英语小故事第315期：The Driving Lesson (2)

The next morning, Sean and Darren got into Sean’s car. Sean took The Club off the steering wheel. Darren noticed that Sean didn’t unlock The Club first. He asked Sean if The Club had been unlocked all night. Sean said yes. Darren fumed. “Do you know how long it takes a thief to smash the window and drive off with this car?! Less than two minutes! Do you think cars grow on trees? Do you have the money to buy another car if this one is stolen?” Sean said that he had forgotten to lock The Club. Darren reminded Sean that he had spent a lot of time finding Sean a clean, reliable, used car. He also reminded Sean that he, not Sean, had paid for the car.

He barked at Sean off and on during the next two hours. They went south on Santa Anita Avenue to the 10 and headed west to downtown LA. They went south to the USC Coliseum and turned around at the two statues of the Olympic athletes. Then they went north on Figueroa Street to the 110 and headed back to Arcadia. Darren continued to yell at Sean about his driving errors. When Sean tried to parallel park in front of Gwen’s apartment, Darren scolded him for taking 20 seconds to do something that should have taken five seconds.

As they walked upstairs to the apartment, Darren apologized to Sean for all the yelling he had done. Sean didn’t respond. Instead, he entered the apartment, spoke angrily to his mother in their native language, went into his bedroom, and slammed the door. Gwen looked at Darren but said nothing. She simply shook her head.