One Fine Summer’s Day

by Mike Mayak

“It was right over here I think,” Charlie said.

“How can you tell?” Kurt said. “It’s a highway in the Mojave Desert. It all looks the same.”

“Naah! Look over there!” Charlie said pointing over the steering wheel. “It’s the old shed. The one with the roof missing!”

He pulled the car over to the side of the road and the two of them sat in the air conditioning.

“The car broke down right about here,” Kurt said.

“Right about this time of year.” Charlie said. “It was hot.” He glanced at the dashboard thermometer. “Even hotter today.”

“And we had been fighting.” Kurt said. “I threatened to move out when we got back home.”

“And then it became if we got back home.”

“Yeah.” Kurt said. “No cellphone service.”

“We either would sit in the hot car and wait or risk walking.” Charlie said. “And we pulled out these.”

He reached behind the seat where he’d stashed the cooler and pulled out two plastic bottles of water.

“Oh yeah.” Kurt said grinning. “The stash.”

“Glad I had a case of bottled water in the trunk of the old car!” Charlie said.

“We got out of the car and started walking up the road,” Kurt said. “And I apologized. I said I didn’t know what we’d been fighting about, and that I didn’t want to leave you ever.”

“And I just got down on one knee, short pants, hot pavement and said if we make it out of here let’s make it official out in California. Let’s not wait.”

“And I about busted down crying and we hugged and kissed and toasted it with the bottles of water.” Kurt said.

“And I said we each ought to have an extra bottle of water with us and so we walked back to the car.” Charlie said.

“And that’s when we saw the bus coming down the highway.” Kurt said.

“Yeah,” Charlie laughed. “From the Flagstaff Jewish Student’s Association!”

“They’d been at a basketball tournament in Needles,” Kurt laughed. “We flagged them down and they gave us a lift!”

“That was what? Five years ago?” Charlie said.

“Happiest years of my life.” Kurt said.

They sat in the air conditioned car, kissed, toasted each other silently with the bottled water, and sat sipping the water.

“So,” Kurt said. “You wanna go out and re-enact our proposal?”

“Hell no! It’s 105 degrees out there! I’m not even turning off this car!” Charlie said. “We can do that when we get to the motel in L. A. How many more miles to needles anyway?”

He glanced at his smartphone and scrolled.

“Hey!” Charlie said. “Guess what? NOW we have cellphone service out here!”

The two of them laughed as they drove on to Needles.

—end—