Orson Card - Maps in a Mirror - The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

And then they told me. All at once, in loud whispers. When I had finally sorted out all the different stories, this is what I got:

When Anne got home with the Pinto, it had a new dent in the door from opening it hard into a light pole in a parking lot. But Mom and Dad weren’t angry—they just smiled and took the car keys from her and went into the bedroom and locked the door. When Todd got home with the car, it was nearly out of gas, and he didn’t have enough money to fill it up; but Mom and Dad didn’t complain, just took the keys and went back to their bedroom and locked the door. And when Val came home four hours late from a “quick trip to the store to get more shampoo,” Mom and Dad didn’t complain about the Volkswagen being gone so long—just took the car keys, and you know what happened then.

And no sooner had they finished telling me their stories than out of their bedroom came Mom and Dad, chortling and smiling. “Hi, Jerry,” said Dad.

“Hi,” I said, “Sorry I was late getting back, but I had to take Darrell to his girlfriend’s house in Cupertino.”

“That’s fine,” said Mom.

“Is the car nearly out of gas?” asked Dad.

“I didn’t have any money to fill it up,” I said.

“Oh, fine, fine,” Mom said, giggling a little. “Could I have your car keys?”

“How come?” I asked.

Father just grinned a little broader. “We want to press them and put them in your baby book.”

I handed over the keys.

“Come into the living room, children, my loves,” sang Mother, and I swear it looked like they were prancing as they led the way.

As we followed them, Anne looked at me with a frightened expression on her face. “I think Mom and Dad are going crazy, Jerry,” she said. Her voice was trembling.

When we got into the living room, Mom and Dad were playing catch with the car keys.

“Definitely,” I told Anne. “Bonkers. Bananas. Out, so to speak, of their minds.”

When we had all settled down, looking at our once-stable parents with expressions that ranged from concern to near panic, Father began a little speech.

“Perhaps you children have never counted, but we, a middle income family, have four cars. Four cars is an unusually large number of automobiles for a middle income family, but then we have an unusually large number of drivers at home. Six, to be exact. Six drivers and four cars. One could reasonably suppose that this would be enough cars to go around, but not so. Today your mother had an appointment at the dentist’s. The appointment was at 2:00, but at 2:00, even though there were supposed to be three cars at home, there were none. Mother missed her dental appointment. Does your tooth hurt, Mother?”

Mother nodded, holding her jaw. “My tooth hurts, Father.” She laughed, “And I today received three pieces of mail. One was the insurance bill. One was the bill from our gasoline credit card. And one was the monthly statement from the bank on the two cars we are still paying for. I added them up and reached a sobering conclusion.”

He did not look particularly somber.

“My dear children, I believe we are the largest single mainstay for the automobile and insurance and oil businesses in America today. If we did not use our cars for one week, Ford Motor Company stock would drop three points and there would be a coup in Saudi Arabia. If we did not use our cars for a year, our country would be plunged into a major depression. We are supporting the economy of the United States of America.

“We are honored. This is a privilege for us, and we don’t plan to shirk our responsibilities. However, some of this privilege ought to be shared. Mother, will you get the documents?”

Mother left the room. While she was gone, Father asked each of us in turn how much we made at our jobs. None of us was making a fortune, but we were doing surprisingly well. Even Anne, who worked in a hamburger drive-in after school, pulled down about a hundred a month. No wonder she always looked like she stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine.

And then Mother came back and handed each of us a piece of paper with the words LEASE AGREEMENT at the top of the page. I won’t give you the legal language. Boiled down, it went this way:

Each of us who planned to drive any car at all during a given month had to pay a basic fee of eight dollars to cover part of the insurance costs. If our grades fell below a B average, we had to pay twenty dollars a month.

“That’s quite a jump,” said Anne, who often did not have a B average.

“So is the jump in insurance rates when your grades go down,” answered Mom.

The agreement also called for us to pay all traffic fines, the deductible on the insurance in case of collision, and all the gas we used.

“What?” asked Val, turning white. “All the gas?”

“The car is to be returned home with the tank full, every time,” Dad said.

There was also a mileage fee. For the LTD, ten cents per mile. For the Pinto, eight cents per mile. For the Volkswagen, because it was old, six cents per mile, and for the Galaxy, commonly known around the house as “the Ford,” twelve cents a mile.

“Twelve cents a mile!” I shouted. That was the car I preferred to drive.

“It’s the newest car. It has the greatest depreciation,” said my father, smiling.

“You will keep track of the mileage,” said Mother, “on these handy little Automobile Record sheets, which we will have printed up and placed in the glove compartment of every car. After every use of the car, you will write down your mileage and the number on the odometer. When you come home, you will give your Automobile Record sheet to the leasing company—your father or myself.”

And the final clause of the contract was the stinger. “Permission for use of the cars will automatically be suspended until all dues and remunerations are paid in full.”

“You mean we can’t even be late?”

“Not even by a day,” Father said, smiling.

Anne was outraged. “I thought we were a family, not a business!”

Mother only smiled her if-you-get-upset-it-will-only-make-it-worse smile. “Every family is a business, dear. There are income and expenses and cash flow. We just think it’s time that your father stopped supplying all the income and you stopped monopolizing the expenses. There’s the contract. You will all please sign.”

“And if we don’t?” asked Todd, already cringing because he knew the answer before he asked.

Father held up all the car keys—quite a bundle of them—and said, “The cars will no doubt miss you, and you will probably wear out your shoes faster, but the walking will be good for your health.”

Anne didn’t get it. “You mean if we don’t sign, we don’t drive?”

“That’s what he means,” said Val.

“Here are the pens,” said Mother.

“Sign or walk,” said Father.

We signed.

“After all these years,” I said, “I never knew that my parents were so greedy.”

“Think of it this way,” Dad said, putting his arm around my shoulder. “By saving money on the cars, we can go on putting food on the table. It’s a fringe benefit that isn’t written into the contract. Your parents won’t go broke.”

As we left the room, Val whispered to me, “They go through these phases—it’s part of being parents. They’ll forget about it in a week.”

They didn’t forget about it in a week. They didn’t forget about it in a month.

“Mom, can I take the car tonight?” Anne asked. “Debbie and I want to see Superman,”

“Again?” Mother asked. “How many times have you seen it?”

“Only three,” Anne said. “Star Wars still holds the record.”

“I hardly dare ask how often.”