ROAD TEST

Engrossed in the newspaper’s blaring Watergate headline, Lew DeBrusk startled when Mandy Payne tapped on the window of the Plymouth. He cranked the window down partway.

“I’m ready for my lesson,” Mandy said.

For the past nine years, Lew had been Northwick High School driver’s ed instructor as a way to break up the day at his regular gig as a history teacher. “Where’s Karla and Mike?”

“Karla’s sick today and Mike’s uncle died so he’s gone for the funeral,” Mandy said. She snapped her gum like a rifle shot. “Looks like it’s just me today.”

Lew gritted his teeth and tried not to exhale too visibly. In all his years of teaching kids to drive, Mandy was the most challenging. “Are you sure? I should go check.”

“I told you they’re not here. Karla wasn’t in homeroom today, and Mike’s best friend mentioned the funeral.” She flashed Lew the Are you stupid or what? look.

“Okay. Hop in.” Lew folded the newspaper and dropped it in the backseat. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he slid over to the passenger side and buckled up. He pulled a clipboard off the dash and set it in his lap. A pencil tied to a string was attached so he could take notes as she drove. In block letters, he wrote “Mandy” in the Name field, and filled in the date and time. His watch showed 1:15 and Lew figured he was in for a long 50 minutes.

Mandy demonstrated an unerring ability to turn a benign driving session into a hair-raising vehicular experience. She had grazed a light pole, dented a garbage can, almost careened off an overpass, and tapped the brakes so often Lew wondered if he’d need to replace the bulbs. Did she have attention or coordination issues? He didn’t know how to explain it; she was a solid B- student in history class and played second base on the softball team.

Mandy slipped behind the wheel and adjusted the mirrors. “See, I remembered the mirrors this time.”

“Well done, Mandy,” Lew said.

“Oh yeah.” Mandy plucked the gum out of her mouth and stuffed it in the ashtray.

Lew had strict rules in the car and chewing gum was verboten. Plus, the way Mandy cracked her gum, it could shatter the windows.

Mandy shifted the front seat forward—before she started driving—so she reached the pedals easier. Lew nodded approval. She bit her lip and squinted, concentrating on steps that should’ve been rote. At her waist lay the unbuckled seat belt. She clicked her seatbelt and shifted into Drive.

“How about one spin around the school parking lot and then head out on our normal route?” Lew said. A set routine might help her. They made it out of the lot unscathed and he had her turn into a quiet neighborhood for three-point turn and parallel parking practice.

“Turn signal, Mandy.”

“Oh yeah.” She flicked on the blinker and exhaled.

“Let’s do an easy one to get back in the groove.” Lew set his clipboard on the seat. “Pull up to the stop sign and make a complete stop.”

Mandy made it to the stop sign and made a show of counting “one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand.”

“Nice work. What about a three-point turn now? Are you ready?”

“I guess so,” Mandy said

“Show me a nice turn.”

On the front part of the turn, Mandy bumped the curb—a definite no-no. She followed up by backing into the curb. “Not so good, huh?” Mandy let out a long sigh.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to cut it.” All Lew wanted was for her to keep showing progress and learning. Isn’t that what any good teacher desires?

Mandy hung her head, hands in her lap.

“What do you say to giving it one more shot?”

“Could I skip three-point turns today?” She lowered the window to let in air. “What do you want me to do next?”

“Well, you need to work on your parallel parking.” Lew had an idea; he’d demonstrate parking while Mandy was curbside and let her observe from outside the car while he narrated through an open window to her. Then she could try.

“I don’t like parallel parking.”

“All the more reason to keep working on it,” Lew reassured her.

“I’m sort of glad Karla and Mike aren’t here today. It takes the pressure off me.”

Lew suspected they were happy not to be in the car with Mandy. On past trips, he felt Mike’s hands bracing against the back of Lew’s seat. After one close call, Karla muttered, “Jesus, Mandy.” Mike had pulled him aside a few weeks earlier, “You couldn’t pay me enough to do what you do, Mr. DeBrusk.”

Lew drove to an empty parking lot to relieve any pressure Mandy might be feeling. He opened the trunk, pulled four cones, and set them up to simulate the bumpers of front and back cars. Moving to the driver’s seat, he narrated to Mandy who was standing curbside. “I’m putting my turn signal on.”

“Got it, Mr. DeBrusk.”

“Watch me get alongside to our imaginary car. About two feet away.”

“Ditto.”

“Notice how I stopped when the rear bumper was side-by-side and our mirrors aligned?”

“Yup.”

“Now, I’m gonna turn the wheel hard right to angle the car toward the curb, followed by straightening the wheel.”

“Okay.”

“Last thing: turn the wheel left and back the car into the space.” The car nestled between the cones. “Easy-peasy.”

“Sure, easy for you to say.” Mandy had one arm folded across her chest, supporting the other arm, and a fist under her chin.

“Ready to give it a try?” Lew asked.

“I guess so.”

Three attempts later, Mandy had flattened two traffic cones and verged on tears.

Lew was running out of ideas. Mandy was a good kid and he wanted to sign her paperwork with ‘Pass’ in all the columns on his form. She would still have to take the formal DMV driving test but he could write this one off.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Mandy sniffed. “My boyfriend is going to college next year and he takes me everywhere. With him gone, I’m gonna be stuck at home. I’m 17 and all my friends will have their licenses while I’m riding my bike. Totally embarrassing. I’m fucked and don’t know what to do.” Mandy stared at the steering wheel. “Sorry about the F-word.”

A moment passed and Lew gave her space.

“Mandy?”

“I hear you, Mr. DeBrusk,” Mandy said. “I’m thinking.” She lowered the visor and looked into the mirror embedded in the padded backing.

The clipboard lay on the seat between them. Mandy unbuckled her seat belt, set the clipboard on the dash, and slid toward Lew. The middle of the bench seat settled with her body weight. “Can we work something out?”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Lew said.

“You know, put check marks in the ‘Pass’ column. In exchange.”

“Exchange?

“C’mon, Mr. DeBrusk. Nobody has to know.”

Somebody always knows. Lew was aware of teachers with a reputation for hitting on female students. It wasn’t a topic of teacher’s lounge chatter either. Those discussions took place in Northwick High’s quiet stairwells or at Marty’s Tavern on Route 15.

“You’ve done this before, right?” Mandy asked.

Of course, he’d done it before—but never with a student. “Mandy, do you think this is a good idea?”

“I don’t have a better one. Maybe you need something to help this along.” Mandy undid two buttons from her shirt, revealing the fine lace of her bra and the slope of her tan breasts.

The potential havoc of Mandy on a highway unsettled him, yet ‘No’ stuck on the back of his tongue.

Mandy was so near he could smell her. Was that Jasmine she was wearing? He hadn’t noticed it before but it filled the car. The windshield’s magnifying glass effect poured heat into the car. For the first time, he noticed a tiny chip in the glass above the car inspection decal.

She edged closer, body warmth radiating in a wave toward him. “C’mon, Mr. DeBrusk. It won’t take long; I’m actually pretty good at it. At least, my boyfriend says so.”

Lew shut his eyes, aware of each shallow breath. Why did things appear to be moving in slow motion? He wished he’d been smarter about taking only one student in the car. Not that he expected it to turn out like this. They had always gotten along in class; she cracked jokes and laughed at his lame efforts to be funny. Had Lew provided some unknown sign he might be open to bartering for a grade?

Fireworks exploded in his brain. His nostrils flared with the scent of perfume coiling in his nostrils.

Their knees touched, like a car parking and tapping a bumper.

Her hand slipped onto his lower thigh. It had been two years since the warmth of a palm landed there. A flirtation with Miss Iverson in the principal’s office had burst into flame. They had dinner at Figaro’s Italian restaurant, returning to his place after finishing off a shared slice of tiramisu.

He hadn’t really looked at Mandy before. In the afternoon light slanting into the car, she seemed older, ready to take the next step in life. A rivulet of sweat dribbled from his armpit. Lew had worked so hard. Four years in the Army, college on the GI Bill, substitute teaching for two years while living with Mom, and getting his current job at Northwick High.

“You should unbuckle your seat belt, Mr. DeBrusk,” Mandy’s index finger traced the inside of his thigh.

Lew’s back pressed into the seat like he was bracing for a crash.

Mandy’s hand reached mid-thigh.

Why weren’t the right words coming out of his mouth?

“Do you want to undo your belt, or do you want me to?” Her hair brushed against Lew’s face.

A mind-body separation took place; he sat paralyzed, yet his brain fired in all directions. It took only seconds to alter the course of history: the thunderclap of a gunshot from Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle or an A-bomb mushrooming over Hiroshima. Would these few seconds write Lew DeBrusk’s history?

Life was filled with choices.

Her hand grazed his belt buckle.

Was this detachment a pretense, as if the next seconds of his life could be hermetically sealed in mental shrink-wrap? He was the teacher. He was a mature adult.

An insistent stirring in his pants taunted him. He could wait no longer. Leaning on the door with his hand on the cool steel of the handle, Lew yanked the handle so forcefully he fell out of the car and landed on his knees.

Mandy’s hand covered her mouth in shock. “Are you okay, Mr. DeBrusk?”

Lew stood and brushed the dirt off his khakis. “I’m fine.” He moved around the car and got in the driver’s seat.

Mandy shifted over to the passenger seat, staring blankly ahead.

Lew readjusted the rear-view mirror. “Let’s be clear—nothing happened here.”

Mandy nodded her head.

“Just you and I having a little chat before heading back to school.” Lew looked at Mandy and a tear slid down her face.

Something did happen, and both of them knew it. There was no way to make this right. His mind gushed like a firehose. Was it Mandy’s fault? She initiated it. He was doing his job, minding his business, and trying to help her. It wasn’t his fault she was a terrible driver. Lew rationalized all he wanted, but in the end, this was on him, and it stung knowing he let it get as far as it did for both of their sakes. No more Mandy laughing at his lame jokes in class or guessing who’s going to be the next prom king and queen.

Lew turned the ignition on and sat for a few seconds, the engine idling a low mechanical purr. “Mandy, could you hand me the clipboard?”

She passed the clipboard without looking at him and stared straight ahead.

He set it on his lap, unable to focus, and left the page unmarked.

***

Saturday morning at ShopRite was busier than usual, and Lew maneuvered around shopping carts in the cereal aisle. A woman with two young kids in a cart was in the middle of the aisle, blocking him, so he tried to skirt around. Their eyes locked as he passed.

“Mandy?” Lew asked. He was pretty sure it was her, but seven years had passed.

Mandy startled as she snatched a Cheez-It box the older child had grabbed from the cart.

“Mr. DeBrusk?”

“Call me Lew. We’re both adults now,” he said.

Mandy scrunched her face. “That would seem weird.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Lew waited for her to offer more. Mandy looked at him with a blank face, and the silence stretched several seconds, so Lew filled it. “Cute kids. How old?”

“Two and five.” She offered the minimum information. No names, or other details, as if she couldn’t wait to head to the checkout counter in the next minute, and get the hell out of there.

“I’d better get going. I’m supposed to meet my mom in a bit,” Mandy said.

“Okay. See you.” Lew said.

“Mmm,” said Mandy.

His exchange with Mandy was so distressing, Lew left the shredded wheat cereal, milk, and burger in the cart and walked out to the parking lot. Snapping the Toyota Camry’s seat belt into place, he sat there, strangely disoriented.

Mandy’s frigid reaction was a gut punch; a reminder time did not heal all wounds. It buried them under scar tissue. He wanted to shut the door on their short trip in the Plymouth, but it wouldn’t close. Like a foot placed there to keep it propped open a crack. A reminder of the one thing you can’t change: history. All you can do is go forward and learn from it.

Lew’s spotted Mandy through his rearview mirror as she crossed the parking lot. There was no ‘mom’ in sight. Had she conjured a fictitious ‘mom’ to aid her escape? After loading the kids in the car, she stepped into an older Honda Accord. He watched as Mandy backed up, unaware of an errant shopping cart at the rear passenger side. As she clipped the shopping cart, Lew wondered if anything Mandy did for the rest of her life was going to be easy-peasy, and how much worse he had made it.

Originally from the suburbs of New Jersey, Ken Post worked for the Forest Service in Alaska for 40 years. During the long, dark winters, He writes short stories. His fiction has appeared in descant, Cirque, Red Fez, Underwood Press, Poor Yorick, Woven Tale Press, and Kansas City Voices. Two of his stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His collection of short stories, “Greyhound Cowboy and Other Stories,” is published by Cornerstone Press.