Character sketch: Alexa

At age 26, Alexa was the oldest student in my driver's ed class.  She had grown up in New York and spent her undergrad college years in Boston, so she never before had a real need to forego public transportation and learn to drive.  Now she was a grad student and wanted to go places that weren't so easily accessible, she wanted to go hiking with her boyfriend and do outdoors stuff.  I don't want to say she looked old, but she definitely didn't look like the rest of the teenagers: jaded, fresh, with ever changing crops of acne popping up on the facial landscape.  She had long straight light chestnut hair that fell in a shiny, single lock when she tied it up.  Actually, the first thing I noticed about her was that she was a hair twirler.  She sat diagonally in front of me, so in a way I couldn't help but notice; now that I think about it I was slightly unconsciously jealous of her, because I never had the kind of hair that took to twirling.

I think that in another situation, if we had gone to school together, we would have been friends.  Or at least we would have become more than casual acquaintances able to go slightly beyond the stilted small talk of strangers.  She was easy-going, warm, outspoken but introverted like me-- she had no qualms speaking her mind but didn't go out of her way to voice her opinion on every little thing.  I was in the car observing her for her first driving hour with the instructor, for the first time she ever parked or did a three-point turn.  I'd like to think that she got her license soon after she finished all her hours, that she passed her road test on the first try, and that she's somewhere out there driving like she's been doing it since she was sixteen.

The time I almost parked on a cat

It was a typical New England autumn day, with the sun shining fiercely through flame-coloured trees.  I was in the middle of my sixth driving lesson, this time supervised by Anita.  She was about my height, slim, with a great cloud of sable black hair.  She spoke with a slight rasp in her throat, a consequence of the requisite cigarette hastily smoked before the start of each lesson.  She dished out countless anecdotes of other drivers and past jobs, abruptly interrupting herself every now and then to issue commands to turn or stop or perform a maneuver.  This time she wanted me to parallel park next to the curb in a residential area, and I was easing into the space when she barked "Stop!" and simultaneously stomped on the brake.