Cole looked back at me with a faint smirk. "Nice ditch," he said quietly. "Mind if I borrow the idea for my driveway? Keeps the door-to-door salesmen off."
I grinned. "Be my guest."
As he drove off, Clare stood by her half-buried SUV, fuming, shouting into her phone.
The tow truck arrived twenty minutes later. The driver took one look at the scene, scratched his beard, and said, "Lady, this thing's not coming out without a crane."
Clare's scream echoed across the fields again, loud enough to startle the cows.
By the time the sun dipped low, her car was still half-submerged, and she was still pacing. Derek and I watched the whole thing from the porch, drinking cold beer, barely able to breathe from laughing so hard.
"Think she'll learn her lesson?" Derek asked.
I stared at the trench, at the car, at the woman still waving her arms like a preacher mid-sermon. "No," I said, "but it's a start."
That night, I walked out to the road under the full moon. The trench looked beautiful: a perfect scar on the earth, poetic and precise. I could still see the deep tire grooves where her SUV had gone under. The scent of oil, dirt, and victory hung in the air.
I leaned against the fencepost, smiling. "You brought this on yourself, Clare."
Then I heard it, faint at first, then clearer: the distant wail of another vehicle coming down the highway. The tow truck.
"Guess we're not done yet," I muttered.
Over the next hour, I watched them struggle: the tow driver sweating under the headlights, shouting instructions, while Clare barked orders like a general in pink armor. The winch strained, the chain clanged, the mud refused to let go. At one point, the tow truck's rear tires lifted an inch off the ground.
The driver killed the engine, swore under his breath, and said, "Lady, this car ain't moving tonight. I'll be back in the morning with backup."
Clare stared at him, horrified. "You're leaving it here?!"
He shrugged. "Unless you got a helicopter handy."