by
Cynthia Gallaher
My grandmother lived her
last years away from Chicago with my uncle in Kalamazoo, Michigan. When she
died, she left a small amount of money for each of her grandchildren. The day
my sister Darcy turned 18, she took her share out of the bank and purchased a
used, white Karmann-Ghia convertible. It was a German sports car made by
Volkswagen that wasn’t seen very often, but was cheaply priced. When my mother
found out, she was beside herself since Darcy blew her entire inheritance on
something frivolous, she said.
It’s not like we were
debutantes and had come of age to dip hands in our trust funds. My grandmother
spent most of her life as a seamstress sewing buttonholes on custom-made shirts
at Marshall Fields. All and all, the inheritance could only buy one nice item,
such as an old sports car on its last legs. Nevertheless, my mother expected
Darcy to use her money on something useful, such as college tuition. I was only
eight years old, so I couldn’t get my hands on my account for ten more years.
But I felt glad not to deal with my mother’s wrath over the topic for a while.
I had thought at the time that Darcy made an excellent choice. What would I
choose when I turned 18 if I might take the money out of the bank? Would I be
the good daughter? Would I save it for a rainy day?
Since Darcy was now in the
doghouse, she preferred to spend more time away from home and in the car. I
loved it when, occasionally after dinner, Darcy asked if I wanted to come along
for a ride. The car’s exterior was gleaming and smooth, but inside, the dark
vinyl upholstery and flooring was worn and ripping. I think the car had spent a
good deal of time under a wet tarp. It smelled like a cross between a soggy
umbrella and an old carnival ride. I thought perhaps all of Germany must smell
this way since that was where the car came from. When the convertible top was
up, it really smelled, so it was better down. Luckily, the fall evenings were
still warm, so our top-down jaunts around the neighborhood offered open-air
vistas I had never experienced before in my parents’ hardtop cars.
Ahh, to throw my head back
and see the whole sky at once, black and star-filled as we raced through
Chicago’s streets. The appearance of streetlamps every few seconds kept rhythm
like drumbeats to a song. My eyes drifted down and settled on Darcy’s face, in
profile as she drove the car. Unlike myself, of dark hair, dark eyes and with
easy-to-tan complexion, Darcy looked instead crystalline. Her blond hair was
almost platinum, her eyes green and her faintly freckled skin fair and
luminous. She wore a chiffon silk scarf lightly wrapped around her head to
protect her hair from the wind, which blew down to her neck anyway soon after
we accelerated down the street.
As she wheeled the car
around the corner of Harlem and Higgins, three guys walking down the street
whistled and cat called, “Oh baby!” I fantasized it was me these good-looking
young men were yelling out to. My mom would call me her baby, why not them? But
I knew this particular baby was my sister Darcy, front row center. I craned my
neck to get a last look at the guys, hoping they’d say something else. “Don’t
pay any attention to them,” she said, coolly. “You get used to it.”
You get used to it, I kept
thinking. Would I ever get used to this? So much waiting ahead. Could I ever be
like my sister, so cool, hair and scarf flowing freely in the wind, at the
wheel of a sports car?
Choosing instead a standby
flight
to Berkeley, California,
wind lifting wings across
states,
landing with wild hair,
backpack,
not in Har/Hig anymore.
I could get used to this.