Lily threw open the car door and clambered out, kicking up a great cloud of dust as she hit the ground.  Kit stared after her for a long moment, then followed suite. The car sat half-way into the dry ditch at the edge of the road and Kit had to scramble to get back to the edge of the pavement.  He found Lily looking up and down the road as he joined her.

     “Fine mess you’ve gotten us into, I’d say,” Kit commented dryly after he saw no signs of people in either direction, which confirmed his earlier observation.  “Any idea exactly how far back to the last gas station?”

     “I don’t remember,” Lily complained.  “Why didn’t you tell me you were low on gas?”

     “We would have had plenty if you hadn’t been so intent on your mad dash to the eastern seaboard and besides- -I’ve been asleep for the last hour,” Kit pointed out.

     Lily fumed.  “You’re the instructor,” she said. “You ought to be prepared for things like this.”

     Since you are the student, Kit thought, perhaps I ought to have been.  Aloud, he merely stated, “I guess this is as good a time as any for the next lesson.”

     “What’s that?”

     “What you do when you run out of gas miles from the nearest town.”

     “Oh, I know that one!” she said, looking brighter. “You get the man to walk into town and get some.”

     Kit made a sour face.  “That might work this time,” he conceded.  “But what if you’re the only one in the car?”

     “Sit here and look helpless, waiting for some handsome idiot to rescue me?”

     “Suppose you’re fresh out of handsome idiots.”

     “Ugh!  I guess I would have to go myself.”

     “Bingo.”  Kit looked at her expectantly.

     “Wait a minute.  You’re not saying I should go now, are you?”

     Kit nodded.

     “But I have a handsome idiot!”

     Kit glowered and Lily said, “Oops” in a very small voice.  He had been working up to the idea that they should go together, but now he decided it would serve Lily right if he did make her go herself.  “The gas can is in the trunk-- if you didn’t take it out,” he stated frostily.  “Since you were awake when you passed the last gas station and I wasn’t, you can just start walking.  I’ll be right here.”

     He turned his back on Lily and walked to the front of the car, where he climbed on the hood and stared off into the walnut orchard.  The black painted metal was really too hot to be comfortable, but he didn’t see anything else convenient.  He waited for Lily to say something, but she seemed dumbstruck, for once.  A pair of large produce trucks roared past, followed by a pickup going the other direction. Lily was still silent.  Kit couldn’t keep himself from glancing at her over his shoulder and found her still in the same spot, looking at him and biting her lower lip.  He quickly looked away and stared at the trees again.  After a while, he heard footsteps behind him.  “We’re going to be here a long time if you don’t start soon,” he said, without turning.  The footsteps stopped and there was silence except for the roar of another produce truck going past.

     “Kit...?”

     He didn’t answer right away, but he eventually said, “What?”

     “Uh...I didn’t mean to call you a handsome idiot.”

     “That’s nice.  Maybe you intended to call me a complete idiot.  I did agree to these lessons, didn’t I?”

     “Oh, Kit, that’s not what I mean at all.”

     “Yes, Lily and her idiot, who’s not even a handsome one, without any gas in middle of God-knows-where.” He took a deep breath while he thought of what to say next; he felt himself getting warmed up to a good tirade.

     “Kit, please!”

     Something about Lily’s voice made him stop and soften slightly.  He thought he heard a slight catch that he didn’t recall hearing before.  He slowly turned to look at her full in the face.  She was still biting her lip, only it was trembling now and her eyes looked red.  He looked at her for a moment, then dropped his eyes and said, “What?” again as he turned away from her once more.  He could see that she was upset, but so was he and he wasn’t ready to let it go yet.  It was probably an act, anyway.  Just another one of her tricks to get her way.  He had to admit that the trembling lip was a nice touch and one that he didn’t see very often, but he wasn’t going to be taken in, no sir!  He drew himself up with new resolve and said, “Getting pretty late, isn’t it?  I think we just might be here all night with no gas.”

     He suddenly felt her hands grab his shoulders. “God damn it, Kit!” she cried, “Please stop it.  I’m trying to apologize and you won’t listen to me.”  She shook him roughly.

     “Why should I listen?  You haven’t listened to me all day.  And stop shaking me.”

     The hands dropped from his shoulders.  He refused to turn around and stared resolutely into the dark and leafy orchard.  He felt too attached to his resolve to let her break it down so easily.  He wasn’t this stubborn very often, so he wanted it to be satisfying.  It was good for her, too.  She might learn something.

     After a while he heard a sniffling noise from behind him.  It didn’t stop, either, and eventually he had to look.  He was surprised to discover that Lily had disappeared.  The sniffling continued, though.  He leaned over to peer around the edge of the hood and found her sitting in the dust and leaning against the car with her arms hugging her knees tightly and her face buried in the hollow of her arms.   He suddenly start to doubt that she was pretending anymore and he felt his resolve draining away.  Maybe his tirade could wait for another day.  He dropped off the hood, walked around the front of the car, and stood looking down at her.  She didn’t look up and she didn’t stop sniffling.  He dropped down on his heels in front of her and rocked back and forth as he tried to decide what to do next.  He wasn’t accustomed to seeing her in this state and felt awkward.  Maybe a pat on her back...no, that wouldn’t be right somehow.  Maybe he should just talk to her.

     “Lily...?

     She only buried her face deeper and squeezed her knees tighter.

     Maybe I should put my hand on her shoulder, he thought.  He reached out tentatively with his left hand as she kept sniffling and dropped the hand on her shoulder a little more heavily than he had intended.  She flinched slightly without raising her head.  Her shirt felt hot and damp under his hand; he could feel her shoulder rising and falling with each sniff.  Now what? he wondered.  He considered for a minute, then said, “Are you okay?” but as soon as the words left his mouth, he felt like kicking himself because it was perfectly obvious that she wasn’t okay--even to a complete idiot.  She didn’t respond, either.

     “Look, I’m sorry I wouldn’t listen to you.”  He didn’t really think he owed her much of an apology given their situation, but it seemed worth trying.  And he was a little sorry because she had tried to apologize to him.

     “Oh, Kit,” she said, her voice muffled by her arms, “I’m the one who’s sorry.  Today was supposed to be fun and now look what’s happened!  I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She sniffed harder.

     “There, there, it’s okay.”  He felt very awkward and didn’t know what else to say, so he patted her shoulder. It didn’t seem to help much.  He remembered he had a handkerchief in his pocket.  The cloth was damp with sweat, but he thought it should be better than nothing.  “Uh...if you need to blow your nose, I have a hanky  for you.”

     “God, Kit!  I don’t want your hanky right now.” She finally raised her head and he could see that her face was puffy and red.  He had no doubt any longer that she was genuinely unhappy.  “Could you please give me a hug instead?”

     That was easy enough, though it would be easier if she stood up; since she showed no signs of moving, Kit dropped to his knees and leaned against her legs as he put his arms around her.  He hoped she didn’t want a long hug because all the dust made him feel a sneeze coming on.  She buried her face against his shoulder, shuddering slightly with each sniffle.  Her hair tickled his nose, making him want to sneeze even more, though he struggled as hard as he could to ignore his nose; Lily wouldn’t appreciate either him sneezing or getting a used handkerchief.

     Somehow Kit kept the sneeze in check until after Lily pulled away.  He sat back on his heels again and looked at her.  She seemed more composed than she had before.

     “Thank you,” she said.

     “You’re welcome.  I hope it helped.”

     “Uh-huh,” she nodded.  “I think I want that hanky now.”

     He handed her the damp cloth and she wiped her face, then blew her nose loudly.

     “Feel better?” Kit asked.

     “Uh-huh,” she nodded again.  He noticed she was still biting her lower lip.

     Just then the sneeze discovered he’d lowered his guard and attacked him; he sneezed wildly several times before his nose stopped tickling.  When he stopped, his eyes and nose were running.

     Lily was regarding him.  “Do you want your hanky back?”

     “Yep.”  He took the handkerchief from her, now even damper and blew his own nose.

     A trace of a smile played across her face. “There’s something a little funny about us stranded here and honking like a pair of geese.”

     “I guess so.”  He felt doubtful, but if she was in a better mood, he’d go along with it.

     “Wish we could just fly to some lake or even to a gas station.”

     “We couldn’t carry a gas can if we were geese,” Kit pointed out.

     “Kit, what are we going to do?”  she suddenly wailed.

     Apparently her mood wasn’t back to normal yet. Kit shrugged and said, “We’d better start walking, I guess.”

     “Does that mean you’re not going to make me go alone?”

     “Nah, I’ll come with you.  I don’t really want to leave the car here, but it’ll probably be fine.”

     Lily brightened immediately.  “I’ll find the gas can,” she said.  She unfolded her arms and legs and stood up.  A great cloud of dust rose from her clothes as she patted herself, which made Kit sneeze a couple more times, though he tried to stand up quickly enough to avoid the cloud.

     The keys were still in the ignition and Kit kicked himself for not grabbing them while he had the chance.  On the other hand, Lily seemed to have lost some her fire and might be more willing to give them back.  He remained standing by the corner of the hood and waited for Lily to open the trunk.  She struggled for a moment before she yanked the hood open and it popped up with a loud groan.  He walked to the back of the car and made a mental note to throw some grease on the hinges since they always groaned, though he knew that he would forget within five minutes.

     Lily began rummaging through the clutter.  She tossed out a bag of old plastic bottles that Kit had meant to recycle; the bag split open and bottles clattered down into the ditch.  His jack followed the bottles into the ditch.  When Lily threw the old blanket that he kept for emergencies, he lunged forward and rescued it before it hit the dust.  “Do you need a hand?” he asked.  He hoped that the can was still in the car; he couldn’t remember whether he had seen it recently or not.

     “I want to find it myself.”  She rummaged some more.  “Don’t you ever clean out your car, Kit?” she asked.

     Kit frowned.  “I was planning to clean it today, only I got kidnapped.”

     She stepped back from the trunk and faced him. “Kit!  Please be nice, okay?”

     “Okay, okay.  I promise.”  He was still feeling out of sorts.  “Do you promise to be nice to me, too?”  He kept feeling surprised at the things he was saying to Lily. He usually didn’t dare because he didn’t know what she might do if asked for anything that she wasn’t already planning to do.  He didn’t know now, either, but it didn’t bother him very much for some reason.

     “Of course!  I’m always nice to you.”  She grinned and looked a little embarrassed.  “Well, almost always.”

     Kit figured he could think of half a dozen or so times that she hadn’t been very nice to him and that was only in the past couple days.  He didn’t want to argue, though, not with her mood so fragile.  Her tears had scared him a little and he wasn’t ready for more.  “Do you remember seeing the gas can when you threw all the stuff in the car?” he asked to change the subject and get back on safer ground.

     “I never opened your trunk before now.  I don’t think it is here.”

     He knew that he had tucked it next to the spare tire, so he walked over to the trunk and looked.  Damn! he thought, I did take it out.  “Maybe the gas station can lend us a can.”

     Lily sagged against the rear fender, but didn’t say anything.  Kit had the distinct feeling that he had really messed up, which didn’t make any sense because she was the one who had stranded them here.  He couldn’t win either way.

     “Here, help me clean up the bottles.”  He slipped new paper bag from under the spare oil cans and handed it to Lily.

     After they had picked all the bottles out of the ditch and stowed them back in the trunk, they began walking west.  Lily didn’t know where they were, so the map didn’t help much.  Kit hoped they would meet somebody who could at least tell them how far a walk they would have, but for the first few minutes the only people they saw were speeding past at 65.  Fortunately the shoulder was wide, if dusty, and they were able to stay out of the way.  He felt lucky to have the car parked well off the road.

     “Maybe we should walk through the orchard,” Lily suggested.  “I like all the trees and we could have shade that way.”

     “The farmer would probably get mad at us. Besides, we might want to try to get a ride if we don’t get to a station soon.”

     “Maybe the farmer could help us then.”

     “I’ll bet he wouldn’t want to help us much if he’s chasing us out.”

     “I’ll bet he wouldn’t chase me, not if I gave him the look.  You could stay on the road while I walked in the orchard.”

     “I thought you wanted to be together.”

     Lily didn’t reply, though she didn’t jump across the ditch to walk in the orchard, either.

     They came to a lane with a gate and a mailbox, but passed it by because a large barking dog rushed out when they approached the gate.  Another lane appeared after a few more minutes and they walked back to the brick-faced ranch house once they decided that no dog would leap out, intent on tearing them to shreds.  Lily ran up to the front door and pressed the doorbell.  They waited for a couple minutes, rang again and then returned to the road.