Roseanne's Summer Afternoon(Ollie Henning) The author's note: The herein story is actually an excerpt from a novel I'm currently working on. It's intended to be a continuation of my first novel "To My Dearest Roseanne" and it features the same character. However, knowledge of the previous work is not necessary to read this one. The story does contain mild foul language.

*****

As the foot angrily touched the breaks, the pages of “Lemme Cry” novel rattled as the book flew across the air and made its way from a dashboard straight onto a parcel shelf.

“MUST YOU DRIVE SO… RIGIDLY, ROSIE?!!!”

“WHAT ARE YOU YAPPING, NATASHA? CAN’T HEAR YA!!!”

“THEN MAYBE TURN DOWN THE FREAKING MUSIC!!!”

The 2000 Honda Civic Ferio with sedan body style has definitely seen better glory days. But on that scorching summer afternoon, it was ploughing through sunny countryside like a wild horse let loose from the stable. Its roaring engine efficiently scared away farm animals. Tumbling tyres amassed gusts of dirt at every turn. The speakers were blasting at full volume, scattering the lyrics of Linda Jo Rizzo’s “Perfect Love” along the way. But it wasn’t the complete image of mechanical mayhem. None other than Roseanne Juzynski was behind the wheel, mastering the basics of driving a car.

“There’s no need to be in a hurry. It’s not a race, you know!” Natasha screamed from the passenger’s seat as the car narrowly missed somebody’s fence.

“It is now! I should’ve been back in the city five minutes ago,” Roseanne exclaimed. Instead of a thick, long braid from last year, she sported a pony tail that swung violently at every turn.

“Hey, hey, hey! I brought you out in the field for some practice, don’t you dare drive my Honda across Szwederowo district! You don’t have the licence yet.”

“It’s not your Honda, but your dad’s. Besides, I can do whatever I want cause I’m the driver, babe.”

“Oh shit, watch out for that farmer!”

Some poor old man jumped into bushes at the sight of Honda. Roseanne just honked, whereas Natasha made the sign of the cross and sunk her fingernails into the dashboard.

“Relax, we’re miles away from heaven’s door,” Roseanne smiled while upshifting.

“Easy for you to say,” Natasha felt the dashboard tightly to maintain balance. “I’m not the one who’s burning the clutch. Why must you hurry anyway?”

“Because I need to see my sister!”

Roseanne’s right hand travelled from transmission to the cassette deck and turned the volume all the way up. Now it seemed as if Linda Jo Rizzo’s spirit was about to burst out of the engine.

I'm lookin' for love
I want a perfect love
I'm lookin' for love
oh, I can't get enough of perfect love

“MY EARDRUMS ARE BLEEDING!!!” Natasha cried at the top of her lungs.

Against the still, evening landscape filled with birches and plain fields, Honda looked like a silver bullet jettisoned from a Wunderwaffe cannon. Who could have thought that a military student in her senior high school grade would squeeze so much power out of a daily driver? Unfortunately, the enthralling spectacle of the piston’s linear motion empowered by the fast beat of Italo Disco came to a sudden halt.

Out of nowhere, a black cat emerged on the road. Roseanne spotted it in a flash and hit the brakes with all the might in her feet. It was a matter of seconds but it felt like eternity. Honda skidded on the dirt track, narrowly missing the furry bystander, but it made a 90-degree turn and the back of the car collapsed into a ditch.

Roseanne and Natasha sat in the still vehicle looking straight through the windshield until the song finally finished. The engine was dead silent.

“Oh God, my dad is gonna kill me!” Natasha unfastened her seatbelt and jumped out of the car.

Roseanne regained her composure and pulled the handle, stepping out gently on her side.

The Honda Civic was thankfully in one piece and there was no sign of damage to the body, but the entire back was consumed by rye in a drainage channel. Roseanne stepped down and, within the grassy jungle, she pressed hard against the trunk.

“Help me, will you? We can push out ourselves,” said Roseanne.

Natasha stood over the ditch, eyeballing her friend in complete shock.

“Are you completely out of your freaking mind?!” she screamed so loud that birds in nearby trees took flight. “This isn’t Maluch, which you can just pick with your bare hands and carry on driving! We are 100 percent legitimately and unapologetically in the shit!”

Of course, by referring to Maluch, Natasha meant Fiat 126p, the tiny, rear-engine, four-passenger car, which was arguably one of the most popular vehicles in the Land of Po during the 1980s.

Roseanne kept trying to push Honda in silence for a few good minutes, but it was a fool’s errand.

“Darn it!” she exclaimed and climbed out of the rye bush. While Natasha was pulling her hair out by the side of the road, she, on the other hand, tried using her cell phone.

“There’s no signal, are you kidding me?!”

The black cat, which made Roseanne stop, walked past the girl, swishing his tail like a happy camper.

***

It took Roseanne and Natasha a good half an hour of running through the field back and forth until they found farmers kind enough to pull Honda out of the ditch with a tractor. Thankfully, the engine was still working, so the girls resumed their journey to Bydgoszcz, but this time Natasha was behind the wheel.

After getting through the flood of red lights, it was already evening. Roseanne observed the stillness of the Brda river basking in the after-sunset pinkish glow of the dark sky. The car crossed the Uniwersytecki Bridge and arrived at the entrance to the Kazimierz Wielki Library.

Cho Juzynski was sitting alone on a bench by a bus stop. Despite square glasses and long, loose hair, she was the spitting image of her sister. They had the same smooth face, dark, brown eyes, and slightly elevated foreheads. However, both of them dropped the braids, but Roseanne still formed tiny fringes over the forehead. It was not until recently when Cho was diagnosed with nearsightedness.

Roseanne ran out of the car, extending her arms.

“Oh Cho, my dear sis. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I know I’m an hour late, but I have a good explanation for it. Please don’t be mad at me.”

The sister taxed her from the bench, then gently lowered her head.

“It’s been an hour with no word from you. I was ready to catch a bus,” Cho said.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I had an accident in the middle of nowhere and there was no service. I got here as soon as I could.”

“She’s right you know,” Nastasha called out from the driver’s seat. “She nearly totaled my car.”

“Shut up! It’s not your car, but your dad’s!”

Cho got up in a sluggish manner, massaging her thighs. Her legs went numb from the constant sitting. In between them, there was a large bag filled with books.

“I guess there’s no point being sulky,” said Cho. “You need to be careful when you’re in a rush, Rosie.”

Roseanne smiled. Without hesitance, she grabbed the bag of books and put it in the back seat.

“I love your… how do you say it? Considerateness?”

“Well, you could say that, but either ‘thoughtfulness’ or ‘solicitude’ are better synonyms.”

“Your mastery of language never ceases to amaze me.”

“Just for the record,” Cho tapped her forehead while getting into the car. “I would have gone mental if it was winter and I were to sit like that.”

***

The screechy, dirt-stained tyres of Honda finally arrived in the streets of Szwederowo. However, Roseanne and her family were no longer living in a tenement building. Thanks to savings which her parents have been relentlessly putting aside over the years, the family was finally able to leave the grim, post-socialist surroundings of blocks of flats and move into a small bungalow at the edge of the district. There was no backyard, only the frontyard, but it was big enough to accommodate a modest vegetable garden, a plot of grass for pastimes or potential barbecues, and a parking space for a truck cabin belonging to Roman - Roseanne’s father.

“Thanks for nothing, Juzynski. Because of you I have to drive to a car wash. Pray to God nothing is damaged inside or you’re gonna pay,” Natasha spat out from behind the wheel, backing out into the main road.

“Hey, I love you too, Nat. See you tomorrow!” Roseanne waved at her friend.

As soon as the girls crossed the entrance, Enzo, the loyal German Shepherd jumped out to the corridor, his paws tapping joyously against the stylish grey tiles.

“Oh, who is Cho’s favourite doggy? Who is Cho’s favourite doggy? I have some cheese balls you like. Can you smell them? You want to eat them in the kitchen? Yes, you do!”

Enzo escorted Cho down the hall to the kitchen, in the hopes of getting the snack. Roseanne, on the other hand, turned right from the entrance into the living room. She immediately stopped by the entrance at the sight of what was inside.

Her mother, Liz Juzynski, was fast asleep on the couch. On her chest, there was rising and falling rhythmically a book with the front cover title “Success and failure in learning a foreign language.”

Tiptoeing around her mom, Roseanne grabbed the book and put it on a bedside table. Then, she pulled a blanket up to Liz’s neck.

“How was your day, Mom?” Roseanne said affectionately. “Dad won’t be here until tomorrow, but you know that already.”

As Cho was busy in the kitchen making dinner and feeding Enzo, Roseanne went to her room. What a commodity it was - to have a room entirely for herself once again. Throughout last year, Cho and Roseanne had to be boxed together in a small room because there was not enough space in the flat for the two of them. Now Cho had a room in the right back corner of the house, next to the kitchen and bathroom, whereas Roseanne had one in the left.

The majority of her stuff survived the gruelling moving process, including her collection of CDs and a CRT TV, the sides of which were covered in fluorescent My Little Pony stickers. A new addition to her belongings was a small laptop, resting together with coursebooks on the wooden desk.

Wasting no time of the fleeting evening, Roseanne sat down in front of the laptop and lifted its cover. She logged in to her Google account and opened up a new document draft. She began typing:

My Dearest,

How do you feel? It’s been a week since my last message. How was the end of the school year at your end? Things have been so hectic for me lately. I had to rush with the retakes to get good grades and, ever since getting the report card last Friday, I don’t know what to do with myself. I want to try to get a driving licence, but it’s gonna take a lot of time and a lot of money. As a result, I will need a job. I’m going for an interview tomorrow. It’s not much, just a shop assistant in Żabka. If I get it, I will try to work as much as possible over the summer and maybe on the weekends when school starts again. Natasha allowed me to drive a car today, but this didn’t end well… It’s too much to talk about, maybe in the next message. I just wanted you to know all day today, I’ve been thinking about you. Even when I landed the car in a ditch…

This is getting too sentimental already, so let me finish here.

PS Do you think we could meet… this summer?

Yours,
Roseanne

The girl stopped typing and she proofread the message. Next she logged in to Messenger and pasted it there. Before sending, however, her hand hung over the keyboard because she wasn’t sure about the postscriptum. Is it too soon to ask? Should she keep it or delete it?

Well, if we won’t meet in the summer, then when? Roseanne asked herself. Her heartbeat increased.

“Dinner’s ready!” Cho shouted from the kitchen.

“Oh, shit!”

Roseanne deleted the postscriptum and sent the message.

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