Fantasy

18-Marie

A few miles away from the motel we stop at a restaurant for breakfast. It's nearly empty, but the food is good. When we're finished eating we go to leave, but the car won't start. Dad tries the engine five times, but to no avail.

"I guess the battery's dead," Dad says. Great, so we're stuck here. I don't even see any cars around that could help us out.

"Guess we'll have to flag a car down to get a jumpstart," Mom says. She and I go to the entrance of the parking lot to try and get a driver to help us while Dad tries to get the car running on his own. Mom and I wave our hands at the first car which comes down the road, but it passes right by. Three more cars do the same thing. I'm about to give up hope when one car sees us and turns into the lot. There's only a slight problem... it's a silver Camaro. No, it can't be. Please, anyone but...but it is. Randy Hall steps out of his sports car and comes to meet us at our Bronco, which looks like trash in comparison. I straighten my shoulders.

"Need some help?" he asks, removing his sunglasses.

I glare at him, but Mom says, "Yes, please, our battery is dead and we need a jumpstart."

"Okay, but I don't have any cables," Randy says in his trademark way that just makes me want to slap him.

"We have some," Dad reassures him.

"Perfect, I'll pull around in front of you. Oh, I'm Randy, by the way," he says, extending his hand.

My mom takes it, "I'm Elizabeth."

"Richard," Dad says as he shakes Randy's hand. Randy flashes a smile and turns to me, his hand outstretched.

"Marie," I grumble, giving him as small a handshake as possible. I hope he knows I only did that for my parents. He turns to his car and pulls around to the parking spot opposite ours, so our hoods are about a foot apart. Mom untangles the jumper cables from the trunk and Dad pops the hood. It opens with a loud creak. Randy's hood opens smoothly. He uncaps the connections on his battery and Dad does the same. Mom clamps the red cable to the positive connection and then gives the other end of the cable to Randy, who clamps it onto his positive battery connection. Mom also hands him the black cable and he clamps one end onto the negative connection on his car, then goes to clamp it to ours, but I take it from him. He opens his mouth to say something, probably to tell me how to do it, but I'm tired of letting him act superior. "Yeah, yeah, you connect the end of this cable to the negative connection on the dead battery. I got it," I spit, going to do just that, but he stops me.

"No, actually you need to 'ground' it by clamping it to something metal," he corrects me, fastening the clip to the engine block. My face grows red when my dad nods in agreement. Great, now Randy's even more irritating, because he's right. He returns to his car and revs the engine. After a minute or so, he tells my mom to turn the key on our car. She does and...it starts! Randy grins and unhooks the clamps in reverse order, then hands them back to my mom. She thanks him and puts the cables in the trunk. Once we close the hood of the car Dad gets back behind the wheel and we follow Randy out of the lot. We turn the opposite direction of him and I'm just glad to be heading home. Unfortunately, Mom starts attacking me.

"Marie, you were very rude to Randy; you should be ashamed of yourself. You've already broken your phone and you couldn't manage to get a tube of toothpaste? (Okay, so I didn't tell my parents Randy almost ran me over. They would have called the cops and Randy would have really killed me) What has gotten into you? Normally you're an ideal child, but lately I'm not so sure. I sink down in my seat and try hard not to explode.