driving

"So you up for a drive now?" Lonnie asked later after they went back to the house and had some iced tea.

Ellie had checked on Aunt Maggie who was down for a nap.

"I thought Ben was suppose to teach me to drive," she said.

"He will, but maybe you need some driving lessons first," he said.

"From you?"

"Yeah, I don't think you'd end up in the bar ditch, would you?" That seemed to be the only thing he was concerned about.

"I don't know what that is." She looked at him.

"Believe me, you'll know a bar ditch when you hit it."

"Come on, I'll show you where I live." He got his riffle then and she followed him down the road from where he came.

"See I don't live all that far from you." They walked down a shaded road near a small pond. It was actually beautiful. He lived around the bend in an old farm house where a dusty red Ram Charger set in the driveway.

"I didn't know." She shrugged.

"Aunt Maggie has her ways," Lonnie said. "Doubt she's been back this way for years. The Mexicans live all over here."

"The Mexicans?" Ellie caught a laugh in her throat. He made it sound like a movie.

"Yeah, Nana and me." He nodded. "See my mother married into the Love family when she got right out of high school and well, that didn't work out. Then she had me while I guess they were trying to work it out. Anyway, now she lives in Dallas and she's got a whole new family."

Ellie couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him.

"Don't you want to be in Dallas?"

He shook his head, no. "Nana raised me, anyway. No big deal. Now its kind of the other way around, sometimes. I have to tell her what she forgot. She can still make a mean echilada and her tamales are the best. My Mom doesn't cook at all."

He put his gun in the truck. They got in. Ellie got in the passenger side.

"What? You can't even back out?"

"I'd get the turning all wrong, or something." She watched him start the truck and back out. She watched him with the steering wheel very carefully and mimicked his actions with the steering wheel.

He just smiled and drove toward the way they'd walked. He kept driving for a while. Past the cemetery even on to pavement. She'd never been this way toward a town that was just a shell of a gas station now and some old houses.

Lonnie drove up to a vacant school. "I almost went to school here, but they closed it when I got to middle school." He told her as he drove around the dusty streets. "This ought to be a start for you." Lonnie got out then and she got in the driver's side.

She took a deep breath. There was really nothing around her. Not even a ditch to dive into.

"OK, they make you wear a seat belt. Better buckle up. Its the law," He exaggerated with a smile.

Lonnie plugged in a cassette of KISS.

"All right, you ready to rock?" He turned the volume up. The whole cab throbbed with music. It made Ellie jump. She turned the music down and took a deep breath.

"Well, go on, its not a stick shift." He sat back and yawned.

She put it in drive and lurched forward, testing the foot petals.

"Yeah, you need some practice before Ben gets in the car with you," Lonnie laughed. "He yells. He doesn't mean too, but it happens. He taught me how to drive."

Ellie would have to remember that. She drove forward as straight as she could.

"OK, you need to turn toward the church." Lonnie told her. "You're gonna be at church on Sunday, right?"

That was the first she'd heard of it.