Page 56 of That Weekend in Paris
“No,” I agree. “There isn’t.”
We’re on the Autoroute now, a toll road, and cars are blowing past me in the left-hand lanes. I’m hugging the right lane at 130 kilometers. “Okay, given the speed of this traffic,” I say, “I’m pretty sure we should have gotten a bigger car.”
“It is fast, isn’t it?” Dillon says. “But you’re holding your own.”
“Yeah, over here in the chicken lane,” I say.
She laughs softly. “What do you drive back home?” she asks.
“A truck, of course.”
“What kind?”
“Ford.”
“So, you’re a Ford man.”
“Is there any other kind?”
She smiles and shakes her head. “I have a little bit of a soft spot for the Dodge, but I get the whole Ford thing. Nothing low slung for you?”
“I’ve toyed with the idea but never really thought it was me.”
“I’m pretty sure you’d look good in a Ferrari.”
“We’re a long way from that,” I say, patting the dashboard.
She laughs again. “Transportation and nothing more when you take ego out of the picture.”
“You got that right,” I say. And the car is holding up to that obligation just fine over the next couple of hours, that is, until the back right tire blows.
Dillon
“It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed ability to meet them.”
?Edgar Rice Burroughs,The Warlord of Mars
I HEAR MYSELF scream and wonder for a moment if it’s coming from someone else. And then I realize that we’ve blown a tire. I grab the door handle, praying our seatbelts hold while Klein fights for control of the car. It is an utter miracle that he manages to get us into the side lane without flipping the car. Wekathumpto a stop, and both of us sit for a full few seconds with our heads pressed against the seat backs, dragging in deep breaths of air.
“Did we run over something?” I ask.
“I never saw anything,” Klein says, “but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.”
“I’m hoping we have a spare,” I say.
“Let me get out and check the back.” He walks around to the rear of the car, popping the trunk. I hear him say, “Yep, we have a spare.”
“And I’m hoping you know how to change it,” I call out through the lowered window.
“It’s been a while,” he says, “but here’s hoping.”
I get out of the car and walk around to the side, hoping none of the vehicles blowing past at eighty miles per hour decide to veer off the road and run into us. “Can I just say what an amazing job you did getting us to a stop?”
“Yeah, I’m thinking right now I will definitely continue with the weightlifting because that took about all the strength I have.”
“Thank you then, for making the very wise decision to lift weights.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “Now, to see if I can remember how to change a tire.” He finds a jack in the trunk and carries the tire around to set it beside the blown one. It’s literally in shreds, and I’m again amazed that we didn’t wreck.
