Joy Ride

Anne Makepeace

Author with friend, 1966

The road was dark and slick with rain. Passing semis flooded our windshield, drowning the wipers. Oncoming headlights blasted out of the mist. A smear of red taillights snaked up the hill ahead of us and disappeared into the fog.

We weren’t exactly running away. I just hadn’t told my parents where we were going. I was driving my mother’s 1961 lime-green Chevy wagon, a boat-sized behemoth that lunged and bounced through lake-sized puddles. Despite the fact that I had only gotten my license a few months earlier, my father had let me have the car for the weekend. My mother was visiting family in Washington D.C. and wouldn’t need it. I let Dad think we were just going over to Carol’s house.

The car jerked and started to spin. I gripped the wheel, trying to keep from fishtailing. Carol braced herself against the dashboard. We didn’t have seatbelts in those days.

“Jesus!” she shouted.

I eased the car back into the lane. “Thor has no idea we’re coming, right?”

“Anne! Stop calling him Thor! His name is Thierry”

“OK, Thierry then.”

She sighed. “A letter wouldn’t get there in time.”

“You could have called him.”

“On the fraternity phone? It’s always busy or nobody answers.”

Carol flicked on the overhead light and shook out the map. I glanced at the pastel shapes of Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and nearly lost control of the wheel. “Turn that off!” I yelled.

Carol flipped off the light. “This is insane.”

“You haven’t stopped whining about him for two months. Now you want to back out?”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous of what?”

“Because Thierry wrote to me. Because he’s here and Philippe went back to France.” That shut me up. My heart hurt and my stomach turned over.

***


We had first seen the French brothers two months earlier in the Ski Haus cafeteria at Stowe. Carol liked the short stocky one. With his brown leather knickers, long Nordic socks, and a sheepskin vest over his thick wool sweater, he looked to me like a Viking. Hence the nickname, Thor. I liked the tall one in his sleek black jumpsuit and white turtleneck. He was smoking in a nonchalant way that was beyond cool. When he flicked his bangs out of his eyes, I whispered to Carol, “Paul McCartney!”

They grabbed a couple of muffins and clomped over. We nearly fainted when Thor asked, “Parlez vous Francais?”

 I quickly recovered and tried, “Asseyez vous?” but it came out kind of garbled. They didn’t speak French after that.

We were far from home in this Vermont town, staying in a hostel with a bunch of high school kids on spring break who had come up with us on the bus. We had managed to ditch them, and now here, suddenly, were two cool guys from another world. They slid their trays next to ours and sat down. The tall one took a drag on his cigarette. “I am called Philippe,” he said. “My brother, he is Thierry.”

Summoning my high school French, I murmured, “Enchantée” and held out my hand. He took it and kissed it! My hot dog rolled to the floor.

“Do you like the skiing?” Philippe asked with his devastating accent.

“Oui oui!” Carol and I blurted as we tried to assume poses of urbane sophistication. Philippe jiggled another cigarette from his pack, pressed it to his lit tip till it glowed, and handed it to me. The tobacco tasted bitter and salty. I tried a French inhale by sucking smoke from my mouth into my nostrils. “These are strong,” I coughed.

Philippe took another long drag on his cigarette. “Perhaps we could regard the films tonight,” he exhaled.

Thierry suddenly shouted, “Au Secours! Au Secours!”

 “Are you all right?” Carol asked, resting her hand on his bicep.

“‘Au Secours!’ It is in play tonight!”

This got my attention. “You mean ‘Help!’? The Beatles film?”

“Oui!” Thierry practically vibrated with excitement, like a wound-up gnome.

Philippe squished his cigarette on his paper plate. “Thierry, he is a what you call a Beatlemaniaque.” We agreed to meet at the high school where the film would be playing.

***

The rain had stopped, but the Philadelphia streets were still shiny and wet. We were heading south beside a wide black river. Irregularly spaced streetlights beamed down on us, on/off, on/off, like Morse code. SOS! I began to nod off. Then suddenly, Carol yelled, “Turn! Turn here! We’re going over the river!”

I veered onto the ramp. “Christ, Carol, give me some warning!”

“Take a right at the third light. Market Street”

As soon as I turned right, three lanes of oncoming headlights blinded me. I had turned onto a one-way street the wrong way. I veered into a dark space that looked like a parking lot. Disaster averted, I thought. Phew!

But disaster was not averted. Men in dark clothes poured out of a low brick building and surrounded the car. One of them tapped on the window. Terrified, I shoved the car into reverse, popped the clutch and started to peel out. But when the man flashed a badge, I jerked to a halt. Oh god, I thought, cops? What if my father finds out? I tried to act cool as I rolled down the window. “I’m sorry officer. I didn’t see it was a one-way street.”

“License and registration.”

I found the registration and handed it through the window, then searched my wallet for my license. Shit, where was it? “I’m sorry, sir. It doesn’t seem to be here.”

“Step out of the car please.”

Carol hissed at me, “What did you do?”

I hissed right back, “Me? What did I do? You told me to turn right!”

“Step out of the car. The both of you. Now!” He backed up a few feet and folded his arms across his chest. I steadied myself against the car.

“Have you been drinking, young lady?”

“No, no, I’m just tired. But I can walk the line if you want.”

Officer O’Rourke squinted at me, then perused the registration. “Who owns this vehicle?”

“My parents. As you can see there.”

“See what? You got ID?”

“I do but just not with me.”

He shook his head. “What about your friend here?”

“She doesn’t have her license yet.”

“How old are you two?”

I quickly answered, “Eighteen,” but Carol told the truth,

“Sixteen.”

The cop rolled his eyes. “What do you think you’re doing, driving down here in the middle of the night?”

Carol answered unhelpfully, “We’re looking for Fiji. Phi Gamma Delta. My boyfriend lives there. He’s waiting for me…for us”

O’Rourke reached in and took the keys. “You two wait here.” As he approached the huddle, I heard him say, “Fiji!” and the other cops’ muffled laughter. ‘Sixteen,’ ‘Idiots.’ ‘Goddamn frat boys.’ I noticed a sign on the brick building: “University of Pennsylvania Police.”

O’Rourke returned looking irritated. “We’ll have to transport you down to the station.”

“You mean, transport us,” I pointed to the building, “here?”

“Don’t get wise with me young lady.”

“Sorry officer. I thought this was the station.”

“Until we can confirm your identity, we gotta treat this as grand theft auto.”

“What?” Carol and I exclaimed in unison. “This car is registered to my father, Roger Makepeace. I’m Anne Makepeace. This is my mother’s car.”

 “They’ll determine that down at headquarters.” A police van rumbled out from behind the building.

“You’re gonna throw us in the back of a paddy wagon?” I was stunned and thrilled.

“No one’s throwing anyone anywhere. Step inside. Now.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to give us a warning and let us go find our friend?”

“At Fiji? That snake pit? Dream on girly.”

***

Stars glimmered in the Vermont sky as we crunched along towards the high school. Would the French brothers really come? Or were they just blowing us off at the Ski Haus?

But then, there they were! Philippe had changed into a black turtleneck, long dark coat, pinstripe pants and pointy leather boots. Thor was still wearing his plaid knickers, his vest, and long socks, though he had swapped his ski boots for mukluks.

Philippe kissed me on both cheeks and Thierry did the same with Carol. I stammered, “Bon jour Philippe. I mean bon nuit…” He took my arm and ushered me inside.

In the auditorium, a few couples were making out on the hard wooden seats. Boys in the back were sailing paper airplanes at their heads. Thierry pushed into an empty row, followed quickly by Carol. I squeezed in next to her. Philippe sat beside me on the aisle. The room went dark.

Suddenly a loud gong vibrated through the auditorium. On screen, a gigantic golden statue intoned, “In the name of liberty, daughter of the mountains…” Philippe leaned over me and hissed at Thierry, “Que diable! Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça? ” I thought to myself absurdly, I know how to spell that! Thierry tipped his head to one side and gave a little puff with his lips, then raised one shoulder slightly. A Gallic shrug! I had never seen one before. This was better than any movie.

At last the Fab Four jumped onto the screen singing their hearts out, “Help! I need somebody! Help! Not just anybody!” I was distracted by Philippe’s knee next to mine, his hand resting on his thigh. At last, he put his arm around me. A warm current flooded my chest and flowed down through my abdomen and into my nether regions. I closed my eyes and thought to myself, “Help!”

I didn’t know what to expect when we tromped inside their A-frame chalet after the movie. I was probably hoping for hot chocolate and cookies, but then Philippe steered me to a ladder to the loft. The roof up there was too low to stand, so I plunked myself down on a mattress on the floor. Philippe’s head appeared, then his shoulders, then the rest of his long lean body. He took my face in his hands, and kissed me. His tongue slipped through my teeth and wandered around inside my mouth. He tasted of smoke and wine. When he ran his hand lightly along my breast, my whole body hummed and vibrated. He laid me down and slipped his hand inside my jeans. The loft filled with sweet salty smells as we rolled around. I had never been to third base before. My heart raced; my stomach clenched. And then he unzipped his pants.

“Non,” I whispered. When I pushed him away he propped himself up on his elbow.

“What is wrong?” he asked hoarsely.

“I’m, I can’t. I’m a virgin.”

“And so we will fix this problem.” Gently, he began to pull down my jeans.

“Philippe, no. What if I get pregnant?”

He produced a condom from somewhere. My heart jumped. Oh I was tempted! My whole body throbbed. But as wild as I was, or pretended to be, I still thought I should be a virgin at least until college. I sat up. “I’m sorry but no. I can’t.”

“Mais pourquoi?”

“Je ne sais pas,” I responded automatically. “I mean, I don’t know. I’m too young.”

“What age do you have?”

“Sixteen.”

“Ah.” He adjusted himself, zipped his fly and stood up, hitting his head on the peaked ceiling. “Merde!” With a kind of wistful petulance, he said, “Quelle domage,” and climbed down the ladder.

Carol and Thierry were wrapped in each other’s arms on the couch, fully clothed. Philippe startled them with a peremptory, “Thierry! Elles vont.”

Carol took one look at me and raised her eyebrows. “I see you had a good time.” I shrugged, embarrassed that I had somehow failed and ruined the night. Philippe seemed detached, even pouting a bit, as if I had hurt him in some way. I wondered whether it was different for boys when you stop. Did I give him blue balls? Is that what that means? And where had all that passion gone? It seemed we had left it on the mattress upstairs, and something else, some bitterness, had taken its place.

“So after this, you’re going back to France?” I asked.

Carol piped up, “Thierry goes to Penn!”

Philippe handed us our coats. “Thierry will take you back to your hostel.” At the door, he put his hands on my shoulders and looked at me with his dark eyes. “You will go home and do it with your boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said, forlorn.

He touched my cheek. “Do not worry. It will happen.”

“I left my address on the counter.”

He shrugged and opened the door. I walked out into the cold night. At the hostel, I lay awake in my metal bunk bed, my body throbbing and lust. Thierry and Carol were still out there somewhere.

I woke to Carol shaking me. “Hurry up, the bus is leaving in twenty minutes!”

“Where’s Thierry?”

“He just left,” she said despondently.

On the bus, I was silent, brooding. My body ached. What does it mean to be kissing passionately one minute and strangers the next?

***

The siren blipped off as the paddy wagon slid into the parking lot at Philadelphia police headquarters. Squad cars pulsed blue and red in the paddy wagon’s flashing lights. The van’s back doors sprang open. Inside, Officer Polk walked us past doors with signs that said Traffic, Intake, Investigations, and showed us into Booking and Interrogation.

The room fell silent as we entered. Police stared at us. At the counter, a burly desk cop asked, “Polk, what do we got here, college girls?”

“Teenagers. Runaways from Connecticut.”

“We’re not…” I started, but Officer Polk held up his hand.

“Possible car theft.” He handed over the registration and some other paperwork. The desk cop looked at it, then back at us.

“You gotta be kidding me. Car theft?”

“No ID, no license.”

“I’ll have to call Pinky. She won’t be happy.”

“Wait, officer,” I piped up. “Don’t we get a phone call?”

The desk cop plunked a black phone down on the counter. “Be my guest.”

Carol pulled a scrap of paper from her purse. “Thank you, officer.”

“Thierry?” I asked. She nodded and began to dial. Typewriters resumed dinging and clanging. The wall clock said 10:30pm.

The phone rang and rang. At last, someone picked up. “Hello, hi, hello!” Carol shouted. A pause, then, calmer, “It’s Carol. Carol Coe. From Connecticut? Is Thierry there?”

With my other ear, I listened to the desk cop on his phone. “Hey Pinky, yeah, sorry. I know it’s late. We got these two girls down here that need processing. Kids. Sixteen. Yeah, O.K., yeah. They’ll have to wait.”

“Tell him it’s Carol and Anne and we’re at Philadelphia police headquarters downtown. Yes. No. Just a traffic stop but they won’t let us go. Yes. Thank you.” Carol hung up.

Officer Polk pushed some paperwork towards me. “Write your full names here. You’ll have to wait until a female officer arrives.” He gestured to a row of plastic chairs along the wall, and there we sat for what felt like forever.

 It was after midnight when Sergeant Boyd strode in looking irritable and sleepy. She glanced at us and turned to the desk cop. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry Pinky. I mean, Policewoman Boyd.”

“Sergeant Boyd,” she retorted, and flashed her badge at him.

“Right. Hey, I forgot! Sergeant Boyd. Hey Pinky, congratulations on that.”

“And you got me down here because?”

He gestured at us and slid some paperwork over the counter. “Possible grand theft auto.”

“I did not steal my own car!”

Sergeant Boyd gave me a dark look and glanced at the papers. She was a heavyset woman in a neatly pressed uniform, a greying Afro scrunched under her service cap, her eyes clear and searching. She hooked her thumbs under her utility belt and fixed us in her sights. “Frat boy, huh?” I thought I saw a twitch at the corner of her mouth; whether it was a grimace of disgust or an ironic smile I couldn’t tell.

Carol spoke up hopefully, “He might be coming. I left him a message.”

“Uh huh. Follow me please.”

Inside her office, she slid behind a metal desk and gestured for us to sit opposite her. While she read the report, I gazed at posters and framed photographs on the walls: grinning kids with an elderly couple, a younger Officer Boyd in uniform with her arm around a teenage boy, a poster of Martin Luther King, Jr., marching in Selma, and a large photo of her Police Academy graduation. She was the only Black woman in the group.

“Is that you in that picture?”

She adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses. “Excuse me?”

“In the graduation picture. Up there,” I pointed. She nodded and went back to the report. Emboldened, I asked, “What made you become a policeman? I mean, police woman?”

She placed her elbows on her desk and leaned towards us. “Do your parents know where you are?”

“Well, they, um, they know I have the car...”

“What brings you to Philadelphia?”

Carol and I looked at each other. I cleared my throat. “We were on our way to visit a student at Penn.”

“And he lives where?”

“Fiji. I mean Phi Gamma Delta.”

“And that’s where you were planning to spend the night?”

“Yes. Sure. I mean, they would have plenty of room.” I tried to sound confident but my voice shook.

“And he’s expecting you?”

Carol flipped her hair. “Um, well, I know he would welcome me. I mean, us.”

“At this hour?”

“We were planning to get there earlier…”

“Spare me the details.” She took out some forms. “Why no ID?”

“I must have left my license at home. Carol doesn't have hers yet.”

Sergeant Boyd leaned back in her swivel chair and crossed her arms. “So you set out in your parents’ car to drive four hours to Philadelphia without permission and without a license, with the intent to stay at a fraternity with a boy who didn’t know you were coming.”

“He does now though,” said Carol.

Sergeant Boyd sighed. “We’ll have to hold you in custody until we can corroborate your story and a parent or guardian can come to get you.”

I looked around the room. “Hold us where?”

 She checked her watch. “We’ll have to send you upstairs. Women’s detention.”

“A detention center?” I tried not to sound too eager.

“You’ll be in a holding cell with other female suspects - prostitutes, drug addicts, pushers...”

My mind began to spin. I imagined talking to those women, hearing their stories, learning about their lives. I nodded. “We could do that.”

She was quiet for a long moment, taking us in. I could imagine what she saw: Carol in her camel-hair coat, Fair Isle sweater and plaid mini skirt, a beret slanting over her ironed black hair; and me in a pea coat, black turtleneck, madras pants and cowboy boots.

“You two wouldn’t last one minute up there,” she said at last. “What’s your home number?”

“My father gave me the car for the weekend.”

“That’s a good thing. I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear from you.”

“You’ll wake him up!”

“And whose fault is that?” She dialed as I told her the number.

When my father finally picked up, she said, “Hello, Mr. Makepeace? This is Sergeant Boyd of the Philadelphia Police. Do you have a daughter named Anne Makepeace?” My heart sank. I pictured Dad thrashing out of the covers in his blue pajamas. “No, she’s all right. She’s fine. Does she have your permission to have your car here in Philadelphia?”

Of course I didn’t. He thought we were at Carol’s house five miles from home. This is the moment when my straightlaced Dad turned out to be way more cool than any Frenchman. He must have answered ‘Yes’ without hesitating. How did he think so fast? Adrenaline, I realized. He must have been filled with fear and shot through with adrenaline. Oh my Dad.

Sergeant Boyd relaxed a bit. “I’m afraid she doesn’t have her license with her so we can’t let her drive.”

At that moment, we heard a commotion in the hallway. A familiar voice demanded, “Carol! Where is Carol? Where do you hold her?” Thierry’s large stolid face appeared in the little window. Carol leapt up, pulled the door open, and threw herself into his arms.

“Thierry! I knew you’d come.”

He smiled his slow deliberate smile and held her. Sergeant Boyd thrust her nightstick between them.

“That’s enough. You wait in the hall, young man.”

“Mais, she is my guest!”

“In the hall!” She pulled Carol inside and closed the door. “Sit down! Excuse me Mr. Makepeace. Sorry for the interruption. Would you like me to release your daughter to a fraternity boy at Penn?” We all knew what his answer to that would be. “No, I didn’t think so.” There was a long pause and then, “He wants to speak to you.”

“Hi Daddy,” I said miserably.

“What in hell are you doing in a Philadelphia jail?”

“It’s just a traffic stop. I took a wrong turn and I forgot my license.”

“But what are you doing in Philadelphia?”

“Carol wanted to visit a boy at Penn...”

Carol hissed, “It was your idea!”

“That’s not going to happen. Give me back to Sergeant Boyd.”

She listened for a while, then said, “There’s no way we can let her drive. I understand. Yes, all right. Yes, we can do that.” She hung up. “You two, wait right here.” And she left the room.

Carol was gazing at Thierry through the window when Sergeant Boyd opened the door. “Sit down!” she ordered. “We’re putting you two on a train to New Haven where Mr. Makepeace will pick you up. You’ll be under police escort until you’re out of Pennsylvania.”

“What about the car?”

“Your mother will take the train from Washington and sign it out of impound.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if I could drive it home?”

“Forget it, girl. Not going to happen.”

Carol cried, “But Thierry…”

“You can kiss him good-bye.” She opened the door and Carol rushed out. Through the opening, I saw him snoring on a bench. When Carol shook him, he cried, “Au secours!” She threw her arms around him. I watched them through the little window and thought of Philippe, his hand on my thigh, his tongue in my mouth.

“Thierry,” I said. “Have you heard anything from Philippe?”

Through Carol’s hair, he replied, “He is very busy with his study.”

“Please tell him I think of him.” I leaned against the door, remembering Philippe’s touch.

“Anne, sit down,” Sergeant Boyd said. She regarded me for a long time. I thought I saw a flicker of kindness in her eyes. Maybe she recognized my hunger, my loneliness, my wild restlessness. Maybe she had had those feelings too, as a girl. At last, she said, “In my book, there are three things that drive girls to do stupid things: sex, curiosity, and a careless disregard for others. I can see what drove your friend there.” She glanced at the door. “What about you?”

All three, I supposed.

There was a knock at the door. “That will be your escort,” she said. A State Trooper stood in the hall. Behind him, Thierry and Carol were locked in an upright embrace. Sergeant Boyd tapped her on the shoulder. “That’s enough, Missy. Tell your Romeo good-bye.” Reluctantly, they pulled apart. “Trooper Cunningham will escort you out of Pennsylvania.”

Then Sergeant Floyd turned to me, “You be careful out there. Try using your imagination a little more, and don’t let your curiosity take you places you can’t handle.”

I wanted to hug her but I didn’t know how or think I could, so I just said, “Thank you, Sergeant Boyd.”

It was around 6:00 AM when the train pulled into New Haven. I saw Dad through the rain-streaked window, pacing up and down as we screeched into the station. “Do you have any luggage?” he asked, when I stepped down from the train. I shook my head. Then he looked me straight in the eye. “I don’t know why you had to lie to me.” His words hit my heart so hard that I can still feel them now, all these years later.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

We drove the hour-long trip home in silence. It was Saturday; Carol wasn’t expected home till Sunday. We slept in my room most of the day and didn’t talk much while we were awake.

It was late when I heard Mom’s car. I pretended to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to face her. When I opened my eyes, Carol was gone and Mom was standing in the doorway.

“We thought we could trust you.”

“We weren’t running away or anything.”

“Two girls on the loose in a city you don’t know, thinking you’d stay at a boy’s fraternity?” She shuddered. “What did you think would happen there?”

“I guess we weren’t really thinking.”

“Damn right you weren’t. You’re grounded. No driving for you till summer. And I want you to write a letter to your father apologizing for abusing his trust.”

“OK.”

“Come down when you’re done. There’s ironing to do.”

I heard her on the stairs, going into the kitchen and then descending the rickety stairs to the cellar. That’s where the iron was, a huge electric contraption called a mangle. Mom controlled the monstrous machine’s motor with her knees, making the large padded roller squeeze sheets and clothes over a hot metal plate. In my memory, I can still smell the burnt cotton when she paused to look up through the small high window. The bottom sill was level with the ground above, so all she could see were a few blades of grass and some clouds. Behind her, damp clothes hung from a rope, casting shadows like bodies on the cement walls.

Mom was always trying to get me to learn the mangle, but I hated it down there. I was terrified my hand would get caught and squashed against the hot metal. Why else was it called a mangle?

This was the life she had in mind for me. I was determined to escape it.

Anne has written, produced and directed many award winning films (see MakepeaceProductions.com). In 2008- 2009, she received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies in support of her film work. Late in 2019, Makepeace left the film world to write fiction. She spent 2020 adapting an unproduced screenplay into a novel. In 2021, inspired by a workshop called “Memory Into Fiction,” she began writing stories for a linked collection, tentatively called Curiosity. “Joy Ride” is the fourth story in that collection. She is now revising all ten stories in hopes of publishing the book in 2025.