Your Chariot Awaits Read Online Free PDF

was indeed. Captivating.

4
    I was just standing there, wanting to run and jump into the limo but unwilling to give Jerry a chance to ride in it, when Joella opened her door, did a double take, and dashed across the lawn. Well, maybe not dashed, considering her condition, but hurried.
    â€œAndi, what’s going on? What is a limousine doing here?”
    â€œIt’s Andi’s,” Jerry said. “She inherited it from some rich uncle.”
    â€œYou inherited it?” Joella gasped. “I lie down for a nap, and when I get up, you’re an heiress with a limousine?”
    â€œIt’s only temporary. A cousin drove it up from Texas. I’ll have to sell it.”
    â€œOh, can we take a ride in it first?” Joella clapped her hands, starry-eyed as a little girl looking at her first Christmas tree. “Does it have an intercom system and a TV?” She rushed over and pulled open the rear door.
    I followed her and peered over her shoulder. A black leather sofa-type seat curved across the front and down one side. Another seat ran across the back, the long stretch from front to back carpeted in burgundy. The far side held a wine rack, a small fridge, and a TV and DVD player. And on the ceiling—
    Joella and I looked up at it, dumbfounded. It was a painted scene of an oil field crowded with big derricks and heavy equipment and little stick men in yellow hard hats, all done on what looked like a piece of old tarp fastened to the ceiling. You could almost smell the oil fumes from the derricks. Or maybe that was the tarp. It was totally out of character with the luxuriousness of the limo.
    â€œI don’t believe I’ve ever ridden in one with a mural on the ceiling,” Joella said tactfully.
    Jerry was right there peering into the limo too. “You’ve ridden in a limo without a ceiling mural?” he asked skeptically.
    Jerry didn’t know anything about Joella’s past, of course. To him, she was just the unmarried pregnant girl to whom I was renting the other half of the duplex at below the going rate, which he disapproved. I’d never thought about Joella and limousines, but now that I did, I realized they probably weren’t all that unfamiliar to her.
    She closed the door and stepped back, her hands now clasped behind her as if she were ashamed of her enthusiastic outburst. “I haven’t ridden in one for a long time. They’re, well, you know, different. But . . . no big deal.”
    â€œWould you like to go for a ride now?” I asked impulsively.
    â€œIt might be fun.”
    For Jerry I wouldn’t do this, but for Joella I would. There wasn’t a whole lot of fun in her life. “Okay, let’s go!”
    I had the keys where I’d stuffed them in the pocket of my shorts. I opened the driver’s door, then paused. More black leather seats that were oh-so-buttery soft, so rich smelling, a world apart from the discount-store seat covers that scratched my legs in my Corolla.
    There were a few buttons and switches I didn’t recognize, but the basic controls looked identifiable enough. I slid in and tried them. Lights, turn signals, windshield wipers, tachometer, gauges for gas and temperature and oil pressure. I was happy to see that the transmission was automatic. But the heating/ air-conditioning system looked as if it might take a rocket scientist to operate. As did the radio and sound system.
    Joella opened the rear door again. I hadn’t invited him, but Jerry scooted in with her. I turned the key in the ignition. I was so accustomed to my noisy old vehicle that it took me a moment to realize that the limo’s engine was running. A kit-ten’s purr, sweet and low. Though when I cautiously revved the engine, it turned to a roar of tiger power.
    I drove slowly up to the circle where Secret View Lane dead-ended, then carefully stopped and backed up to turn around, uncertain if the limo could make the circular turn in