I pulled back to look at her. “Just trust me on this.”

I smiled, which she returned. Then we all entered the Hummer, Steve and Esha in the back, Arthur in the passenger’s seat. With me as the driver. During an evening snowstorm. Mom would have a heart attack.

Which reminded me.

“Can you text Ayisha to tell her we’re on our way back to the inn?”

Arthur squirmed. “I can’t, actually. I may have, ah, dropped my phone in the loo.”

Esha chuckled.

I reached into my coat pocket and handed him my phone. He managed to adroitly text with his right hand.

From the back I heard, “Hi, I’m Steve, by the way.”

“Esha Chakrabarti, pleasure to meet you.”

“You are so pretty.”

Arthur’s eyes never left my phone. “She’s a lesbian, Steve,” he said, still texting.

“Oh, okay.”

Arthur glanced over at me, smug, his voice lower. “Now it’s germane to the conversation.”

I rolled my eyes and started the ignition.

I heard Steve say, “You’re still pretty.”

“Thank you,” Esha murmured.

The knobs for things like heating and defrost were easily marked and I activated both, rubbing my gloved yet still half-frozen hands. Sitting there like this, I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland after she shrinks. Everything was just so big.

Now Arthur focused on me. “It really is remarkably easy to drive. Other than its obvious enormity, terrible fuel efficiency, and the awkwardness of the turns.”

“Is that all?” I quipped.

“And the gear shift tends to be a bit sticky.” Fantastic. He leaned across the massive center console as he pointed to the light switches. “There’s the lights. I can say from experience, there’s no need for brights.”

Was I slightly distracted to have Arthur closer to me? Yes, yes I was. But it was important for me to keep my wits about me. I took a deep breath—my grip on the steering wheel deathlike, my back upright, my eyes forward, my heart an entire percussion band in my chest—and pulled the gear shift down into “D,” which did take more effort than I anticipated.

“Excellent,” Arthur cheered.

Foot on the accelerator.

“Release the parking brake.”

I released the parking brake. The Hummer rolled forward about an inch.

“Now you should depress the accelerator.”

Oh, right.

I pressed down on the accelerator and the Hummer smoothly rolled forward. I turned the wheel to aim us back onto the road itself, automatically hitting the left turn signal even though there were no other cars around because I’d heard both my grandmother and mother endlessly complain about people not bothering to do that.

We merged onto the road.

And I was driving.