Crimson Footprints Part 6

She stared at the instrument panel. The car had six speedometers.

"We'll go slow. I promise. But we've got to start to go at all."

She nodded.

"Ok. What first? I'm all yours."

Tak grinned as if tempted beyond reason.

"Don't, Deena Hammond. I'm but a man."

He smiled at her blush.

"Tell you what. Let's practice changing gears. Foot on the clutch. As you push in s.h.i.+ft from first to second."

Deena nodded; her left foot sliding to the clutch as her right hand found the gears.h.i.+ft.

"Do that up to six, then back down to one a couple of times."

"But this feels silly."

"Good. Let me know when it feels natural."

Deena sighed.

After absentmindedly whistling Sakura, Sakura for a few moments, a song he'd told her was from his childhood, he turned to her once more.

"Put the car in neutral."

"Am I going to drive now?"

"That's the plan."

He sat up straighter. "Now push the clutch in, start the car, then slowly take your foot off the clutch."

She smiled weakly, but stayed planted. There'd been no driver's ed, no uncle with an old jalopy, and certainly no dad to teach her to drive. In fact, at twenty-five, this was her first time behind the wheel of a car. She just wished it wasn't a Ferrari.

"It's okay. I promise, I've paid the insurance," he said.

She knew it wasn't okay if she wrecked it, and that he was just making her feel better. She appreciated the effort.

"Okay," she whispered.

He placed a hand over hers, warm and strong.

"Foot on the clutch?"

"That's the one on the left, right?"

"That would be it."

"Then, yes."

Palm over hers, he turned the key in the ignition. She glanced at the hand, larger and lighter, and exhaled at the slight pressure he applied. They were the hands of a painter-nimble, skilled, practiced. His livelihood depended on the preciseness of his touch, the softness or hardness of the pressure he applied, the stroke that he used.

Deena exhaled noisily. There. That was enough of that kind of thinking.

"Okay now, s.h.i.+ft to first, then off the clutch. Easy does it."

She inhaled and her foot inched until it pained with the careful, creaking way she moved it.

"It's moving! What do I do?"

There was wide-open parking lot before her and beyond that, a fence.

"Give me a little to the left."

He covered her hand on the steering wheel and used it to turn.

She gripped the ten and two o'clock positions and attempted to turn the wheel. The result was an awkward twist of the body that made Tak laugh.

"What?" Deena said. But she was smiling. He didn't laugh at her wasn't the way Aunt Caroline or Keisha did, when he laughed at her, it made her smile instinctively.

"You can't keep your hands there, Dee. It's just a starting place."

Dee. He'd begun to call her that lately, and she liked it. She'd never had a nickname before.

She glanced at him.

"I knew that."

"Liar."

He turned his attention to the parking lot. "Start turning left. We're just going to circle this thing until you get the hang of it."

"And until I can go straight?"

He grinned. "Yeah. That too."

There was driver's ed at her high school, but with one teacher and 3600 students, enrollment was near impossible. Likewise, when she was a teenager, there'd been no one in her family with money enough for a car, let alone private instruction. Hence, her first lesson so late.

After stalling the car three times in a hasty abandonment of the clutch, Deena now inched around the near-empty parking lot of a Miami Beach retirement home to the backdrop of a setting sun. A slung-low chain fence circled the property, accented by a series of low and manicured hedges. Three cars were parked at the front-an old white Chevrolet, a green Ford pickup and a red Toyota Camry. Behind them were six rows of empty s.p.a.ces, s.p.a.ces that Deena weaved through pitifully.

"You're doing great," Tak said.

She grinned. It wasn't true of course, but she couldn't remember the last time someone had lied to spare her feelings.

"Thank you for that," she said. "And by 'that' I mean the lie."

"Well, progress is great in my book. And moving is progress." He patted her knee. "Besides, you're way too hard on yourself."

She concentrated on the asphalt between the front row and the empty s.p.a.ces. He was right, of course, but his intuition with her was unnerving.

"You can't possibly know that. You don't even know me."

He glanced at her. "You don't believe that. At least not the way you're saying it."

He was right again, of course, but he needn't be so d.a.m.ned confident about it.

"You want to say something."

He grabbed the wheel and sharpened her turn to avoid a slow collision with the fence. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her foot from the clutch and again, the Ferrari shut down.

"Sorry," she said.

"Relax. No harm done. And anyway, it's just a possession."

She grew up in a carless family. She knew what it was to need a ride, miss a bus, find a place inaccessible because of the public transportation route. A car was not just a possession.

"Spoken like a rich kid," she said and started the car again, foot on the clutch.

"I wasn't always rich," he said. "But you're right, I've never been poor. Not even close. Unless you count the time I called my otosan an a.s.shole and he emptied my bank account."

"Otosan?" Deena echoed.

"Dad."

"You called Daichi an a.s.shole?" She'd seen his father fire someone for accidentally calling him Mr. Ta.n.a.la, she couldn't imagine he'd have much threshold for profanity.

"Yeah, he took it about as well as you'd expect. Told me he'd show me what an a.s.shole was, and yeah, he did."

Tak grinned.

"I can't believe you have your teeth. Boy, my grandma doesn't even allow backtalk, let alone cursing at her."

He glanced at her. She was circling the parking lot again.

"What?"

He shook his head. "I thought you told me your family was kind of rough. Jail, teen pregnancies, that kind of thing."

Deena nodded. "Yeah? So?"

"So, I'm thinking, maybe back talk is the least of her worries."

Deena burst out laughing. Her sentiments exactly.

PART TWO.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Grandpa Eddie used to say that everything had a beginning, middle and end. Lizzie's beginning was in the sixth grade when her math teacher offered to pa.s.s her if she showed him her t.i.ts.

Mr. Carson was his name, and he was a pudgy and pale-faced guy who sweat all the time. He'd locked the door to his cla.s.sroom that day and pulled down the shades, before turning to an eleven-year-old Lizzie.

"You just-want to see them?"

Carson nodded and his eyes darted briefly, always on the alert.

"If you don't want to, you don't have to, you know."

Lizzie shook her head. She knew a good deal when she heard one.

"So, let me get this straight. I take off my s.h.i.+rt and you fix my grade?"

Carson swallowed. "Not for the whole year. Just...a couple of test grades."

Lizzie's hands faltered at the hem of her pink t-s.h.i.+rt. "But I could still fail."

He shook his head. "I won't let you. Your grades won't be the best, but I'll still pa.s.s you."

Lizzie nodded, satisfied with the answer. She pulled her pink tee up and over her head to reveal two budding, rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s, clad in a tan bra.

"That too," Carson said. He glanced at the door, then led her away from it, despite it being locked and the shade pulled. "I want to see everything."

Lizzie shrugged and reached around to unsnap her bra.

"S-slower."

With a sigh, Lizzie peeled away the bra.

"Give it to me."

Carson held out a hand and Lizzie gave him the bra over. He inspected the seams, ran a finger along the clasp, raised it to his face and sniffed. His pants bulged.

"That all?" Lizzie demanded when he handed her back her bra.