“By the way, I’m going to get my learner’s permit tomorrow,” I say. “Wish me luck on that multiple-choice test.”
“Want to practice after your shift?” he asks. “I’ll bring the orange traffic cones and we can work on more advanced maneuvers.”
“You, me, a dark, empty parking lot. What could go wrong?”
“Just thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to my car,” he replies.
We say good night and hang up. In the dark and quiet, with no other distractions, I let my mindgo.
PANEL 1:In a modest bedroom, on a mattress on top of a real bed frame, retired Nite Owl II? [Author’s note: brainstorm bearded characters for reference] lies on his back, surrounded by CD jewel boxes, listening to the score fromPride and Prejudice(2005).
22
Perry offers to drive meto the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to take the learner’s permit test.
Even though we’ve known each other for almost two years, I can’t remember another time when we’ve been in the car together, just the two of us. This leads me to assume the gesture could be a ploy to force some intimacy between us before the wedding: They want to let me in on some surprise for my mom or talk about my slight meltdown the other night.
But there’s no contrived small talk or ulterior motive for the ride. We spend most of the drive listening to an audiobook about the Shackleton expedition to Antarctica.
“I read this a few years ago,” they tell me. “Maybe it’s weird to reread a nonfiction book, but it’s such a great story. You couldn’t have made it up.”
Admittedly, I’m a little disappointed to stop the audiobook when we arrive at the BMV.
“Want to text me when you’re done?” Perry asks. “I’ll run some errands and then pick you up?”
“Aren’t you going into the office?”
“I took the morning off for wedding stuff,” they reply.
“I can just take a Lyft or something. It’s—”
“I’ll meet you out here. Break a leg.”
Being dropped off like this reminds me of high school. I get a slight wave of nausea, like I’m about to take a standardized test that I didn’t prepare for.
I suppose that’s exactly what thisis.
In the end, it’s not my best performance on a multiple-choice test—anything less than 100 percent irks me—but I do pass. When I exit the building with my permit and text Perry fifty minutes later, their Audi is already waiting in the parking lot.
“Should we stop at Graeter’s?” they ask.
“Really? I haven’t had breakfast yet.”
“Hey, you just did something important. Don’t you think this calls for celebratory ice cream? It’s on the way home.”
I’m never going to turn down ice cream—whether the occasion is joyful or melancholy—so I agree.
At Graeter’s, I try to pay for the cones, but Perry beats me to the card reader. Since it’s a nice day, we elect to sit outside.
“Mint chocolate chip is my favorite,” Perry says, nodding at my cone.
“But you got cookies and cream?”
“This probably sounds silly, but I didn’t want you to think I was—I don’t know—copying you or…trying to get in your good graces or something. After the Cinnamon Toast Crunch revelation, it seemed too soon to have identical ice cream orders.”
If I took Kira out for ice cream, I wonder if that same concern would occur to me—a fear of trying too hard to fit into someone’s existing life. But I’m pretty sure she’d be too preoccupied with her flavor choice to worry about mine.
And also? Should I be picturing myself taking Kira for ice cream? I don’t know any of these single parent protocols.
