Read A Blue So Dark for Free Online Page B

Skoal goes. And from the look on his face, I'd say we scared him so bad, he just about swallowed his mouthful of chew.
    "How dare you drive like a maniac!" Mom screams as she kicks open the Tempo's driver's side door. "How dare you come racing at me in my lane. My lane! How dare you shrink us!"
    By this time, a woman's banging through her front screen door to get a look at her mailbox. Her mouth is open, her face all shiny with cold cream, and she's wiping her hands off on a dish towel.
    "I'm sorry," I tell the owner of the pickup. "I shouldn't have let her drive." I say it with my shoulders squared, with what I hope is something that just might resemble authority.
    "She ain't drunk, is she?" the guy asks. "This early in the morning?"
    "No, no," I say. "You can smell her breath if you want."
    "What's the matter with her?" he asks. He nods once at Mom. She's standing over the mailbox, screaming at the woman with the dish towel, "How dare you plant this thing in the middle of the road! Don't you know that's against the law?"
    "She's having a reaction to some medication," I lie. "It wasn't this bad when we left the house-it's hitting her hard now."
    "She need to get to a doctor?" the man asks.
    "Sure, right. I-I really do appreciate your concern. I'm taking her right now, actually," I lie again. "Like I said, I should have been driving." Even though I've never been much of a praying kind of girl, I find myself saying a quick, silent Please, God that my words are all coming out strong and clear. I'm terrified-but I can act, right? Just like the troupe that fills the stone stage behind the art museum during Shakespeare in the Park on a sweet July night? If I play this thing right, I can convince the guy I'm actually Mom's older sister.
    I guess my prayer works, because the guy nods at me like he believes I know what I'm doing. (And even if he doesn't, really, I'm taking Mom away, and he must think that, in itself, is a good thing.)
    "Let me give you some money for another mailbox," I tell the woman, offering her the cash that was supposed to buy my lunch for the next two weeks.
    The woman shakes her head and flicks her towel at me, like I'm being ridiculous, like we're old friends and she could never take money from me.
    "Is there any way you could pull us out of this ditch?" I ask the guy with the pickup.
    He doesn't say anything, just hooks the Tempo to his trailer hitch. Rev of the engine, spin of the tires, and like that, he's hauled the car out of the muddy slope.
    They just stand there, the guy from the truck and the woman with the dishrag, just stand there staring as I put Mom in the passenger's seat and hurry around to the driver's side.
    "Goddamn crazy men drivers," she spits, still fuming. "Men will try to own your roads, Aura. Always remember that. They will try to buy your mind. Your thoughts are roads with gravel."
    And I'm barely listening, because I'm concentrating on making it seem like I'm an expert driver. I click my seat belt and reach for the gear shift, pretending I've been driving for years and years. Like this is normal, no big deal, I do it all the time.
    The car lurches, even though I'm trying to press so lightly on the gas-and when I look in the rearview, there they are, the truck driver and the housewife, staring at me with their mouths scrunched up and their eyes so round, you'd think they were a couple of kids watching a horror movie.
    I want to tell them, I feel exactly the same way.
    We wiggle down the road while I'm trying to get the knack of the steering wheel. My heart starts throwing a child's fit in my chest as a stop sign asks me to move my foot to the brake. I have no idea how hard to press the pedal or how to judge where the Tempo will finally come to rest-three blocks from the intersection? In the middle of the cross traffic? Now I'm the one leaving sweaty handprints all over the steering wheel.
    I manage a halfway decent stop, and have barely begun to silently congratulate myself when Mom