by Juliana Gray
“Good afternoon,” Pepper says.
The woman holds out her hand. “You must be Miss Schuyler. My name is Annabelle Dommerich. I’m the buyer. Please, don’t get up.”
Pepper rises anyway and takes the woman’s hand. Mrs. Dommerich stands only a few inches above five feet, and Pepper is a tall girl, but for some reason they seem to meet as equals.
“I’m surprised to see you,” says Pepper. “I had the impression you wanted to remain anonymous.”
Mrs. Dommerich shrugs. “Oh, that’s just for the newspapers. Actually, I’ve been hugely curious to meet you, Miss Schuyler. You’re even more beautiful than your pictures. And look at you, blooming like a rose! When are you due?”
“February.”
“I’ve always envied women like you. When I was pregnant, I looked like a beach ball with feet.”
“I can’t imagine that.”
“It was a long time ago.” Mrs. Dommerich takes off her sunglasses to reveal a pair of large and chocolaty eyes. “The car looks beautiful.”
“Thank you. I had an expert helping me restore it.”
“You restored it yourself?” Both eyebrows rise, so elegant. “I’m impressed.”
“There was nothing else to do.”
Mrs. Dommerich turns to gaze at the car, shielding her brows with one hand. “And you found it in the shed on Cape Cod? Just like that, covered with dust? Untouched?”
“Yes. My sister-in-law’s house. It seemed to have been abandoned there.”
“Yes,” says Mrs. Dommerich. “It was.”
The grass prickles Pepper’s feet through the gaps in her sandals. Next to her, Mrs. Dommerich stands perfectly still, like she’s posing for a portrait, Woman Transfixed in a Crisp White Shirt. She talks like an American, in easy sentences, but there’s just the slightest mysterious tilt to her accent that suggests something imported, like the Chanel perfume that colors the air next to her skin. Though that skin is remarkably fresh, lit by a kind of iridescent pearl-like substance that most women spent fruitless dollars to achieve, Pepper guesses she must be in her forties, even her late forties. It’s something about her expression and her carriage, something that makes Pepper feel like an ungainly young colt, dressed like a little girl. Even considering that matronly bump that interrupts the youthful line of her figure.
At the opposite end of the courtyard, a pair of sweating men appear, dressed in businesslike wool suits above a pair of perfectly matched potbellies, neat as basketballs. One of them spots the two women and raises his hand in what Pepper’s always called a golf wave.
“There they are,” says Mrs. Dommerich. She turns back to Pepper and smiles. “I do appreciate your taking such trouble to restore her so well. How does she run?”
“Like a racehorse.”
“Good. I can almost hear that roar in my ears now. There’s no other sound like it, is there? Not like anything they make today.”
“I wouldn’t know, really. I’m not what you’d call an enthusiast.”
“Really? We’ll have to change that, then. I’ll pick you up from your hotel at seven o’clock and we’ll take her for a spin before dinner.” She holds out her hand, and Pepper, astonished, can do nothing but shake it. Mrs. Dommerich’s fingers are soft and strong and devoid of rings, except for a single gold band on the telling digit of her left hand, which Pepper has already noticed.
“Of course,” Pepper mumbles.
Mrs. Dommerich slides her sunglasses back in place and turns away.
“Wait just a moment,” says Pepper.
“Yes?”
“I’m just curious, Mrs. Dommerich. How do you already know how the engine sounds? Since it’s been locked away in an old shed all these years.”
“Oh, trust me, Miss Schuyler. I know everything about that car.”
There’s something so self-assured about her words, Pepper’s skin begins to itch, and not just the skin that stretches around the baby. The sensation sets off a chain reaction of alarm along the pathways of Pepper’s nerves: the dingling of tiny alarm bells in her ears, the tingling in the tip of her nose.
“And just how the hell do you know that, Mrs. Dommerich? If you don’t mind me asking. Why exactly would you pay all that money for this hunk of pretty metal?”
Mrs. Dommerich’s face is hidden behind those sunglasses, betraying not an ounce of visible reaction to Pepper’s impertinence. “Because, Miss Schuyler,” she says softly, “twenty-eight years ago, I drove for my life across the German border inside that car, and I left a piece of my heart inside her. And now I think it’s time to bring her home. Don’t you?” She turns away again, and as she walks across the grass, she says, over her shoulder, sounding like an elegant half-European mother: “Wear a cardigan, Miss Schuyler. It’s supposed to be cooler tonight, and I’d like to put the top down.”
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