It’s 1994, my two friends and I cramp awkwardly in the front cab of a tow truck. No one is talking. I feel lucky being rescued but the reality of the situation has not sunk in. Behind the truck dangles my beloved 1979 Celica Supra, a car bestowed to me by my dad on my 16th birthday after negotiating the sale from a retired co-worker, the original owner.

The car was my freedom and bore a vintage credibility that felt uniquely tailored to me. The features were tantalizingly exotic – a stick transmission, 6-cylinder engine, orange racing stripes, crank-open sunroof, and 8 track player that arrived stocked with tapes like Cream, the Beatles and Jesus Crist Superstar. I floated when I sunk into its furry seat covers, it was me and her as us against the world. And I needed it, because at 16, I was coming out of the final throes of chemotherapy for lymphoma, eager to move outward after the long months of isolation and sickness from the treatments. I was returning to the light and liberty of being with my friends like a normal teen, wind wafting from the sunroof through the fuzz of my regrowing hair.

We were returning from a Santa Cruz day trip. Between the stretch of the beach to the flat valley of San Jose was a harrowing, winding road called Highway 17. The dividers along the rails of Highway 17 were streaked with smears of bumpers and driver-side doors, the grade was steep, my attention was full alert and the car was bracing against my clumsy downshifts. The oil light, which days ago flickered, started to blaze bright red. Heading into stretches of suburban traffic, the car began to shudder. My clutched hands got sweaty as I recanted weeks earlier when my dad showed me where the oil valve was. I had dribbled a couple of ounces into it, thinking That’s enough.

Now, among the sea of brake lights, I just managed to navigate the Celica to the side of the road as it trembled to a halt. Tufts of smoke oozed from under the hood. I panicked, yelping at my friends to abandon the car. They gathered their beaches bags and soggy towels in slow motion while I beelined to the only hope that appeared to remain, a call box a quarter of a mile down the highway.

I waited anxiously on the phone, on hold from an operator patiently taking our location information.  I was deep into trying to recall the last exit sign number when a voice startled me.

“Um Johanna?” my friend wandered up, tugging at her jean cutoffs, and chewing gum vacantly. 

“Yes??” Gesturing to indicate that I was on an important call.

“Um, so, Elisa wanted me to tell you that your car is on fire?”

“What?!” I dropped the phone, stunned, and swooped to pick it back up.

“Um, your car is on fire?”

My heart hit my stomach. What was I going to tell my dad?

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These days the regret is still palpable, I sigh deeply when privacy questionnaires ask me about the model of my first car and the story is often front of mind as an anecdote to my kids of what happens when you don’t take care of things.