Free Calamity by J.T. Warren

conversation was getting for her. “The car is old and smells bad and it has all those stupid bumper stickers.”
    “It’s not that old.” It was, now that he thought of it, almost ten years old. How had it gotten so old so quickly? One day he’d be asking that same question looking in the mirror. “And it doesn’t smell. I took it to the car wash last week and they do the inside, too.”
    “Well, whatever, those bumper stickers are just . . . lame.”
    He had gone through a phase where he bought several because he thought they were hilarious. After the fiftieth time reading NEVER BE phing NEVLIEVE IN GENERALIZATIONS or EVERYBODY DOES BETTER WHEN EVERYBODY DOES BETTER and TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW, FRUIT FLIES LIKE A BANANA, the phrases he once thought so clever he just had to buy them and seal them to his bumper sounded forced and ridiculous. Still, they offered the occasional laugh, and the one from work, made by Joey the goofy art ad guy as a gift for the department heads at the company’s annual picnic last year still made Anthony smile: READING: EDITORS DO IT FOR MONEY.
    “My bumper graffiti is not lame.”
    “Graffiti?” She rolled her eyes.
    “You’ll be less likely to get pulled over than you would in Mom’s car.”
    “Yeah, cause your car can’t go over sixty.”
    “And why would you need to?”
    She sighed again.
    “Think of all the fun you and Angela will have making fun of my stickers.”
    “You mean your graffiti?” Her smile that could break his heart a million times did it again. He almost let up, allowed her to take the car, but he couldn’t. It might be dangerous. Later, he’d appreciate the irony of that thought.
    “And that stupid oldies CD is stuck in your car. There’s only, like, ten songs and they’re all lame.”
    “Be fair,” he said. “You like some of those lame songs.” He started to hum “Sleep Walk,” a tune he and Delaney had mock-danced to in his car several times. She said the song sounded like it was drowning.
    “You should get an iPod hook-up like Tyler.”
    “I like my oldies.”
    “You could like more than just ten songs with an iPod.” That smile again.
    “The keys--to my car--are by the couch.”
    She told him thanks, pecked him on the cheek, grabbed the keys from the table in the living room and was out the door before Anthony could tell her to drive safely. There was no reason he couldn’t let her take Chloe’s car except that it was too fast and even with the dual airbags and all the other safety features, the car wouldn’t save her if she hit a wall going ninety miles per hour. If she tried to push his Honda that fast, the steering wheel would shake so hard she’d hurt her hands. She could handle the embarrassing bumper stickers, which she was only teasing him about anyway. Or so he believed.
    There were other reasons he didn’t want her taking Chloe’s car, reasons why even he didn’t want to take it, why it sat in the garage, gathering dust. Delaney knew it and so she didn’t press the issue. He loved her for that.
    Colleagues at work told him all sort of horror stories about teenage daughters. Mary Ellen, the head of accounting, told him how she caught her sixteen-year-old daughter having sex in the house and when she found them, her daughter told her to mind her fucking business. Anthony was immensely grateful Delaney was nothing like that. She could lose her patience, just like Tyler and Brendan, but she was never mean and was always a good sport about being the brunt of so many jokes.
    He felt bad about this morning. He and Tyler had ganged up on her and she had been okay with it until they, predictably, had taken it too far, and she had resorted to a comment about Chloe. He almost expected her to apologize for that remark just now, but she didn’t need to and she knew that. No harm done. Especially since she had been right, at least partially. He had not been very persuasive motivating Chloe out of her bed, sinof her out of her