âWow! Youâve got an electric grand piano,â Adrian said, following Celeste into her living room.
âSince you own something this nice, itâs probably redundant to ask if you play. Maybe we could do something together one day. Iâd bring my guitar.â
She broke out into a cold sweat. Her hand shook too much to put on the CD sheâd chosen. Her past was behind her. What Adrian was asking was entirely different.
She forced the words out. âI just play for my own enjoyment. I donât think so.â Her words were truer than Adrian would ever know. When she played for her own enjoyment, she now only played alone. Sheâd exchanged the joy of making music with others for something of far greater valueâ¦even if at times the loneliness hurt.
The engine began to spit. The car chugged, slowed and died.
Celeste Hackett steered her motherâs decrepit sedan onto the gravel shoulder of the deserted country road and came to a complete stop. The endless expanse of farmersâ fields seemed to mock the silence of the dead car.
She refused to accept being stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Celeste attempted to restart the car, but the engine only made a horrid grinding sound, turning over and over with no contact.
With a groan, she lowered her head to the top of the steering wheel. She had been a fool to trade cars with her mother. She should have known her motherâs hunk of junk wouldnât make the long trip back without something going wrong, but she tried to convince herself now that it was far better that her own reliable car was sitting in her motherâs garage, ready for her mother to begin her vacation tomorrow, and that it was she, Celeste, who was stranded in the middle of nowhere. If the car couldnât make the shorter trip fifty miles between her home and her motherâs home, it definitely wouldnât have made the fifteen-hundred-mile trip from her motherâs home to her auntâs home, which was where her mother was going on an extended holiday.
Celeste now had two options. She could either walk ten miles ahead to the gas station at the highway entrance to ask for assistance, or thirty-five miles back to her motherâs house where she could call for a tow truck.
At the thought of all that walking, Celeste gritted her teeth and whacked the top of the dashboard with her fist. The needle on the gas gauge quivered, then dropped to the E.
Celeste tried not to scream. Her mother had given her a list of the carâs problems but apparently had forgotten to mention the malfunctioning gas gauge. However, if her mother knew about it, list, or not, there would be a container of gas in the trunk.
Celeste froze. Carrying a can of gas in the trunk was dangerous, but it was also dangerous for a woman to be stranded alone in the middle of nowhere.
Praying for the best, Celeste pushed the heavy door open, trying to ignore the creak of the rusty hinge. As she stepped onto the highway, a blast of heat hit her in the face. She did her best to ignore the stifling temperatures and walked to the rear of the car, where the stench of the carâs last, fatal backfire caused her to cough painfully. Once she caught her breath, she jabbed the key in the trunk lock. After a series of calculated wiggles, a click sounded and the lock opened. When she hoisted the heavy lid of the trunk, gas fumes wafted up.
The gas can lay on its side. Beside it lay the plug for the containerâs air hole. She picked up the plastic container and shook it, confirming that it was indeed, empty.
Celeste squeezed her eyes shut for a brief second. Taking the short cut through the country rather than the longer but well-traveled main highway had not been a good choice.
She slammed the trunk shut. The bang echoed into oblivion over the surrounding fields, taunting her.
Grumbling under her breath, she replaced the plug to the empty gas container, pocketed the keys, hiked her purse strap over her shoulder, and began the long walk down the deserted country road.
Monday morning, she was going to buy a cell phone.
Adrian Braithwaite glanced at his watch and smiled. Despite the abundant potholes, the back road was still faster than the main route. And it was that knowledge that was going to earn him a big, fat, chocolate donut from his friend Paul after the evening service tonight. After he beat Paul home, of course.