Read Online The Red Car by Marcy Dermansky - Free Book Online Page B

his obligation to me. Or to Judy. I was married. I was not supposed to allow my feelings to be so easily hurt.
    â€œCan’t you stay?” I asked him.
    Diego shook his head ruefully. “Judy died the week quarterly reports are due. I have to put in a budget. I might have to work late tonight. I don’t know yet.”
    My carry-on bag was still in the trunk of his car. I decided not to say anything. Even if Diego and I hadn’t talked about it, I would sleep at his apartment tonight. Where else would I go? It was what I wanted to do.
    I could almost see Judy nodding. Oh, how I missed her. Now. Now, I missed her. Now.
    â€œThat is the whole point,” she said. “About being on this earth. Doing what you want to do. That is what I did. Also, you are right. You can be an idiot. I forgive you.”
    I T TURNED OUT WHAT JUDY had wanted to do was die. She had left a letter for me to find in her car.
    T HE MECHANIC SEEMED PLEASED TO see me. I did not have to introduce myself.
    â€œYou the owner of the red car?”
    I nodded and followed him from the office to the back of the garage.
    â€œHow did you know?”
    â€œThey told me you were coming today.”
    That, then, was not much of a mystery.
    I blinked when I saw Judy’s car. I felt the margaritas turn in my stomach and I wondered if I would throw up. I could taste the bile in the back of my throat, as if I had caught the vomit and pushed it back down. There I was, face-to-face with Judy’s red car. The entire left side was smashed in, the face of the car that had killed her imprinted in the metal.
    Oh, how I knew that smashed-in car. We had driven over the hills of San Francisco. This car had taken me to so many lunches, dropped me off on the rare days that I had worked late. Taken me to Marin and Sonoma, and once, a weekend in Mendocino. I had never liked this car. As a passenger, I had always felt much too low to the ground. Unsafe. Jostled. Bumped over every bump. I had never gotten past the new car smell. But I had never told Judy this, because she loved her car.
    â€œYou can’t fix it, can you?” I asked the mechanic. I wanted the answer to be no.
    â€œSure, I could,” the mechanic said. “It’s just bodywork. A lot of bodywork.”
    The mechanic had a long beard; he wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt. This reminded me of my husband, who had a short beard and owned a handful of Grateful Dead T-shirts. I averted my eyes from the skeleton on the mechanic’s T-shirt.
    â€œWon’t it cost a lot?”
    â€œInsurance is going to cover it.”
    â€œWon’t it cost as much as the car is worth?” I asked.
    â€œJust about,” the mechanic said. “But like this, sweetheart, the car is worth nothing. I fix it, you have a red car and I get a lot of money.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. I did not know why everyone was calling me sweetheart.
    â€œOkay?”
    â€œOkay, fix it, I guess,” I said.
    I had learned lessons about the value of money from my father. When I was still a child, he had explained to me over Chinese food that all wars were fought over money. I had argued passionately about the Civil War, about the emancipation of the slaves, and he had told me that slaves were worth good money, like an expensive horse or an automobile, and that the war was all about money. Nothing else. I remember the disappointment I felt. It was a lesson I did not want to learn. But, now, in the auto body shop, I was not going to throw away good money. I was not in any kind of position to do that. I would have the car repaired. I would sell it. Hans was writing a novel, too. We had to pay rent. I looked at the car. Judy’s car.
    â€œCan I sit in it?” I asked. “Just for a second?”
    He nodded. I took a seat in the passenger side, my seat. I buckled my seat belt. I remembered the last place Judy and I had gone to lunch before I left for graduate school, a touristy restaurant