1
Eli Prewitt had driven for the Hallorans for four years.
He drove Mr. Halloran to the station at ten past six. He drove Mrs. Halloran to the shops and to her sister's. He washed the car on Fridays and kept the keys on a hook in the kitchen by the back door, and the rule in that house was that nobody else touched the car. Mr. Halloran had said it once, in Eli's first week, and had never said it again.
Iris Halloran came home from university in June.
She was twenty-two. Eli picked her up at the station with two bags and a box of books. She sat in the front, which nobody in that family did, and asked him three questions about himself before they left the car park.
On the Sunday she came into the kitchen and said, "Eli, will you teach me to drive?"
2
He said he had to ask her father first.
"I already asked him. He said Tuesdays and Thursdays after five, and not on the main road."
They went out on the Tuesday.
She got in and held on with both hands, high, the way people do in a first lesson. She was slow at the corners. She stopped too hard. Twice she said, "Sorry, sorry."
Eli did not say much. He was watching her feet.
On the way back he watched the mirror on his side. He had set it on Friday when he washed the car. It was now pointing at the sky.
3
The car did one hundred and ten miles that week.
Eli knew, because he wrote the miles in a book every Friday. The lessons were nine miles each. He had driven Mrs. Halloran to Hartford and back, which was eighty. That left thirteen miles that nobody had driven.
The next Friday it was twenty-one miles.
On the Saturday morning he went out early and put his hand on the front of the car. It was warm.
He stood there with his hand on the warm car. There was the rule, there was the hook by the back door, and there was one person in that house who could lose a job over thirteen miles.
4
On the Thursday she came out to the car.
"Where today?"
"Nowhere," Eli said. "Get in."
She got in. He got in and did not start the engine.
"I've watched you for three weeks," he said. "You stop like somebody who's been driving five years and is trying not to. Your hand goes to the mirror before I say it. Last Saturday you did eight miles between one and two in the morning. The car was warm."
Iris looked straight ahead.
"How long have you been able to drive?"
"Since I was seventeen," she said. "My mother's brother taught me one summer."
"Does your father know?"
"No."
"Do you know what happens to me if your father finds out I've been teaching you something you can already do?"
"Yes," Iris said. "That's why I did the eight miles at one in the morning instead of asking you to come for a drive."
5
They sat in the car in front of the house for a long time.
"I'm going to say the true thing," Iris said. "I wanted two hours a week. There wasn't another way to get them. Everything else in this house happens in front of my mother."
"You could have said."
"I'm the daughter and you're the driver and you have a job here. How was I going to say it?"
Eli held the keys and turned them over twice.
"Then I'll say mine," he said. "I've known since the second lesson."
6
He told Mr. Halloran he was leaving, worked four more weeks, and in August started driving a bus out of Greenwich — worse hours, better money, and nobody's keys on a hook.
On the second Saturday he called Iris and asked her to come for a drive.
"Whose car?"
"Mine. It's fifteen years old and the door sticks."
"Who's driving?"
"You are," Eli said. "You've been driving since you were seventeen."