Old Blue
As a child, Constance never got very hot nor very cold. Really, what kid ever does? But for her, this imperviousness to cold weather meant she could play outside barefoot, in a pilling striped tank top, well into autumn and long after the sun had set.
A much-beloved pastime was scaling Old Blue, the affectionate name she’d given her father’s Chrysler minivan. To Constance, it was a sheet of insurmountable ice-blue metal. But tonight surmount it, she would.
Before beginning the conquest, her first step was peering into the van’s grill, marveling at the graveyard of squashed flies and the occasional moth caught in the crosshairs. After paying her respects, she began her ascent. First up the hood; Constance liked the heat it radiated beneath her toepads — maybe from the engine, maybe from the sun — at first too hot but then suddenly pleasant. She wondered if growing up would feel the same: painful at first, then slowly, wonderful.
Next came Phase II: the sleek, slanted expanse of the windshield. She spidered along it with ease, using the grip of her sweaty palms and feet as leverage. In a day or two, when the light caught the windshield just right, she would surely get a scolding from her father, discovering the phantom footprints on the glass. That is a worry for later, she thought. We’re almost at the top.
At the summit, Constance tiptoed along the roof-rack and lay flat on her back. Enveloped by the sky, she squinted into the deep beyond as flickers of light blotted her vision, moving nearer and farther, in and out of focus. Stars began to blink to life, like dandelion wisps, and the vastness of a cloudless sky felt at once overwhelming and familiar.
Soon she’d hear her mother’s shrill call. Soon her father barking at her to get off the goddamn van. Soon, homework reluctantly done, supper reluctantly eaten. Soon the expedition would end, and she’d begin the careful descent, each step measured now that dew slicked the steel.
For now, though, she would lie a little longer. Feeling the last waves of heat coming off the steel, listening to the final plinks and pops of Old Blue settling, and embracing the coolness as day reluctantly becoming night.