Page 23 of Honey's Special Roux

She wiped her face again and smiled softly. We walked over to my car, and Honey tried to get in the passenger seat.

“Nah, get in the driver’s seat.”

“You want me to back out?”

“Yeah. You gon’ have to do it on the test, so practice now.”

She gulped. “O-okay. I’ll do my best.”

When we were inside, she buckled her seat belt and made a move for the gearshift. With a shake of my head, I stopped her.

“Can you see the road with your current position?”

She peered over the wheel and shook her head. “Not really.”

“Fix that before you move. Get comfortable and make the needed adjustments before you put the car in reverse.”

She took a deep breath. “How?”

“Start with your seat first. Move it however you need to.”

She fumbled with the seat adjustments for a few minutes. Her short ass was damn near on the tallest settings. I helped her pull the steering wheel down while she went to adjust the mirrors.

“A’ight. For the mirrors, you want to see the cars behind you in the rearview and the cars beside you on the side mirrors. Adjust them until you have good angles.”

It took a few more minutes to get the mirrors adjusted. Once she was ready, I talked her through slowly backing out of the driveway and to always be aware of her surroundings. Women were notorious for hitting curbs. I had spent a nice check on my current set of tires too.

She successfully backed out and turned down the street. Her speed was barely five miles per hour. From the focused expression on her face to the death grip she had on the wheel, she didn’t want to make a mistake.

“Breathe, Honey. I ain’t gon’ let you hurt us or the car. You don’t have to go five miles. Lightly apply pressure to the gas pedal.”

Her feet lightly tapped the gas.

“You’re doing great. When you get to the stop sign, use your turn signal to turn right. We won’t take you too fast, but we gon’ get you those driving minutes in every day until your test, okay?”

“You’re so perfect.”

“Nah, baby. I’m far from it.”

“Hush, Marquise. You’re perfect to me.”

I smiled and placed my hand on her thigh. “A’ight. Here’s a kind of hard thing to do. When you pull out to turn, you want to go far enough so you don’t hit the curb, but you also can’t go too far out. You risk the possibility of going into the other lane, and when another car is there, you might scrape their shit.”

“This is all so much to remember,” she whined.

“Chill. You want to know how to drive yourself places without relying on anybody or not?”

“I do.”

“A’ight then. Shut up and get it done.”

“Rude!”

“I’m just making sure you stick it out. It’s gon’ be a surreal feeling when you get yo’ license and flex on them bitches.”

She giggled. “Period. When do I apply gas during the turn?”

“You want a consistent pressure until you’ve completed the turn. Take it slow and feel for it.”

---