Jim Brown frowned.
“In fact, how tempted I am to rent one right now.”
Both the older man and Jim Brown looked at me suspiciously.
“Ma’am, you’re returning your Mazda, right?” Jim Brown said, examining the receipt.
“I am, but now I think I’d like to rent a Mustang.”
“Write up a Mustang, nine dollars extra,” the older man said.
“I quoted her seven,” Jim Brown said.
“Let me see.” The man punched a few keys on the keyboard. “Seven,” he said, and walked away.
Jim Brown and I both watched him go. Jim Brown leaned a little forward, and said in a low voice, “Were you trying to help me out?”
“No, not at all. Just thought having a Mustang for a day might be fun. Maybe a convertible.”
“The special only applies to the regular Mustang,” he said.
“It’s only money,” I said.
He hit a key, looked at the monitor.
“One day, returning tomorrow?” he said.
“Right,” I said. “Do I have a choice about the color?”
He had a crooked front tooth. That and the bad haircut were distracting. He had lovely eyes, and his hair was a nice color, like a fawn’s, but the tooth and the jagged bangs got your attention instead of his attributes.
“There’s a red and two white,” he said. “You don’t have a job you’ve got to get back to?”
I said, “I’ll take the red.”
He looked at me.
“I’m freelance,” I said.
He smiled. “Impulsive, too,” he said.
I nodded. “The perks of being self-employed.”
“At what?” he said. “Not that it’s any of my business.”
“Jim, any help needed?” the older man said, coming up behind him.
In response, Jim looked down and began to hit keys. It increased his school-boyish quality: he bit his bottom lip, concentrating. The printer began to print out.
“I used to get in trouble for being impulsive,” he said. “Then I got diagnosed with ADD. My grandmother said, ‘See, I told you he couldn’t help it.’ That was what she kept saying to my mom: ‘Couldn’t help it.’ ” He nodded vigorously. His bangs flopped on his forehead. Outside, they would have stuck to his skin, but inside it was air-conditioned.
His mentioning ADD reminded me of the ALS patient—the man I’d never met. I had a clearer image of a big-footed, bulbous-nosed clown. If I breathed deeply, I could still detect the taste of cinnamon in my throat. I declined every option of coverage, initialing beside every
“No. Stuff that really happens.”
“Don’t people get mad?” he said.
The older man was looming over the woman at the far end of the counter. They were trying not to be too obvious about watching us. Their heads were close together as they whispered.
“People don’t recognize themselves. And, in case they might, you just program the computer to replace one name with another. So, in the final version, every time the word
He creased the papers, putting them in a folder. “A-eight,” he said. “Out the door, right, all the way down against the fence.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for the good suggestion.”
“No problem,” he said. He seemed to be waiting for something. At the exit, I looked over my shoulder; sure enough, he was looking at me. So was the older man, and so was the woman he’d been talking to. I ignored them. “You wouldn’t program your computer to replace
“No, ma’am,” he said, smiling. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“Easy to learn,” I said. I gave him my best smile and walked out to the parking lot, where the heat rising from the asphalt made me feel like my feet were sliding over a well-oiled griddle. The key was in the car. It didn’t look like the old Mustang at all. The red was very bright and a little unpleasant, at least on such a hot day. The top was already down. I turned the key and saw that the car had less than five hundred miles on it. The seat was comfortable enough. I adjusted the mirror, pulled on my seat belt, and drove to the exit, with no desire to turn on the radio. “That’s a beauty,” the man in the kiosk said, inspecting the folder and handing it back.
“Just got it on impulse,” I said.
“That’s the best way,” he said. He gave a half salute as I drove off.
And then it hit me: the grim reality that I had to talk sense to her, I had to do whatever it took, including insulting her great good friend Drake, so he wouldn’t clean her out financially, devastate her emotionally, take advantage, dominate her—who knew what he had in mind? He’d avoided me on purpose—he didn’t want to hear what I’d say. What did he think? That her busy daughter would conveniently disappear on schedule, or that she might be such a liberal that their plans sounded intriguing? Or maybe he thought she was a pushover, like her mother. Who knew what men like that thought.
The cop who pulled me over for speeding turned on the siren when I didn’t come screeching to a halt. He was frowning deeply, I saw in the rearview mirror, as he approached the car.
“My mother’s dying,” I said.
