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

“Six times.”

“You may take the car,” said Mother. •

“Thanks!” Anne said.

“As soon,” Mother added, “as you settle up your car leasing bill.”

Anne looked horrified. “You didn’t say anything about it.”

“Why should I have? It’s your bill, not mine.”

“But I’ve spent almost all my money.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe Debbie can drive.”

They went over the accounts. “Your total bill is now $38.56,” Mother said.

Anne gulped. “But, Mom, that’s more than a new top.”

“And just think,” Mother said with a smile, “we’re only charging you half what it costs us!”

Anne went to her bedroom and got the money and paid Mother. “Take it,” Anne said. “Take it all. I don’t like money anyway. I hate money. I never want to see money again. Money is filthy and disgusting. Take all of it.”

“Aren’t you going to the movie?” Mother asked.

“I have forty-two cents left. That wouldn’t pay for the gas to get the car out of the driveway. Let alone the movie.”

“I’m sorry, dear,” said Mother. “Perhaps if you walked to Debbie’s house more often—it isn’t even a mile.”

“What am I supposed to be, a pioneer?”

“But haven’t you heard, dear?” asked Mother. “The sidewalks are paved all the way there.”

“Would you really thrust your own youngest daughter out in the snow and the sleet—”

“This is California, dear. If it starts snowing, I’ll let you take the car for half price.”

I was in the kitchen helping Mom make tuna sandwiches for fourteen billion of Todd’s friends who had just happened to come over on a Saturday. We couldn’t help but overhear their conversation in the living room.

“How will we all get home after the game?” asked one of his friends. They were seniors in high school and didn’t have anything better to do than worry about getting home from the game.

“Maybe I could take you,” Todd said.

“That’d be great,” said another friend.

“Wait a minute,” Todd said. “We’d have to share the costs.”

“Costs?”

“The only car big enough is the LTD. That’s ten cents a mile. I figure that with the eight of you that’s got to be around fifty miles. Plus a pro rata share of my monthly insurance bill and the cost of gasoline, which at sixty-nine cents a gallon and eleven miles to the gallon comes to $3.13, plus the mileage and share—that’s $9.13. And there are eight of us so it’s $1.14 each, with a penny left over. I’ll treat you to the penny.”

They were astounded. They were appalled. “A dollar each just to get home from the game?”

“A dollar and fourteen cents. And don’t forget the free penny.”

“I think my parents can take me.” Pretty soon all of them decided their parents could take them home.

“Too bad,” Todd said. “It probably costs your parents more than a buck to make a special trip there and back. You guys just don’t know how much it costs to keep cars running these days.”

I spread tuna on the last sandwich as Mother ran water in the bowl. “Do you hear what I hear?” I asked.

“I think my son Todd is beginning to get some sense about money,” she answered.

I didn’t say anything. I thought it sounded like my brother Todd wasn’t pulling a full train.

I don’t make much money at my job. Not when I have to support my driving habit and my taste in clothes and all my records and tapes and a minor addiction to buying four science fiction novels a week. I began to discover the joys of walking.

Do you have any idea how many barking, savage dogs there are on an average residential block in a California suburban community? (Seven—one with rabies.)

Do you know how many steps it takes to go a mile and a half to school on foot? (Exactly 3,168, unless you have a blister and take shorter steps.)

Do you know how hot it gets when you walk outside in the summer in California? And they don’t even air-condition the street.

I also discovered that rain is wet, wind is cold, passing cars like to go fast through puddles to splash you, and you meet the strangest people waiting for the WALK signal at a busy intersection.

And even with all that walking, my automobile leasing bill was still horrendous. I had given up on the LTD except for dates, but even with the Volkswagen I was paying thirty or forty dollars a month.

“I give up,” I said. “I won’t do any more business with this rip-off car leasing business.”

“Really?” asked Father, looking up from his copy of the San Jose Mercury.

“Really,” I said. “I will not pay your fees. I will not drive your cars.”

“Mother!” Father called. “Jerry has decided to become a pedestrian!”

“I have not,” I said. “I have decided to take my patronage elsewhere.”

“Where?” he asked.

“If Hertz is good enough for O. J. Simpson, it’s good enough for me.”

As I left the room Dad called after me, “But, Jerry! We try harder!”

I came back three hours later. Whipped. Beaten. Defeated.

“Do you know what they charge?” I asked.

“A lot?” Father guessed helpfully.

“I couldn’t rent a pair of roller skates from them for less than fifty dollars a month.”

“Ah.”

“You and Mom may be a rip-off leasing company, but at least you’re competitive.”

“Oh, come off it,” Father said, laughing. “We have the best rates in town.”

“I want to buy a horse,” I said.

“I can get you a good price on hay,” Father answered. He laughed and laughed. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I managed to keep a smile off my face until my bedroom door was closed behind me. Then I laughed.

And then Miriam finally agreed to go on a date with me. She was the best-looking girl in the ward (also in the state; probably in the Church), and she had finally broken up with Alvin Hopper, which was no great loss to her and a tremendous gain to a college freshman like myself with excellent taste in girls. On my fourth try she agreed to go out with me. I shot the works. The LTD, complete with car wash, a thirty dollar dinner in San Francisco, a drive through beautiful scenery on the way up, Bayshore Freeway on the way back, and charming, delightful conversation all the way. The conversation was the only thing free on the whole date.

And she was worth it. She could discuss at least thirteen different topics intelligently and got a B- on all the others, which means she was more than just a pretty face. She let me open doors for her and took my arm without my even having to hint. She looked me right in the eye and never let her gaze linger for a moment on the slight complexion problem that had appeared mysteriously on my chin the day before. She was perfect.

On the way home, after we left the freeway, she asked, “You don’t happen to have a throat lozenge or anything like that? I have kind of a sore throat.”

“In the glove compartment,” I said. Mom kept the glove compartment like a medicine chest—aspirin, throat lozenges, cough drops, breath mints, Kleenex, eye drops, bandages, and disinfectant. She figured that if we all had the flu and got into a traffic accident, she could make everybody feel better in minutes. Miriam reached into the glove compartment, found the lozenges, and also found the pad of Automobile Record sheets.

“What’s this?” she asked.

So I told her. All about the lease agreement. How much it cost and everything. I was just about to tell her how terrible it all was when she interrupted me.

“That’s terrible,” she said. “I can’t believe parents doing anything like that! Who do they think they are?”