Anne Tyler - A Patchwork Planet

After I hung up, I sat there a minute, pressing my hands very tightly between my knees.

Then I phoned Sophia. I told her I was sorry. “I should have called before,” I said. “I did get your messages. I’ve just … been in this mood, you know? I didn’t feel all that sociable.”

She said, “I understand. I understand perfectly. You don’t have to explain.”

“But I owe you an apology,” I said. “Really. I ask your forgiveness.”

“Of course I forgive you!”

Did it count if she didn’t realize what she was forgiving me for?

Then she wanted to know if she should come over. But I thought if she came she would realize for certain, and so I said no. I said I was tired; I said I needed a shower. She didn’t push it. She just said, “All right, sweetie. You get a good night’s rest,” and we arranged to meet the next day. I told her I was taking her out to dinner — someplace romantic.

I’d meant it when I said I was tired, but even so, I had trouble sleeping once I went to bed. I felt filled with determination. I was just about vibrating with all my plans for tomorrow.

I had to get hold of that price book. I had to sell my car and pay off my debt to my parents. And this was in addition to all those jobs for Rent-a-Back, because I couldn’t let my clients down. They trusted me.

It began to seem that I really might have moved on in life.

“IT’S ‘WEATHERED and rusted,’ ” Len told me.

“It’s ‘fully drivable,’ ” I told him.

“It’s an ‘amateur restoration,’ ” he told me.

We were quoting from The Collector’s Automobile Prices— the inside cover, where they explained their grading system. We were snatching the book from each other, to read aloud the phrases that supported our positions. I maintained my car qualified as Good, but Len was holding out for Poor. Secretly, I’d have been happy to settle for Adequate — the category between the two. But first I planned to put up a fight.

“If you took this to a dealer,” Len told me, “he’d laugh in your face.”

“Maybe I should take it to a dealer,” I said, pretending to think it over.

A dealer would likely find about fifty things wrong with it besides what Len had already found. I knew Len was my best shot. And my bluff must have worked, because Len jumped in fast with, “Of course, no dealer would have your interests at heart the way I do.”

“Or your interests the way I do,” I told him. “That’s why I’m giving you first refusal. You and I go back so far.”

But I might have overdone it there. Len squinted at me suspiciously.

The place where I’d finally tracked him down was the Brittany Heights housing development — a series of treeless, shrubless hills out in Baltimore County. For all the snide remarks I’d made about Len’s line of work, I had never actually visited any of his projects. This one was kind of eerie. Dotted about on the rolling greens, with no visible streets or driveways leading up to them and no signs of life anywhere around them, were these brand-new pastel stucco castles. They had turrets and battlements and arched front doors. The model, which we were standing in front of, flew a triangular banner from its crenellated roof. We might have strayed into a neighborhood of miniature kingdoms, all within sound of the Beltway.

“Suppose we say this,” Len suggested, slapping the book shut and handing it back. “Suppose we call it Poor, but I tack on a thousand dollars for old times’ sake.”

The price for a Sting Ray in poor condition was forty-five hundred dollars. I shook my head.

“Two thousand?”

“Sorry,” I told him. I tossed my keys up, caught them, and turned to get into the car. “Never say I didn’t give you a chance,” I flung back as I slid behind the wheel.

“Wait! Barn!” He grabbed hold of my door. “Where’re you going?”

“Off to see the dealer,” I said.

“What’s your rush? We’ve just barely started talking here!”

“Well, hey,” I told him. “You snooze, you lose.” And I reached over to pull the door shut, but he wouldn’t release it.

“Okay,” he said. He heaved a put-upon sigh. “Just for you, then: we’ll call it Adequate.”

Adequate meant ten thousand dollars. I stopped hauling on my door.

Between the day we settled the price and the day I turned the keys over, about two and a half weeks passed — long enough for the red tape to be taken care of — but already it seemed to me that the car wasn’t fully mine anymore. My August trip to Philly, for instance, Sophia and I made by train, because I could picture the irony of totaling on I-95 now that I had the money within my sights. And anytime I drove around town, I was more than usually aware of the salty, sun-warmed smell of the interior and the uniquely caved-in spokes of the steering wheel. I had never been a car man, never memorized all the models the way a lot of my friends had; but now I saw that a Sting Ray did have a very distinctive character. Out on the open road, it sounded like a bumblebee. Its artificial grilles and ports and vents, hinting at some barely contained explosion of power, reminded me of a boastful little kid.

I put off telling Pop-Pop. I decided I’d tell him after the fact, so that he couldn’t keep me from going through with it.

On the second Saturday in September — a mild, muggy morning, overcast, the kind of day when it’s hard to work up any enthusiasm — I drove to Len’s garden apartment. Martine followed behind with the truck, so that I would have a ride back. Our whole transaction took place out front at the curb — Len circling the car several times, stopping to stroke a fender in this possessive, presumptuous way that got on my nerves. He was wearing his weekend outfit of polo shirt, khakis, and yachting shoes minus the socks. I couldn’t abide how he combed his hair in an arrogant upward direction. And when he got in and started the engine, it seemed to me that he did it all wrong. That first little gnarly sound was missing; he wasn’t gradual enough. I called out, “Careful, there—”

But Martine, lounging nearby with her hands jammed in her rear pockets, said, “Let it go, Barnaby,” and so I did.

When we left she asked if I wanted to drive, but I lacked the heart for it. I sat slumped in the shotgun seat of the truck— our truck, for what that was worth, with its greasy vinyl upholstery and the graying white fur dice swinging from the mirror — and told Martine everything I disliked about Len Parrish. “It isn’t that I blame him for letting me take the rap alone,” I said. “He’d have done me no good coming forward; I understand that. But then to act so above it all! Tut-tutting with my mom about me; mentioning the Paul Pry business to Sophia. When he was in on it! When he was just as involved!”

“Let it go,” Martine said again, switching her turn signal on.

“You saw how he acted this morning. So Mr. Cool, so … like, uncaring. I introduce you and he says, ‘Uh-huh,’ and doesn’t even look at you; too busy gloating over the car. Doesn’t even glance in your direction.”

Sneakily, I glanced at her myself. She was sitting on the cushion she used for driving, one finger tapping the wheel as she waited for the light to change. Her profile was poked forward, beaky and persistent, intent on the signal overhead.

Martine and I had developed a new style of dealing with each other lately. We were careful not to touch, not even by accident, and we never quite let our eyes meet. Our tone of voice was casual and sporty. Like now: “So?” Martine said. “He’s a jerk. Give it a rest, Gaitlin.” And she slammed into gear and hooked a quick left turn in front of the oncoming traffic.