A few years ago, the Red Hat club was all the rage. And not to disparage this nationwide movement to get “ladies of a certain age” to reclaim their sassiness and spunk, I just don’t wear hats. I get terrible hat-head.
I need a Mustang. A red one, please.
In Maureen Dowd’s recent column for the New York Times about her classic ’65 Mustang, “Still Getting Wolf Whistles at 50,” she’s of course referring to the car being fifty years old, but proudly explains that it still gets lustful looks from men whenever she drives it. It’s looking good for its age, proving that hot, new, and flashy might get a quick glance, but timelessly gorgeous makes ‘em drool.
When I first crafted Ronnie Lake, the heroine of my mystery series, I needed an icon that could represent how she felt about herself. She’d already endured a marriage that took a lousy turn before falling apart completely, so I wanted her to do something that represented her attitude without being a cliché. It would have been too easy to go with the face lift (or other kinds of lifts) that stereotypically are attributed to women who suddenly find themselves on the market again.
Instead, Ronnie treats herself, not to the vintage or classic car, but to a brand-new Mustang. As Dowd points out in her piece for the Times, the Mustang exploded onto the scene and became an instant bestseller, suffered through some hard years (mostly in the 70s when Ford tried to slap it onto a Pinto frame…talk about the ultimate lousy marriage), and was finally reborn when Ford took a good, hard look at itself and made some changes, much like Ronnie.
Ronnie’s Mustang is her phoenix. It’s her rebirth as a woman who is going to do things her way. You may end up loving her or hating her, but you can never argue that she isn’t true to herself. She found a renewed sense of freedom and independence, and is the quintessential example of a person who’s going places. Now, she’s got the wheels to get her there.