No Right Turn (5 page)

Some of the wires and all the hoses are covered in a shiny metal material, like tape, only thicker. I ask, “What are these for?”

“Just for looks. I'm getting her ready to show at some little country Show and Shines—just for fun.”

“Cool,” I say.

Don keeps working on the engine of his car, cleaning the chrome with a soft cloth so that it shines even brighter than before.

For some reason I think about my dad again. I guess since Don is hanging out with Mom, it's only natural that I'm kind of comparing him to Dad, but they seem so different from each other. Dad went to work and he read the paper and he liked to watch sports, especially baseball and college football. Dad was always just … I don't know how to describe it … kind of quiet and … I guess
restrained
is a good word. He always tried to avoid problems—I don't think he ever even yelled at me.

Don looks up and interrupts my thoughts. “Grab that rag, Jordan.”

“What?” I ask.

“If you're gonna hang out, you might as well learn how to treat a lady right.”

I smile. This is the kind of thing Don says sometimes—the kind of thing Dad would never have said.

It's useless trying to hide my obsession about the Stingray from Don.

On the third day in a row that I stop by, he hands me a soft cotton cloth again and shows me how to polish the chrome wheels and clean the black sidewalls and the white lettering on the oversized tires:
BF GOODRICH, T/A RADIAL
.

Don says, “When you show a car, it has to look perfect.”

“Like this one,” I answer.

He laughs. “No, we've got a ways to go before she'll be ready. Some guys in the bigger shows spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars on their cars. I don't have that kind of interest or time, but I don't want to embarrass myself.” He pauses and pats the front fender of the 'Vette, “I don't want to embarrass her either.”

For some reason I think again about that thing with Patti and Will and me. I guess stealing Don's car is kind of like how I'd have felt back then if I'd actually gone to that dance with Patti. Back then I'd have
never
done something like that. Back then, before my dad died, I used to believe that if I did the right thing or at least tried to be good, nothing too bad would happen to me. I used to believe that life was fair. I learned different. Right now I don't care what-all I
used to
believe. Right now all I care about is what I know I'm going to do!

I'm gonna take the car again—and that's that!

Don's bought new tires, new carpeting, and new Corvette floor mats. He's let me help him put even more chrome on the engine. We put on a new alternator and water pump, both of them chrome, and he had the old intake manifold replaced with a new, special one from Edelbrock.

But he's also installed a gray tank that takes up almost all of the tiny cargo space behind the seats.

“What's this?” I ask him, staring at the tank set in steel brackets. It looks kind of like a scuba diver's air tank.

Don smiles and says, “That's the latest improvement to this nasty girl. It's a nitrous oxide system—NOS.”

I ask, “So what's it do?” Sometimes I have to remind him that I'm not yet the same level of gearhead that he's becoming.

“See this?” he says, pointing to a red switch on the center console. I nod. Don flips up the red switch, and underneath is another switch, a small silver one.

I joke, “Ejection seat?”

Don smiles. “Kind of. See this?” He reaches back and touches the silver knob on the top of the gray tank.

I nod again.

He explains, “This handle turns on the nitrous. Then, when you flip on this”—he touches the silver switch under the red protective one—“then push the gas pedal to the floor, that kicks the nitrous in.”

“And what's that do?”

“It gives you two hundred extra horses.”

I try to think what the 'Vette would feel like with that much extra power. It's almost unimaginable.

Almost. But I can imagine real good.

I stare at the gray tank, remembering the procedure Don's just explained; two hundred extra horses.

I mutter, “Two hundred, that's a lot.”

“Oh, yeah,” Don says. “That's a shitload! And, of course, we're talking about nitrous, a potentially explosive gas—so if something goes wrong at the wrong time, you can pretty quickly become a three-hundred-eighty-horsepower, hundred-fifty-mile-per-hour fireball flying into a million fiberglass pieces and human body parts.”

I don't say anything. What's there to say to that?

But it's sure something to think about!

The next time I'm ready to go over and steal Don's car again, I phone Wally first.

“Don't do it,” Wally says. “I've got a bad feeling.”

I laugh. “You always have a bad feeling.”

“No,” Wally insists. “Really, man, this time it's for real. I mean, think about it—what can make such a stupid risk worthwhile?”

“It's worth it,” I say.

“You're a moron,” Wally says, and hangs up the phone.

It's Wednesday again; Don is out of town until tomorrow afternoon. No rain or even any serious clouds, just a tiny sliver of new moon.

Getting the car away from the house is much less stressful the second time. Thoughts of arrest, conviction, embarrassment, and totally screwing over Don barely enter my mind as I clear the car out of the garage again and head down Cedar Road.

Although I don't have a real clear plan yet, I want to go for a longer ride than before. I promise myself that I'll leave the nitrous alone. Stupid as I might sometimes be, the idea of turning into a human fireball doesn't sound like much fun.

At the bottom of Cedar Road I go right onto Country Homes Boulevard heading south, toward downtown Spokane. Country Homes is a well-lit street. What's the point of driving a car as beautiful as the 'Vette if nobody sees you doing it? After a block or so, the road changes into Maple, a major one-way arterial. At the first stoplight on Maple I look over at the car on my right, hoping I'll catch somebody admiring the 'Vette, but in that lane are a middle-aged guy and his wife in an older Buick. They don't even notice me.

At the next light, though, only a block ahead, the car in the right lane is a late-model Honda Accord, maybe two or three years old, a decent little rig, clean and with some trick stuff: eighteen-inch chrome wheels, nice paint, and a big
HONDA
decal running the full length of the back window.

There are four teenaged guys in the car. I can feel the vibration and hear their bass from their subwoofer. They can't see me through the tinted windows of the 'Vette, but they're all staring at the car, the guys on the passenger sides, front and back, leaning over to get a better look.

We're the first two cars at the light, and when it turns green, we both move forward. After a few yards, about halfway through the intersection, the Honda leaps ahead; the driver has punched it.

By instinct I jam the accelerator to the floor, and the 'Vette shoots out too, first catching, then blowing by the Honda. I can tell he's flat out, but within a block I'm hitting eighty mph, and he's three or four car lengths back.

Knowing that there's a stop sign a few blocks ahead, I ease off the gas. I flash; maybe the guys in the Honda will be pissed that I've shown them up. But when I stop and they catch up to me, I glance over and they're all laughing. The driver toots his horn and gives me a thumbs-up sign. I wave through the smoky windows of the 'Vette.

This is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me.

After the race I realize that I don't want to go all the way into downtown Spokane. I decide I'll cruise over to the Northtown Mall.

My adrenaline's still through the roof from my race with the Honda, but I try to calm down and take it slow and easy as I drive down Rowan Street. I look at the speedometer: thirty-seven mph. Not bad for a thirty-five mph zone, but I tap the brake to be totally legal.

That's when I see her, an incredibly gorgeous girl in tight blue jeans and an Old Navy sweatshirt, standing by the side of a gold SUV with its emergency flashers blinking. She doesn't try to wave me down, but she obviously needs help. I think that she looks a lot like Becka Thorson, a legendary goddess-cheerleader at my school. She's
really
cute—she looks
exactly
like Becka.

I pull over.

She hurries over to the 'Vette, and I lower the passenger side window.

She smiles and says, “Wow, driving this thing, I thought you'd be some old dude.”

I laugh.

She laughs too. “Sorry, it's a beautiful car; it's just that normally kids can't afford these things.”

I don't say anything.

She laughs again. “Am I being rude enough? Let's start over. Hey, nice car, thanks for stopping.”

“Hey, you're welcome. What's wrong with your Pathfinder?”

“I don't know. It just died suddenly, right along here. All I could do was coast to the side of the road.”

I ask, “Did it seem like a gas or an electrical problem?”

I've been listening to Don carry on about the 'Vette for a couple weeks now—I know the lingo.

She gets a funny, hopeful look on her face. “Are you, like, one of those auto shop guys who know all about cars?”

“Not really. I know some stuff, though. Let's take a look.”

She says, “Thanks.”

I park, and we start walking toward her rig. She asks, “I know you, right? You go to Thompson?”

I'm shocked that she knows I even exist, but I pull it together enough to say, “Yeah, I'm Jordan James, and you're Becka Thorson.”

She smiles. How can she be surprised that I recognize her? She's one of our school's most popular girls, a cheerleader, and THE most gorgeous human being in the history of the world. We are both eleventh graders, but I've never had any classes with her, and we went to different middle schools, so she probably doesn't know anything about what happened to me—about my dad, I mean.

She smiles. “Jordan, yeah.... Sorry, I've seen you around, but not very often.”

I smile too. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

She says, “No, really, I remember you from last year, seeing you then. Where have you been?”

I don't want to say, In zombie land, so I blurt out, “I've been out of the country for a while.”

“Really, where?” she asks.

Damn … I'm such an idiot. “Oh, all over, Paris, Berlin …”

Paris? Berlin? What the hell am I saying?!

She looks skeptical but lets it drop as we reach her Pathfinder.

“I think I know what's wrong,” I say after trying to start the Pathfinder and hearing it turn over and over.

“Really?” she asks. “Can you fix it?”

“I think so. Have you got a dollar?”

She looks confused.

I say, “You see this gauge here on your dashboard, the one that says Fuel? When that little arrow goes below empty, like it is right now—that's a sign that you need some gasoline. These things run wayyy better with gas in them.”

“Oh, my God!” she says, laughing. “Are you kidding me? I'm just outa gas?”

“Yep.”

“Sheesh!” she says, and laughs some more.

By the time we get back with a half gallon of gas (Becka holding it carefully, thank God, so that none spills onto the floor of the 'Vette), and I pour it into the Pathfinder, she's told me all kinds of things I already knew about her, and two things that I didn't know: that she doesn't, “at the present time,” have a boyfriend, and that she loves “cool cars.”

All I've said about myself is my name and that completely stupid crap about having been out of the country. What was I thinking? Out of the country? Right, like Mr. International Jet-setter? I also mentioned that I'm not dating anyone “right now” either. I don't actually say I own the Stingray, but she's assumed it's mine, and I don't deny it.

Becka writes her name and phone number down on a scrap of paper she pulls out of her purse.

“Call me!” she says as I get back into the 'Vette. “I wanna go for another ride in your car.”

I smile and say, “I'll call.”

I think, MY car, huh? How the hell am I going to pull this off?

Wally asked me what could make the risk of stealing the 'Vette worthwhile. Wait till I tell him about Becka!

The good news is that I get the car back and make it to my house and no one is the wiser. The bad news is that I've met the most gorgeous girl in the world, and she thinks I'm this real cool guy because I
own
a Stingray.