Fast Car

Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of female writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find here each week, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

I’m speeding eastward on the interstate toward Murfreesboro in the middle of a weekday. I have that feeling — a shot of adrenaline mixed with guilt — I haven’t felt in a long time. I am doing something impulsive, I know, but I just can’t help it.

I have my eye on a little Fiat 500 hatchback. I’ve never lusted over a car in my life; I’ve been driving some version of a station wagon since my mid-20s. I have a school-age child and a large mixed-breed dog. Wagons suit my lifestyle. 

But somehow, I find myself at a dealership some 30 miles away from home on a Monday afternoon, anxiously waiting for the sales guy to pull up in a brand-new “spitfire orange” Fiat 500 Pop with white leatherette seats, two-toned dashboard and manual transmission — looking at my reflection in the glass windows and not recognizing myself as I nervously pace the showroom floor. The salesman (the self-proclaimed “No. 2 or 3 on the sales force” and an aspiring musician) tells me this car had nearly sold this very morning, but that the potential buyer changed his mind at the last minute and purchased the white one instead. I take this as a sign: It was meant to be. 

“This stylish and fun two-door has so much personality, it’s hard not to crack a smile whenever you approach one in the parking lot,” reads the review on Edmunds.com. “Rivals might be more practical, but few match the Fiat 500’s playfulness.” That was all I needed to hear. I was looking for playfulness in a car. What fun is practical?

I guess you could say I was having a midlife-crisis moment. Some people run triathlons or join a tennis league. Others have affairs. I had decided that what I needed to feel young again was a sweet little Italian play car. My love for the Fiat 500 didn’t come out of nowhere. When I was 20 years old and living in a small town outside of Florence with an Italian family, I got to drive their old Fiat 500 around the city as I shuttled their 5-year-old from home to school to ballet class. That’s when my infatuation was born. 

My husband thought I was nuts to buy a new car, this car. He tried to reason with me. Our Subaru is about to be paid off, he said. We can go without a car payment for a bit. Will our child even fit in the back seat? What about when you buy furniture and junk at the flea market? Just details, I argued. 

We’ve been replaying some version of this conversation ever since we met. I was the one who pushed us into unknown territory, he was the one who asked all the questions, leading me to see the pragmatic side. This ensured that every big decision we made — from buying a house to having a child to going on a big vacation — was balanced by our complementary natures. This had always worked well for us. 

But things were about to change. My life was about to get a lot more fun.  

The No. 2-or-3 sales guy moved quickly. Before the butterflies in my stomach from the test drive had disappeared, I was sitting across from him, talking about loan terms and delivery options. I pictured the orange beauty sitting in front of my navy-blue house, the neighbors coming over to look at my shiny new foreign car. I pictured myself dropping my daughter off at school and her beaming face as she struggled to climb out of the tiny back seat, thinking of me as a “cool mom.”  

Then I imagined the look on her dad’s face when he heard what I’d done. The spell was momentarily broken — but not before I’d signed all the paperwork and written a check for the down payment. I hastily told the sales guy, while practically running out the door, that even though this car would be mine, bought and paid for by me, that my husband and I were a team and I needed his blessing. We agreed that he would keep all the paperwork for 24 hours and I could call him once I sealed the deal. If not, he would tear it up. This was my concession to married life, I thought, proudly. I would talk him into it like everything else. I headed home to do just that.

Through our conversation, I started to realize that my desire to buy this car was a veiled attempt to feel carefree again — to recapture the younger, more adventurous version of myself. To be the girl who traveled to Italy all alone and found a way to stay and learn the language. To remind myself that I had done some interesting things at one time, and I was not just a boring middle-aged mom. I somehow managed to talk my husband into buying the car, but in the process, I also talked myself out of it. I’m actually not that young or carefree anymore. I have a family and a home and responsibilities, and I like my life. It’s nice to have so many things to care about.

And maybe one day I will drive a little Fiat 500, maybe back in Italy. Until then, I can still be fun.  

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