Dumb Luck (11 page)

“You got a few things to learn,” he said. “But
I'll get you up to speed.”

Another car had pulled in then and my dad walked away toward the new arrival. Despite his mild criticism, I felt good. Yep. I sold my first car and I felt like I had actually helped someone out. It felt okay.

chapter
twentytwo

I sold
one more car that first week. One. To an elderly
man who was very hard of hearing. I didn't really
sell it to him. He saw the Dodge truck on
the lot and it was a deep shade of blue that he liked.

“That's the truck of my dreams,” he said before I could utter one word of information about the three-year-old vehicle. “I'll take it.”

The man said his name was Farley and that he wanted to pay cash. We went inside and my dad coached me through the paperwork. He got mad at me a couple of times because my writing was sloppy and I was bad at taking directions. Farley looked at me in a concerned way but didn't say anything.

Finally, the paperwork was done and my dad went out to greet another customer. I was to finish up with Farley.

“Sorry that took so long,” I said to him.

He waved a hand. “I've got all the time in the world since my wife died. That man your father?”

“Yep. And my boss.”

“That's a tough one.”

I nodded. Things had started out well but I could feel tension mounting after Carew was fired. Kevin had been Carew's friend and he resented my intrusion. “I'm just learning the ropes,” I told Farley. “I think I'll be fine.” As I was talking to him, he studied my face like he was genuinely worried about me and I wondered why. That's when I realized he reminded me of my grandfather, who I had not seen in at least ten years.

“Well, I guess I need to pay you,” he said, shifting the subject and standing up to reach into his pocket.

I handed him the sales sheet with the full amount and he put on his glasses and squinted at it. He pulled out a thick wad of bills and started peeling hundreds off of it. I'd never seen so much cash in one place and it made me think of my own fortune—what it would look like if it was sitting in a pile as real cash and not just a number in a bank account. There was a deep furrow in Farley's brow as he pulled off one bill at a time and began to pile them on the desk. “It's my wife's money, really. Life insurance. It was her idea, not mine. About me treating myself to a new truck, I mean.”

“I'm sorry,” I said again.

“Well, I miss her. She said that I should buy something I'd always wanted with the insurance money when she died. She said I'd feel better.” He stalled in his count for a second and then continued piling the bills. “But I don't. I like the truck and it's one I always wanted but could never afford. But it's not something I'm going to enjoy without her around.”

I didn't know what to say. He finished stacking the bills and tidied the pile. “There,” he said. “That should about do it. You should count it yourself.”

But I didn't want to do that. “No. It's good.”

I handed him the keys to the truck and he let out a deep sigh. “Well, at least I have the truck,” he said and tried to smile.

I walked him out to his new vehicle and handed him my card. He looked at it like I'd given him a gift. “Still new at this job, eh?”

I nodded.

He held out his hand and I shook it. “You're a hell of a car salesman, bud,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Farley drove off and left me feeling oddly alone and abandoned.

When my dad came in, he saw the cash on the desk and smiled. “Good work, son,” he said. But it was the last kind thing he said to me that day.

The rest of the afternoon was consumed with phone calls and what my dad called “complications.” Sold cars that were giving customers trouble. A problem with the bank. Property taxes due. Car repair bills for clunkers being reconditioned for resale. On and on it went. I was on the sidelines but it wasn't fun to watch.

I didn't go to school at all that week. I hadn't told Carver that I had actually dropped out. But it was over, I knew that.

Kayla stopped by
the car lot on Wednesday after school and let on
that everything was okay with her, but she seemed nervous
around my dad and apologized for coming to see me
at work. “Come any time,” I said as she was
leaving, but that made my father frown. That damn frown
of his was becoming awfully familiar.

The next day, Taylor picked me up after work and Kevin's jaw dropped nearly to the ground as he watched me get in her car. She gave me a present: a driver's handbook. “Brandon, you need to learn to drive. Study this. I'll coach you.” There was that word again. “You pass this written test and you get a learner's permit. I'll pick the car you need and you'll be able to drive it as long as a licensed driver is along. That would be me. Or whomever you decide to date. Just make sure she has a license. But first we need to teach you how to kiss.”

Taylor was always in charge and always full of surprises. By the time she dropped me off at home, I was rather blissed-out by the kissing lesson, but she insisted it was just that, a lesson and nothing more. “Learning to drive is just like learning to kiss,” she said. This made absolutely no sense to me—but who was I to disagree? She gave me one final peck on the cheek and then slapped the book in my hand. “Read the damn book. Over and over. There will be a quiz the next time I see you. And I think you should call Chelsea. She's been asking about you.”

My mom seemed rather happy
when I arrived home but didn't pay much attention to
me, just said there was food as usual in the
fridge and that my dad would be home quite late
that night. No surprise on either front. But she seemed more distant, and happier than usual.

I ate and retreated to my room—my fantasy world—to check text messages and e-mails. I had changed e-mail addresses and learned to filter out the unsolicited mail, but enjoyed those flirtatious messages from girls and women who considered themselves my friends, even though we'd never met. My liquor supply had been replenished and I'd sip a bit and then write an e-mail or have a live online chat with some of my favorite “friends.” I knew I was wandering into a weird little fantasy world, but it was a world seemingly of my own creation and I was sure no harm would come of it.

By the time I was headed for bed, though, the bliss of the kissing lesson and the evening of online flirting began to wear off and I found myself thinking of Farley and the sadness in him over the loss of his wife. The even sadder part was thinking of him owning the truck of his dreams but no one to share it with. And that made me think of my grandfather, also a widower, who I didn't even know how to contact.

And then I had this weird vision of me—maybe it was the booze—but it was so real. I saw me as an old man, living alone in a big fancy house somewhere on an island with palm trees and warm breezes. But I was all alone and I was the saddest person in the world.

chapter
twentythree

My dad insisted I work on Saturday and that sucked. Worse yet, I sold two fairly expensive cars, allowing him to say, “See, you put in that extra effort and it pays off.” But nothing really paid off for me. There was no salary, it was explained, because I was a partner. No longer a silent, but an active partner. “So the better the company does, the more profit will be there for both of us.”

But it was all wrong. Selling cars was not my life's work. By Saturday evening I was tired and sullen. I missed seeing other kids at school. I had to admit I missed some things about school. Not the work. Just the whole scene of being with people more or less my own age. And now that I was selling cars with my father, I had absolutely no sense of my own future. (Other than ending up as that sad old man in a posh house on an island.)

Sometimes when I went home, I would check my investments online—the ones set up for me by Les Cranmore, who I now dubbed “Less is More” because it turned out that mutual funds he had invested in had gone up in value by nearly two percent in the last couple of weeks. I discovered that this amounted to nearly $50,000. I was pretty sure this had to be wrong but I pulled out a calculator and went over the numbers. My money had made more money and I hadn't done a damn thing. I hadn't lifted a finger. So why the hell was I selling used cars?

That night I took Chelsea out on a date. Kind of a last-minute thing. I phoned her cell and she answered. I actually think she was already on a date somewhere with a guy but she didn't let on. Whoever he was got ditched in favor of me because Chelsea was at my door within a half hour. She was alone in her father's Audi and I could tell she'd been drinking.

When she kissed me, I tried to kiss her the way that Taylor had taught me and realized it wasn't quite the same feeling for me. When it came to kissing, Taylor was like an
A
-plus and Chelsea was a
B
-minus. But I didn't let on. Instead, I took a swig from the bottle of wine Chelsea had in her front seat. “Don't you know, you're not supposed to drink and drive,” I told her, only half seriously. “It's in the driver's manual.”

“Then I'll drive and you drink,” she said as we pulled away. “Where to?”

“The Dome,” I said. It was a nightclub near downtown.

“They won't let me in,” she said. I was old enough and had my
ID
but Chelsea was a year younger and not old enough to legally drink or be allowed into bars.

“Yes, they will,” I said. Taylor had coached me exactly how to approach the doorman and how much to offer. I took another slug of wine and smiled a big shit-eating smile.

We got in without a problem and I bought us some more drinks and we danced to the music, which was so loud we couldn't possibly have a conversation with each other. This was fine since neither one of us was great at conversations and we really didn't have that much in common. Chelsea took some pictures with her cell phone and before the evening was out, they were being circulated to her friends from school and appearing on Facebook and beyond. “It's all about social media,” is the way Chelsea explained it. And I had kind of bought into Taylor's way of seeing the world. Buzz. Be cool. Look cool. Look uninterested. Be seen in the right place with the right people. That was the road toward adding the fame to the fortune.

Before the evening was out, we were both getting text messages from people on our phones about how cool it was that we were out on the town and how everyone wished they were us. It was late and I was starting to get tired, and I looked up from the screen on my phone at Chelsea. Yes, this girl was hot. No girl I knew was as sexy as she was—except, maybe, for Taylor. But here I was, sitting across the table from her. Yet it was like she was a million miles away. We'd both been sitting there for over a half-hour, communicating with people who weren't here and it was like we were not really with each other. How crazy is that?

That's when I sent a text to Kayla:
HOW R U?

A few seconds passed and she was there:
I'M OK. HOWZ UR DATE W/ CHELSEA? :(

Yeah, I guess everyone
knew. But it was all a bit of a sham.
There was no real chemistry between Chelsea and me.
ok,
I answered.

JUST OKAY?

YUP, NOTHING SPECIAL.

:)
,
was her reply.

Taylor was trying to get through to talk to me on my cell but I didn't answer. It was too hard to hear and I didn't want to take any more advice from Taylor right now. Or maybe she was jealous. It was just all too weird.

When Chelsea let out an exasperated exhale at the next call coming in, I said, “Let's call it a night.” I felt exhausted.

She nodded. I took her hand and led her to the door. A guy who had been gawking at her asked her if she would dance with him, but she said no. He gave me a dirty look and I gave him the unaffected, aloof, cool look Taylor had coached me on so well. It seemed to do the job. As we walked to the car, Chelsea leaned slightly onto me and she smiled. I liked the way I felt just then. A beautiful girl on my arm, out late at night downtown. The world was an amazing place.

We passed a couple of drunken guys taking a piss against the window of a Gap store. They said something rude to Chelsea but we kept on walking. I was not in knight-in-shining-armor mode nor was I meant to be that. I would just use the tools Taylor had taught me and they would serve me well. Cool. Aloof. Unaffected. Let the boys piss on the windows and be a little vulgar around my girl. Who cares?

I should have been concerned about Chelsea driving but I wasn't. She had a hard time getting the car out of the parking space but drove slowly and carefully, if a bit erratically, back to her house, all the while telling me how much she liked me and that I was “different” from the rest. I think she meant that I wasn't constantly pawing at her body, although the temptation was certainly there. I wasn't sure why we were in her driveway and not mine when she turned off the car.

“What's up?” I asked.

“My parents are gone for the weekend. You can stay.”

A flood of images went through my head. Wild images. But then I discovered I was shaking my head no. “I gotta get up early in the morning. Something I promised.”

“Please?” she cooed so softly and in such a sexy voice that I almost gave in.

“No,” I said. “Sorry. It's important. I can walk home from here. Let me get you to your door.”

What a gentleman I'd become. It shocked even me. But when I got Chelsea to her door and kissed her, she went playfully aggressive and tried to drag me into her house. I resisted as best I could, and eventually said goodbye and made her close the door.

It wasn't a long walk to my house but my mind was racing the whole while. I was both excited and confused. Sure, I'd just gone along for the ride tonight. I had the pretty girl, had the drinks, bribed our way into a club, sat back as the world watched us from afar as if we were celebrities, had the girl offer to have me stay the night. Who was writing this movie script? Whoever it was, I sure didn't want them to stop.

There were voices shouting inside my brain, telling me that I had arrived. It was all good. It was time to move forward. Take charge of my life. I was eighteen, not thirteen. Every part of that seemed exhilarating, but also somewhat frightening.

When I stopped at the big maple tree in front of my house and looked at the streetlight through the branches, I was feeling a confidence I had never felt before.

But by the time I quietly entered my old house and walked up the creaky stairs to my bedroom and heard my mother's voice, I lost every ounce of that confidence. She was standing in the doorway of her bedroom and had heard me come in. “Everything okay, Brandy?” She hadn't called me that since I was a kid.

“Yeah, Mom. It's all good.”

“How was your date?”

“It was really nice,” I said nonchalantly and then slipped into my room and fell into bed.