When it opens, the pa**enger door of our maroon Honda Civic makes a s**ing sound. I clear the seat of Grandpa's jazz ca**ettes and say, “Get in.” Then I toss Izzy's Darth Vader backpack underneath the glove box, make room for him to scoot in, and throw the door closed.
I drag my feet around the hood, careful not to look at its peeling paint. Frustrates me. From outside my door, I watch Izzy through the window, how his feet barely dangle off the seat. Delicate like a doll. But hair so wild. It used to be as long as his shoulders, but he recently asked me to cut it, and I ruined it. Cropped and spraying everywhere like mini explosions. I ruined it. I breathe deep then open my door and plop behind the wheel.
Slumped behind the wheel, I think, How could Izzy have done this? Maybe you let this phase go on too long. Maybe. I rest my forehead against the top of the wheel.
Izzy asks, “Santi?”
“Shh,” I tell him. “Let me decide what I want to say to you.”
Then I sink the clutch in and wrench the key. Our Honda REEEs alive. “Hmm,” I murmur. “Only took once.”
Izzy smiles but fidgets in his giant seat. “The truck took a long time, too,” he says.
A whirling sound comes from our ca**ette player as one of Grandpa's favorites winds up, then Charlie Parker's jazz saxophone whines a melody. I jam my finger against the eject bu*ton.
“Well, Grandpa got that truck in 1979, a cla**ic, so of course,” I say. “This heap is what—from 2003? Selling his Ford for this Jap crap was treason.” I glance at Izzy. “‘Treason' means you're a bad American.” He giggles.
“Wait,” he says, opening his door. Watching him hustle to the front of the Honda, I groan. Now facing the car, Izzy looks at the headlights and gestures “come on.”
“Get back in,” I say to him through the windshield. He shakes his head furiously and pulls his hands faster toward himself to “come on.” I tsk and turn the right blinker on. Izzy waits for a moment, then he gives a thumbs up. Now he shuffles to the left side of the car and raises a brow at me, so with an eye roll, I flick the turning signal down. He nods then sprints past me to the back, I can hear his panting as he runs by. Through the rearview mirror, I watch him curl his tiny caterpillar fingers at me as if to backup. I exhale but step on the brake. Izzy's eyes jump from the left taillight to the right, until they glance back up at me through the mirror, and they smile. He gives a thumbs up.
He's so small, to shut his own door, he has to climb halfway up the pa**enger seat, reach for the door handle with one leg dangling out and the other foot on the edge of the Honda, then groan to pull it shut. Nestled back into his seat, he grins. “Good to go.”
I just reach over his lap, open the door an inch, and slam it shut to make sure it's closed. Now backing out of the parking spot, I mention, “They were ‘good to go' this morning, too.” I feel the corners of his mouth limp down.
We crawl to the exit of the school parking lot, and as we wait for an SUV to drive past, I start fiddling with the gearshift, but Izzy points to our turning signal. I keep messing with the shifter. So Izzy goes ahem and frowns at me. Finally, I smack our blinker on, making him squirm in his seat. Izzy asks again, plucking at his fingernails, “Santi?”
Tat-Tat.
Tat-Tat.
“Santi?”
“I told you to shh,” I say, so Izzy groans back against the seat. Tat-Tat. Finally the Silverado zooms by, and I mutter, “Slow down, idiot. It's a school zone.”
We pull out of the lot and roll down the hill from our school. I shift into neutral and the wind flaps against our windows as we sail the quarter mile to the intersection. Saves gas.
Now at the stop light, the red eye staring at me, a father jogs in place at the street corner. He's wearing sweatpants and a thick sweater because of the gloomy clouds looming toward us, and he has his hands on the bar of a tricycle baby carriage. Izzy gazes at him and sags his shoulders. Damn.
HUUP I go, he turns to me, I'm holding my breath, he grins, I want to smile too but my cheeks are chipmunks, he probably thinks I'll lose again, up to the traffic light, fingers drum the wheel, I'm holding my breath, to Izzy, to the light, I'm holding my breath, come on, palms stomp the wheel, come on come on, I'm holding my breath holding my breath holding my—the Cyclops blinks green. PHEWWW. Izzy laughs, and we hum forward, leaving the father behind.