The Art of Adapting by Cassandra Dunn

Author:Cassandra Dunn
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Touchstone

20

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Byron

Byron put Matt’s truck in reverse and backed out of the parking space, turning a little too hard and making the power steering squeal.

“Sorry,” he said, but Matt seemed unaffected. He was much calmer than Lana with the whole driving thing. He never held on to the dash like he was bracing for a crash, or gripped the handle over his door like he was expecting to be thrown from the car. Byron drove in a large loop around the empty parking lot, picking up speed.

“Slow down before the turns. Accelerate once you’re past the midpoint of the curve,” Matt said. Matt stared out the window like he was just on a leisurely drive enjoying the scenery and not in the empty, off-season lot of the Del Mar horse-racing track. Byron slowed down for the next curve, then pressed on the gas once he was halfway through the turn, and the truck glided out at a better speed, with less pull.

“Good,” Matt said. Good was not something Lana or Graham ever said while Byron was driving.

Byron took another lap around the lot. Matt looked up at the ceiling of the truck like he was calculating something. And he probably was. “Parallel parking and three-point turns,” Matt said. He held his index finger in the air, putting some thought on hold. Matt had memorized the whole driver’s-test handbook and he was taking Byron through it page by page. “Over there.” He pointed at a curb and Byron drove toward it.

They spent the next fifteen minutes suffering through Byron’s attempts at parallel parking. Matt got out of the pickup and measured Byron’s distance from the curb after each try. Matt didn’t seem to care how many times Byron messed up. He wasn’t frustrated or impatient. He was just along for the ride, as if there were nowhere he’d rather be than setting up cones for Byron to knock over again and again as he failed to squeeze in between them. Once he finally got it, Matt didn’t make him keep trying like Graham always did. Graham wanted three perfect tries before calling it a success. Matt was happy with one.

“Three-point turns,” Matt said, sliding back into the passenger seat, the orange cones balanced on his lap. They were cheap plastic cones that Byron and Trent used to set up skateboarding courses, and they were mangled beyond saving now. “When you look back, put your hand on the headrest of my seat. That helps you turn around. Never back up without looking behind you. There could be a dog back there.”

Matt used dog in the same scenario that Lana always described, except she always said baby. Byron had a hard time picturing a world where people let babies crawl across streets left and right, but he definitely could picture a dog darting out without warning.

“I think you might be a better teacher than Mom,” Byron said.

“Your mom is a teacher,” Matt said. “But she doesn’t teach driver’s training.”

He had a point there.

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