‘How are we so lost? We’ve been driving for, what? Ten minutes?’
‘Well if somebody hadn’t insisted we bring a map from 1995…’
‘It’s a suburb, John. They don’t change that much.’
‘In ten years?!’
I pulled over to the side of the road, flicking on the overhead light and taking the map from my wife. She let it go with a huff, staring out the window and into the night.
‘We’re gonna be late now,’ she grumbled.
‘Diane was late for our wedding,’ I reminded her. ‘I’m sure she won’t care that we’re ten minutes late to her second son’s third birthday.’
I flicked through the pages, looking for the street we were on.
‘There!’ I stamped my finger down on the yellowing paper.
My wife leaned over to look at where I was pointing, and shook her head. ‘Nope.’
‘What?’
‘That’s not where we are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I drive down that road every day to get to work. It’s a mechanic in Malvern that does car repairs now.’
‘But we’re nowhere near Malvern!’
‘Exactly,’ she rolled her eyes.
I tried again, squinting out of the windshield at the street sign just in front of us, barely lit by my headlights.
‘Face it, John,’ she sighed. ‘We’re lost.’
I shut the map and tossed it onto the backseat, resting my head in my hands.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to me, and I scrambled in the backseat for the heavy map book.
‘Toorak, car service…’ I muttered to myself, scanning down the list.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Diane lives near that mechanic in Toorak,’ I replied, still scanning. ‘And they’ve been there for, what? Fifteen years?’
She narrowed her eyes as she tried to remember, then nodded approvingly. ‘At least.’
‘So if we can find them…’
‘We’ll know where we’re going!’
‘Exactly!’
I found the right spot and triumphantly showed it to my wife. She smiled at me, then put a hand on my arm.
‘Just one problem.’
‘What?’ I frowned.
‘We still have no idea where we are.’
‘Oh… oh right.’