Mellow Yellow
I used to picture myself in a sporty yellow convertible Sunbeam Alpine. Grace Kelly drove a blue one on the French Riviera in To Catch a Thief, Elizabeth Taylor a red one in Butterfield 8. My fantasies embraced these romantic artifacts of the ‘50s and ‘60s and the glamorous self-image that went with them. The Sunbeam captured my imagination, but yellow? I couldn’t rise to the ethereal beauty of the former or the electric allure of the latter (referring to both cars and their drivers), but I would make a statement of my own—bright and eye-catching but not too flashy.
When I bought a new car in 1981, I was rooted in reality, pragmatic by disposition and necessity. No longer smitten by sexy sports cars, I decided on the small and economical Toyota Tercel after extensive research. The first dealer I encountered came on strong, pushing the metallic blue one I’d test-driven. It had all the features I wanted, no more and no less, but this was a major investment. “It’s nice,” I said, “but I want a yellow one.” He pursed his lips—every stereotype about women shoppers, women and cars, popping into his head—and paused before choosing his words. He smiled condescendingly as he reminded me of the vast sum he was knocking off the sticker price, just for me, and the generous trade-in for my 15-year-old cocoa brown Chevy Nova. “We don’t have yellow,” he said, “but this one’s a beauty. You won’t find a better deal.” I told him I’d think about it, but I didn’t like his hard sell, and I’d sworn I would hold out for what I still envisioned. Another dealer obliged, matching the price of the first one, and I drove away in a yellow stream of sunshine.
My living room and study walls are yellow, a cheerful hue that complements the outdoor light and magnifies my small rooms. But I don’t have a strong proclivity for the color—a soft, loose, pocketed t-shirt is the only yellow garment I own. I didn’t attach significance to my dogged desire for a yellow car 40 years ago, but in retrospect, it was a time of renewal. When I bought my new car, I was only months out of an emotionally destructive relationship and proud of finally having asserted and extracted myself. I had gone back to school and was rebuilding my life and my self-esteem. The future looked bright; I anticipated sunny days.
I’d named my previous car Brown (an amusing story told elsewhere), so of course I called this one Yellow. Just Yellow, but it answered to Yellow Submarine and Mellow Yellow as well. My 13-year-old daughter, Jennifer, wanted to personalize it with a pop radio station’s bumper sticker, but I preferred it pristine and unadorned. We compromised, a rainbow decal on the rear window, a symbol of hope and promise that turned into an affirmation of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, later still morphing into Gay Pride.
We took it on an inaugural road trip for that summer. We wanted somewhere that would be fun, economical, and not too long a drive—not an easy feat in San Diego, an island of urban isolation. We’d done Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm; Palm Springs was for old, rich people. Los Angeles, the Anza-Borrego Desert, and Baja California are all within a few hours’ drive, but none of these appealed to us. Las Vegas had started to tout itself as a family destination, long before it exploded with the extravaganza hotels and entertainment centers that vie for prominence and tourist dollars today. “Las Vegas? With a child?” friends asked, with bewilderment and/or dismay. But the musical “Annie” was making a national tour, showing at Las Vegas’s Desert Inn that summer. It was an easy drive across the desert, and the hotel offered bargain rates on rooms and food. We enjoyed the swimming pool and Jacuzzi, and a game arcade for kids was adjacent to the casino. I wasn’t a gambler but enjoyed stints at the blackjack and slot machines, never more than quarters, never losing more than a few dollars. Jennifer would slip in and play a handful of nickels before being chased out, bouncing with glee when the flashing lights came on and a clatter of coins tumbled into the tray in front of her.
I was neither driver nor passenger on Yellow’s longest journey, twelve years later. As it was more reliable and got better gas mileage than her own car, my daughter drove it to Denver to introduce her toddler son to extended family on her father’s side. My grandson loved the car and gave me one of his toys—a black-dotted blue cloth cube that now hangs next to my desk—to dangle from the unused cigarette lighter. He vowed to buy me a new “lellow” car when this one broke.
Yellow remained a constant through life changes—jobs, homes, and relationships, ups and downs, for nearly 30 years. It was reliable and remarkably low maintenance until the end, even after its sunbeam yellow finish faded to pale butter. You could say we mellowed together. When it failed its required biennial smog test, the state offered me $1000 to take it off the road. It’s just a car, I told myself, yet I shed real tears when I left it at its final resting place, averting my eyes from the crushed cars that lined the junk yard, portending its fate (unless they salvaged it for parts—I could hope). Its replacement is silver, like half the cars on the road, a challenge to locate in parking lots. An anonymous car, dependable transportation from here to there, it remains nameless.
Alice Lowe's essays have been published this year in Big City Lit, Borrowed Solace, FEED, Drunk Monkeys, Midway, Eclectica, Pine Cone Review, and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes. She won an essay contest at Eat, Darling, Eat, and has been cited twice in Best American Essays “Notables.” She lives in San Diego, California, and posts her work at www.aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com.