Convertible Louise

When my sister was 17, or maybe 16, she had a friend named Louise. I was only 9 or 10 at the time, but I knew enough to know Louise was different from my sister's other friends. 

The others seemed more like high school students. Yes, they wore makeup and cared about looking good, but they were also focused on school and getting homework done.

Louise's lipstick seemed, well, redder and darker; her hair was glossier, darker and more disheveled looking, even when she had a scarf around it. She had a Southern accent (but said she was from Maryland) and she seemed overall more dangerous than the other young women my sister knew.

Of course, to a younger sister/budding writer, Louise was heaven.

She also had a boyfriend (or three), but the oldest one somehow managed to buy a 1950s convertible, which must have cost him plenty. I can't remember the color but think it may have been yellow? I think he was in his 20s, and Louise was only 17, but her mom let her go out with him, and they'd pick up my sister every once in a while. 

Where they went was a complete mystery, and my sister never told us. I can't remember how long she and Louise were friendly, but I do remember that convertible, because they took me out with them once. 

While all cars were originally roofless, Cadillac began offering closed cars in about 1905. Retractable roofs started getting fashionable in the 1930s, but Rambler introduced the first convertible as we know it in the 1950s. The one Louise/s boyfriend had may have been a gas guzzler, like all the cars in that era, but it made all the little cars around it look boring.

Driving in the back seat was almost as good as the front seat--though of course I would have liked that better. Still, it made me feel like royalty for the few minutes they allowed me to ride, and made me want to buy a convertible just like it when I got older.

If I had to choose between a convertible and a motorcycle, I'd definitely choose the convertible (as long as it was from the 1950s). I can't get either these days, having other fish to fry. But I still wonder what happened to Louise and her boyfriend, as my sister has never been able to tell me.

I want to believe Louise kept riding in that convertible, no matter how old she became. I hope her lipstick stayed blood red, and her hair is still long enough to blow back while she laughs at the world around her. I hope one day we run into each other on the road, because I know she will have stories to tell that my nine-year-old ears were never able to hear.

Even better than riding in that fifties convertible -- I hope she is driving it. She had all this magic, so... all she had to do, to my mind, was grow up and keep it for herself.




Convertible driver: Eflon
Convertible photo:  Michel Curi