CHAPTER TEN: DESTINATION STRAIGHT AHEAD

Within the hour we had successfully exited our last Spanish toll road and crossed the border into France. Straightaway, I pulled the car to the side of the road, killed the engine and gave a thumbs-up sign to Suzanna indicating that her services would no longer be needed. I bounced out of the car, slammed the door behind me and headed for the trunk. Lifting the latch, I scrounged around suitcases, shoes, handbags until I finally unearthed my duffel. Digging inside, my hands hit their mark and as if cradling the Baby Jesus, I benevolently lifted her out. Closing the trunk, I reentered the car and presented the prize to Suzanna. “What do you think?”

She looked from the treasure to my face and with a smirk on her own, casually responded, “Hook er up!”

I grinned as I removed the cigarette lighter. Emily’s plug snuggled into place. I polished a spot on the windshield and watched as her little suction cup gripped the window like a baby latching onto a breast. Suze and I exchanged glances and held our breath as I turned the ignition key over. Bbrrrmmm went the engine, lighting up the face of my GPS. The choices changed with each touch of my finger… Country? Street? Address? This was all well and good, but not what I was looking for. Three months ago I had programmed one and only one command. I kept searching, rereading my options until at last I saw the four letter word that no matter how lost I ever became, would always lead me back to my safety zone. I smiled as my pointer finger circled like a hawk zooming in for the kill and then pressed… “HOME!”

Emily’s voice sparked to life as she resonated with confidence (and a British accent), “Proceed to Highlighted Route.” She uttered this command as though she had provided me these instructions hundreds of times over. “Aaah” was the shared response with Suzanna as we relaxed our shoulders and wallowed in a pool of admiration and gratitude. With Emily, there would be no more picturesque detours or premature exits. With Emily, our fish was hooked and needed only to be reeled in. “Proceed to highlighted route,” she repeated as if we hadn’t been listening. “Better do as the woman says,” Suzanna interjected with a coy smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Sounds like she seriously wants to take charge.”

I pulled back onto the highway and for the first time since edging behind the wheel, appreciated the amazing weather we were traveling in. I’m sure it had been showering it’s affection on us since landing in Barcelona, but I had just been too absorbed to notice. The sky was the azure blue of a Monet painting and the sun’s radiance sprinkled gold everywhere. It was breathtaking. “Exit route D618 on the right,” Emily stated. “Then continue course for 7 miles to route D114.” I smirked at Suzanna and followed instructions.

Emily knew things about France that we no longer needed a paper map to discover.
Within moments, exit D114 appeared on our right. We were now so close to Collioure I could taste it. This new two lane roadway was narrow and more rural. “Proceed to round-about and stay right.” Round-about? Oh boy, if there is one thing that jangles my nerves, it’s round-abouts. With Emily’s guidance however, (and minimal traffic) I conquered not one, but four and found myself on an even more narrow road. “Ahhhh, do you think this is right?” I asked Suzanna whose face radiated sunshine more than the countryside.

“Relax,” was her comeback, “You’re in the hands of a professional. Just do what she says.”

The road continued to taper (remember, European cars are only six inches wide) as well as  ascend. We climbed and snaked upwards. The flat roadway gave way to hills where we soon found ourselves sandwiched between craggy mountain ledges on one side and the open Mediterranean Sea on the other. The sky became more luminescent as we climbed, but paled under the sun’s rays reflecting off the water’s surface. I suffered silently trying to sneak peeks, while awkwardly maneuvering the 5-speed around the extensive bends and twists of the road. Up shift, down shift. Back up, back down… over and over as upwards we climbed.

And then the dip began: around and down, around and down. The clutch and I performed a boogie-woogie tap dance until the mountain side melted away, exposing a beautiful lush valley and a transport back in time. Red tile roofs periodically dotted the green landscape on my right as the Mediterranean remained gatekeeper on the left. As we continued our descent, the dots became house tops surrounded by olive orchards, vineyards, pastureland and fields. I grappled with being the responsible driver as opposed to the gawking tourist. I was being tortured by a panoramic view that I was unable to enjoy for fear I would run us into a ditch or worse. I hate driving. And it’s not something I recently discovered. In fact I believe that the roots were planted in Texas.

At sixteen while living in Canada, I secured my first drivers license. Like most teenagers, I took it for granted and I drove about fearlessly. (Teenagers are invincible you know; just ask one.) Two years later, my family moved to Texas. Texas did not recognize my Canadian license, so I was required to obtain a new one. No big deal I thought. I had cut my teeth on eight lane, fast paced, Toronto interstates and was in no way intimidated by the flatlands around Fort Worth. I was so confident in fact, that I never even opened the handbook.

The written test went well. This was followed by the road test which I also felt was easy peasy. I was singing a little ditty in my head as I waited for the officer to quit scribbling on my form. When he did, he turned to face me with his head strapped into the ten gallon police hat and said.  “Sorry ta tale ya thius Ma’am… but ya failed!”

“What!?” I cried as the music in my head came to a screeching halt. “I what?”

“Ya failed.” he repeated with his Texas drawl as he handed me my subpar scoresheet.
I stared down at the paper with all the x’s and whimpered, “But how am I supposed to get home?”

“Ma’am, y’ar only parmidded to drav this vehicle to yur place of res-i-dance. Once thar, you may only git behand the wheel of an audimobile with a lisansed draver at yur sad. Your lisanse has bin reevoked!”

My mouth gaped open. I had been driving care-freely for two years with not even so much as a parking ticket. Now I had just been told that I didn’t know how. I hobbled home with my tail between my legs, convinced I would never drive again.

Yet here I was, totally in charge of operating a vehicle in a foreign country with breathtaking scenery while zigzagging all around and trying desperately not to hate it!

D114 spilled us from a twisty-turny hillside, into the heart of a cramped congested village. “It’s Collioure!,” Susanna railed while bouncing up and down in her seat. “We’re here! We’re here!!!” I had no time to appreciate this fact or respond to her giddiness for I now had a new problem… people!  Men, women, boys, girls, scurrying in every direction. There were no stop lights, stop signs or traffic cops, just a village full of pedestrians as far as the eye could see. My hands struggled to co-ordinate their hoedown between steering wheel and gear shift while my eyes combed the crowds. “Don’t run anyone over, Jaime!” became the new mantra in my head. “Whatever the hell you do… don’t run anyone over.”

And it took an inordinate effort to not do so, because it wasn’t just a matter of avoiding people, there were motor vehicles to dodge as well. Tiny little cars, motorcycles, trucks and scooters lined every curb in this minuscule town. They were moving and they were parked. Some were parallel parked correctly and others were kittywompus with their tails or noses sticking out into the street. Add to this chaos that individuals were darting dangerously between cars, behind cars, and in front of cars. I held my breath as I threaded the needle around so many obstacles, trying desperately to follow my mantra when Emily cheerily chauffeured me the wrong way on a one way street while  proudly announcing… “Arriving at Destination on the left.”

I sat there paralyzed, unsure as how to proceed. “Hellllpppppp!” I whined. “This is too much. I have no idea where I am, where I’m going, or how to get back down this street. Emily seems to have crapped out, because we are obviously NOT at our destination. I can’t do this!”

“Okay, okay, okay,″ Suzanna soothed, “turn here.”

She shut Emily down and reclaimed her station as chief navigator. I followed her guidance to the letter not caring one iota that she knew nothing about where we were headed. She led me up and down ribbons of cobblestone streets in search of a parking space. This tact however was leading us further and further from our home. The terrain changed from congested seaside madness to tranquil hilly parkland, but the inability to park, remained the same.

“HERE,” she suddenly yelled while grabbing my arm and shaking my shoulder. “In this parking lot!  Here. PULL IN HERE!”

‘Here’ was not a parking lot at all. It was an abandoned, pot hole laden field that had been deemed a parking lot by the god of ‘Traffic Overflow.’ Dusty vehicles were parked willy-nilly, some in ankle deep ruts and others perched precariously on rocks. It resembled a junkyard in a crater on the moon.

“I LOVE IT,” I proclaimed as I frantically yanked at the steering wheel and whipped the little car into an imaginary space. With two tires resting wonkily on the rocky surface, and the front bumper perpendicular to the car beside me, the engine, (asserting its own frustration)… died.

“You did it, Jaime,” Suzanna exclaimed while clapping her hands, “You did it! Well done!” I heaved a huge sigh of relief, equally mixed with disbelief, because the only thing I had really done, (not to diminish it’s value)… was NOT run anyone over!

We bolted from the car as if our butts were on fire. I was opening the trunk to retrieve our bags when it dawned on both of us that we had no frigging idea where we were. We had taken so many detours in an effort to secure parking that we were actually lost. “Just leave em,” my companion quipped with authority. “Let’s locate Madeline and the house. Then we’ll come back for the bags.”

She got no argument from me! We locked the car (I was sure we would never see it again)  and headed in a westerly direction. “This way!” she pointed, and like a baby duck, I followed. The path she maneuvered downhill, led us directly to a large ‘walking street map.’ I stared at it completely befuddled trying to get my bearings when she confidently announced, “Keep going,” and picked up the pace.

“How do you know?” I asked as I tagged along.

“It doesn’t really matter,” she slyly answered.. “We’re somewhere in Collioure! How lost can we be?”

So like the beam from a lighthouse, she guided us down from the mountain, back into the city proper. By this time, it was late afternoon. The air was brisk and sun still shining. We strolled with a purpose, but now that the chaos had been relegated to the back seat, I was, for the first time, able to survey my surroundings with clarity. People were speaking French. Street signs were in French. Sidewalk musicians were singing in French. In point of fact, we were in France! But not just France: we were at long last in Collioure… and it was exactly as Google had predicted.