The Long Road To Monday

She could still make the interview if the car started now. She could make it if it started on the next try. She could make it if she stopped counting all the ways it might not.

She turned the key again.

The Monte Carlo coughed through the exhaust. A puff of gray smoke drifted past the driver’s side mirror. Ellen’s sandal tapped the accelerator, careful and quick. The engine caught, stumbled, and settled into a rough idle that made the steering wheel tremble beneath her hands.

“Yes.” She held the key a moment longer, then released it. “That’s all I’m asking.”

The idle dropped.

Ellen pressed the pedal. The engine surged, then sank. She shifted into reverse, eased out of the driveway, and felt the car lurch. Her briefcase slid off the passenger seat and struck the door.

“Stay with me,” she told the car.

The Monte Carlo rolled into the street. Ellen shifted into drive. The engine gave a hollow clatter, and the car stopped moving.

She stared through the windshield at the empty road.

The engine was still running, barely. A thin vibration traveled up through the seat. She pressed the accelerator. The car moved forward with a reluctant jerk, then gathered speed. Ellen kept both hands on the wheel and her right foot steady.

At the first stop sign, the engine nearly died. She shifted into neutral and gave it gas while a bicyclist coasted past the corner.

“You’re fine,” she whispered. “You’re fine.”

The bicyclist looked over. Ellen smiled at him, though he could not have heard her through the closed windows.

The town was waking around her. A bakery door stood open, sending warm yeast and sugar into the street. A school bus hissed at the curb. Men in work shirts crossed the hardware store parking lot carrying coffee in paper cups. Ellen drove past them in the long, gleaming car, its cream paint dulled by dust and its chrome bright enough to catch the morning sun.

At the final traffic light, she checked the time.

Seven thirty-four.

The highway entrance lay beyond the feed store and the abandoned grain elevator. Once she reached it, she would have open road for several miles. She could keep the speed steady, avoid stopping, and put the town behind her.

The light turned green.

Ellen pressed the accelerator.

The Monte Carlo hesitated.

A horn blared behind her.

“Go,” a man shouted from the pickup truck. “Come on!”

“I’m trying,” Ellen said.

The car rolled through the intersection at last, but the engine began to falter. Each time she pressed the gas, it responded with a cough. The temperature gauge, which had rested just below the middle, crept upward.

Ellen glanced at it, then back at the road.

The highway ramp rose ahead. She could turn around. She could pull into the gas station beside the feed store and call the number from the interview letter. She could say the car had failed and ask for another day.

The thought arrived with such relief that she almost took the turn.

Then she saw the letter on the passenger seat, its corner lifting in the air from the vent. Her name was printed across the front in black ink. Ellen Ward. Personnel Department. Monday, nine o’clock.

She had spent three weeks sending letters, making calls, and pretending not to notice how little money remained in her account. This interview was not a promise, but it was the first door that had opened.

She kept going.

The Monte Carlo climbed the ramp. The engine rattled harder. Ellen leaned forward as if her body could help it up the incline. Behind her, the pickup truck swerved around, its horn barking again.

At the top of the ramp, the highway opened in both directions, gray pavement shining under the morning sun. Ellen merged into the right lane. The car reached forty-five miles an hour, then fifty. The vibration eased.

She let out a breath.

“There,” she said. “We’re underway.”

For the next few minutes, the road seemed willing to accept her. Fields spread on either side, brown and green beneath a sky streaked with thin clouds. Utility poles marched along the shoulder. A radio station faded in and out through the speakers, a woman’s voice buried beneath static.

Ellen adjusted the mirror. Her hair had come loose at one temple. She smoothed it with her fingertips, then checked the temperature gauge again.

The needle had moved higher.

She turned off the radio.

A mile marker passed. Then another. The town disappeared behind a low rise, and with it went the last easy place to stop. The highway narrowed between a drainage ditch and a stand of scrub trees. There was no service station ahead, no exit sign, nothing but pavement and the long slope toward the mountains.

The Monte Carlo began to lose speed.

Ellen pressed the accelerator. The engine answered with a hollow roar but gave her no power. The temperature needle climbed past the middle line.

“No,” she said.

Steam appeared at the edge of the hood.

She moved onto the shoulder, guiding the car across the white line. Gravel snapped against the underside. The Monte Carlo rolled another hundred feet before Ellen turned the wheel toward a patch of flattened dirt.

The engine coughed once.

She shifted into neutral and coasted to a stop.

For several seconds, the car ticked and creaked around her. Ellen kept her hands on the wheel. Ahead, the highway ran empty toward the mountain road. Behind her, a tractor-trailer came over the rise, its tires roaring against the pavement.

She turned the key off.

The silence that followed was worse than the noise.

Ellen stepped out onto the shoulder. Heat pressed against her legs through the hose. Her sandals sank slightly into the loose gravel as she walked to the front of the car. A thin stream of steam escaped from beneath the hood.

She lifted it.

The smell of hot metal and antifreeze rose around her. She stepped back, shielding her face with one hand. The engine block clicked as it cooled. A drop of green liquid struck the ground and vanished in the dust.

The tractor-trailer thundered past, pulling a hard wind after it. Ellen’s skirt snapped against her knees. Her briefcase, still inside the car, had fallen open on the seat, spilling papers across the floor.

She looked at the highway, then at the steaming engine.

The interview letter lay among the scattered papers, its black ink unblurred and certain.

Ellen bent, picked up the letter, and closed the briefcase. She carried it to the shoulder, away from the car, and sat on the edge of the ditch. Her sandals pressed into the dry grass.

A car appeared far down the road. Ellen stood and raised one arm.

It passed without slowing.

She lowered her arm. Her hand shook once, then steadied.

The Monte Carlo had gotten her out of town. It had carried her past the last stoplight, up the ramp, and onto the highway. That counted for something. It also sat steaming beside her with half the road still ahead.

Ellen looked at the mountain line. The interview waited beyond it, if the car could reach there.

She picked up the briefcase and walked back toward the Monte Carlo, the heat of the engine rolling over her bare toes through the open sandals.

“Come on,” she said, placing one hand on the fender. “You started this.”

The car ticked beneath her palm.

Ellen glanced at the clock on the dash. Seven forty-eight.

Then she reached for the hood and waited for the steam to thin.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 10,534 words in the full book.