"Driving"

Abbreviated adaptations from my journal:

This fourth day in Mexico, I spent at the Soto homestead. I wasn't feeling well, and I wasn't sure where I was supposed to go, not having followed with the children to their aunt's house the previous night. In the morning a man dropped off five two-month-old pigs. Apparently the family raises and sells pigs. Just a few at a time, enough to fill comfortably two small corrals. We fed them and watered them, and I handed water to Doña Delfina to clean the corral. (I am never, ever donating blood.)

In the afternoon, Chepina, one of Doña Delfina's younger daughters, came to visit. We took a trip into town to inquire after the pig feed, and returned Doña Delfina home. But Chepina asked if I would like to go with her to darle una vuelta. I was ready to get out. So the two of us headed away in the '94 Golf belonging to Rogelio, just for a spin. She texted him for permission and as I understand it, she received permission to go as far as Atotonilco, but not as far as Pachuca, which is where we were unmistakably headed. When I questioned her, she did not bother lying: "I'm going to introduce you to my boyfriend."

I thought I must have heard her wrong when we had first met. I had been sure that she had filed herself under single just days earlier. And so it was. She had been lying to her family about her boyfriend in Pachuca. She was trusting me with this secret which she had held since January. When we arrived, he certainly appeared to be much older than her. He also has two kids, making Chepina even more shy of the commitment. We went together to ice cream and had a fine conversation.

On our way out of the parking lot, he took the driver's seat. But the car refused to go into reverse. We just kept inching toward the pole directly in front of us. Even the savvy Chepina could not make it budge backward. So Francisco, the novio escondido, had to push us out of the space. We had no more reverse trouble once we were going again. But after leaving Francisco behind, we began to climb a hill. While merging with some heavy traffic to the left, directly around an accident of some sort to which police were attending, the car sputtered a bit, and refused to move upward. She applied the e-brake, and a police officer was with us shortly. Then he left and was replaced by another. Many people who drive in Mexico do not have their licenses because it costs a good deal to obtain one. What's more, if pulled over, it may be cheaper to simply pay off the officer. Chepina was in this category of unlicensed. She was anxious as they questioned her about the situation. And I'm sure poor Chepina told the story three times until together they decided to push the car over the hill using the police car. Ever so gently, the police car behind us nudged us up the hill where the clutch finally seemed to grab the gears. It was a smooth ride from then out.