Jo Ellen made a face. “Pretty sure this H-shaped diagram with the numbers one, two, and three is for shifting. And that pedal?” She pointed to the floor. “Is what my husband used to call a clutch.”
“A…clutch?” Maggie choked the words. “I have no idea how to drive a clutch.”
“Don’t tell Rodrigo or he won’t let us have it,” Jo Ellen said, jutting her head toward the door when the man came out. “And I’ll ask Oscar for some tips.”
But somehow Maggie didn’t think even that robot could help her now.
Inside the much cooler showroom, they followed the slick-looking salesman to a glass-enclosed office to sign their lives away. Rodrigo seemed a little surprised that they were driving all the way back to the Panhandle, but Maggie decided to let Jo Ellen do the talking.
Sometimes, that really was better. Especially when all Maggie could think about was…aclutch. And it wasn’t her favorite beaded handbag.
They gave away Frank’s keys for the truck, signed a mountain of documents, and drank some bitter and tasteless coffee.
“Well, we’re committed now,” Maggie murmured to Jo Ellen, who was madly tapping her phone, no doubt begging Oscar for a driving lesson.
Two men in white shirts came in, looking crisp and efficient. “We transferred all your belongings from the truck to the T-bird,” one said.
“We reset the top, too,” the other informed them. “And we fit all your stuff inside. Cooler, bags, and the…bike helmet.”
Maggie and Jo Ellen shared a surprised look.
“I bet Brick slipped that in there so you didn’t forget him,” Jo Ellen teased. “Probably wrote his number inside.”
Maggie rolled her eyes and signed the last page of a contract, the one that probably included fine print that legally acknowledged she could drive a stick shift.
After she put down the pen, Rodrigo dropped the keys ceremoniously into her hand and gave Jo Ellen a packetof papers the size of the Yellow Pages, prattling on about temporary tags and a bill of sale for registration. But all Maggie could do was stare at the keys and think about…the clutch.
“She’s all yours,” he said. “Happy trails, ladies.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll be…interesting,” Maggie muttered, her hands already sweating as she imagined gripping that gearshift like she was in a racecar at Indy.
Jo Ellen grinned. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”
Outside, with Rodrigo looking on like a proud papa, Maggie opened the driver’s side door, slid into the low-slung seat, and looked down at the clutch. She breathed the words that would define the next thirty minutes of her life…
“Oh,hell.”
Jo Ellen, already shoving the papers in the glovebox, glanced over. “Come on, Mags. How hard can it be?”
Very.
The first attempt launched them half a foot forward before the engine stalled with a cough.
The second attempt got them rolling five feet before a grinding sound made Jo Ellen scream and seize the door handle like it was a lifeline.
By the third attempt, Maggie was sweating through her cotton top and swearing like a sailor as she caught a glimpse of the shock and horror on Rodrigo’s face in the rearview mirror.
“Give it gas! More gas!” Jo Ellen yelped. “And put your foot on the pedal at the exact second you move that stick. Oscar says it’s like choreography.”
“Oscar can bite me!”
The Thunderbird jerked forward like a toddler learning to walk and sputtered into the street with a horn blast from behind. Somehow, Maggie managed to jam it into second gear without turning the transmission into shrapnel.
“We’re in traffic!” Jo Ellen, queen of the obvious, shouted over the noisy motor.
“Iknow!”
A sleek white BMW honked as it swerved past them, and Maggie gave the driver a prim, queenly wave. “Sorry, darling, we’re learning.”
