The O'Briens & the California Woodie

from my novel THE O'BRIENS (Pantheon. New York. 2012):

"Their summer car, an old Ford station wagon with a wooden body, was up on blocks in the coach house. After changing the oil and spark plugs, filling the radiator and tires, and charging the battery, he drove to the shape-up yard at the bottom of Nopal Street, where he hired two Mexican day labourers and a concrete finisher. Bringing the men back to the house, he set them to work demolishing the old seawall while he started drafting his plan for the new one..."


"On the first of April they all went up to Arya Vihara for a picnic. The Lincoln had a cracked oil pan and was in the garage getting repaired, so they took the old station wagon. Mike drove. They started along Foothills Road, past fields of flowers at Carpinteria. Climbing Casitas Pass, he kept the station wagon in second gear, worried that the frail old engine might throw a rod..."

"She suddenly remembered him in California, rushing and cool, sensitive. In a white T-shirt and dark glasses, at the wheel of their old station wagon. Steering over Casitas Pass, one hand on the wheel, one slender brown arm propped at the window."