Essay

I'm at a painting retreat up in the mountains for several days. We paint a new piece each day, and I will show pictures later. We also had a writing assignment. The topic was cars. Here is my essay. It is not what I felt in the mood to write, but it fit the assignment and length. I basically stole it from my blog 14 years ago.

It started with locking my keys in the trunk of my rental car.

I had flown into Austin to be maid of honor at my friend’s wedding, and I was crashing on her mother’s couch. The events didn’t start until evening, so I decided to take the morning to meet up with an ex-boyfriend for a tour of the city. I hauled my suitcase out to the curb and heaved it into the trunk of my lime green Chevy Malibu. Then I thought, I don’t need my purse today, and tossed that in for good measure. Even as the lid slammed down, I realized my error and stood in paralyzed horror. I had dropped the keys into the bag. Then, no matter how many times I patted my pockets or rattled the door handles, no miracle occurred to absolve my blunder.

About the time that I knew I was good and truly screwed, Kevin arrived on the scene. It is one thing to do something stupid in isolation. It is another to be humiliated in front of friends or even strangers. Screwing up on that scale in front of an ex-boyfriend for whom one still harbors romantic feelings? The stuff of nightmares.

First, I called the rental car company. Did they have a spare key I could come get? Of course not. Because that would have been too simple. I called AAA who said they’d send a locksmith.

To escape the growing July heat, Kevin and I sought refuge in his green Honda, blasting the air conditioning. With nothing to do but wait, we talked for hours, while first one and then a second professional failed to break into the Fort Knox of family-sized sedans. Together, they did manage to open the cab, only to discover that the trunk release lever didn’t function. So began another round of lockpicking attempts, this time on the trunk itself.

Just about the time the third locksmith arrived to help, I hit my deadline. I had to leave or be late to the reception. Kevin offered to drive me, and a neighbor, a complete stranger to me, volunteered to wait with the locksmiths and retrieve my keys for me. Mercifully, my bridesmaid’s dress was still hanging in the closet inside my friend’s childhood home. In borrowed, ill-fitting black flats, I climbed back in the passenger seat of the Honda and braided my hair while my ex drove.

My plans had completely derailed. What was supposed to be a casual catching up now became a date to a wedding, and my hopes for poise and composure were shot all to hell. I was bug bitten and sunburned, flustered and famished. My makeup had all melted off hours before, and I didn’t have a single bobby pin to my name. I burned with embarrassment, convinced that Kevin just wanted out but was too kind to say so.

Still, he put on a tie and danced with me at the reception. I managed my toast with grace, and I even caught the bouquet. Then, Kevin and I sat up till the wee small hours of the morning, whispering in the dark of his car, somehow unable to say goodnight.

The next week, he told me he loved me. When he told me he wanted to marry me, we were in that same green Honda, driving back from Thanksgiving at my mother’s house.

Eight years after the wedding in question, four years after our own, he totaled his sedan during an ice storm. He spent an entire month scouring the whole of Texas for another green 2001 Honda Accord, not yet ready to let it go. But it wasn’t the car that was special. It was the memories, and I am forever grateful that I locked my keys in my trunk all those years ago.