The Red Car (12 page)

Funny, I thought.

It was weird to me, how rich he was. How successful. I wouldn't have guessed it. If he had not become famous, it is possible I would not have thought of him at all. Sometimes I wondered if I ever published a novel, who would remember me. Would Jonathan Beene think to himself,
I once slept with her. Had a crush on her. Paid to have sex with her, though really she wasn't worth it
. It was a stupid place to let my imagination go, but that was where it went.

I wrote a short email to my current boss, Scottie, who was
not dead, and I told him that I had gone to San Francisco at the last minute for a funeral and apologized for doing my work late and expressed my apologies if any clients had complained. Hopefully that had not happened, but I was covering my bases. I also asked if it was possible if I could take some time off, if someone could cover my shifts while I was away.

“Good girl,” Judy said.

She was back.

I was glad.

I was so glad.

I sat at Diego's kitchen table, as if glued to the seat of the chair, waiting for something. I did not know what. I had already been to see the sea lions. I was out of ideas. Was it a coincidence that I had picked a news story about Jonathan Beene? Or was it a sign, something I should follow? I felt as if Judy was telling me to follow signs. Most of my life, I had willfully ignored them. I wondered if I should take a shower. I wanted to, but the bathroom in Diego's apartment was all the way down the hall. It was a long hallway. I was having trouble getting out of the chair. A day, a day could be long, longer than anything. Diego would not be home from work for hours and hours. I knew that I should call Hans. I did not want to call Hans.

I wrote to my mother. It was easy enough to do. I did not have to get up. I should have done it sooner. I told her where I was and what had happened to Judy and when I would be coming home. I sent her Diego's phone number in case she wanted to reach me. I also left out parts. The fight I had had with Hans. The other Lea. Judy's red car. I told her that I loved her. I hit send.

“Good girl,” Judy said.

“I know,” I said. “I know that I am.”

“You suffer from a lot of doubt.”

That was also true.

I did a lot of not so good things, but somehow I did not doubt my goodness. Still, I didn't mind Judy's praise. Maybe it could be said that I had done several not so good things in just the last couple of days. I wondered if I were to track down the other Lea, if she would be happy to see me. If not on her futon, at her favorite café. I could bring my computer. I could simply go to her favorite café. It was a good one. I could go there and work on my novel. Lea would not mind.

But my computer looked at me, as if to say,
Fuck you
.

“It's true,” I said to my computer.

I was talking to my computer now.

“Follow the signs,” Judy said.

I
WALKED BACK TO THE MECHANIC'S
shop.

He was sitting at his desk. His office smelled like marijuana. Clichés, they so often proved to be true. Though most Deadheads were not mechanics. I would have avoided him if I could but he held the keys to my car.

“Why do you do this job?” I asked him.

“I am good at it,” he said.

That answer did not quite satisfy me.

“What?” he said. “I am supposed to follow the Dead? I did that, you know, and then Jerry died. I am done with that scene. I want nice things in my life. I decided a long time ago that I was done crashing on other people's couches. I am good with my hands,” he said. “I play guitar, too, but that doesn't pay for shit.”

It was unnerving to see my Deadhead mechanic in a sardonic mood. I did not think the pot was treating him well. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“I want the keys,” I said.

He took them out of his back pocket and handed them to me. I wanted this mechanic not to be angry at me. I reminded myself that he did not actually matter.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked him.

“The car fixed itself,” he said.

“I forgot about that.”

“I didn't.”

“I don't owe you any money?”

“Are you going to argue with me?”

I was not.

“I also put in a sizable quote to the insurance company,” he said.

I nodded. That made more sense.

“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”

This sounded overly formal to me, but I was saying good-bye. I didn't want the mechanic in my life anymore. He was fine. He was familiar. He somehow bugged the shit out of me. I did not owe him anything.

“Drive safe,” he said.

I went into the garage and found Judy's red car. It looked fine. The car was ten years old and had been nearly totaled in an accident but looked shiny and new. I put the keys into the ignition. I put the car in drive. I cautiously pulled out into the street.

“It won't hurt you,” Judy said.

“Okay,” I said. I wasn't sure.

“Are you going to Stanford?” she asked.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “The speech is tomorrow. I am going.”

“Good,” she said. “I am glad you are going.”

“Why did you kill yourself?” I asked her.

It was a dumb thing to ask, especially on a road that suddenly took a steep nosedive. I hit the brakes too hard and the car behind me screeched to a stop, honking his horn. I could hear a man's voice shouting at me, “Learn to drive, motherfucker.”

It was only half a mile back to Diego's apartment, straight
downhill. I barely let myself touch the gas pedal. I did not die. I parked the car in Diego's parking space. Judy did not answer my question. She did not speak when spoken to. I walked to the Mission District. looking for a place to eat. I did not go to my favorite burrito place because the line was too long. I did not go to La Cumbre with the painting of the whore on the tables because I did not want to see another ghost, run into the boyfriend who was not a boyfriend. I went to another taqueria, a place that had been my third favorite, because the line was not long. The burrito was not as good as I remembered the burritos of my youth to be. It was actually bad. Somehow, I thought this was my fault. I had picked unwisely.

“It's just a burrito,” Judy said.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, I DROVE
Judy's car to Palo Alto.

Why shouldn't I go to Stanford, sit in the back row, listen to Jonathan Beene's lecture? I was following the signs.

When necessary, it turned out that I could be competent. I could drive the red car, even on a highway. While it was admittedly difficult for me to switch lanes, once positioned in the correct lane, I found that I did not have to switch out of it. Even when the lane suddenly slowed. Or when I got stuck behind a large oil tank. I pictured disaster, a leak and then a sudden bursting into flames. I took my time. Judy's red car wanted to go fast, but I drove slowly.

“Good car,” I repeated under my breath, as if I was talking to a dog. “Good car. Good car.”

I kept the windows open. I ignored the smell.

An hour later, I pulled into the driveway of my friend Margaret's house. As far as I knew, she had not moved. Margaret had been a graduate student at Stanford in anthropology and was given a postdoc after she received her PhD to continue her research. She had lived on my hall freshman year at Haverford. When I was shunned after the Jonathan Beene scandal, she emerged and offered support. I thought she was boring at the time. She was from the Midwest. She had a steady boyfriend
from her hometown. She had hair the color of toast and wore clothes that she bought at discount stores. She studied all the time. Like everyone else at Haverford College, she was earnest and sincere. Ethical. Still, she liked me. She sent me letters when I transferred to Rutgers. She remembered my birthday. We didn't see each other much when I lived in San Francisco. She had gone to Zanzibar to do her fieldwork. She taught undergraduate classes. She wrote academic papers and then her dissertation. She worked hard.

Margaret was not expecting me and yet she did not seem all that surprised to see me either. She rubbed her eyes, staring at the red car parked in her driveway.

“Gosh,” she said. “Is that yours?”

I shrugged. “I am not sure,” I said.

“I thought you were scared of driving.”

Margaret had a good memory. Of course, we were friends. I realized it right away and this made me happy. I had known her for a long time. It turned out that my legs were shaking. My breathing was shallow. My body had worked with me, waiting to have its panic attack until the moment I got out of Judy's car.

“Oh my god, what am I doing,” Margaret was wearing striped leggings and a kitten T-shirt. She opened the door and hugged me. “Leah! Leah, Leah, Leah.”

Margaret was glad to see me. She always seemed like such an odd friend that at some point, surely, she would figure out that we had nothing in common, that she did not even like me.

“You're shaking,” she said.

“I haven't driven in a long time,” I said.

I sat down on the front step of Margaret's house and breathed. The shaking slowly stopped. Margaret sat next to
me. The sky in Palo Alto was a brilliant blue, luminescent clouds in the sky.

A woman in a minivan pulled out from the house next door. She slowed down to look at me. There was a little girl in a car seat in the back.

“Everything okay?” she asked Margaret.

Margaret nodded. “My friend Leah just drove in from San Francisco. It's the first time she's driven in years.”

I nodded.

“And the car is haunted,” I said. “Possessed, maybe. I am not sure.”

Margaret tilted her head to the side. The woman in the minivan did not hear me. She waved at Margaret and left.

“You are wearing a really nice dress,” Margaret said.

I was. I was wearing my funeral dress. I had looked at all the clothes in my carry-on bag that morning and I had not wanted to wear any of them. I did not know why. I thought I would wear the dress to Jonathan's lecture, even though it was still hours away.

“You are getting it dirty,” Margaret said.

I shrugged. The steps seemed clean.

“I have been up all night,” Margaret said. “Someone from the department had these mushrooms that he picked doing fieldwork in South America and I guess I have been tripping all night. I didn't believe anything would actually happen. Isn't that crazy?”

It did not sound like Margaret.

“It was totally weird,” Margaret said. “And fun. I actually had a brilliant idea and I have been writing like crazy. My fingers hurt. Look at them.” She held out her fingers for me to see. “Are they red?”

“They look fine,” I said.

“They do,” Margaret said, holding her hands out and looking at her fingers. “They have been my best friends, these fingers, no sleep, just dancing over the keyboard. I wish I could give them something. A present.”

“Maybe a hand massage,” I said.

“Maybe,” Margaret said.

The woman in the minivan had been right to stop. We were both a little bit off, but it was nice to see Margaret like this, so un-Margaret-like.

“I have something to tell you,” Margaret said. She actually giggled.

“What?”

“I am in love.”

“With who?”

“Do you remember Yannick?”

I did. He was the unattainable graduate student in her department. The one who Margaret wanted, half French, half black, gorgeous, who was having an affair with a married woman. He was the program darling, a genius, the star of the department.

At that moment, Yannick emerged from Margaret's house. He was also wearing a pink kitten T-shirt. Boxer shorts. He wore his hair in dreadlocks.

“Leah.” He called my name.

We had met before. I had spent a weekend in this house years ago, when I was in between apartments. I could not believe he was with Margaret or that they were wearing matching kitten T-shirts. The surprise of it all made me smile. Made me think that I never did know what could happen.

“I love those T-shirts,” I said. “Would you have some more?”

Margaret started cracking up.

“We do,” she said. Yannick also started laughing. I did not get the joke.

“It's so nice to see you,” Yannick said. “You look so pretty. I like that dress.”

It was nice that he remembered me. I was suddenly glad that Jonathan Beene's lecture had led me here, to these old friends. I looked at Margaret, worried she would be upset Yannick had praised my appearance. She seemed fine.

“Did you write me? Tell me you were coming?” Margaret asked.

I shook my head.

“But you're going to Jonathan Beene's thing?” she asked.

Margaret had taken one of my hands. Yannick the other. We walked into Margaret's house. There was a Ping-Pong table covered with books in the dining room.

“Tessa moved out,” Margaret said. “Most of the furniture was hers.”

“Do you live here?” I asked Yannick.

It occurred to me that Margaret had not written me in a long time. I had not written her. I had gone quiet after I had gotten married. I was not sure why. My life had gotten less newsworthy. It felt as if everything hinged on that one file on my computer. If it was a novel, if it was a good novel, if that would work out for me.

It was a nice house that Margaret lived in. Big rooms, plush carpeting, an enormous kitchen, even if it was not furnished in the way you would expect an almost professor to live. By now, she must have been hired. There, on the Ping-Pong
table, next to a tall stack of books, was a box full of kitten T-shirts.

“What size do you want?” Yannick asked.

“Extra large,” I said and then I reconsidered. “Large.”

Yannick handed me one and I slipped it on over my dress. The house was strangely air-conditioned and I realized I was cold.

“I am going to make coffee,” Margaret said.