After about 9 hours on the road to Florida, we rolled into Uncle Robert’s house in Alachua, where we unloaded Grandma and her stuff. After dinner, Allan and I headed over to Keystone Heights, an hour away, to stay with our son & daughter-in-law and 2½ year old grandson. We switched our audiobook over to a John Scalzi SF novel and fired up the GPS as we scouted out the back roads.
“Can’t believe we left the kids at home!” Allan paused the book to smile over at me and chat for a minute. “This reminds me of our early days; just the two of us, driving along.” Interrupted by helpful guidance from the GPS lady, we took a right onto another nondescript north Florida highway. A bright yellow pinto zipped by us, going really fast. “Now, THAT brings me back, even more than just the two of us driving together,” I said, gesturing at the pinto receding in the distance behind us. “Remember my first car? The yellow pinto … named Patti?”
“I remember,” Allan agreed. “Only car you ever named.” “I didn’t name her; she named herself!” I protested. “I loved that car. She took us everywhere for years – back in Clemson, after we moved to Raleigh – she was careful to not even break down unless we were somewhere we could easily get a repair!” “OK, OK! She was a great car – no argument!” said Allan, holding up his hands in surrender. “All right, keep your hands on the wheel”, I said, mollified. “I loved that car. Patti was a great car.” Allan turned back on the audiobook.
The next day, after some morning time playing with our grandson, we headed over to a family cookout with some of Grandma’s nephews and nieces. As we approached the lake in Hawthorne, pulling onto the dirt road, a bright yellow pinto peeled out, splashing up a little mud as it went past us,and headed back the way we had come. “Wow!” I exclaimed, “I never see those old Ford Pintos any more, much less yellow ones, and now we’ve seen two in two days!” “Could it be the same one as yesterday?” Allan wondered. “Not likely”, I mused, “that other one was probably 40, 50 miles from here.” The GPS lady got our attention again and we pulled into the lake house driveway and headed over for the cookout.
For four days, we criss-crossed north Florida, visiting relatives, peering through the regular afternoon curtain of rain, listening through “Old Man’s War” on the audio and occasionally getting glimpses of a yellow pinto here and there. “I’m starting to get a little creeped out by all these yellow pintos, Allan”, I said after the latest sighting of one peeling around a corner ahead of us, quickly disappearing from sight through the spanish moss draped trees. “Maybe it’s a fad down here,” Allan said, a little dismissively. I shrugged, keeping an eye on the sideview mirror as we passed the road it had turned down. The GPS lady told us we’d be turning left in ½ mile, and we turned back on the audio.
Long weekend over, we packed up our stuff, kissed the grandson bye-bye, picked up Grandma, switched the audio back to the Louise Penny mystery, and were on I-95 North by 10 AM. Grandma got shotgun, as usual, and I was driving first. “Grandma, how was your weekend?” I asked. “Great…”, she started, then looked past my head, pointing; “Hey, doesn’t that look like that car you and Allan had back when you first got married?” A cold chill crept up my back as I turned my head. Sure enough, a yellow pinto was disappearing behind us, zipping along at high speed. “Yeah… we did have one of those,” I confirmed, and quickly changed the subject.
We made fairly good time on our way back to Raleigh. I kept a surreptitious eye peeled, but didn’t see any more yellow pintos. By the time we passed “the big hat” at South of the Border and crossed into NC, I was breathing easier and mostly just thinking about all the work piled up and waiting for me once I got home. We turned onto I-40 West, happy to only have about 45 minutes left. Ping! Low gas reminder went on. Allan sighed and pulled off on the next exit. After pumping gas, Allan went in to buy a soda and Grandma hadn’t come back out from the restroom yet, so I started to clean the windshield while I was waiting for them. Almost home!
As I was about to replace the squeegee in the receptacle, something yellow caught the corner of my eye. Slowly, I turned to look, goosebumps on my arms. Sure enough, a bright yellow pinto was sitting on the other side of the pumps. Where did it come from? I didn’t see it drive up, and it definitely wasn’t there a minute ago! A young woman rolled down the driver’s side window and stared right at me. I stared back dumbly, frozen in place.
“Patti says she misses you,” she said, in a hushed voice. I just stared. Her window rolled up, and she rolled away, almost soundlessly. Just standing there holding the dripping squeegee, I watched her fade into the distance. Allan came out and handed me a cold diet coke, breaking the spell. “Thanks for doing the windshield. Want me to drive the rest of the way?” “Sure,” I said, and climbed slowly into the backseat. I knew I wouldn’t see Patti again, but it sure was sweet to remember the way it used to be.
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