“With what, may I ask?”
“I’ll put this week’s salary toward the purchase as a down payment. I’ve heard you can pay as little as ten dollars a month.”
“But money is so tight.”
“I have to have a car,” Grace argues, drying the dishes. “It will be much easier for us to shop, and I can skim an hour off my commute. I’ll leave here at eight-thirty and be home by five-thirty. I’ll see the kids more.” Grace knows it’s this last point that will win her mother over. “So I thought I might go into Biddeford today. I saw a used-car lot there.”
“When were you in Biddeford?” her mother asks, startling Grace.
Thinking quickly, she answers, “When Matt took me there to buy material to make the kids clothes.”
“You ought to write to them,” Marjorie says as she brings the kettle to the sink.
“I should.”
“All used-car salesmen are crooks.”
“And you know this how?”
“Everyone does,” her mother says. “Oh, by the way, there’s a letter for you on the telephone table.”
Grace picks the letter up and studies the return address. The Statler Hotel, Boston. She walks into the sitting room, slits the letter open, and reads.
Dear Grace,
I’ve wanted to write to you ever since I got on the train to travel south. I left without saying goodbye because I couldn’t. Simply could not. I hope you’ll understand.
I was hired by the Boston orchestra for several solo performances and have already been asked to travel to New York and to Chicago.
It is not my place ever to hope we will meet again.
I enjoyed every minute I was in your presence, and the memory of our last night will be with me forever.
I can’t say more than that, just as you cannot.
With deep affection and love,
Aidan Berne
(Italian accent)
In her room, Grace reads the letter half a dozen times. During the second and third readings, she dots the paper with tears. On the fourth reading, she laughs at the words Italian accent. During the fifth reading, the word love causes her to feel like a balloon leaving the earth. After the sixth reading, she folds the letter and puts it into the hatbox.
Grace stands by the outer wire fence of the used-car lot pretending to be searching for something in her purse.
“This one’s a beauty,” the salesman says to a young couple, the buyer in a long taupe coat and hat, his wife in a green wool coat and shivering. The salesman, in only a suit (a show of strength?), points to an old Ford. It’s been washed and polished, but nothing can hide the considerable rust on the front bumper, or the dent above it. He has had the car pushed so close to the wire fence that the buyers, unless they ask him to pull the car out for them, are unlikely to see the damage. Grace wants to call to them to check out the front, but she probably shouldn’t alienate the salesman. She’s here to buy a car, too.
“A young woman bought this,” the man says, “used it to go back and forth to her mother’s in Kennebunkport, and inside of six months, turned it in when her daddy, competing for her attention, bought her a Lincoln. Hardly used at all.”
But what about the owners before the young woman, if she even exists? Grace wonders. The car has to be over a decade old. No mention of them. Grace needs someone who knows cars.
She knocks, then remembers the layout. She knocks again, harder. The doctor’s car is still in the lot, indicating that he hasn’t gone skiing yet. She knocks a third time, giving it everything she’s got.
He’s dressed but hasn’t combed his hair. “Grace, are you all right?”
“I am, I’m fine,” she says quickly, “and I’m sorry to intrude on your day off. But I need advice, and I can’t think of anyone else who could help me.”
“Come in, come in. Let’s go back and get some coffee.”
“I had half an idea that you’d already be off on your skiing trip,” Grace says as they walk the corridor to the kitchen.
“I begged off. I need sleep, and I have to catch up on my reading.”
In the kitchen, he puts the water and grounds on the stove to bring to a boil. Grace removes her gloves but not her coat. “I need to buy a car. I went to the used-car lot in the middle of Biddeford and just happened to overhear a conversation between a young couple and a salesman, and I could see that he was cheating them. I wanted to warn them but I was on the other side of the fence. And I suddenly realized that a woman alone in that car lot would be viewed as an instant sale. I know enough to have them take the car from its parking place and to walk around it. To get in and look around. Even to take a test-drive. But I ought to be able to have them lift the hood and look at the works and see if it’s in decent shape. That I can’t do. I’ve never seen under the hood of any car.”
“I could teach you everything you need to know out in the parking lot. But I’m intrigued. I’d like to get a look at this sleazy salesman. I think I’ll just turn off the coffee, and we’ll go.”
“I’ll buy you coffee afterward.”
“Deal.”
“I should tell you this before we go. I found a bracelet belonging to my mother-in-law and sold it last week. I needed the money to buy the car. I told myself a story in which Merle gave the bracelet to Gene to give to me so that rightfully it was mine.”
“That’s probably pretty close to the truth.”
“No, it isn’t. Merle hated me. She would never ever have given me a piece of her jewelry. I could make the argument Gene probably inherited the contents of the house, and he would want me to have a car in order to support his children, but even that isn’t true, technically. I have seven hundred dollars in my purse.”
“Cash?” he asks, surprised.
“Yes.”
“I thought you had a bank account.”
“What was the point of putting the money in the bank if I knew I was just going to take it out again?”
“If someone stole your purse, you’d be out a car. By the way, you’re going to be my sister, and you should call me John.”
“John?” she asks. “That sounds so strange to me.”
“I wasn’t born Dr. Lighthart.”
The gleam in the salesman’s eye is brighter, having seen the Packard drive in. “What can I do for you two?” he asks as soon as Grace and John are out of the car. “Ralph Eastman,” he says, putting out his hand.
“My sister needs a car. I’m thinking of a used Buick.”
“Buick,” the salesman muses, as if trying to remember his inventory. “I’ve got a sensational mustard yellow with a black convertible top, gorgeous car. Nineteen forty. Last convertible made by Buick prewar.” He waits. No response. “And I’ve got a green Super coupe that’s a stunner.”
“How many seats in the Super coupe?” John asks the salesman.
“Two, but the trunk is good-sized.”
Grace shakes her head.
“A sedan?” the doctor asks.
“Yes, one. A navy ’forty-one. The chrome is a little pitted, but that can’t be helped around here. The sea salt.”
“Why don’t you pull her out and we’ll take a look?”
“Yes, sir.” His bluster leaking like air from a balloon, Ralph all but runs into the showroom to get the keys. When he parks the Buick in front of John and Grace, the man seems even smaller in the driver’s seat.
Grace lets John do the walk-around, the inspection under the hood, the kicking of the tires. “What’s the story on this one?” he asks the salesman.
“Bought by a twenty-two-year-old guy, who used it only seven months before he enlisted. It was kept at his mother’s house in Biddeford Pool for the duration of the war. She didn’t have a garage. When the war ended, he drove it for a while, but he didn’t like the pitting. Brought it into our lot. Very little mileage. You can see for yourself.”
“I did,” says John. “I think it’s time for a test-drive, what do you think?”
“Yes, sir. You drive, I’ll get in, and your sister here can wait inside where it’s warm.”
“No, my sister will sit in the passenger seat,” says John, “and you’ll get in back if you don’t mind.”