Two Rings of Cars

Posted on July 14, 2004 in Driving

The circle road around the Irvine Auto Center is the parking lot for the employees of the dozen or so dealerships. They shine in the sun like the spikes on a dog collar.

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Picking Lynn up at the airport was like becoming a worry bead, sliding along with the rest of the chain as someone nervously fingered them. Traffic was stop and go, giving me a chance to look at the people. A Sheriff’s deputy wearing a yellow mesh safety vest. A wirey bearded man who sat on a planter, waiting and waiting for his ride. A blonde woman who stood with her toes just shy of the line before the curb, also there for the longest time while she scowled at the trucks which never brought her ride. John Wayne, ten feet tall, in hollow bronze and every bit as superficial as he was in his movies. A mother and a daughter wearing pretty floral hijabs. Two other Muslim women covered in beige burkhas, bone white veils pulled over their faces except for the eyes. They glided out to a blue SUV which whisked them off to their husband’s seralgio.

Lynn’s flight was an hour and fifteen minutes late. I went for a drive down in Newport Beach and come back. When she finally arrive, I left the string of beads, my forest green Frontier no long a concern for the security guards who had to count it every time it passed.