The Red Car

by Marcy Dermansky

  I hated to fight. She knew that, Judy. I shook my head. The waiter returned to my table, asked if I needed anything else. I ordered the tiramisu.

  I CALLED THE MECHANIC FROM A pay phone in the back of the café.

  “Something strange is happening with the car,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, the car fixed itself.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Fixed. The body of the car has, essentially, regenerated itself.”

  “I don’t know what you are saying.”

  “The smashed door. The metal was like putty, like I was working with clay. The car is fixed. I painted the door. The tail light fixed itself. Car looks as good as new.”

  “That is impossible.”

  “I agree,” the mechanic said. “But it is also true. So I’ll try to sell it?”

  I was not sure. Maybe I wanted to see it again after all.

  “I might want to see it,” I said.

  “It’s a car miracle,” he said.

  I decided. “I’ll come see it.”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “North Beach,” I said.

  “I tell you what,” he said. “I want to drive this thing. See how it feels. I’ll pick you up.”

  I gave him the address of my café.

  “See you soon.”

  It seemed like an okay idea. I liked waking up and not knowing what would happen. First, the sea lions. Tiramisu. Now a car that had regenerated

  “I loved that car,” Judy said.

  “But you died in it, Judy. You died in that car.”

  “Since when are you superstitious?”

  She had me. But she was also wrong. There was something called karma. A car that she had died in, that had to be bad karma.

  “Have an open mind,” Judy said.

  At least we were not fighting.

  WE DROVE FROM ONE END of the city to the other. I had my seat belt on. I sat in the passenger seat. I had a driver’s license but it had been years since I had driven. We drove through Golden Gate Park. We drove past the buffalo. We drove all the way to the ocean and parked. I hoped that the mechanic understood that none of this was romantic.

  We walked to the edge of a cliff and looked out at the scenery. I stepped up to the edge. Hans was scared of heights. If I was with him, he would have asked me to take a step back. We had had fights before, loud yelling screaming fights, in otherwise idyllic places, when I would get too close to the edge. It was not like I was ever going to fall off a cliff.

  I looked at the ocean.

  Sea lions. Ocean views. It was so beautiful here, but I had left San Francisco and it was no longer my home. I really needed to call my mother. I didn’t want her to worry about me.

  “It feels good,” the mechanic said, startling me. “Your car. A little heavy on the gas.”

  I had forgotten about the car. My brain was holding on to small bits of information. I had forgotten about the mechanic.

  “Can you change that?” I asked him.

  “Nope,” the mechanic said. “This car is built to go fast.”

  “But you think it’s safe now?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  I did not know what I meant. “Like.” I searched for the words. “The car won’t spontaneously combust on the middle of a highway?” I asked. “Or start losing parts. A tire falling off while I’m on the highway. Or the door. The steering wheel coming loose in my hands. Like a bad dream. Only real.”

  The mechanic looked at me, confused.

  “It’s a good car,” he said.

  I looked at the ocean. It seemed impossible that Judy could be killed and that the machine that had killed her could come out unscathed. It had failed in its job to protect her. It was not a car. It was an instrument of death. That was what it was, exactly.

  “But that is what I wanted,” Judy told me. “You can’t blame the car.”

  The mechanic leaned over and tried to kiss me.

  I took a step away. I realized I was in a high place. I could actually fall. I sadly shook my head. It seemed unfair. After Lea. After Diego. But I did not want to kiss the mechanic.

  “A guy has to try,” he said.

  “No, you don’t,” I said quietly.

  I looked at the view. I took a deep breath. I realized that I had not done my job yet that day. I had not picked the news.

  “Go do your job,” Judy said.

  I was glad that the voice of Judy was still prudent. Focusing on the small things. She did not want me to fall off a cliff.

  “I am on your side,” Judy said.

  Earlier that day, she had wanted to fight.

  “I have to go,” I told the mechanic. I felt sympathetic toward the mechanic. He had been kind to me.

  “It’s a nice view,” he said.

  “I still have to go.”

  “You still want to sell the car?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Insurance will pay for the repairs. I submitted the claim,” he said.

  “That’s good,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Okay then.”

  I nodded. Something had changed. The mechanic. Maybe he seemed angry. I wanted to leave.

  “You want to drive?” he asked me.

  “It’s been a long time,” I said.

  We walked back to the car. It was my red car, restored, a present from the dead. I got behind the wheel. I hoped for a moment of epiphany: a sense of empowerment, driving my red car though San Francisco. The car, though, it was heavy on the gas. This time, I noticed the smell. Judy’s flowery perfume. It smelled like Judy. Though earlier I had been fine as a passenger, in the driver’s seat, I felt as if I could not breathe. The feeling came over me suddenly. I realized I was driving too fast. I was afraid.

  “Pull over,” the mechanic said.

  He could see right away that I was in trouble, gripped with terror, my foot pressed on the gas. I could kill us both but that wasn’t what I wanted to do.

  “Right now,” the mechanic said, his voice firm. “Signal and pull over. It’s safe. You don’t even have to look. No one is there. Trust me.”

  I did what he said. I rushed out of the car and took deep breaths. The last thing I wanted to do was throw up, there on the sidewalk.

  “I am okay,” I said. I felt embarrassed. Inexplicably miserable. I walked around to the passenger side and got back into Judy’s red car.

  “I am going to take this baby back to the shop,” the mechanic said. “I’ll drive you back to where you are staying.”

  I nodded. “Judy died in this car,” I said. “The car wanted to kill her. It is not a good car. It is a murderer.”

  “Sweetheart, that sounds a little bit outlandish to me,” the mechanic said.

  “This car had it out for her from the start.”

  “It’s just a car.”

  “I don’t know.” Saying them out loud, the words sounded outlandish to me, too. “I don’t think so.”

  I waited for Judy to say something, but she held back. The mechanic drove the car back to the shop. The joy of driving, it was gone. I did not look out the window. Whatever we passed, the Victorian houses, the hippies on Haight Street, the streetcars on Market Street, I did not see it.

  “I would drive the car to where you are staying and give you the keys, but I don’t think you can drive it.”

  I wanted to disagree with him. I wanted to be all done with this mechanic, but he was right. Anyway, his shop was close to Diego’s apartment.

  “Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?” he asked, when he pulled up to the curb.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Sorry.”

  I didn’t feel right. I still felt whatever I felt. I had my window open wide, letting out the bad air, but it didn’t make a difference. Like there was a toxic gas filling the interior and I couldn’t breathe. The mechanic was unaffected. My leg shook nervously.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Yo
u don’t have to go out with me. You don’t have to sweat it.”

  I managed to laugh. I sort of liked it, that the mechanic still wanted to go out with me. That he wasn’t angry. It was just that I couldn’t breathe properly.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I got out of the car, unsteady on my feet. The earth was unsteady; the piece of land in which I stood was on a steep angle. San Francisco and its hills. I actually lost my footing and fell, landing on my ass. It was embarrassing. I hated falling. I got back up. I shrugged as if I was not embarrassed. I looked at the ground.

  “You take it easy,” the mechanic said.

  He drove off in Judy’s car. My car. I owned that red car. Maybe Judy hadn’t wanted to die. Maybe the car had wanted to kill her.

  “Ridiculous,” Judy said.

  I had read her letter only once but the words stayed with me. She had wanted to die. The car listened to her thoughts, complied with her wishes. Maybe I had been reading too many Haruki Murakami novels. I let myself into Diego’s apartment and sank down to the floor. I wished that Diego had a cat. I would have given anything at that moment to pet a cat.

  I DID MY TELECOMMUTING JOB.

  It was ingrained in me, the desire not to get in trouble. I was three hours late, and so with the time difference, six hours late, but I would probably get away with it. I picked news stories, fixed headlines. There were things happening in the world. Everything I knew, I knew from my job. I knew about the pharmaceuticals market. I knew if stocks were up or down. I knew if it was football season or baseball. I knew the top film at the box office each week and what was happening in the Middle East. It was a good job. Today, opening the feed for finance, I picked a story about Jonathan Beene, founder of the hot tech crowdsourcing company currently changing the state of microfinancing. He was giving a speech at Stanford.

  Funny, I thought.

  It was weird to me, how rich he was. How successful. I wouldn’t have guessed it. If he had not become famous, it is possible I would not have thought of him at all. Sometimes I wondered if I ever published a novel, who would remember me. Would Jonathan Beene think to himself, I once slept with her. Had a crush on her. Paid to have sex with her, though really she wasn’t worth it. It was a stupid place to let my imagination go, but that was where it went.

  I wrote a short email to my current boss, Scottie, who was not dead, and I told him that I had gone to San Francisco at the last minute for a funeral and apologized for doing my work late and expressed my apologies if any clients had complained. Hopefully that had not happened, but I was covering my bases. I also asked if it was possible if I could take some time off, if someone could cover my shifts while I was away.

  “Good girl,” Judy said.

  She was back.

  I was glad.

  I was so glad.

  I sat at Diego’s kitchen table, as if glued to the seat of the chair, waiting for something. I did not know what. I had already been to see the sea lions. I was out of ideas. Was it a coincidence that I had picked a news story about Jonathan Beene? Or was it a sign, something I should follow? I felt as if Judy was telling me to follow signs. Most of my life, I had willfully ignored them. I wondered if I should take a shower. I wanted to, but the bathroom in Diego’s apartment was all the way down the hall. It was a long hallway. I was having trouble getting out of the chair. A day, a day could be long, longer than anything. Diego would not be home from work for hours and hours. I knew that I should call Hans. I did not want to call Hans.

  I wrote to my mother. It was easy enough to do. I did not have to get up. I should have done it sooner. I told her where I was and what had happened to Judy and when I would be coming home. I sent her Diego’s phone number in case she wanted to reach me. I also left out parts. The fight I had had with Hans. The other Lea. Judy’s red car. I told her that I loved her. I hit send.

  “Good girl,” Judy said.

  “I know,” I said. “I know that I am.”

  “You suffer from a lot of doubt.”

  That was also true.

  I did a lot of not so good things, but somehow I did not doubt my goodness. Still, I didn’t mind Judy’s praise. Maybe it could be said that I had done several not so good things in just the last couple of days. I wondered if I were to track down the other Lea, if she would be happy to see me. If not on her futon, at her favorite café. I could bring my computer. I could simply go to her favorite café. It was a good one. I could go there and work on my novel. Lea would not mind.

  But my computer looked at me, as if to say, Fuck you.

  “It’s true,” I said to my computer.

  I was talking to my computer now.

  “Follow the signs,” Judy said.

  I WALKED BACK TO THE MECHANIC’S shop.

  He was sitting at his desk. His office smelled like marijuana. Clichés, they so often proved to be true. Though most Deadheads were not mechanics. I would have avoided him if I could but he held the keys to my car.

  “Why do you do this job?” I asked him.

  “I am good at it,” he said.

  That answer did not quite satisfy me.

  “What?” he said. “I am supposed to follow the Dead? I did that, you know, and then Jerry died. I am done with that scene. I want nice things in my life. I decided a long time ago that I was done crashing on other people’s couches. I am good with my hands,” he said. “I play guitar, too, but that doesn’t pay for shit.”

  It was unnerving to see my Deadhead mechanic in a sardonic mood. I did not think the pot was treating him well. “Why are you here?” he asked.

  “I want the keys,” I said.

  He took them out of his back pocket and handed them to me. I wanted this mechanic not to be angry at me. I reminded myself that he did not actually matter.

  “How much do I owe you?” I asked him.

  “The car fixed itself,” he said.

  “I forgot about that.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I don’t owe you any money?”

  “Are you going to argue with me?”

  I was not.

  “I also put in a sizable quote to the insurance company,” he said.

  I nodded. That made more sense.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”

  This sounded overly formal to me, but I was saying good-bye. I didn’t want the mechanic in my life anymore. He was fine. He was familiar. He somehow bugged the shit out of me. I did not owe him anything.

  “Drive safe,” he said.

  I went into the garage and found Judy’s red car. It looked fine. The car was ten years old and had been nearly totaled in an accident but looked shiny and new. I put the keys into the ignition. I put the car in drive. I cautiously pulled out into the street.

  “It won’t hurt you,” Judy said.

  “Okay,” I said. I wasn’t sure.

  “Are you going to Stanford?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “The speech is tomorrow. I am going.”

  “Good,” she said. “I am glad you are going.”

  “Why did you kill yourself?” I asked her.

  It was a dumb thing to ask, especially on a road that suddenly took a steep nosedive. I hit the brakes too hard and the car behind me screeched to a stop, honking his horn. I could hear a man’s voice shouting at me, “Learn to drive, motherfucker.”

  It was only half a mile back to Diego’s apartment, straight downhill. I barely let myself touch the gas pedal. I did not die. I parked the car in Diego’s parking space. Judy did not answer my question. She did not speak when spoken to. I walked to the Mission District. looking for a place to eat. I did not go to my favorite burrito place because the line was too long. I did not go to La Cumbre with the painting of the whore on the tables because I did not want to see another ghost, run into the boyfriend who was not a boyfriend. I went to another taqueria, a place that had been my third favorite, because the line was not long. The burrito was not as good as I remembered the burritos of my yo
uth to be. It was actually bad. Somehow, I thought this was my fault. I had picked unwisely.

  “It’s just a burrito,” Judy said.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I DROVE Judy’s car to Palo Alto.

  Why shouldn’t I go to Stanford, sit in the back row, listen to Jonathan Beene’s lecture? I was following the signs.

  When necessary, it turned out that I could be competent. I could drive the red car, even on a highway. While it was admittedly difficult for me to switch lanes, once positioned in the correct lane, I found that I did not have to switch out of it. Even when the lane suddenly slowed. Or when I got stuck behind a large oil tank. I pictured disaster, a leak and then a sudden bursting into flames. I took my time. Judy’s red car wanted to go fast, but I drove slowly.

  “Good car,” I repeated under my breath, as if I was talking to a dog. “Good car. Good car.”

  I kept the windows open. I ignored the smell.

  An hour later, I pulled into the driveway of my friend Margaret’s house. As far as I knew, she had not moved. Margaret had been a graduate student at Stanford in anthropology and was given a postdoc after she received her PhD to continue her research. She had lived on my hall freshman year at Haverford. When I was shunned after the Jonathan Beene scandal, she emerged and offered support. I thought she was boring at the time. She was from the Midwest. She had a steady boyfriend from her hometown. She had hair the color of toast and wore clothes that she bought at discount stores. She studied all the time. Like everyone else at Haverford College, she was earnest and sincere. Ethical. Still, she liked me. She sent me letters when I transferred to Rutgers. She remembered my birthday. We didn’t see each other much when I lived in San Francisco. She had gone to Zanzibar to do her fieldwork. She taught undergraduate classes. She wrote academic papers and then her dissertation. She worked hard.

  Margaret was not expecting me and yet she did not seem all that surprised to see me either. She rubbed her eyes, staring at the red car parked in her driveway.

  “Gosh,” she said. “Is that yours?”

  I shrugged. “I am not sure,” I said.

  “I thought you were scared of driving.”

  Margaret had a good memory. Of course, we were friends. I realized it right away and this made me happy. I had known her for a long time. It turned out that my legs were shaking. My breathing was shallow. My body had worked with me, waiting to have its panic attack until the moment I got out of Judy’s car.