I'm Your Girl. J.J. Murray

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СКАЧАТЬ understand your concern, I really do, but that car is safe. I wouldn’t have sold it to you otherwise. And anyway, you said you were taking it to your—”

      “I know what I said, and now I’m saying that I’m bringing it back today.”

      I can’t have that car back here, all sunny and yellow and full of Noël! Not today! “Look, it’s been sitting in the driveway for two months, I haven’t been driving it, so it’s possible—”

      “And the back windows leak.”

      And now it’s about the windows! “I told you about the back windows, and you didn’t seem concerned then. All you were concerned with was getting the car to your home because you knew you were getting a good deal.”

      “And now I’m bringing it back. Will you be there, say, around three?”

      This can’t be happening! “I know you want a safe car for your grandson. I understand that. What I don’t understand is how you’re not being a man of your word. I told you I would hold on to the check until your mechanic checked it out. I’m doing my part—”

      “I got the law on my side, young man.”

      The law? What law? “The lemon law?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Mr. Williams, that law doesn’t apply to this situation at all. That’s only for car dealerships.”

      “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

      Geez! “Can you do me a favor, Mr. Williams? Can you take the car to your mechanic first and have him check it out like you said you would, and if your mechanic, whom you obviously trust, finds major problems, then we’ll—”

      “My grandson says he doesn’t feel safe in it, and neither do I. We’ll see you at three.”

      “Sir, you’re taking the word of an eighteen-year-old driver who had difficulty finding the reverse gear during the test-drive.”

      “He was just nervous.”

      “I know he was nervous, but he was giving us all whiplash. And legally, you have the title, signed by both parties—”

      “You know that isn’t really a legal document, Mr. Browning. You had to forge your own wife’s signature!”

      I can’t catch my breath. “Because she’s…dead that’s why, and I told you why that day, and you said you understood.”

      “I don’t want any trouble, Mr. Browning, and this car has trouble written all over it.”

      I sigh. Noël would have already said “Cool, Mr. Williams, bring it back. We understand.” And Noël wouldn’t want me to sell her “baby” to anyone like Mr. Williams or his gear-stripping grandson. “Okay, Mr. Williams, bring the car back, and don’t forget to bring the title. I’ll be here waiting.”

      I turn off the phone, tossing it onto the sofa. “Unbelievable. I should have deposited that check the second I had it.”

      The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away—and on Christmas Day.

      Maybe you’ll need that car, and this is God’s way of saying—

      Don’t bring God into this.

      Oops. Sorry. I forgot. You and God aren’t speaking.

      I have never had any luck with any vehicle. I broke the grille of my mother’s AMC Spirit, pushing it out of a snowdrift two months after getting my license. A few months later, I backed my father’s Buick Regal into another car in a parking lot. The first car technically “mine” was an Oldsmobile something-or-other.

      It was an Omega. They don’t make those anymore.

      That’s why I blocked out the memory.

      The Omega died outside Dayton, Ohio, on a sunny, below-zero day. Fixed, it lasted only a few months more, finally coughing up oil in Marietta, Ohio. My next car, a Toyota Corona, purchased from a mechanic in Charleston, West Virginia, was a bucket of rust, yet it served me well, despite losing the muffler on some train tracks in Indiana and having only an AM radio and a pretzel-shaped antenna that, for some reason, would only bring in stations that had nonstop farm reports.

      “Wheat futures are looking good….”

      I still don’t know what a wheat future is.

      After selling that rust bucket to a man who planned to race it—

      He was spooky. He actually thought he could get a 350 engine in there.

      —I bought my first “brand-new” vehicle, a Nissan Sentra. It was a beautiful car until two fifth-grade boys decided to wrestle on it in the parking lot. There were a hundred other cars to choose from, and they chose mine. Two months later, I “won” a game of chicken with a pregnant deer outside of Elliott’s Creek, Virginia, denting the brand-new hood.

      She shouldn’t have hesitated.

      Two months after that during an ice storm in Boones Mill, Virginia, an ancient tree branch decided to fall on the roof of the Sentra—and the second hood—destroying forever its once aerodynamic design. I barely got a thousand for it on the trade-in for the van.

      We’re not thinking about the van today, remember?

      Right.

      A few minutes before three, Mr. Williams shows up with the Mustang, the grandson driving, Noël’s Mustang bucking like, well, a mustang. I dig the “FOR SALE” sign from the kitchen trash can, smoothing out the strips of masking tape, then go outside.

      And Mrs. Williams is with them again in…a Buick Regal? My luck.

      Life has a way of making circles.

      More like spinning wheels.

      You’re so negative.

      I’m just full of positive negativity these days.

      That made no sense.

      I walk by Mr. Williams, who rests beside the Mustang and leans heavily on a metal cane, to Mrs. Williams in the Buick. I open my wallet and take out the check, handing it to her.

      “Dry run,” she says.

      “Yeah. I guess so.” I turn to Mr. Williams. “You have the title?”

      Mr. Williams fishes in his pocket for the title, and then holds it out to me. I take the title, rolling it into a little scroll.

      Now you’ll have to go to the DMV to get that fixed.

      I can’t wait.

      You’ll have to get Noël’s name taken off it.

      I know. I’ll have to find the death certificate.

      If you sit in a DMV long enough, everyone you have ever known will eventually show up.

      Yeah, СКАЧАТЬ