15
THERE IS A limit to the success of any partnership—and we discovered ours later that evening, when Robinson decided it was time to teach me to drive.
I said, “Robinson, I can’t learn how to drive in a stolen car.”
He shrugged. “It’s just like any other car. Gas pedal on the right, brake on the left. Four gears forward, one reverse.”
He was always so confident. But maybe that was because everything came easily to him: he could hot-wire a Harley, sweet-talk just about anyone, and play whatever musical instrument he was given. His free-throw percentage was ridiculous, and no matter where he was, he could always find true north.
Me, I was not so sure of myself. About anything. “I don’t know how I feel about this,” I said softly.
Robinson reclined the passenger seat and pretended to close his eyes. “I feel good enough for the both of us. Time for me to relax and enjoy riding shotgun.”
I clenched my hands on the steering wheel. You can do this, Axi, I told myself. You’ve played Grand Prix Legends! Then came the other voice: Yeah, and you sucked at it. You always crashed right out of the starting gate.
“Ready?” Robinson asked.
I nodded, even though I wasn’t. Robinson had to lean over and start the car, because I didn’t know how to work the screwdriver.
“Okay. So check your mirrors and see if it’s clear. Then you’re going to step on the brake and shift into drive.” He made it sound so easy, like I wasn’t behind the wheel of a two-ton death machine.
I must have said this out loud, because Robinson said, “That is a slight exaggeration. We’re in an empty parking lot, Axi. How much damage can you do?”
“I don’t know,” I said grimly. “We’ll see.”
For a second I thought of my physics class, the one I’d skipped the day I met Robinson at Ernie’s dusty old counter. A body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it. That’s Newton’s First Law. In other words, I was totally safe—until I stepped on the gas.
But I took a deep breath and somehow successfully shifted gears. When the car didn’t explode, I forced myself to lightly press the gas pedal. The car moved forward. Slowly. Jerkily. But it moved. “Oh my God, I’m driving,” I said.
Robinson grinned. “And the prize for stating the obvious goes to … Alexandra Moore!”
“Shut up,” I squealed.
Robinson laughed. “Sorry—I couldn’t resist. You’re normally a much more subtle thinker.”
“I hate you,” I said, but I was laughing, too.
I was going twenty miles an hour and it felt like flying. I was also quickly nearing the edge of the parking lot. “What do I do now?”
“Why don’t you try turning,” Robinson suggested. “So we don’t, I don’t know, go barreling into traffic?”
I slammed my foot on the brake and whirled to face him. Sure, I’d had a good thirty seconds of decent driving, but some things just weren’t funny yet. “This is hard for me, you know!” I yelled.
Robinson reached over and put his hand on my arm. It was … calming. “Axi,” he said gently, “is it really hard for you? Think about it before you answer.”
I frowned. It was scary, yes. Unfamiliar. But hard? Well, not really. It was like Robinson said: gas pedal on the right, brake on the left. Four gears forward, one reverse.
All I needed to do was move forward.
It was almost as if Robinson could see the fear leaving my body. He gave my arm a squeeze. “See?” he said. “You get it. You’re going to be fine.”
And I was fine. I drove around the parking lot for almost an hour while Robinson, the human karaoke machine, sang driving songs: “On the Road Again,” “I Get Around,” and “Mustang Sally.” I practiced turning, accelerating, and even parallel parking.
Finally Robinson said, “I think you’re ready for the street.”
I said, “I think I’m ready for you to stop singing.”
“Deal.”
So at the edge of the lot, I looked both ways—and then I pulled into traffic.
“Pedal to the metal, Axi!” Robinson said.
I was giddy, thrilled, scared. I was behind the wheel of a car, in fantastic Los Angeles, with the boy who was possibly the love of my life sitting next to me.
“Whoa, you cut that guy off there,” Robinson said.
“I did?”
“Don’t drive like you own the road; drive like you own the car.”
“That’s funny,” I said, checking my mirrors and accelerating, “because I don’t own it, and neither do you.”
“If I can just get off of this LA freeway/Without getting killed or caught,” Robinson sang—it was some old country song.
Wasn’t he supposed to not sing? “It’s not a freeway,” I pointed out.
And it was a good thing it wasn’t, because what happened next would have been a lot worse.
The other part of Newton’s First Law? A body in motion will remain in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.
In this case, the outside force was a parking meter.
I don’t know how it happened. One minute everything was fine, and the next minute we were at a dead stop and blood was pouring out of my nose.