‘Now, check you can see out of your mirrors. You can move them if you need to.’

I adjusted the mirrors and twisted around to get a better idea of how large the car was.

‘What’s the first thing you’ve got to remember?’

‘Foot on the clutch and brake when I start. Then on the clutch and the gas. But not on the brake and the gas at once.’

‘That’s right, brake and clutch or gas and clutch. Easing on one while you ease off the other.’

Slow and jerking, I made my way down the dirt road, learning how much pressure was needed on the pedals, where to move the gear shift, how to check my side and rear-view mirrors.

‘Go on, pick up some speed then,’ Jim said, and I pressed the accelerator, the wind from the open window whipping my hair across my face. I hadn’t felt this way in ages, this combination of control and freedom. It felt as though I could do anything. Behind the wheel, I could go where I wanted to be.

•

On the weekends or when I could get time off, Jim visited me in DC, sometimes staying overnight with family friends. We didn’t write letters—he never was much of a letter writer—but he would call me on the shared telephone in the boarding house three or four times a week. There’d be a knock on the door and one of the sullen-looking girls would say there was a phone call for me. ‘Don’t hog the line,’ she’d mutter. A few times he just showed up out of the blue at the Olmstead Grill, where he would wait at the bar until my shift was finished, chatting with the bartender and sipping from a glass of scotch so slowly the ice disappeared. He would walk me home and we fought when he told me he didn’t like me working there, he thought I ought to quit.

‘The way other men look at you makes me mad,’ he said.

‘Then don’t come,’ I replied, letting go of his arm, striding ahead.

He caught up and I stopped walking and tried to explain. ‘It’s a job, Jim, and I need a job. It doesn’t mean anything, the way I smile at those men. They’re just ordering drinks. It’s not the same as the way I smile at you.’