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April
“All right, Miss Fletcher, turn right up here.” The brunette woman shrewdly watches from over the frame of her bifocals, clipboard in hand, pen poised to strike her checklist, as I flick the signal switch and navigate our battered old truck down a side street in Wasilla.
When I woke up this morning—the day of my road test—and saw the plump snowflakes falling and the fresh layer of snow that had landed overnight, I panicked. But the plows have already been out to clear and sand the streets. Fifteen minutes into the test and, so far, I haven’t slid through any stop signs or otherwise screwed up.
“See that Ford ahead?” She points at the green pickup truck parked on the side of the street, at the end of a driveway. “I’d like you to parallel park behind it.”
“Okay.” I say a silent prayer of thanks. She’s kind—she’s chosen a quiet street and a car with nothing behind it. I sidle up beside the truck, checking my rearview mirror. It’s early in the day; no one is behind me.
I give the steering wheel of this big old beast a tight squeeze to calm my nerves. Why couldn’t Phil have left us a small sedan? Taking a deep breath, I check my mirrors again and, shifting the truck into reverse, I begin backing up.
A flash of movement in my side-view mirror catches my eye before the truck suddenly jolts.
* * *
“How was that my fault?” I stare at the failed test form in my hand, close to tears.
“You can’t hit anything during a road test. It’s an automatic fail.” Jonah lifts his baseball cap off his head, only to smooth his hair out and put it back on. “How did you not see a moose?”
“It came out of nowhere!” I burst.
His hands go up in a sign of surrender. “Whoa … Okay. I’m just tryin’ to understand how it happened,” he says.
“I don’t know how it happened! She told me to parallel park behind that truck. There was a driveway and this big hedge, and a tree …,” I sputter, trying to rationalize how a full-grown bull moose managed to make its way down the driveway and into the path of my reversing truck, without me spotting it first. “I was nervous, and I was looking for cars on the road, not moose?”
“Fair enough,” Jonah says, but I sense he doesn’t buy that.
“The tester didn’t see it, either.” A thought strikes me. “Unless maybe she did? Is this how they test drivers in Alaska? Do they put moose around town and get them to ambush you as part of the road test?”
Jonah chuckles and collects my hand in his. He gives it a squeeze. “No, babe. It was just a crazy fluke.”
“Why did it have to happen to me?” I was ready. Jonah and I have been out every day practicing since I got my test date. Now I’m a twenty-six-year-old who failed her driver’s test because she backed into a damn moose! I’ll bet this has never happened in the history of road tests! I’ll bet the people working at the licensing office are having a field day with this. Beyond my anger and disappointment, I’m embarrassed.
He starts the engine. “At least you were goin’ slow. No one got hurt.” The right taillight on Phil’s truck is cracked, but the moose walked away. Literally. “It’s no big deal. People fail their road tests all the time. You can rebook in a week and try it again.”
And what if I fail again?
How much longer am I going to be stranded at our house, relying on snowy ditches to get around town in a snow machine while Jonah’s working?
Jonah pulls out of the parking lot.
“Don’t tell anyone. Please.”
“Won’t say a word.”
“And don’t you dare ever tease me about this,” I warn in a severe tone.
The corners of his mouth twitch. “I would never.”
Right.
He reaches over to rest his palm on my thigh. “Don’t worry, you’ll laugh about it one day.”
“I have a lot of laughing to do later on in life,” I mutter.
Chapter Sixteen
“Mark Sheppard said he’s been keeping Jonah busy.”
