The Red Car (6 page)

It seemed incomprehensible that just a few hours ago, Hans had choked me because I was going to go the funeral of my old boss who was dead. And that not long before that, we had been about to eat dinner and watch a new episode from our favorite TV show. It seemed incomprehensible that I was off
to spend two weeks in San Francisco. I could not remember what I had packed.

I did not know what I should be more upset about. That Judy was dead. That Hans had choked me. That I did not feel in control of my life. How every day happened, and then the next day, and I didn't have a greater plan. I remembered, again, that I had finished a draft of my novel. That I did have a plan. It seemed as unreal as Hans choking me. I had been thinking I might tell him my news while we were eating pad thai. This was before I had gotten the email. Instead I found myself cleaning pad thai off the hardwood floor. It was something to do, while waiting for the cab to the airport.

I decided to shut off my thoughts like I would shut my laptop computer. Click. I would give all of my attention to the French actress. I learned that she had been in a near death accident while waterskiing and had to have emergency brain surgery, but now she appeared to be perfectly fine. In the interview, she talked about her new film, the accident, her famous father and also her new album, because not only was she an actress, she had a music career beginning to take off. I had her new album. Hans had gotten it for me without my asking because he knew that I wanted it.

Hans, he could be thoughtful. He loved me.

An amplified voice called out that boarding would begin, first class and disabled passengers, passengers with children. I watched the line starting to form. I looked at my boarding pass to check my seat number. I was in row 8. That seemed like a very low number. I went to the counter. The woman looked at my ticket and told me that my ticket was first class. I could board now.

“I am not first class,” I said.

The woman smiled at me. “It can sometimes be considered a state of mind,” she said. “But your ticket is first class, so you can board the plane.”

She looked at the magazine that I was clutching to my chest. “I love her,” she said, pointing to the French actress on the cover of the magazine.

“So do I.”

“Cool,” the stewardess said, but then I remembered that the word was no longer “stewardess,” and that it was possible that she would not actually be on my flight. This was unfortunate, as I wanted her to be my friend. I wanted her to sit next to me on the flight and we could talk about French movies and I could tell her that my husband had tried to choke me when I had told him about my trip, but that that was an aberration, and that he was a very sweet man, and that in the past, more than one person had proclaimed to envy me because I had married such a sweet man.

I boarded the plane.

Row 8 was the last row in first class.

“Look at all this legroom,” I said.

Suddenly I could sense the presence of Judy, my dead boss, nodding in approval. This surprised me. I was not one to see ghosts and I did not think Judy was the type to be a ghost. She was much too practical for that.

I wondered if Diego knew that he was buying me a first class ticket. He must have. He must love that his job allowed him to do things like that. He was a manager. I had always thought that he would go back to Costa Rica and become a diplomat. I had never thought he would still be at the office.
I had forgotten about Diego. I felt excited to see him. I buckled my seat belt.

After the flight took off, I drank my complimentary glass of champagne and then I asked for another. I did not eat the meal that was offered to me, though it looked good. The idea of dinner made me think of the one that I had not eaten. The idea of dinner made me feel guilty. I wanted to turn off my thoughts. Click. I asked for and received a third glass of complimentary champagne.

“Not too much,” I heard Judy tell me, but she didn't mean I shouldn't drink that particular glass already in my hand. She meant that I simply should not drink another. And so I didn't. I drank my third glass of champagne and then I accepted the soft pillow the stewardess gave me, not the nice woman from the gate who I had hoped would be my friend, but another kind woman, and I could not remember what it was we were supposed to call them now. Cabin attendant maybe, though that was dumb, there had to be a better job title than that, which reminded me that I used to write job titles when I worked for Judy who was dead.

I wish that she hadn't died. I wished that I was going to visit San Francisco, and, at some point during my trip, I would go back to the office, and I could go out for a boozy lunch with Judy and Diego. In this imaginary lunch, they would both tell me that they envied me for pursuing my dreams while they still hadn't gotten out of the office. I would tell them about my novel and they would make a toast to me. Judy would show me her new painting, it would be hanging on the restaurant wall, and I would tell her that I loved it. I would love her painting. Under the table, Diego would tickle my knee.

“I am a little bit drunk,” I told the cabin attendant. She also looked nice. She was a black woman whose head was closely shaved. She was beautiful and I wished that she would be my friend, too.

“Perfectly okay,” she said. “As long as you don't raise your voice or make unreasonable demands.”

“I won't,” I said. “I promise.”

“I am not worried,” she said. She handed me a soft blue blanket.

“This is such a nice blanket,” I said. I rubbed the blanket to my face.

“Maybe you should go to sleep,” my cabin attendant said, and I realized I didn't want her to be my friend. I wanted her to be my mother. I had not yet told my mother that I was on a flight to San Francisco. It had all happened so quickly and I had not thought to call her. I had not invited her to my wedding. It had been a civil service at City Hall. I hoped that the plane would not crash. I could imagine my mother, who watched the news every night while eating dinner and then again before going to bed. She would watch the story about the plane crash and she would feel horrible, thinking about the friends and family of everyone who had died, the thought never occurring to her that I had also died. Somehow, the shock of it, when they announced the passenger list, would make it worse.

The beautiful cabin attendant knelt down at my seat and pressed a button. “Tell me when to stop,” she said as I went from vertical to horizontal.

“Go all the way,” I murmured.

My seat had turned into a bed. It felt more comfortable than
my bed at home. The cabin attendant smoothed the blanket over me and rearranged my pillow.

“Is this how you treat everyone in first class?” I asked. My eyes were closed. I had this wish, for the black woman with the close-shaved head to kiss me on my forehead and wish me good night. I don't think she did, but I felt something. I felt a kiss on my forehead. It wasn't real, but it also was. Maybe it was from Hans, but I didn't think so. He had called the taxi that had seen me off, even gone to the ATM himself to take money out from our joint account so that I could pay for the taxi, and then apologized again and again. But I knew that deep down he was still mad at me for leaving. The kiss could have come from my mother, but I didn't think so. She was watching the news or maybe she was walking the dog.

Still, my eyes closed, almost asleep, I knew that someone had kissed my forehead, had wished me a good night's sleep.

Diego, maybe.

Or Judy, who was dead.

How I wished she hadn't died.

D
IEGO PICKED ME UP AT
the airport.

He wrapped me in his arms. He kissed me on the lips. He was wearing a black suit and was almost ten years older than the last time I saw him, but he still looked like a boy to me.

“Leah,” he said.

I realized that the kiss wasn't a kiss, like a real kiss, because this was different. This was about death, about grief.

“You shouldn't always believe the things you tell yourself,” Judy said.

Judy, there she was again. Talking to me. I did not understand it. I could hear the timbre of her voice, the inflection, but, of course, no one else could hear her. And I didn't actually believe that she was actually talking to me. For years, when I started graduate school, and then, when I moved to New York, I could hear Judy talking to me, giving me advice, taking note of my decisions and offering her approval. Her disapproval. But it stopped once I had gotten married. I gradually stopped sending her emails and I could not hear her voice. She was gone. The stupid thing was that it was not until after I learned that she had died that I realized that I missed her.

“Pretty stupid,” Judy observed.

“Do you have anything to wear to the funeral?” Diego asked me.

I shook my head.

I had forgotten to pack funeral clothes.

I did have breakfast in the airport, waiting for Diego, so at least that was taken care of.

“We have time to go shopping,” he said.

I very much did not want to go shopping, but I didn't want to disagree with Diego, because he knew more about certain things than I did, and he also looked like a male model, especially in his suit, and I wanted to look good, too, so that he would not be ashamed of me.

“Did you check a bag?” he asked.

I shook my head. I had only my knapsack and a small carry-on.

“Good.” Diego approved. “We have more time.”

Diego drove us to Macy's on Union Square. He used valet parking and he took us directly to a special counter where he told a salesgirl that I needed a black dress. “She needs to wear it a funeral, today,” he said. “So there is no time for alterations. The dress should also be nice,” he added. “For a party.”

“I know just the thing,” the salesgirl said, eyeing me up and down.

We sat down in the velvet armchairs in the lounge of the dressing room and we waited. This did not approximate any experience I had ever had shopping before.

“What's wrong?” Diego asked.

“How can you tell?”

Diego shrugged. “Something about how you are sitting. Your shoulders look funny.”

I sat up straight.

“I told Hans I would call him when we got in, let him know I arrived safely.”

“He would find out if you hadn't,” Diego said, reminding me of my mother. “It would be on the news.”

I nodded. Still, I had told Hans I would call him. It was 2001, a new millennium. Cell phones were no longer new. Still, I did not have one.

“I promised,” I said.

Diego reached into the pocket of his black suit and gave me his cell phone. “Call him,” he said, and I was grateful, even though I did not want to talk to Hans. I had barely been away, but I had promised that I would.

He answered on the first ring.

“It's me,” I said.

“Hi, you,” he said.

There was a silence.

“I had an amazing flight,” I told him. “I flew first class and I slept through the entire trip.”

I had been disappointed when I woke up to find out that we were ready to land. I felt like I had missed out.

“I was worried,” Hans said. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” I said, looking at Diego who was almost studiously not watching me. The salesgirl entered the dressing room, holding a stack of black dresses.

“I have to go,” I said. “I am trying on dresses for the funeral.”

“Did you say you flew first class?”

“Let's start with this dress,” the salesgirl said.

I stood up to look at it, snapping the cell phone shut. I realized that I had not said good-bye to Hans. I could call him again, say, “Sorry, I forgot to say good-bye,” but that seemed
even worse than what I had just done, which I realized was not good, so I turned my attention back to the salesgirl and the dress she was holding.

I loved it right away. It was sleeveless, simple, something Audrey Hepburn would have worn in
Breakfast at Tiffany's
.

I took the dress behind the curtain and tried it on. It fit. I did not look at myself in the mirror because I had a problem with looking at myself in the mirror, but I knew that the dress was expensive and beautiful, and so there was a possibility that I looked beautiful, too.

I could not reach the back zipper.

I stepped out of the changing room.

“That is perfect,” Diego said. Without my asking, he stepped forward and zipped me up.

“I have the perfect sweater to go with it,” the salesgirl said.

She disappeared and then reappeared with a wraparound black sweater, which she draped over my shoulders. It had black floral edging. We would be going from Macy's straight to the funeral.

“Good,” Diego said, rubbing his hands together. “You look beautiful. Could we cut the tags off?”

I had to step out of my dress for the salesgirl to remove the tags to my new dress, which I did, and then I paid for my outfit. I had wondered if Diego would pay for my clothes or if perhaps the office would, but as that did not seem forthcoming, I gave the helpful woman my credit card.

I felt different riding the escalator out of Macy's, stepping into Diego's expensive car, buckling my seat belt. I felt like an alternate version of myself and this was the person I would be at Judy's funeral.

D
IEGO DROVE TO MARIN.

We didn't talk. I was happy about this.

I looked out the window as we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, thinking about Hans waking up in our apartment without me, making a pot of French press coffee, using too much coffee, and later pouring the grinds into the sink and then not rinsing the sink, and then I turned off the thought and I looked at the water beneath me. I loved it here. I had walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, but only once. Maybe I could do it again. I didn't know. It was a possibility.

Judy's service was held in a small red barn. I had not thought about it, not until now, but I realized how special it was that Judy even had a funeral at all. Her family was all on the East Coast, from a suburb outside of Philadelphia. She had an older sister she used to talk about bitterly, and elderly parents that she used to mock, telling me about her less than pleasant yearly visits back home. If her parents were still alive, they would be too old to fly. So if her family was there and her service was here, I wondered who would mourn for her. I wondered if I had a right to mourn Judy.