my room. And I’m still running on the high of Susan’s smile and my own success at teaching her. I kick off my shoes in the corridor, streaking the tiles with mud.
“When did you leave?” Freny is not letting up this time. “You can’t go out like that without telling me!”
I shrug. “You were on the phone. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
From the living room, I hear my sister’s giggles, intertwining with a familiar male voice.
A vein pulses in Freny’s forehead. “Malcolm—”
“Steve?” I cut her off midsentence and walk into the living room. “Is that you?”
Mahtab is sprawled over the couch, her mouth hidden behind her hands, shoulders shaking. Steve, on the other hand, looks embarrassed, the lower half of his face more swollen than usual. Across from them, a muted TV flashes with scenes from a rerun of the Rick Mercer Report.
“What’s that?” I reach out to poke his fat lower lip. “A bee sting?”
“Hey!” He slaps my hand away. “That hurts!”
“He tried to kiss a girl and fell,” Mahtab volunteers before bursting into laughter again. Steve scowls at her from the leather recliner.
I nudge Mahtab to the side with a light kick on her knee. The cushions sigh as I plop down next to her. “Need Polysporin?” I ask Steve. “A Band-Aid?”
Steve flips me the bird.
“How’d you fall anyway?” I persist. “Were you like leaning in and she stepped aside or something?”
Steve face nearly turns the shade of his swollen red lip when Mahtab begins laughing again. “It’s probably good I didn’t break my teeth,” he mutters.
Next to me, Mahtab is wiping away tears. “Sorry, Steve. But for real: Do you want something to put on that lip?”
The Beauty of the Moment Page 11
