Jodie Picoult - Songs of the Humpback Whale - A Novel in Five Voices

“Tall Neck. The name is Joseph Tall Neck.”

Alibis and excuses race through my mind, but when I begin to speak I find that I am telling him the truth.

“. . . So we left my husband in California, and we’re driving across America and quite honestly we need a car and we need cash, which brought us to you.”

This man looks at me with his coal-colored eyes, and he doesn’t believe a word I’ve said. “Tell it to me straight, lady.”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay. This is it: my daughter’s birthday is tomorrow. All her life she’s been taking these tap dancing lessons, and there’s an audition for a movie in L.A., and she asked if I would take her to it for her birthday present. Her dream is to be a big star, but frankly we haven’t got the money to spend on a fancy costume or a big car or anything else that will make the bigwigs in Hollywood notice her. So we talked it over and decided we would sell the car and get something a little cheaper, and then with the extra cash we’d buy nice clothes and rent a limo to go to the audition.” I say this all in one breath and then lean against the gas pump, spent. When I look up, the man had walked over to Rebecca. His eyes are glowing.

“Dance,” he commands.

I don’t know where she picked it up, because Rebecca has never taken a tap dancing lesson in her life. But she starts shuffling and doing a soft shoe in the red earth of the field we’ve driven through, using the flattened tire tracks as a makeshift stage. “I can sing, too,” she says, grinning.

Tall Neck is entranced, you can see it in his face. “You are really something. Who knows? You could be the next Shirley Temple.” The man leads Rebecca over to the line of cars in the front corner of the station. “Which one do you like?”

Rebecca bites her lower lip. “Oh, I don’t know. Mama? Come over here. What do you think?”

When I stand next to her, she elbows me gently. “Well, honey,” I say, “I want you to pick. It’s all part of your birthday present.”

Rebecca clasps her hands in front of her. She doesn’t have much of a choice: several beat-up Cadillacs, a blue Jeep, a dusty Chevy Nova.

“How about that one?” Rebecca says, pointing to a little MG I hadn’t noticed. I have always steered away from cars that small, because of the safety risk. It is half-hidden behind the gas price sign, red with rust spots over each tire. The interior is ripped in many places.

“The convertible top is automatic,” Tall Neck says, “and still works.” Rebecca jumps over the door of the car and lands in an awkward split on the front seat, one foot wedged into a hole of foam where the vinyl has cracked.

“How much?” I ask, and Rebecca and Tall Neck both jump as if they have forgotten I am there. “And how much will you give me for the wagon?”

Tall Neck gives me a sour smile and walks back to the station wagon. He pulls a wild daisy from the side mirror. “I’ll give you three thousand, although it isn’t worth that much.”

“Are you joking?” I explode. “It’s only four years old! It’s worth twice that!”

“Not here it isn’t,” he says, and he walks back to the MG. “This car here I’ll give you for one thousand.”

Rebecca turns to me with incredibly sad eyes, meant for Tall Neck to see. “It’s too much money, isn’t it, Mama?”

“It’s okay, honey. We can go somewhere else. There’s lots of places to stop on the way to Hollywood.”

“Five hundred,” Tall Neck says, “and that is my last offer.”

A woman drives into the station in a lemon-colored van and pulls in front of the gas pump. Tall Neck excuses himself to fill the tank. Rebecca beckons me closer to the car, and I climb over the door less agilely than she did, and sit in the driver’s seat. “Where did you learn to tap dance?” I asked.

“School. Gym class. I had a choice of tetherball or tap.” She leans against my shoulder. “So you think I’ll make it on Broadway?”

“I don’t know if you’d make it in Poplar, to tell you the truth. But you did a nice job of snowing this guy.” I begin to fiddle with the radio dial (broken) and the shift (sticks on reverse). Rebecca opens up the glove compartment, which is empty, and reaches under the seat to find a lever for moving it back. She pulls out a manila envelope, dusty, which has been wedged into the springs underneath.

“What’s this,” she says, opening the clasp. She pulls out dollar bills-twenties, all of them, and as her eyes grow wide I grab the envelope from her.

I start to count quickly, before Tall Neck finishes his transaction. “There’s over six hundred here,” I tell Rebecca. “That’s what I call cash back financing.” Rebecca, who sees the van pull away, stuffs the envelope back into the springs below the seat. “Is this really the one you want?” I say loudly, as Tall Neck approaches. Rebecca nods. “Well, Happy Birthday then.”

“Oh Mama!” Rebecca squeals, and she throws her arms around me. She breaks away from my embrace to pump Tall Neck’s hand up and down. “Thank you, oh, thank you so much!”

“I’ll get the title,” Tall Neck says, and he limps towards the concrete block building that must serve as an office.

Rebecca smiles until he closes the door behind him and then she turns to me. “Let’s get out of this dump.” She leans her head back against the seat and holds her hand to her throat. “Does anybody tap dance anymore?”

Tall Neck reappears with a manila envelope that looks much like the treasure under the seat, which makes me wonder if this isn’t some stash of his he has forgotten about. I rifle through the cash. “You should really keep your money in a bank,” I tell him. “You never know if you’re going to get held up.”

He laughs, showing spaces where he has no teeth. “Not out here. Tourists don’t come to Poplar. And,” he points to a shotgun propped next to the gas pump, “robbers know better.”

I smile weakly. “Well,” I say, wondering if he’ll shoot at us as we leave, realizing he’s left money in our car, “thanks for your help.”

Rebecca has been moving all our possessions from the back of the station wagon. She takes the duffel bag out of the back seat and the maps from the glove compartment and tosses them in the tiny trunk of the new car. “Look for me in the movies!” Rebecca calls to the man. We pull alongside the station wagon, expecting to feel some sort of remorse, the way you feel like you are leaving a piece of yourself behind whenever you trade in an old car. But this one reminds me of Oliver, and of leaving, and I don’t think I will miss it much at all.

“Mom,” Rebecca urges, “we’re going to miss the audition.” She reaches her arms over her head as we plow back through the field, which is easier this time because we have cleared a path. The weeds climb right inside the car, since we have the top down, and Rebecca picks them as they whip her across the chest and the face, creating a bouquet in shades of purple. “This is some car,” she screams, her words lost in the rush of the wind.

It is a lot of fun. It’s less clunky than the station wagon, that’s for sure-I keep looking in the rearview mirror and expecting to see another half-length of car. There is just enough room for me and Rebecca. “So whose money do you think that is?”

“I think it’s ours now,” Rebecca says. “Some mother you are. Turning me into a liar and a thief.”

“You turned yourself into a liar; I didn’t command you to do a tap recital. And as for being a thief, well, technically we bought the car, including anything that happened to be inside it.” Rebecca looks at me and laughs. “Okay, so it’s a little dishonest.” A runaway reed scratches against my cheek, leaving a raised mark. “I think the money belonged to an heiress who had fallen in love with her groundskeeper.”