By the time they returned to the dealership she was amazed at how the truck felt. One by one they got into the different trucks, different trim packages.
After an hour of driving new and two very nice used trucks they repaired to Art’s office. “What do you think?”
“I’m scared of the cost,” she forthrightly replied.
He punched in a mess of numbers. “Look.” He yanked out the computer printout. “I can get you an F250 HD 4 by 4 for twenty thousand, four hundred and seventy-eight dollars. That’s stripped and doesn’t figure in your trade-in, which I will know in a minute because while we were out cruising, one of my guys was going over your truck.”
“It’s in good shape.”
“I know that. You take care of everything, including yourself.” He pointed to figures on the right-hand column. “Add in your tags, title transfer, documentation service—and I don’t know whether you want the extended service plan or not but figure another five hundred. Hold that number in your head. Round numbers are easier to remember. If you buy this now, I can give you a six-hundred-dollar rebate. That expires September fifteenth. Don’t ask me why. Ford makes those decisions and the dealer has nothing to say about it. Good for you, though. But here”—he punched in some more numbers—“I can get you the XLT package for another fifteen hundred. If you buy things piecemeal like the tape deck and AC it doesn’t make sense. I know this sounds crazy but if you spend money you can save money on the payments. I’m figuring you’ll finance for five years. Look, I can get you the bells and whistles—” He pointed to a figure on the bottom of a new page he pulled out of the computer.
Her eyes grew large. “But that’s almost four thousand more dollars.”
“It is. But if we spread it over the five years it means about another thirty in your payment schedule. And Harry, this isn’t the final figure. Aren’t you going to badger me about the price?”
“Uh . . .”
The phone rang. “Yeah,” Art said. “Great.” He punched the button. “One thousand five hundred dollars on your 1978. And here’s what I’ll sell you the F250 HD 4 by 4 for.” He scrawled numbers.
“That’s almost twenty percent less.” She scooted to the edge of her seat.
“That’s right. You’re paying what I pay plus the paperwork. What color do you want?”
“Red.”
“What interior?”
“Beige.”
He pointed to a red truck sitting on the lot. “You got it. Now Harry, I know you don’t make a lot of money. I also know you’ll drive this truck for twenty years. Why don’t you take the truck home? If you don’t like it, bring it back but don’t go telling everyone what the cost is or everyone will want the same deal and then I’d go broke.”
“Art?”
“Hey.” He threw up his hands. “Like I said, I’ve got a thing for postmistresses. Go on, get out of here before Miranda calls and says she’s overloaded.”
Harry drove the new machine along I-64 feeling certain that everyone on the highway was admiring the beautiful truck. She’d done her sums at home and knew she could carry, with care, about four hundred and fourteen dollars a month.
When she drove to the front of the post office instead of the back, Miranda, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Tucker, and Market—in picking up his mail—ran out.
“Wow!” Market whistled.
“Open the door!” Mrs. Murphy excitedly demanded, and as the door swung open for everyone to see the plush interior, the cat jumped up on the floor and then on the seat.
“O-o-o.” She dug her claws in the upholstery just a tiny bit.
Within seconds, Pewter sat next to her. “Snuggly.” She patted at the divider between the two seats, a console with trays, cup holders, all manner of niceties to make the truck a little office. “Even a place to store catnip.”
“I want to see!” The dog whined as the humans opened the door on the other side.
“Here.” Harry picked up Tucker, a heavy child, putting her on the seat after wiping off her paws.
“Neat.” The dog smiled.
“Not bad.” Pewter squeezed next to Tucker.
“Did you buy it?” Miranda eagerly asked.
“I think I did. I have to call my banker. I didn’t give Art a firm yes.”
“You can put the fifth wheel in the back—haul your horses. The old half-ton was straining,” Market counseled.
“What saved me was I only hauled one at a time.” Harry laughed because it did make life that much harder not being able to take two horses in her two-horse trailer.
Chris Sharpton drove up and parked. “This is new.”
Harry smiled. “I haven’t bought it yet.”
“BoomBoom called me”—Chris pulled her mailbox key out of her purse—“asking me to come up with more ideas for the ‘welcoming committee.’ That’s what she’s calling you guys now. I told her I wouldn’t mind but I hoped you wouldn’t mind. After all, it’s your reunion and your committee.”
“’Course, I don’t mind.”
Chris smiled. “The Boom is getting desperate—not so much about the work for this thing but because she wants to make certain that she is perfect by homecoming—head to toe.”
“Big surprise,” Harry giggled.
“Can we meet tomorrow night?” Chris walked into the post office as Harry nodded yes.
Later that night, Harry turned off the lights in the barn, walked across to the house, and burst into tears. She’d lived with her old truck for so many years she couldn’t imagine living without it.
No sooner had she walked into the house than Tucker barked, “Intruder!”
Harry walked back outside.
Fair was driving her old 1978 blue truck, followed by Art Bushey in a new silver Jeep.
“Hi,” she said as they both got out of their vehicles.
“Here’s your truck.” Fair handed her the keys.
“Huh?” She was confused.
“Fair put up the down payment on the F250 so you don’t have to trade in your dad’s truck.” Art crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the silver Jeep. “I told him he’s nuts. You still aren’t going to take him back but he did it anyway.”
“Art, you’re awful.” She burst out laughing as the cats hopped into the bed of the old blue truck. The vantage point was better.
“Fair, I can’t take your money.”
“A late divorce settlement.” He shrugged. “Now do you want the F250 or the F350 dually?”
“I’d better stick to the F250 HD.”
“Doing it my way it’s twelve hundred more for the dually. So you have everything you’ve ever wanted—your half-ton and a dually,” Art said. “Big F350 in red with a beige interior just like the 250 here. And those extra wheels in the back are what you need when you’re hauling weight.”
“Deal!” She shook his hand.
“Red.” Fair slapped his baseball cap against his thigh. “I bet Art a hundred bucks you’d buy another blue truck.”
“Gotcha.” Art smiled.
“Hey, wait.” Harry ran into the barn, returning with a paper. “Here’s the figures on the horses. I measured them tonight.”
“Damn, I knew I forgot something. I’ll drop off the alfalfa cubes tomorrow.”
“Fair.”
“Huh?”
“You’re a good man.” She put her hand behind his neck, drew him down, and kissed him.
“What about me?”
“How could I forget?” She kissed Art, too.
“All right, buddy, drive this back.” Art shepherded Fair to the Jeep. Art would drive back in the F250. “You can pick up your dually tomorrow unless you want me to send it to Cavalier Camper for the fifth wheel.”
“That’s a good idea,” Harry agreed.
As they drove off, Pewter asked Mrs. Murphy, “How’d he know she’d never part with her father’s truck?”
Tucker called from the ground, “He’s very sensitive.”
“But it’s metal,” Pewte
r protested, finding the emotion around the 1978 truck silly.
“Metal but it has so many memories.”
“A cruise down Memory Lane.” Tucker walked back toward the house.
“If she got this worked up over a truck, what’s she going to be like at her high-school reunion?” Pewter gingerly stepped onto the back bumper and thence to the ground.
* * *
7
“A big smile. There. Cover of People magazine.” Dennis Rablan clicked away, his black Nikon camera covering his face. “Boom, get your face closer to the steer. You, too, Charlie, get in there.”
“Yuk.” Charlie grimaced. “I didn’t like this the first time we did it, twenty years ago.”
“Least it’s not a horse’s ass,” Harry quipped. She had been conned by Susan to help with the first superlative shoot.
“No, I’ve got Boom for that.”
“You know, Charlie,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “you won Best Looking but you sure didn’t win Best Personality and you never will.”
“Like I care.” He beamed to the camera.
Susan stood to the side holding up a reflector, which the steer distrusted. Crouched beside the large animal were Fair Haristeen on one side and Blair Bainbridge, equally tall, on the other.
Although Blair was a professional model, Charlie Ashcraft held his own. He was a strikingly handsome man, with curly, glossy black hair, bright blue eyes, and a creamy tan. At six foot one with a good body, he bowled women over. He knew it. He used it. He abused it. He left a trail of broken hearts, broken marriages, and broken promises behind him. Despite that, women still fell for him even when they knew his history. His arrogance added fuel to the fire. He was loathed by those not under his spell, which was to say most men.
Her shoulders ached, her deltoids especially, as Harry held the silver reflector behind Denny Rablan. She thought, How like BoomBoom to take her own photo first. No matter what, her visage will be plastered all over the gym. Instead she said, “Denny, I’m putting this down for a minute.” The heat was giving her a headache, or was it the reunion itself? She wasn’t sure she had improved with the passage of time.
Click. He said without looking at her, “Okay. All right, take a break, especially Hercules here.”
Fair stepped up and put a small grain bucket in front of Hercules, whose mood improved considerably.
Marcy Wiggins in her candy-apple red Taurus GL drove down the farm lane followed by Chris Sharpton and Bitsy Valenzuela in Bitsy’s Jaguar XJR, top down.
“Oh no, are we late?” Chris wailed, opening the car door.
“No, we’re taking a break. Harry’s arms are tired,” BoomBoom answered.
“I’ll hold the reflector,” Chris eagerly volunteered.
“Great. You’ve got a job.” Harry handed her the floppy silver square.
“Boom, you look fabulous—professional makeup job, I bet,” Bitsy cooed.
“Oh . . .” BoomBoom Craycroft had no intention of answering that question.
Charlie glided over. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“You have, too.” Bitsy laughed. “I met you at the Foxfield Races. My husband is E. R. Valenzuela, the president of 360° Communications here in town. You let me know if you need a cell phone in your car, you hear now?”
“Foxfield, well, that is a distracting environment.” He smoothed his hair, which sprang back into curls. “I had no idea E.R. had such good taste in women.”
Then brazenly, Charlie swept his eyes from the top of Chris’s head to her toes. “A model’s body. Tall and angular. Have I ever told you how much I like that?”
“Yes.” She laughed. “Every time you see me.”
He beamed at each lady in turn. Marcy turned beet red. “I’ll call you the three Amuses. Good, huh?”
“Brilliant.” Chris’s eyelids dropped a bit, then flickered upward.
“God, Charlie, I hope you don’t say that to my husband.” Marcy swallowed hard.
“Do you know what I say to any woman’s husband? ‘If you don’t treat her right, some other man will. Just because you’re married doesn’t mean you can relax. A woman’s got to be won over each and every day.’” He smiled from ear to ear.
“Good Lord,” Marcy whispered.
“I think I’ll help Boom,” Bitsy brightly said as she skipped past her friend.
Bitsy wiped the shine from BoomBoom’s nose, adding a dab of lipstick to her mouth.
Denny clapped his hands, which disturbed Hercules, who let out a bellow. “Let’s go.”
Harry, arms crossed, watched Charlie stoop down, Hercules on one side and BoomBoom on the other.
“Harry, why don’t you take away this bucket?” BoomBoom pointed at the bucket.
“You crippled?” Harry turned on her heel, striding to her old Ford truck. “Adios.”
“You’re not going to kiss me good-bye?” Charlie called out. He puckered his lips.
“I wouldn’t kiss you if you were the last man on earth,” Harry said, as Susan’s jaw nearly dropped to her chest.
“Hey, I love you, too.”
“Charlie, is this a command performance?” Marcy asked, voice wavering.
He winked at her, then called after Harry, “I understand you called me a body part at the reunion meeting.”
“I should have called you an arrogant, empty-headed, vainglorious idiot. ‘Asshole’ showed a lack of imagination.” She smiled a big fake smile, her head throbbing.
“You’ve been divorced too-o-o long,” he said in a singsong voice.
She stopped in her tracks. Fair’s face froze. Susan covered her eyes, peeking out through her fingers. BoomBoom squared her shoulders, ready for the worst.
“You know what, Charlie? My claim to fame is that I’m one of seven women in Albemarle County who haven’t gone to bed with you.”
“There’s still time.” He laughed as Marcy Wiggins’ face registered dismay.
“You’ll die before I do.” Harry turned, heading back to the truck.
This icy pronouncement caught everyone off guard. Charlie laughed nervously. Dennis took over, rearranging the principals except for Hercules, who was firmly planted close to the grain.
Then Charlie yelled after her, “I knew you sent that letter about me not growing old.”
“Dream on.” Harry kept walking. “I wouldn’t waste the postage.”
“Susan, you aren’t going, too?” BoomBoom’s voice, drenched in irritation, cut through Hercules’ bellow as he cried for his grain bucket. Susan left with Harry.
Susan leaned over to Harry as they walked away. “You got a wild hair or what?” she said, sotto voce.
“I don’t really know. Just know I can’t take any more.” Harry rubbed her temples. “Susan, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I have no patience anymore. None. And I’m sick and tired of beating around the bush. Hell with it.”
“M-m-m.”
“I don’t want to be rude but I’m fresh out of tolerance for the fools of this life.”
“Your poor mother will be spinning in her grave. All the years of cotillion, the Sunday teas.”
Harry put her hand on the chrome door handle of the 1978 truck. “Here’s what I don’t get: where is the line between good manners and supporting people in their bullshit? I’m not putting up with Charlie for one more minute.” She opened the door but didn’t climb inside. “I’ve turned a corner. I’m not wearing that social face anymore. Too much time. Too much suppressed anger. If people are going to like me they can like me as I am. Treat me right and I’ll treat you right.”
“Within reason.”
“Well . . . yes.” Harry reluctantly conceded.
Susan breathed in the moist air. The heat had finally returned and with it the flies. “I know exactly how you feel. I’m not brave enough to act on it yet.”
“Of course you are.”
“No. I have a husband with a good career and two teenagers. When the last one graduates from college�
�five more years—” She sighed, “Then I expect I’ll be ready.”
“Tempus fugit.” Harry hopped in the truck. “Charlie Ashcraft has not one redeeming virtue. How is it that someone like him lives and someone good dies? Aurora Hughes was a wonderful person.”
Pawing Through the Past Page 5