What We Keep - Elizabeth Berg [23]
Jasmine signaled for a left. “What do you say we take a spin on the highway first? We’ll open her up and cool off a little.”
I settled happily into a corner of the backseat. I had an idea of how I would look with my hair blowing straight out, sitting in a convertible. Older.
Soon we were on the highway in the passing lane, and I saw the red needle of the speedometer trembling at the ninety-miles-an-hour mark. When I heard the wail of the siren behind us, I turned around to see a black-and-white police car far away, but closing in. “Uh-oh,” I said. When I turned back I saw Jasmine looking into the rearview mirror and smiling. She reached over and put a hand on Sharla’s knee, yelled, “Hold on!” and sped up.
I couldn’t believe it. I laughed out loud, but I was very much afraid. It might be Leroy, for one thing; and then, even if Jasmine got away from him, he would know where to come—with the top down, he would have seen Sharla and me clearly. He would knock on our door, ask our mother where we were, and she would start wringing her hands. After we were standing straight before him, he would say something like, “Enjoy your little ride this afternoon? Care to tell me who the driver was?”
“Tell him!” my mother would say, her voice a mix of outrage and anguish. And then, “Oh, my goodness! It was Jasmine Johnson, wasn’t it?” Actually, that would be fine; then she would be the tattletale.
Jasmine was in the right-hand lane now, going even faster. And then we were on an exit ramp, headed down a side street, then another and another. Finally she pulled into a Henny Penny, screeched to a halt, and turned off the ignition. The police car was nowhere in sight. “Everybody all right?” she asked.
Well. Sharla and I looked at each other. Sharla was still holding on to the door handle. I’d neglected to do that, and had slid from one end of the long backseat to the other.
“You okay?” Jasmine asked again.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sharla said. I nodded.
Jasmine looked into the mirror, adjusted her scarf and her glasses. “I hate when they do that,” she said. “Chase you around like you’re a common criminal.” She pressed her lips together, touched lightly at a corner of her mouth. Then she turned back to me, lowered her sunglasses. “What’s the matter, honey?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you want to go home?”
“No, ma’am.”
“So … shall we continue? Monroe’s?”
I nodded.
She turned to my sister. “Sharla?”
“What?”
“Monroe’s?”
“Okay.”
Her voice was small. It came to me that she wasn’t so old.
Jasmine took her purse from Sharla, pulled out a package of Lucky Strikes. “Damn,” she said. “Only one left. I’m going to run in the store for a second. You want to come?”
I shook my head; I wasn’t sure I trusted my knees yet. But Sharla went with her and when they came out she was eating a Baby Ruth. I was annoyed until Jasmine handed a Milky Way to me.
“Thank you,” I said. “Did Sharla tell you this is my favorite?”
“No, I guessed. You’re a Milky Way type, don’t you think?”
I unwrapped the candy bar, shrugged. I was all of a sudden in a bad mood. I didn’t want to be so easy.
I liked Monroe’s department store. It was big, but not intimidating, and carried enough merchandise to always be interesting. It had wooden floors and high ceilings with intricate engravings, white on white. I used to lie on my back to admire the ceiling whenever my mother wasn’t looking, until the day I was stepped on by Mrs. Reginald Whalen, the principal’s wife, who apologized profusely to my mother for the dirty mark she left behind on my white blouse. I myself feared (and hoped) that my ribs had been broken, and felt around gingerly while my mother held me to her and nervously reassured Mrs. Whalen that no, a visit to the emergency room would not be necessary. Alas, I was not even bruised, and after my mother mildly chastised me for nearly tripping such an important person,