40

Aidan

––––––––

I see Aster before she sees me.

I’m parked in front of her building in Wes’s beat up old car, watching as she turns in a small circle, shielding her eyes against the spring sunlight. She’s wearing skinny jeans with a hole in the knee and a black tank top, a messenger bag slung over one shoulder. She’s the picture of all-natural college perfection, and she’s waiting for me.

I honk the horn and wave to her through the rolled down passenger window. She spots me and comes over, slinging the bag into the footwell as she slides in.

“What are you doing behind the wheel?” she asks. “I thought this was my driving lesson.”

“It is. We’ll go to Carters and practice there. They’ve got a huge parking lot and the far corner’s always empty.” Plus I kind of lied to Wes about why I wanted to borrow his car, telling him I needed to buy a number of things in bulk from the grocery store.

“Shouldn’t I, y’know, drive?” she wheedles as I pull away from the curb. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire?”

“I don’t think you’re using that phrase correctly,” I say. “Anyway, in your case it’d be more like, out of the frying pan, into the passenger seat.”

She smiles and sits back. During our failed trip to the cabin, I’d learned two new things about Aster: one, she’s never had a s’more; and two, she doesn’t have a driver’s license. Being homeless and then imprisoned had deferred that rite of passage.

“Whose car is this?” she asks, stroking the torn leather on the inside of the door.

“I borrowed it from Wes. I told him I needed some bulk items from Carters.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like...toilet paper. What else comes in bulk? Cereal?”

“Tomato sauce?”

“Yeah, I need those three things.”

She laughs. “When the apocalypse comes, you’ll be ready.”

I turn into the Carters parking lot, steering away from the large green building and its bustle of Saturday afternoon shoppers and driving us to the far corner where our only company is a three-wheeled shopping cart and a flattened diaper box.

Aster claps her hands together. “I’m so excited. The only way this could get better is if I had a s’more in one hand.”

“You’re going to need to keep both hands on the wheel,” I inform her sternly. “At ten and two o’clock. That’s lesson one.”

“Okay.” She pushes open her door. “I think I got it. Let’s do this.”

I plant my feet on the asphalt, but don’t get out of the car as she rounds the front and waits for me to stand.

“What?” She plants her hands on her hips. “Is there a second lesson? How hard can this be?”

I take the keys from the ignition and get up. “Lesson number two,” I say, tilting her chin so she’s looking at me. “When we haven’t seen each other for three days, you’re supposed to jump my bones. At the very least, make out with me passionately and let me get to second base.”

She rises onto her toes to kiss me. “Maybe that should be lesson one.”

The whole reason for keeping our relationship under wraps was so Jerry wouldn’t find out, but we still haven’t quite shaken off the cloak and dagger routine, even though there’s no longer any need for it. Keeping things close to the vest is force of habit for some PPP students, and knowing what I do about Aster’s history, I think it’s second nature for her.

Still, she kisses me in the deserted corner of the Carters parking lot like she really is going to jump my bones, and I’m totally on board with the idea. I squeeze her ass with both hands, filling my palms, and she squirms against me, tongues tangling until she breaks the kiss and steps away.

I try not to ogle her tits as they rise and fall with each ragged inhalation, her raspy breathing matching mine. “Are you going to do something about this?” I ask, gesturing to the erection tenting the front of my cargo pants.

“No, I can’t. I’m still on parole. If I get arrested for public indecency, I’m in a shitload of trouble.”

“You Holsom girls,” I say, pursing my lips. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

Aster laughs as a gust of wind sends the diaper box pinwheeling past. “Nowhere nice, anyway. Now give me the keys.”

I do and we switch spots, Aster sliding behind the wheel as I take the passenger seat, nudging her bag aside with my feet.

“All right,” she says. “Where do I begin?”

I guide her through starting up the car, which pedal does what, pointing out park, drive, and reverse on the gear shift. Like a toddler, she presses every button she can reach, turning on the windshield wipers, spraying wiper fluid, and popping the trunk and the hood, giggling foolishly as she gets out to slam them shut.

Soon enough she’s driving in painfully slow circles around the lopsided shopping cart, smiling like a pageant winner. It’s impossible to watch her and not feel happy, maybe the first time I’ve had a girl who’s made me feel that way. I’ve been with women I liked and respected, but it’s never been like this. It’s never been just...good.

“Okay,” I say, when she comes to a stop. “You’ve mastered driving in circles. Want to try parking?”

“Yep.”

“All right. Try to park in...” I lean forward to read the yellow numbers painted on the spaces. “Sixty-eight.”

“Okay.” She bites her lip as she eases forward, like she might scare the spot away. “Bonus points for not picking sixty-nine.”

“I’m a gentleman.”

“Tell me about stealing cars,” she says. “When did you start? What was it like?”

I lean back in my seat. “Well, for me, the gentlemanly art of stealing cars began at age fifteen.”

“Whoa, really?”

“Yes. I was a young gentleman.”

She snickers. “Stop saying gentleman.”

“Much like you, we needed money. My dad had—has—a gambling problem, and there weren’t a lot of jobs in our town. Plus, there was this group of guys—not a gang, but as close as you could get, basically—that I really wanted to be a part of. Just something...stable, I guess.”

Aster doesn’t comment as she straddles the line between sixty-seven and sixty-eight, then drives through the spots and starts a slow circle back.

“Remember that story about getting sprayed by a skunk?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I lied. I told you I didn’t get the job, but I did. It was my first assignment.”

“So how’d you do it?”

I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “You’re not going to steal yourself a car, are you?”

“I don’t steal anything anymore,” she replies. “A few months ago I bought a candy bar from a vending machine and two came out, and I left the second one there and only took the one I paid for.”

“You’re so lame.”

“Boring and free.”

“Anyway, how it worked was they’d locate the car they wanted—I never knew where they got their orders from—and text me the details of where to find it. A photo, make and model, address, whatever. Then I’d wait until the middle of the night and just go take it. It was pretty easy, mostly. I mean, they weren’t million dollar cars or anything, they were just cars. A paycheck.”

“So how’d you get caught?”

“Have you ever heard of a bait car?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. The police plant a bait car with GPS and cameras and stuff, and when you steal it, they find you and arrest you.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. I was a week away from turning eighteen. I could have gone to jail. But the judge looked at my records from juvie, saw I’d behaved myself while I was in there, got good grades, participated in the group sessions, and said I had potential and promise. Asked me did I think I had the same.”

“What’d you say?”

“Well, a dozen of the guys I worked with were there and I didn’t want them to think I was a pussy, but the guy was basically offering me a way out, so I stared at my feet and mumbled, ‘Yeah,’ and six months later, here I was.”

“Did you go to juvie for stealing cars?”

“No. I went to juvie for fighting. My dad used to give our stuff away to pay off our debts. When I was thirteen he gave away all my birthday presents, the stuff my mom had been collecting, wrapping, writing stupid cards for. The kid whose dad took them rubbed it in my face at school, reading those cards out loud to everyone. I beat the crap out of him. It wasn’t my first fight, but it was my worst. So off I went.”

“Wow. We’re just two prime specimens, huh?”

Because we lived in a relatively small town, every girl there knew my story. It scared some, turned on others. Wes is the only friend at Holsom who knows what I did, thanks to a night of drunken confessions I regretted in the morning. But telling Aster feels natural. It’s just information for her, it doesn’t tip the scales one way or the other. She understands that people make mistakes.

“Oh!” she exclaims, stomping on the brakes and nearly giving me whiplash. “I did it!” She puts the car in park and leaps out, running in a circle around it to admire her parking job. It only took nine tries.

“I’m the best at this,” she says, dropping back into her seat. “I knew I would be.”

I rub my neck. “So great.”

“What’s next?” she asks. “Parallel parking? Highway driving?”

I check the time on the display. “Lesson’s over. I need to buy sixty rolls of toilet paper, then we have to meet Jim in half an hour.”

Aster consults her watch, in case I’m lying about the time. “Dammit,” she mutters, reaching for the gear stick. “Okay, let’s go shopping.”

I reach over to pull out the keys. “You’re not driving near real people.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because even though you’re so great at this, it’s only been one lesson.”

She thrusts out her lower lip and bats her lashes at me, but I’m not buying it.

“Get out,” I order. “Time to trade places.”

She harrumphs but does so, and when she tries to pass me in front of the car, I loop an arm around her waist pull her close.

“Don’t forget to thank me for the lesson.”

She’s trying to look angry, but her mouth twitches. “I’ll thank Wes when I see him.”

“No!” I exclaim. “Don’t mention this to him. He doesn’t know I let my girlfriend drive his car.”

Aster freezes and an endlessly long silence grows...and grows.

“Also,” I say awkwardly, face flaming, “I...kind of...think of you as my girlfriend.”

I see her gnawing on the inside of her cheek.

“But do you think of me as a good driver?” she asks eventually.

Something inside of me softens and warms as I look at her. As I fall just a little bit more. “Am I going to get laid later?”

“Oh, yeah. Absolutely.” Her eyes sparkle. “Since you’re my boyfriend now.”

I’ve never been anybody’s boyfriend; never wanted to. And never, in my plan to make Aster mine, did I ever imagine I would be.

As a kid I’d wished on every star in the sky that my dad would stop gambling and we’d get our house back and our dog back and our things back. By the time I was twelve I knew wishes didn’t come true. I thought good things only happened to other people, people in the movies, make believe stories with a pre-ordained happy ending. I didn’t think happiness was real, and I definitely didn’t think it was tangible, something you could hold, touch, feel. But now, as I slide my fingers through Aster’s hair and press my lips to hers, I see that I was the best kind of wrong.