by Pamela Morsi
“Come on in the kitchen, Tom,” Mrs. Gilfred said to him. “You’ve been here enough that you surely know the way.”
“Yes, ma’am, I do,” he said, but he let her go first. Her gait was still hesitant, as if she was measuring every step.
Tom followed slowly as she went into the kitchen. Erica still stood by the doorway.
“Is Quint here?” he asked her.
“He’s gone to the museum with Melvin,” she answered. “Who’s running the shop?”
“I left Gus in charge,” he answered.
Directly in front of her, the concern he’d seen from across the room was clearly visible. Hoping to dispel it, he wrapped an arm around her waist and gave her a peck on the lips. He tasted liquor on her breath, an unexpected surprise.
“So you’ve been sampling the Scotch whiskey. That’s pretty wild for my Erica on a Saturday afternoon,” he teased.
She didn’t seem to see the humor in it.
“Where’s Clara?” Her tone was defensive, almost harsh. It was out of character and puzzling.
“Out in the driveway,” he answered. “Look, I don’t know what Mrs. Gilfred has said or how hard she’s tried to push this on you, but I’m not crazy. I’m not about to mess things up for us.”
Tom saw Erica’s brow furrow. “Mrs. Gilfred?” she asked. “Where have I heard that name before?”
“That’s Guffy’s name,” he answered.
“I didn’t hear it here,” she said.
Tom shrugged. “Let’s sit down and talk,” he said. “There are somethings I’ve been thinking about.”
“No,” Erica answered. “I’m not talking about anything before I meet Clara.”
He eyed his wife for a moment, and then chuckled at her choice of words. “Honey, you actually have met her,” he said. “But I’m happy to introduce you again. Besides, we probably do need to talk first in private. Guffy, we’ll be back.”
“Take all the time you need, talk it out. I want you kids to be happy with Clara. It would please me a lot.”
“We’ll talk,” Tom told the older woman. “We’re not making any promises, so don’t get your heart set on it.”
He grabbed Erica’s hand and led her out. He felt strangely young and exuberant. He was excited to be with Erica, just the two of them. The two of them and a gorgeous car. He rushed her across the porch and down the steps and didn’t stop until they were standing in the driveway next to the Buick. Parked out in bright sunshine, Clara was even more beautiful than she had been sitting in the shop. He’d waxed the paint job to a near clear-coat finish and the chrome gleamed like mirrors. He glanced over at Erica to see if she was as taken by the sight.
His wife was looking all around, everywhere but at the car. That wasn’t a good sign. But Tom was determined to show the vehicle at its best. And its best, of course, was out on the road.
“Erica, meet Clara,” he said as he opened the passenger door. “Hop in, baby, and we’ll take her for a spin.”
She hesitated for a long moment and then slid into the seat. Tom shut the door and then ran around to get behind the wheel. He put the key in the ignition and turned it over. He had to stop himself from pointing out how good the engine sounded. Erica needed to appreciate it herself, not simply to know how much he appreciated it.
He backed the car out of the narrow driveway and headed down the street. Tom glanced in her direction to see the wind blowing through her hair. He loved that feeling, but he knew some women weren’t crazy about it, so he modulated the speed, keeping a leisurely pace down the city streets.
Beside him, Erica suddenly started laughing.
“What is it?” he asked, but she just shook her head.
Tom pulled to a stop at a red light on Bandera Road. In the crosswalk at the curb an old man with a walker ignored his turn to make his way to the other side of the street for the pleasure of simply staring at Clara.
“I had a car just like that once,” he called out to them. “It was green and a hardtop, but it was just like yours.”
Tom smiled at him and looked over at Erica. She was grinning, too.
“I wish I still had that car,” the old man said.
“I wish you did, too,” Tom told him. He pulled a business card out of his pocket and gave it to Erica. “He might have friends.”
Erica bounded out of the Buick, handed it to the old man and was back in her seat before the light changed. They waved at the guy as they drove off.
Tom made his way though the streets, turning this way and that. At first he thought he was just wandering, then he realized that he had a destination in mind. As he had in his life, as soon as he figured out where he wanted to go he drove there directly. When he arrived at Woodlawn Lake he parked in the smallest, most distant lot from the clubhouse and docks. It was bereft of trees, making it the a perfect spot for private, nighttime stargazing. It wasn’t so bad on a Saturday afternoon, either.
Tom remembered the exact location of their long-ago tryst and put the Buick in that very place. He turned off the ignition, replacing the sound of the motor with the flutter of the breeze through the leaves and the distant squeals of children at play down at the lake.
He turned to his beautiful wife, attractive and desirable in jeans and a T-shirt with her ponytail slightly windblown. She was running her hands along the chrome trim on the dashboard. His eyes were drawn not to the shiny metal but to the hands, long and slim and loving hands that were so familiar to him and so dear.
“What are you thinking?” he asked her.
Erica looked up at him, her gaze so direct, so open, so contented with her life.
“Guffy says that you’re in love with Clara,” she stated.
“I am in love with Erica,” he answered. “I do love Clara, she’s a beautiful Buick. But that’s what she is, a Buick. I figured out some time ago that I want more in my life than a gorgeous car. I want my wife. I want my son. I want our family to be together. And then I want our business, our friends, our relatives. Any and all of that means more to me than this very pretty vehicle.”
“But you would like to own the car.”
Tom nodded. “I would, I admit that. And I feel like half the town has been trying to talk me into buying it.”
“I’m listening,” Erica said.
“Okay,” Tom began, sighing heavily. “There is the investment aspect of owning her. You know how I feel about investing in classic cars. But it is true that in the collection market right now, Buicks are still among the best bargains. Their prices haven’t started to rise like the costs of those muscle cars. I think that’s temporary, I think the value is going to go up. No one knows how soon or how far, but it’s going to happen. For almost no cost, except my own time, I can keep her in top shape almost indefinitely. We could sell her at any time and most likely get at least as much as we paid for her.”
Erica was nodding.
“As just an investment, however, I couldn’t justify buying her,” he said. “She might actually work better for us as an advertisement. You’ve seen for yourself how much attention she generates just rolling down the street. I can have magnetic signs made for her doors with our logo and phone number. It’s better than a billboard, because you might see it anywhere in town.”
Erica appeared to consider that thoughtfully.
“And there are also ways for a beautiful vehicle like this to pay its own way,” Tom said. “I wouldn’t want to rent it out—I think the insurance for something like that would just be prohibitive. But I could do some chauffeuring. If you had business associates in town and you needed to give them a tour of the city, what better way to do it than in a fabulous, comfortable vintage convertible?”
Erica was smiling at him now.
“And for weddings,” he said. “You know the first time I ever rode in a car like this was at a wedding. Can’t you just picture it with some tasteful strings of tin cans attached to the bumper.”
Erica laughed aloud. “I can see half the young women in this
town opting for blue-on-blue as her bridal colors.”
“You think so?”
She slid across the seat to wrap her arms around his neck. “I do think so,” she said. “It’s such a romantic automobile. Somehow it just says love and commitment and…and sex.”
Erica brought her mouth to his and the kiss was hot, passionate, luscious, tugging at his mouth. She was the aggressor again and Tom was immediately, delightedly, turned-on. He liked this change in his wife. He liked having her stroke him, seduce him. She straddled him, pressing their bodies as closely together as fabric would allow. She rocked atop him until he moaned aloud. Then she pulled her lips from his. She kissed him on his cheek, his jaw. Her teeth tugged lightly on his ear before she whispered in warm breath that raised hackles all over his body.
“Tell me that you love me.”
“I love you,” he said as she kissed his throat. “I love you,” he said as she lingered at his collarbone. “I love you,” he said as she pressed her lips to the top of his sternum. She began undoing the buttons on his shirt and moving down his chest as his “I love you” mantra continued. The soft touch of her mouth was enticing. When she moved on, the moisture of her kiss tingled in the hint of breeze. His nipples were as hard as bearings but with the sensitivity of spark plug wires.
The hair on his chest stood as taut as suspension springs, but instead of being relegated to supporting the frame they were roaring to combustion like a carburetor. When Erica unbuckled his belt and reached for the button on his jeans, he had just enough sense left to grab her hands.
“We’re in an open vehicle in a public place,” he pointed out.
“I know,” she told him. “And normally I wouldn’t say this, but can you make it quick?”
She didn’t wait for his answer as she unzipped his pants and put her head in his lap.
He was easily able to comply.
Erica repaired her makeup in the rearview mirror as best she could. Tom had gone up to the clubhouse and came back with a soda from the vending machine. She took a grateful sip.
He was looking at her in the intense, knowing way that was the hallmark of their intimacy. She felt herself blushing.
Deliberately she mustered her almost-ten-years-a-married-woman sophistication and drew it around her like a cloak.
“Well, I suppose we have to buy this car,” she said. “I only have sex with men in cars we actually own.”
Tom chuckled. “Are you sure, Erica?” he asked more seriously. “Because there are still a lot of arguments against it.”
“What arguments?”
“Well, there’s Quint’s college fund, for one. Our mortgage. Putting more money into the business. Getting a more practical car for the family, a minivan or something.”
“Quint’s college fund is a monthly automatic draw,” she said. “As is the mortgage. I like taking public transportation. And buying this car will be putting money in the business.”
“There’s one other thing I haven’t told you that may change your mind,” he said.
“What?”
“Guffy was going to give me ten percent commission on the sale,” he said. “I was hoping to use that money to buy you a new washer and dryer. The ones we have are completely shot and ready for the junkyard. If we don’t get that ten percent, it’ll be that much longer before we can afford to replace them.”
Erica looked at her husband for a long minute. “You were going to buy me a washer and dryer?”
“Well, not you so much as us,” he answered. “You may do most of the laundry, but Quint and I create most of it.”
That was certainly true.
“I’ve priced some models, but of course, I’d want you to pick the one you like best.”
“I have,” she answered. “I’ve been looking, too, and I’ve found exactly the ones I want.”
Tom nodded slowly. “But if we buy this car…” He let the obvious hang out incomplete.
“We’re buying this car, mister,” she said. “Don’t try to wiggle out of it by saying you didn’t mean to have sex here and that I led you astray.”
He was grinning again.
“And we’ll buy the washer and dryer, too,” she said. “The hospital made an error when they first calculated my pay. I’m making more than we’d budgeted for, and I’ve been putting that excess in a new savings account just for household stuff. By my next paycheck, I’ll be able to buy exactly what I want.”
“Wow, I can’t believe that,” Tom said. “That’s great.”
“Thanks.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” he said. “You’ve been keeping this to yourself all this time.”
“Are you mad?” she asked him.
“No, just a little confused. You’ve always had such a thing about honesty. Remember how mad you got at me about not sharing what I knew about Cliff and Trish’s marriage.”
“I was wrong about that,” Erica said. “People, even married people, have to be allowed to hold confidences. That’s part of having friends. If a husband or wife can’t let each other do that, it’s almost like they insist on being the only friend. It’s not right and it’s not fair.”
“I was not quite fair, either,” Tom said. “It was not a confidence I wanted to have. I should have insisted to Cliff immediately that I would not keep it for him.”
“Unlucky them,” Erica said.
Tom nodded. “And lucky us.”
“Careful, committed us,” Erica corrected. “I love you very much, Tom. It would hurt me very much if you were ever unfaithful to me. But I’m not going to look for lies. I’m going to trust you to tell me the truth.”
“I promise I will,” he said. “At least as much as I can. The big things are so obvious, it makes it easy. But it’s the little things that sometimes trip me up. I know that you’ve always been such a stickler for having everything out in the open.”
“I’ve changed my mind about that,” Erica said.
“Really?”
“Big important things really should be shared, but small secrets can sometimes add up to wonderful surprises.”
He grinned at her.
“Future view—The Bentleys,” she said. “Fifty years from now.”
“Fifty!” Tom’s jaw dropped for a moment. “Will we still be alive?”
“We can try,” Erica told him.
He was thoughtful for a long moment. “Fifty years from now, the business and the hospital and all that career stuff will be behind us. Quint will be taking care of two old, retired people.”
“True,” Erica agreed.
“He’ll be successful doing…whatever he wants to do. He’ll be married to some great woman a lot like his mama and he’ll take us for Sunday outings, since you and I won’t be able to drive anymore.”
“You’re right,” Erica agreed. “Neither of us will be able to drive. So…I guess we’ll have to push this Buick down here to the parking lot from time to time to stir up the passion we’ll still have together.”
Epilogue
THE ENTIRE STREET OF west Fair Oaks was blocked off, as were all the nearby parking lots of the school. It was a balmy seventy-seven degrees, but the floats, the marchers, the decorations all featured brilliantly white snow, frost-glistened trees and characters costumed in red fur. With a shrill whistle, the policeman waved the lead, a very businesslike patrol car, onto the parade route. The lights were flashing to warn off any errant vehicle who might not have noticed the crowds, the barricades and the dozens of officers securing the route. Behind the leader was the color guard from Fort Sam Houston, moving in the elegant solemnity expected of those representing the men and women in uniform. They carried the national flag and one for each branch of service.
The high school marching band elected to forgo the flashy capes and striped trousers they typically wore, for matching shorts and T-shirts, each head topped with a jaunty Santa cap. They played “Sleigh Ride” with enough enthusiasm that onlookers found themselves singing along.
The pug owners’ club pulled a series of minifloats in wagons, each featuring his or her pet besplendored in kingly or queenly garb. The Shriners wheeled in crazy commotion in their go-carts. There were clowns on stilts, politicians in motor cars and an army of Star Wars characters wielding light sabers.
Almost half of the parade had already headed south on Broadway when the cop waved entrant number 27, a shiny blue-on-blue 1956 Buick Roadmaster convertible with a continental kit onto the street. The vehicle was lightly festooned with silver garland and shiny stars twinkling over the dark blue fenders. Magnetic signs on the doors advertised Bentley’s Classic Car Care with the familiar logo, the address, phone number and website. Inside the vehicle four occupants waved at the crowd. In the front seat a married couple, in their early thirties, looked happy, eager and slightly harried, as would be expected of ambitious young people operating a business and raising a family.
In the backseat a wide-eyed laughing little boy sat next to a thin, frail, older woman with a crew cut as silver as the holiday decor. She was grinning as broadly as the child. Her wave was perhaps a bit shaky and she needed to rest her arm in her lap every few minutes, but she was obviously enjoying her day in the sun, riding in a beautiful car that was as familiar to her as anything in her life.
A few blocks ahead of them, seated on the rooftop of the single-floor building that housed one of the Schoenleber Medical Supply stores, Ann Marie Maddock was dressed in an elegant summer linen suit of brilliant red. If one looked closely at the silk scarf around her throat, it featured the tiniest of red, green and gold poinsettias, her only concession to the season. She watched the passing celebration with moderate interest, sipping on a glass of white wine. Every few moments she glanced up the street anxious for the sight of her daughter and grandson who were to be in the parade for the first time.
With disdain she noted the number of plump thirtyish and fortyish women in holiday T-shirts featuring reindeer, snowmen and assorted elves of several varieties. She hoped against hope that Erica had not chosen to wear something so inarguably tacky. But both her daughters had minds of their own, and fashion seemed never to enter them.
