He had a blurry memory of drawing away from the kerb in front of Leigh's and then just . . .
. . . just cruising.
Yeah. Cruising. That was all. No big deal.
Cruising through the thickening sleet, cruising empty streets that were plated with the stuff, cruising without snow tyres (and yet Christine, incredibly surefooted, never missed her way or skidded around a corner, Christine seemed to find the safe and secure way as if by magic, the ride as solid as it would have been if the car had been on trolley-tracks), cruising with the radio on, spilling out a constant stream of oldies that seemed to consist solely of girls' names: Peggy Sue, Carol, Barbara-Ann, Susie Darlin'.
It seemed to him that at some point he had gotten a little frightened and had punched one of the chrome buttons on the converter he'd installed, but instead of FM-104 and the Block Party Weekend he got WDIL all over again, only now the disc jockey sounded crazily like Alan Freed, and the voice that followed was that of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, hoarse and chanting: 'I put a spell on youuu . . . because you're miiiiiine.. . . '
And then at last there had been the airport with its foul-weather lights pulsing sequentially like a visible heartbeat. Whatever had been on the radio faded to a meaningless jumble of static and he had turned it off. Getting out of the car he had felt a sweaty, incomprehensible sort of relief.
Now he lay in bed, needing to sleep but unable, The sleet had thickened and curdled into fat white splats of snow.
It wasn't right.
Something had been started, something was going on. He couldn't even lie to himself and say that he didn't know about it. The car - Christine - several people had commented on how beautifully he had restored her. He had driven it to school and the kids from auto shop were all over it; they were underneath it on crawlers to look at the new exhaust system, the new shocks, the bodywork. They were waist-deep in the engine compartment, checking out the belts and the radiator, which was miraculously free of the corrosion and the green gunk that is the residue of years of antifreeze, checking out the generator and the tight, gleaming pistons socketed in their valves. Even the air cleaner was new, with the numbers 318 painted across-the top, raked backward to indicate speed.
Yes, he had become something of a hero to his fellow shoppies, and he had taken all the comments and the compliments with just the night deprecatory grin. But even then, hadn't the confusion been there, somewhere deep inside? Sure.
Because he couldn't remember what he had done to Christine and what he hadn't.
The time spent working on her at Darnell's was nothing but a blur now, like his ride out to the airport earlier this evening had been. He could remember starting the bodywork on the dented rear end, but he couldn't remember finishing it. He could remember painting the hood - covering the windscreen and mudguards with masking tape and donning the white mask in the paint-shop out back - but exactly when he had replaced the springs he couldn't remember. Nor could he remember where he had gotten them. All he could remember for sure was sitting behind the wheel for long periods, stupefied with happiness . . . feeling the way he had felt when Leigh whispered 'I love you' before slipping in her front door. Sitting there after most of the guys who worked on their cars at Darnell's had gone home to get their suppers. Sitting there and sometimes turning on the radio to listen to the oldies on WDIL.
Maybe the windscreen was the worst.
He hadn't bought a new windscreen for Christine, he was sure of that. His bankbook would be dented a lot more than it was if he'd bought one of those fancy wrap jobs. And wouldn't he have a receipt? He had even hunted for such a receipt once in the desk-file marked CAR STUFF that he kept in his room. But he hadn't found one, and the truth was, he had hunted rather halfheartedly.
Dennis had said something - that the snarl of cracks had looked smaller, less serious. Then, that day at Hidden Hills, it had just been . . . well, gone. The windscreen had been clean and unflawed.