Short Cuts by Raymond Carver

Author:Raymond Carver [Carver, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 978-1-101-97056-0
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

I look at the word “Love” and then I underline it. As I am writing the note I realize I don’t know whether back yard is one word or two. I have never considered it before. I think about it and then I draw a line and make two words of it.

I stop for gas and ask directions to Summit. Barry, a forty-year-old mechanic with a moustache, comes out from the restroom and leans against the front fender while the other man, Lewis, puts the hose into the tank and begins to slowly wash the windshield.

“Summit,” Barry says, looking at me and smoothing a finger down each side of his moustache. “There’s no best way to get to Summit, Mrs. Kane. It’s about a two-, two-and-a-half-hour drive each way. Across the mountains. It’s quite a drive for a woman. Summit? What’s in Summit, Mrs. Kane?”

“I have business,” I say, vaguely uneasy. Lewis has gone to wait on another customer.

“Ah. Well, if I wasn’t tied up there –” he gestures with his thumb toward the bay – “I’d offer to drive you to Summit and back again. Road’s not all that good. I mean it’s good enough, there’s just a lot of curves and so on.”

“I’ll be all right. But thank you.” He leans against the fender. I can feel his eyes as I open my purse.

Barry takes the credit card. “Don’t drive it at night,” he says. “It’s not all that good a road, like I said. And while I’d be willing to bet you wouldn’t have car trouble with this, I know this car, you can never be sure about blowouts and things like that. Just to be on the safe side I’d better check these tires.” He taps one of the front tires with his shoe. “We’ll run it onto the hoist. Won’t take long.”

“No, no, it’s all right. Really, I can’t take any more time. The tires look fine to me.”

“Only takes a minute,” he says. “Be on the safe side.”

“I said no. No! They look fine to me. I have to go now. Barry.…”

“Mrs. Kane?”

“I have to go now.”

I sign something. He gives me the receipt, the card, some stamps. I put everything into my purse. “You take it easy,” he says. “Be seeing you.”

As I wait to pull into the traffic, I look back and see him watching. I close my eyes, then open them. He waves.

I turn at the first light, then turn again and drive until I come to the highway and read the sign: SUMMIT 117 MILES. It is ten-thirty and warm.

The highway skirts the edge of town, then passes through farm country, through fields of oats and sugar beets and apple orchards, with here and there a small herd of cattle grazing in open pastures. Then everything changes, the farms become fewer and fewer, more like shacks now than houses, and stands of timber replace the orchards. All at once I’m in the mountains and on the right, far below, I catch glimpses of the Naches River.

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