The Curious Prayer Life Of Muriel Smith

by Raj, Carol;

  “The teachers are always after you. Sit here. Wait for the bell. And heaven forbid you take more than five minutes in the bathroom.”

  “So your father wants you to take a foreign language?”

  “I just said that.”

  “Sounds like he wants you to go to college. You need a foreign language to get into a good school.”

  “Yeah, Mrs. B. Like that’s going to happen.”

  “So you don’t know anything about cars?”

  “All I know about cars I learned from watching movies and TV. I guess I could pop the hood. But I wouldn’t know what to look for once it opened. It’s not only that I don’t have a driver’s license. I don’t even have a learner’s permit. My dad won’t let me do anything. He says I’m irresponsible. I hate him.” Kevin paused. “OK, Mrs. B. I’ll tell you the truth. That’s why I’m running away.” He paused again. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  So that’s what this was all about? A father-son disagreement? Why would God have put her in the middle of a family dispute? She had enough problems getting along with Natalie. And enough worries about Chloe and her unborn child. “Well, you can’t run very far if the car’s dead, can you? Anyway, it’s getting late, and I’d like to find a ladies’ room.”

  Kevin shrugged. “That’s the least of our worries. You know, Mrs. B, things have been pretty much going downhill all day. I can’t win.”

  Natalie used to use the same line. “I can’t win, Mom. Daddy doesn’t like half the boys I date. You don’t like the other half. You two have some sort of racket going there. I might as well just stay an old maid.”

  Natalie hadn’t stayed an old maid, of course. Both Muriel and Howard wondered what attracted Natalie to Stan. He seemed like a rubber band stretched to its limits. His eyebrows, black and bushy, gave him the appearance of a perpetual scowl. Stan was smart though. He never disagreed with Natalie. At least not out loud. He just kept bringing money in to satisfy the luxurious lifestyle she coveted. There had been no pony troupe for Natalie’s birthday parties. But Stan had provided one for Chloe thirteen years ago when she was eight.

  And to think that now Chloe was having a baby of her own. If only she’d gotten married first.

  Kevin’s voice pierced through Muriel’s thoughts. “Mrs. B, are you even listening to me?”

  “Yes, I heard you. You just can’t win. My daughter used to say the exact same thing. But maybe it’s OK, Kevin. Maybe it’s OK to just sit here and wait. A patrol car should come by sooner or later. Even on a deserted road like this.”

  “Patrol car? You mean police?”

  “Yes, police. I’m sure the police help stranded motorists.”

  Kevin shook his head. “But we’re not stranded motorists. We’re fugitives from justice. Car thieves, for one thing. You just said that yourself.”

  “Oh, pshaw. You might be. I’m not.” Muriel looked out the back window. The road behind them was totally deserted. She smiled. “There’s not much traffic on this road, is there? Wasn’t I smart to pick it? I haven’t had to merge once since we got on it. You can’t imagine how much I hate merging. People are so impolite these days. They’re always in a rush. Are you sure you can’t take just a tiny little peek under the hood? The problem might be something really obvious. If Howard were here, he’d look under the hood.”

  “Howard? Who’s Howard?” Kevin glanced into the backseat as if he might have missed a third party hiding there.

  “Howard was my husband. He died ten years ago.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Kevin said. “Hey, don’t you belong to Triple A or something?”

  “Not much point. I told you. I haven’t driven in ten years.”

  “Honest?”

  “Honest.”

  “I thought maybe you were joking.”

  “I haven’t joked much since Natalie turned sixteen.”

  “Again with the people I don’t know.” Kevin sighed. “Geez, Mrs. B. Maybe I should talk about people you don’t know. Like Uncle Clarence. Uncle Clarence! Uncle Clarence! Uncle Clarence! There! How does that feel? Oh, never mind. Who’s Natalie?”

  Muriel didn’t have the foggiest idea who Natalie was most of the time. How she thought. Why she did the things she did. Natalie seemed as alien as a Martian. Muriel couldn’t very well admit that. Not to some carjacker. “Natalie’s my daughter.”

  “So no Triple A?”

  “No. Sorry. Anyway, it wouldn’t do us any good. We’d have to call Triple A. And you threw your cell phone out the window back there.”

  “No problem. We could use your cell phone.”

  Muriel laughed. “I don’t have a cell phone. Natalie says I’m not smart enough to operate one. She says I wouldn’t even be able to recharge it all by myself.”

  “If I talked to my mother that way, I’d be grounded for life.”

  “There’s not much parents can do once their children are grown.”

  Kevin heaved a deep sigh. “You must be the only person in the world who doesn’t have a cell phone. Why’d you let me throw mine out back there if you didn’t have one? Didn’t you think a phone might come in handy? Especially on this deserted road you picked?” He opened his door, got out, and walked around to the driver’s side without bothering to close it. “Get out.” His tone of voice left no room for argument.

  Muriel didn’t see any gun-sized bulges anywhere on his person. His gun must be in his jacket in the backseat. Just as she had speculated. As long as he didn’t have the gun on him, she could get hold of it. And once she did, she’d be the one in control.

  “Get out, Mrs. B. I don’t want to have to repeat things all the time. And believe me, you don’t want to make me angry.”

  Muriel continued to sit, her lips pressed together.

  “So are you getting out or not?” His voice was quieter now, with a tinge of a whine.

  “No. I don’t think so.” He couldn’t shoot her. Not if his gun were in the backseat. This might be her best chance to take control. She could climb back over the shift lever, grab the handle of the passenger door, pull it shut, and press the locking mechanism that secured all the doors. Roxanne showed her once how to do it.

  It would take Kevin a minute or two to figure out what she was up to. That would give her a slight advantage. Especially if the gun was in his leather jacket. He wouldn’t be able to get into the locked car. But Muriel would only have to reach into the backseat. Could she shoot him? Maybe. She’d watched enough police dramas on TV. Point the gun and pull the trigger. Or was there such a thing as a safety, too?

  Uh, Kevin, she might have to ask. Could you please show me how to take the safety off your gun so I can shoot you? OK, so maybe that wouldn’t work so well after all. She’d just have to point the gun at him, put her finger on the trigger, and hope he didn’t notice she hadn’t the foggiest idea what she was doing.

  And she’d have to get him to back far enough away from the car so there wouldn’t be any splatters of blood on it. Roxanne would be so angry if the car needed repainting or the vinyl seating had to be cleaned. She’d probably want Muriel to pay for the damage. As if Stan would let her take money out of her account to spruce up somebody else’s car.

  Why had she ever given Stan control of her assets? She had just been so flustered in the weeks after Howard died that she clung to any help offered to her, like a drowning person might cling to a flotation device. And now she was not only perpetually short of cash. Now she was faced with the possibility of having to shoot someone who still had most of his life ahead of him. It wasn’t right. Maybe she could just sit inside the locked car and wait for help.

  Sooner or later, somebody had to come along. Police car, mail truck, newspaper delivery person. Somebody would stop and offer to help. Or at least somebody would report a stranded car from their cell phone, which they were smart enough not to throw out the car window.

  Muriel grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and pulled herself as far forward as she could. Then she raised
her bottom and shifted to the right. This time she’d move her seat first and then her legs. Maybe that would be easier. Oh, dear Lord. I could really use Your help right this very minute.

  “What in the world are you doing, Mrs. B?” Kevin sounded more exasperated than angry.

  Muriel turned at the sound of his voice, glanced at him out the driver’s side window, lost her concentration. Uh oh. Her bottom plopped down on the shift lever. Mercifully, it was in a horizontal position.

  With both legs still on the driver’s side of the car and her upper body swaying precariously from its perch on the console, it was impossible to reach the handle of the open passenger-side door. She was doomed. Thanks a lot, Lord. Why are You never there when I need You?

  Kevin ran in front of the car.

  If only it were operational, she could mow him down. But not while she was sitting on the shift lever. How could she shift from park to drive? And how in the world had she managed to get herself into such an odd predicament anyway?

  Howard wouldn’t let some teenage boy order her around. If Howard were alive, Muriel wouldn’t have even gone out with Roxanne. She would have gone out with Howard. He never left her sitting all alone in an unlocked car. He always took her into a store with him.

  Kevin was standing by the passenger-side door now, staring in at Muriel and shaking his head slowly from side to side. Was that a grin he was trying to control? Young punk!

  “Uh, Mrs. B, what exactly are you trying to do?”

  She’d better not tell him she was trying to lock him out of the car. Or that she was thinking about shooting him with his own gun. “I was trying to move back to the passenger seat. I thought I’d, uh… look in the, uh…glove compartment. See if there might be an instruction manual there. Maybe it can tell us why the car stopped. Cars aren’t supposed to stop for no reason in the middle of the road.”

  “And you thought going over that lever again was a good way to get to the glove compartment? You could have just leaned over. Or asked me to look for the manual. I was sitting right there just a minute ago.”

  “You’re right.” It was better to humor the boy. Let him think he was still in control. “Uh, do you think you could help me off this thing? I seem to be stuck.”

  “You want to be in the driver’s seat or the passenger seat? It doesn’t much matter anymore. This car’s not going anywhere.”

  If she could just get to the gun in that jacket. “The passenger side, please. If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Too much trouble? Are you kidding me? You’ve been nothing but trouble, Mrs. B. You and this stupid wreck of a car. Uncle Clarence has cars older than this, and they all run just fine.”

  Muriel pictured Uncle Clarence in her mind. An old man with a gold front tooth and a flannel shirt, left thumb in the pocket of his jeans, right hand swinging a pouch of chewing tobacco. “Sorry, Kevin. Roxanne never has trouble with this car. That’s all I know.”

  Kevin glared at her. “If I could start this day all over again and make some different decisions, I surely would.” He plopped into the passenger seat, grabbed Muriel’s right calf, and started to pull her leg over the console, raising it so it would clear.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry. Work with me here.”

  Muriel’s attempts to help by raising her bottom only resulted in her bouncing back onto the console not once but twice.

  Kevin shook his head. “Watch it, would you? If you ruin that shift mechanism, it won’t much matter whether we get the car started.” Kevin gave another desperate tug. “One leg down, one to go. Good thing you’re not a centipede.” He tugged again at her left calf. Finally, her left foot landed on the passenger side of the console.

  “We did it!” Kevin rose from the passenger seat, exited the car, and talked to Muriel through the open door. “Now spread your feet a little bit apart. That will give you some balance. Now lift up your behind and move off the console and over to the seat. You did it before. You can do it again.”

  “I did it before because you threatened me with your gun. It required superhuman effort on my part.”

  “So you want me to threaten you with my gun again?”

  “No. Not really.” If he took out his gun, it would ruin her plan. She had to get to the gun before he did.

  “Well, try a little harder then.”

  With an exaggerated thrust up and to the side, Muriel finally landed in the passenger seat. She leaned back, closing her eyes in relief and breathing heavily.

  While Muriel was still recovering, Kevin opened the back passenger door.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting my jacket out. It’s starting to get chilly. You got any brilliant ideas about what to do next? ’Cause I sure don’t. Things aren’t exactly going the way I planned. I thought we’d be halfway across the country by now.”

  “I’m getting hungry. It must be six o’clock. I always eat at six. And I’m tired. It’s been a long day. I don’t think I can take much more excitement. I think I’d like to go home.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen,” Kevin said.

  What did he mean by that? Did he mean she couldn’t go home right now because the car wasn’t operational? Or did he mean she couldn’t go home ever again because he was planning to shoot her? Oh, Lord, don’t let him shoot me. I absolutely have to see Chloe’s baby. I want that more than anything. And I still have to accomplish something that will live on after me. Something Natalie can be proud of.

  Five people stood around Howard’s grave. Herself, Roxanne, Natalie, Stan, and Chloe, who was only eleven years old at the time. Such a small group. Howard deserved more recognition than that. Of course, Howard would say it was quality, not quantity, that mattered.

  Muriel wasn’t so sure. There would only be four people standing around her grave. Five if Chloe’s baby was old enough to attend. Muriel would like to think she had touched more than four or five lives in her seventy-one years on earth.

  Kevin went back around the car and slumped down in the driver’s seat, a picture of dejection. He straightened up, glanced at the dials on the dashboard, then peered at them intently, staring the second time as if he were incredibly near-sighted. “Oh, my gosh, Mrs. B. Do you see that dial?”

  “I can’t see any dial from way over here.”

  “Well, you should have been able to see it when you were driving!”

  “There are a lot of dials. They’re very confusing. All those strange symbols. Anyway, I couldn’t pay attention to details like that. I was too busy steering.”

  “Too busy steering?” Kevin’s eyebrows rose three notches.

  “Yes. I told you. I haven’t driven…”

  “I know. You haven’t driven since your husband died ten years ago. You told me that a hundred times. I could write a whole book about it. But look.” He pointed to one of the dials, his finger shaking.

  “I didn’t even think about the dials. If I had, I wouldn’t have tried to look at them anyway. Every time I took my eyes off the road, I felt the car veering off.”

  “Well, can you look at this dial now? Or are you too busy steering a dead car from the passenger seat?”

  “All right. If it’s that important to you, I’ll look.” It seemed she’d been humoring him for hours. How was she supposed to know which dials were important? Howard always took care of details like that. “You mean that little dial there? The one with the arrow on it?”

  Kevin banged the heel of his hand on his forehead and closed his eyes as if he were in pain. “Yes, That little dial there. The one with an ‘E’ and an ‘F’ on it. ‘E’ for empty, ‘F’ for full. The arrow’s like way past ‘E.’ That’s what the problem is. We’re out of gas. And you wanted me to look under the hood for loose wires. That is so bizarre.” Kevin opened the driver’s door and studied the floor by the seat.

  “Now what are you doing?” Muriel’s voice quavered.

  “Trying to get a better look at these levers. I want to pop the trunk. Se
e what’s inside. Maybe there’s a can of gasoline. Yeah, right. Not with my luck.” He reached his left hand down and pulled up. There was a sound like a soda can opening.

  “I know what you’re really trying to do.”

  “You do? What are you? Some kind of mind reader?”

  Muriel wouldn’t say any more. And he wouldn’t be able to drag it out of her either. She had learned a lot watching police dramas on TV. Women. Kidnapped. Stuffed into the trunk of a car. The lucky ones were killed first. The others died scratching at the inside of the trunk in a futile effort to escape. Sharp shards of metal worked their way under their nails as they clawed desperately at the hardware, the ceiling, the sides. It was only a matter of time before they ran out of air. It was like being buried alive. Worse than cancer maybe. Certainly worse than getting shot.

  Kevin was getting out of the driver’s seat now. Finally, she had her chance. She didn’t succeed in locking him out the first time she tried. This time she’d do it for sure.

  As Kevin exited, he grabbed the keys from the ignition.

  A chill washed over Muriel. “Why are you taking the keys?”

  “In case the trunk isn’t popped.”

  “I heard the trunk pop. Didn’t you hear the trunk pop? You could leave the keys in the ignition. This car’s not going anywhere.”

  “So what difference does it make if I take the keys if the car’s not going anywhere? Sometimes you don’t make a whole lot of sense.”

  “Those are Roxanne’s keys. And that’s Roxanne’s key ring. Her sister gave it to her for her fiftieth birthday. It has sentimental value. This is Roxanne’s car, not mine. Remember?”

  “Sorry. I have to do what I have to do.”

  No point trying to lock Kevin out of the car if he had the keys. Even Roxanne would have seen the sense of that. Any attempt to do so would undoubtedly make Kevin very angry. Making a run for it would also be futile. Not with Kevin’s long legs. Plus, Kevin had his jacket on now. The gun had to be in one of those pockets. If Muriel were running away, it would take just one shot in the back to bring her down. Her only hope was to stay and fight.

  What could she use as a weapon? She had lipstick in her purse, a mirror Natalie bought her at a yard sale when she was eight, and a few dollars. She couldn’t think what else. Maybe tissues. Certainly nothing she could use to fight off a teenage punk. She’d seen on a news show how a determined customer in a small convenience store swung a purse at a robber and scared him off. But a purse wasn’t much use against a gun. Maybe something in the car would help. Roxanne was a bit of a packrat.