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Seth Ward
“This is as good as this cake is ever going to look. Get it in the car.”
Most Suby tales are a bit of adventure. An off-road expedition; a flat in a snowstorm; a thousand-mile trip to see that band, on that night, at that place. Since this is Montana, and we own a Subaru, we have been off those roads, changed those tires, and parked next to you at that show. Our Suby has those tales to tell.
This is not one of those tales.
We are in the wedding cake business. Before our Suby can party, it has work to do. Its work is like the space shuttle: lots of travel, but the main job is keeping precious cargo safe. In our case, the cargo bay is usually holding someone’s dreams.
Montana weddings can happen anywhere and everywhere. Many lucrative events are held in places underserved by the industry, often for good reason. Calls come in from brides bringing the whole family out to Big Sky, up to Yellowstone, back to Twodot.
Out here we pray for the interstate. 75 miles an hour is the relaxing part. It’s those last two miles we worry about. That’s where the washboards, switchbacks and cattle-guards will be. But Suby has a perfect track record, delivering cakes safely through bison jams, over mountain passes, and around the occasional holiday parade route. Last August a delivery outside Dillon almost took away that record.
It looked good on paper. It wasn’t the longest trip of the season; that was Lake Hotel at 135 miles, with a half-hour wait for bison to clear the road. It wasn’t the riskiest trip we’d made. That was a tie between the switchbacks up Tom Miner, and the old river channel a certain Ennis venue tries to pass as a road. Dillon is a long trip, but all on wide-open highways we cross fingers for.
We weren’t sweating it; other cake makers had blazed the trail. One of our customers tells of her sister’s wedding cake, baked almost 90 years ago at Bozeman’s BonTon. It was loaded on the morning milk train to Whitehall.
As the cake came together we talked our way through the delivery: What’s the latest we can leave and still get there? What’s the weather? Whose idea was this anyway? I thought you booked this wedding.
Just after noon, Carrie leaned back, rubbed her eyes and said the phrase that signals go-time:
“This is as good as this cake is ever going to look. Get it in the car.”
Right on cue it started to rain. We hurried the cake out to our Suby and closed the hatch. No obvious bleeding or running. So far so good. Slowly over the speed bumps in the parking lot, the tall cake didn’t move, a very good omen. Quick as it started, the rain quit. Classic omen. Main Street turned into North 19th then the interstate without incident. Small towns passed; the one small pass went under our tires quietly.
We turned back onto two-lane road. The mercury was rising, but the cake in back had it made in the shade. We slowed down for a few more of those small towns to avoid speed traps and sudden stops. Another rain cloud cooled us. The cake held. As we pulled in we said a quiet thank-you for our safe arrival.
We might have said it a little louder. The bride sent out an Aunt or two to meet us at the C-Store and lead to the reception. I got out to stretch and call them, feeling pretty pleased with my driving. I was so busy congratulating myself it didn’t register when I closed my locked door and Suby didn’t honk.
I had three blissful minutes, ignorant of the fact which you may already suspect: I had locked the keys (and a few dollars worth of someone’s dream cake) in the car. Facing the sun. In the middle of nowhere on Saturday.
“Did I give you the keys?”
“No…why?”
She knew; I was already checking the doors. The cake started to sweat, and now so did we.
I called the one locksmith in town and draw some cash from the ATM. Saturday service with a rush? Hope $100 would cover it. The Aunts had arrived and were pacing around checking doors and commenting about the temperature. The fuss drew a small crowd. Kids called their moms to lift them up. Someone texted a friend…Dillon’s first flash-mob. Another asked “what’s a cake like that go for?”
“Not much if we don’t get it there.”
The phone rang. “Hello? Yep. Where at? Make and model? There’s a what locked inside? Okay sweetie, he’ll be over in ten minutes.”
It took five minutes flat. The older gentleman got out his tools and started jimmying. He mentioned Subarus can be a little tricky. I started back toward the ATM when I heard the click. “There she goes. $30, please.” I could have hugged him, but thought twice.
The cake was still perfect, barely perspiring. The crowd, much disappointed, began to disperse. We (much ready to get back and spend the left-over $70 at the Cat’s Paw forgetting the experience) pulled on the highway behind the Aunts. Even dirt road and metal bridge at the end couldn’t phase us. This cake wasn’t going anywhere.
We experienced the classic cake-delivery nightmare scenario and drove away; courtesy of the good people at the Subaru corporation and our friends at Paradise Locksmith. The cake was flawless and the bride never knew a thing. The secret was safe with us. And the locksmith. And half the county who has nothing better to do on a summer afternoon than hang out waiting for something to happen. Just don’t expect a repeat. Now we bring both sets of keys!
Cargo Gold
A Tale of Four Subarus
Tara K. Alfonsi
The Year: 1992
The Subaru: A 1989 Outback
“Mom,” I huffed, “this is so embarrassing.”
“Nice grocery-getter!” taunted one of the most insolent boys in my class.
I sneered a retort as I popped the hatch on my parents’ forest green Subaru Outback. As an awkwardly permed 4.0 student on the unglamorous Knowledge Bowl and cross country skiing teams, I was enough of a dork on my own. Being picked up by my mother in a boxy station wagon only boldfaced my nerdiness.
“Why do we have this stupid car?” my 13-year-old self whined. “I hate Subarus.”
“When you start driving, you’ll wish you had one,” replied my mother. “And we wouldn’t get to Bridger every year without one.”
“We look dumb,” I sulked, tossing my Fischers and worn red JanSport in the cargo hold. Climbing into the backseat, I perked up as a familiar song came on the radio. “Hey, is that Richard Marx?”
The Year: 1995
The Subaru: The Very Same 1989 Outback
“Munger Trail, here we come!” exclaimed an uncharacteristically enthusiastic Jen, turning up the cassette and harmonizing.
We were seventeen, high school juniors, and I had inherited the detested 1989 Outback. I still hated it – publicly. But, now that I’d had to dig more than one reckless teenaged friend out of the ditch, I appreciated the wagon’s nimbleness in snow. And, even though some of the guys I dated presented their own crude ideas for the potential utility of the cargo hold, I loved having the extra room for gear.
Mom was right.
It wouldn’t be the last time.
The Year: 1999
The Subaru: A 1988 XT6
“…Of the cross I bear that you gave to me, you, you, you oughtta know!” Jamie and I screeched along with the well-worn CD. For my first car, bought and paid for with my very own money, I had – yessiree – chosen a Subaru. A “vintage” 1988 XT6, Subaru’s attempt at a sports car, it was a glossy, cherry red and rode on air suspension struts that cost about $300 each to replace. I know this because one by one, they all died on me, and the car rode lopsided until I socked away enough cash from my part-time retail job to pay for them.
Not that I cared too much. What throws you when you’re 20?
“Play it again!” yelled a voice from the cargo hold. It was Tracy, painfully fresh from one of those Alanis-esque disembowling college breakups. “Repeat! Repeat!”
The Year: 2002
The Subaru: 2001 Forester
Beaming, I pulled into my parents’ driveway, lept out the driver’s side and sprinted up their porch.
“Guys! Come out and look!”
I was 25, and I was rolling in the dough ($35K – a small fortune!) after landing a job as an advertising copywriter. I had just signed a bank loan for a gently used 2001 Subaru Forester. Red with grey trim. In the cargo hold, a leather folio and a hot pink pair of Brooks Adrenalines.
I had arrived.
I called the car Felix. For five years, we explored together. State parks. National forests. The Minne-apple. And out west, three times – twice to Bozeman, once to Jackson. (On the second Bozeman junket, the cargo hold doubled as a bunkhouse.) Each of these trips marked a transition in my life, and the open road helped me heal.
She wasn’t my best friend, exactly. More like my therapist.
A few tanks ahead of the 150,000-mile mark, it happened. I was on the way back from a camping trip on Lake Superior’s North Shore. My ever-brooding significant other was driving.
At a stop sign, Felix died. I was unperturbed.
Half a mile later, she died again. We pulled over.
We didn’t even need to pop the hood to discover what was wrong. Felix was losing her lifeblood all over Highway 61. Coolant.
Her tank was empty.
She would not recover.
A few days later, my relationship died too. A check engine light had been flashing for years, but you know how we try to ignore the subtle danger signs … right up until the coolant’s on the ground and the engine’s seized up.
The cargo hold held five years’ worth of memories.
As I cleaned it out, I cried.
The Year: 2009
The Subaru: A 2009 Forester
In late 2009, I found myself on a very familiar interstate. In a shinier Forester. For a more promising reason.
Not running away. Running … to.
In the passenger seat was the only person I’d ever clearly seen a future with. The one great non-Subaru love of my life.
On the radio was “Midnight Train to Georgia,” occasionally sung into a banana.
And, in the cargo hold, our skis, our bird dog, and a dream.
Tracy J Menuey
I wish I could say that this story is a blissfully happy one. In all actuality it is how you look at things really to determine if this is a sad letter or a happy one. My Mom happens to be the most wonderful woman on the planet (in my opinion) and she is my best friend. On October 19th when the call came that she had breast cancer you can imagine how scary that was for her and me as well. That Monday was one of the scariest days of my life.
I was, at that time living in the other part of the Pacific Northwest, Oregon. That Friday I flew down to Houston, Texas and stayed with my Mom for the next month helping her in what has seemed to be an unending fight! She recovered well from her surgery and the Doctor said that they got all of the cancer out. That was great news. Then began the long painful journey of chemo. It is completely indescribable how absolutely degrading and humbling this very powerful "medicine" is. So as each treatment came and went my Mom had the support of a different family member. It was so wonderful to have so much help and support during very hard times. So now the time has come for my submission to this story for your magazine.
My Mom needs me, which I have understood that the last treatments of chemo are the worst. So I have sold every piece of furniture I own and whatever else is not necessary and put all my belongings in my Subaru Forester along with my dog, Isabella. We are en-route to Texas via Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Oklahoma. (Whew I am tired just typing it!) Since I am a single woman traveling by myself I figured I needed to travel a route that I am familiar with and I can drive a full day and have a place to sleep because I have friends from here to Texas. My date to arrive in Conroe, Texas is Wednesday, May 5th.
I have lived here in Bozeman in the past and fell in love with the people and the Bridgers! It is refreshing to be here during such a hard journey and having such a dependable car to get me there. I thought that since the car was so loaded down the tires would rub and I would loose power. Well I am here to tell you that none of the above happened. So far it has been amazing and handled so wonderfully. I am more impressed with this car now than ever before, and we have been through alot together! Here are a few pictures I have taken along my way. I know there will be more to come.
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