The Driving Instructee
Like most Americans, Victoria despises the DMV. But she likes to think she detests it the most. She is a 25 year old woman who looks like she could still be a senior in high school. Fitting, since she is there to renew her permit that she’s let expire several times over the years. She wears a loose t-shirt dress, ankle length socks, and fresh new balance sneakers which are back in style.
She's thinner than usual because her job has made it hard for her to eat a proper meal. Her summers interning didn’t prepare her for juggling adulthood, a twelve hour workday, and some sort of quarter-life crisis. So she plans to remove all the potential cancers in her life. Fix her flaws- starting with her inability to drive. A task she's avoided because the very thought of sitting behind a wheel induces panic.
She tries to trace the fear to specific moment. Victoria doesn’t know anyone who’s been in a terrible accident, nor has she witnessed one. Learning to ride a bike wasn't scary to her- in fact she was the first of her age group to ride a two-wheeler. She spent summers whizzing around her block- always on the move, never wanting to stop to lay around during those warm days.
When she first started riding she tried a few tricks. Maybe since she picked it up so quickly this would become her thing. Victoria was constantly searching for her thing- she was never interested in being average.
Alas, biking didn’t become her calling. Nor did basketball, the piano, cartoon creations, dance, tennis, nor inventing. She dove into each activity fearlessly, even achieving above-average status at some (except for dance, she quit after a week of flailing about off beat). Yet, something got in her way each time. She put too much pressure on herself when she was close to greatness. The panic would come creeping in.
Victoria didn’t care about being a great driver. It was just a necessity. So where did her fear come from? She couldn’t not ask why, it was in her nature to question every thing. Nothing in this world is simple.
The DMV is set up to run like a well oiled machine. The lines, the numbers, the organization, and step by step process. Yet it felt like chaos to her. The wait put her in a tizzy. What made a well oiled machine run so slowly? Humans.
Perhaps that is why she fears driving. You can’t control other humans. Half the people on the road won’t follow the rules, some might fall asleep or be under the influence, others may just move so fucking slowly like the very line she stands in now.
It’d be easy to say this was the reason. She doesn’t trust other people. As she observes the depressing group at the DMV, a statement like “people suck” isn’t so far-fetched.
She finds other people fascinating, though. People-watching is a skill and hobby she developed early on. And despite only seeing the failures when she looked in the mirror, she only see’s the good in others. It wasn’t that she had trouble trusting other people. Victoria had trouble trusting herself.
In high school she never had to DD. She could get as wild as she wanted without the responsibility. Responsibility for herself and for other people. Maybe even then she had little trust in herself. Or maybe over the years she preferred losing control rather than letting it consume her.
Without trying to control every aspect of her life, she couldn’t feel regret. If she never played basketball she wouldn’t have missed that foul shot in the semi-finals, if she never tried to be the world’s youngest inventor maybe her Mom’s favorite vase would still be in tact.
But she was going to allow herself to get in some control now. It was her only way to get back on the road of her bumpy world. Face fears to get herself in tact. She had to drive in order to hold onto the job of her dreams.
When they finally call her name to receive her new permit, she is one step closer. And with reluctance she takes another step.
“Do you guys have a list of driving instructors?”
….
Byron stares out the windshield of his car, half-listening to the woman in the driver’s seat.
“The chance of being killed on the highway is SO much higher than being killed on a plane. But after 9/11 people were obviously freaked out so they drove more places instead of flying. And ya know what happened? Car fatalities went up!”
The woman goes on talking of the amygdala and fear. Byron is reminded of his sister at age nine, speaking incessantly in the back seat of this very car. The car has been modified in a few ways- mainly the pedals that are currently below his feet. A driving instructor’s car must include two sets of pedals, so that the person training to drive isn’t completely in control. Something he often has to remind this particular trainee.
He mistakenly called her a girl after their first session. Byron even asked Victoria if she had a lot of homework to do. She made it clear she was “almost twenty-six!” in a tone Byron didn’t quite understand. The same tone his wife uses whenever their house needs a major repair and he takes the lead. So he tries to speak in a way that won’t offend the woman.
“We won’t do the highway yet.” Show he was listening. “We will take slow back roads.” Create a feeling of safety. “But the schedule says we should have left the parking lot last session.” Apply pressure, with logistical reasoning.
The car sits in the middle of an empty parking lot.
Victoria grips the wheel tighter. This man and his schedule. Typical of a boomer to assume every person who signs up for their program will fit into a schedule. He probably still thinks of her as a girl. She made sure this session aligned with her boyfriend leaving for work. See, she lives with a man, she’s an adult even though she can’t drive.
But she’s heard the way Byron talks to his wife on the phone. He probably assumes she’s learning to drive so she will one day be the perfect mom. No, that isn’t fair. She can’t judge their situation. For all she knows, Byron is the one old white man living in these suburbs who isn’t a right-leaning moderate. She looks him over. Libertarian?
She needs to get out of her head, and out of this lot. As she adjusts the mirrors, fixes her hand placement on the wheel, and triple checks the pedals below Byron’s feet, her chest constricts. Her voice shakes.
“Okay. Brake right. Gas left.”
Byron nods. Something in his mannerisms is reassuring, and Victoria is ashamed for keeping the man in this parking lot for so long. Until…
“Ah, don’t forget to check your blindspots.”
“We’re in a parking lot.”
“But we’re developing the habits to make you an everyday driver.”
Maybe it’s the fear that accompanies the phrase “everyday driver.” Maybe it’s Byron speaking like he’s rehearsed a line from an instruction book. Maybe it’s because in that moment she feels like a child- exactly how she felt this morning when her boyfriend wasn’t just leaving for work, he was leaving to take space. But Victoria can no longer suppress her emotions.
“That is so fucking stupid and pointless. You’re so precious about the schedule maybe things would move faster without the bullshit. How is checking a blindspot in an empty lot going to save my life when I’m on the highway!”
And maybe it’s the way Victoria is speaking like his ungrateful younger sister. Maybe it’s because for the last year, Byron himself has been finding aspects of his job to be bullshit, too. Maybe it’s because he has kept so much of his life in the blindspots and has never considered a highway to be deathly. Because his mind never goes to extremes only to mediocrity. But Byron can no longer be polite.
“Your parents are paying for my services. Some of my teenage students use their own summer job money for just a few sessions. You have been awarded with the full package yet, they will get their license before you will.”
The car pulls out of the lot. It drives into the distance…
…
CUT TO:
EXT. COAST OF NEW ENGLAND
Byron’s car is parked to the side of back road surrounded by colorful leaves and trees.
Through the trees, toward a lake, over Byron’s tense shoulders, we see Victoria taking a picture of the lake.
VICTORIA
I swear this is exactly where
Dylan O’brien and Sadie Sink
filmed that one scene.
Victoria walks toward Byron, with a smile on her face, expecting him to react.
BYRON
I don’t know those people.
VICTORIA
The song I played two days ago!
Byron checks his watch then turns to walk back to the car. Victoria follows, looking at her pictures.
BYRON
Don’t post on your socials.
VICTORIA
I know that.
Leaves crunch under Byron’s feet. He sighs
VICTORIA
It’s not like you kidnapped me.
EXT. SUBURBAN SONIC- FLASHBACK
A quick scene of Victoria pulling into a Sonic drive-thru, the neon lights contrasting the darkening evening sky. Her and Byron laughing as they order their “usuals.”
The car about to run into a pole on the way out, but Victoria doesn’t notice and Byron’s set of pedals don’t work. Smash into the pole. Victoria crying. Byron taking out but stopping when he looks around at the situation.
BYRON (V.O)
I would lose my job. Or worse.
It was past her session time
and we were outside of the
permitted routes. A final bang
to the worst week of my life.
EXT. NEW ENGLAND COAST- PRESENT
There is a clear dent in Byron’s car. Byron and Victoria enter it, Bryon the driver, Victoria the passenger. Victoria puts her phone in the cupholder, playing “All Too Well.”
Byron glares at the gas meter- nearing empty. He stares out the windshield, the same way he stared at the lot during their third session.
BYRON
How did we get here?
VICTORIA
How did we get to film format
or how did we get here, physically?
Byron looks at her, confused.
VICTORIA
You’re not experiencing
flashbacks and voiceovers?
Byron drives as Victoria gazes out the window.
VICTORIA (V.O)
It was my fault we were here.
Am I a bad influence. His gateway
drug? It started with sonic trips to
avoid going to an empty apartment
and ended with me convincing him
we both needed a road trip…
BYRON
Flashbacks and voiceovers
are a crutch.
VICTORIA
What?
BYRON
In a movie, it’s an easy way to-
VICTORIA
No, I know what you mean
but how do you know that?
BYRON
Rosie ended up in film.
Victoria smiles then leans her chair slightly back before resuming to look out the window.
VICTORIA (V.O)
Maybe seeing his sister
would be more than a surprise
reunion. It could help me get
my job back. If I can convince him
to just stop by--
BYRON
Stop monologuing.
Victoria laughs. The song picks up to the fastest beat. Byron begins to tap his foot.
BYRON (V.O)
Talking about Rosie, taking
these risks. This song that
never seems to end. It’s
reigniting what I want. To dance.
The Driving Instructor’s car drives down the long winding road.