by Thea Thomas
“Always our pleasure, Miss Morris.”
After she hung up, she hurried upstairs to shower and dress. “Any car I fancy. Hmmm. I’ll be happy with something plain and easy to handle. You’re right again, Martha!”
Elizabeth pulled onto the 5 freeway south, headed for the Irvine Auto Complex. When she arrived, she walked shyly into the pristine showroom, surrounded by the shining hides of new cars like a herd of quiet, immaculate livestock, waiting to be lassoed and ridden to their new homes.
Elizabeth went to the back of the showroom behind a plate glass wall and approached the Barbie Doll-looking receptionist sitting behind a metal desk, seriously engrossed in a magazine.
“Excuse me,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes?” the young woman gave Elizabeth a vacuous glance from her plastic-like blue eyes.
“Is Edward Vance here?”
“He’s out back with a customer.” She returned her attention to the magazine.
“I see,” Elizabeth said. “Is there... should I... I need to talk with him.”
“Who may I say is here?”
“He doesn’t know me. I’m a friend of a friend of his. My name is Elizabeth Morris.”
The receptionist picked up a mic. “Edward, Elizabeth Morris is here to see you,” blasted over a probable mile radius.
“He doesn’t know me,” Elizabeth reiterated after the walls stopped echoing.
The young woman shrugged. “I can’t help that.”
Elizabeth wandered among the new cars, trying to visualize owning any one of them. They all looked too flamboyant in their showy spotlights.
A young mother came through the front door, pushing a baby stroller. The pretty baby immediately caught Elizabeth’s attention. Elizabeth smiled at the baby and the baby smiled back. The mother caught the interchange and smiled too. She ambled toward Elizabeth.
“Goodness!” she said confidentially, “my husband told me to look for a car I like? But I don’t know, look at all of them!”
“I’m having the same problem,” Elizabeth said. “I mean, not that my husband... that is, I’m not married. I mean, I’m trying to decide what I like, but I don’t know. Everything looks so flashy.”
The young mother nodded.
“You have a beautiful baby,” Elizabeth said, finding the little girl with the golden brown curls and the sea green eyes far more attractive and interesting than the cars.
“Well, we think so,” the mother agreed. “But then there’s nothing less objective than a mother’s opinion of her child. I try and keep it in perspective.”
“Oh no!” Elizabeth protested, “she really is beautiful and so still, as if she’s having very deep thoughts.”
The mother laughed. “I thought it was just me, but I guess if someone else sees it... she does seem to be deep, or very sober. She’s only one-and-a-half, but she seems as if, I don’t know, as if her last life taught her patience, as if she’s a very old soul.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed. She kneeled down in front of the baby and looked deep into her round eyes. The baby looked back steadily. “You probably still remember a lot of things from the other side, don’t you, pretty little baby?” Elizabeth wanted to touch the baby’s soft white hand, but restrained herself.
“Elizabeth Morris?” a man asked behind her.
Elizabeth stood and looked around, refocusing. “Yes,” she extended her hand. “Edward Vance?”
“That’s me. Pretty little girl you have there,” he said, smiling down at the baby.
“Oh!” Elizabeth looked behind her. The baby’s mother had her head in the window of the sedan behind them. “She’s not my baby, she’s this woman’s baby.”
The woman pulled her torso out of the car window, turned and put her hand possessively on the stroller and smiled. “Yes, she’s mine, warts and all!”
They all chuckled, but Elizabeth couldn’t imagine being so casual about the beautiful child. Well, she thought, I guess if one has a remarkable baby like that, day in and day out, at some point it seems ordinary.
“What can I do to help you?” Edward asked Elizabeth.
“Martha suggested I talk with you.”
“Martha! Martha West? How is she?”
“She’s fine. She’s excellent, in fact. We spent the day together yesterday.”
“Really? I’ll have to give her a call. So! What can I do for you?”
“I have a nineteen-fifty-six Chevy and I was wondering if I could trade it in on... one of these.” She looked around the showroom.
“It depends. Do you have the car with you?”
“Yes. Out on the curb.”
They went out and stood in front of the car. Then Edward said “hmmm,” quite a few times as her poked and prodded every nook and cranny of the car then he led Elizabeth back inside into the plate glass room to a desk at the opposite end of the office from the receptionist.
“Well!” Edward began. “Let me tell you, just between the two of us. That car is a find. I could never give you on trade what you could get for it from the right person.”
“But I don’t know the right person,” Elizabeth pointed out.
“I do!” Edward said triumphantly. “I know this guy, he’s kind of eccentric but he’s all right. Anyway, he’s into vintage stuff. I’m sure I remember him saying once he’d really like to get his hands on a mint condition fifty-six. Want me to give him a call?”
Disappointed, Elizabeth felt Edward was politely trying to get rid of her. “But what about my new car?”
“Hey, Miss Morris, I’m here to sell cars! And you’re a friend of Martha’s, so I’m going to take care of you.”
Well, Elizabeth thought, I trust Martha, so I guess I’ll have to trust her friend. “Okay,” she said.
Edward thumbed through a dog-eared Rolodex, then dialed a number. “This guy’s a writer, Peter Shamus. You ever hear of him?”
Elizabeth started to say, “no.... “
“Peter!” Edward said heartily into the receiver. “Hey, guy, you still in the market for a mint condition fifty-six?... yeah? I got one. Ya gotta see it... You’re on deadline? Okay guy. But ya interested in this five-six or not? Deadlines come and go, buddy, but a car like this... yeah, well, I don’t see why not. Let me ask.” He put his hand over the mouth piece. “Can you go by his place? He lives right here, it’s not three miles. At The Lakes. You know The Lakes?”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“You don’t know The Lakes or you don’t want to drive over?”
“I don’t know The Lakes,” she said. And I don’t want to drive over, she thought.
“Yeah, Peter, she’ll be right over.” He hung up and gave Elizabeth explicit directions to Peter’s house, drawing a little map. “Okay, Miss Morris. You got that?”
“Yes, I believe so. But I can’t help but wonder what’s in it for you?”
“Oh, I’m hurt,” Edward said, not seeming to be the least bit pained. “Really! But frankly, I expect to sell a car. Am I right or am I right? You’re going to come back here and buy a car, right?”
“Well, yes. That is, you’re right, but I was going to buy a car anyway.”
“Right. But look, you’ll buy a car, I’ll make a few bucks, you’ll make Peter happy with that car, he’ll make you happy by giving you a fair price. You’ll tell Martha I’m wonderful... huh? Huh? Am I right or am I right?”
“Well, right again, I suppose Mr. Vance.”
“Eddy, please! Call me Eddy. Any friend of Martha’s I hope will be a friend of mine.”
“Thanks... Eddy,” Elizabeth said, leaving the plate glass office.
She went out to the street, go in her car and started to follow Eddy’s little map.
As she drove, the beautiful baby girl came back to her mind. How she ached for a child like that, and she’d never known it until this very moment. She had a deep, deep feeling of discovering something in herself.
She became so engrossed in the newly surfaced notion of motherhood that she so
on realized she was lost. She pulled over and studied the map, then finally found her way into The Lakes complex. Peter Shamus’ house was right on the lake.
She pulled over to the curb and walked up to the front door. It was ajar. She knocked on the door jamb.
“ ‘S open,” someone shouted at her from upstairs.
She stepped into the entry way, keeping her hand on the open door. “Hello?” she called cautiously. She felt immensely ill-at-ease in a strange man’s house–a strange man she’d been told was strange. “Hello?” she called again. “I’m Elizabeth Morris? Eddy sent me? I have my car, the fifty-six Chevy?”
“I’m upstairs.”
“Well,” she answered back, “I’ll wait here.”
“I’ll be right down, just gotta finish a thought.”
Elizabeth waited by the door in view of the stairwell. A few minutes later a thin, youthful-looking man came bounding down the stairs in red shorts and a black tee-shirt. His sandy hair tousled over his forehead and he had a scraggly growth of beard. His pale eyes were deep set and intelligent in a thin, angular face.
“Hi,” he extended his hand, “I’m Peter.”
Elizabeth let go of the door and took his hand, his fingers were long and thin and warm. “Elizabeth,” she answered. This man, even in his casual attire and ill-kept appearance had so much presence, Elizabeth was taken aback.
“I... I... the car is outside.”
“Good,” Peter said. He appeared clearly distracted.
“I guess this is a bad time for you?” Elizabeth asked, “with a deadline?”
Peter finally looked at her and his study made her feel like stone one moment and butter the next.
“Thanks for coming,” he finally said, apropos of nothing.
Elizabeth nodded, then went through the front door.
“Wow!” Peter said behind her. “Hey, that’s a beaut!”
“So I’ve been told,” Elizabeth said, confused by Peter’s sudden change in character.
“Where’d you get it?”
“My grandfather. My grandfather bought it new.”
They walked up to the car and Elizabeth handed Peter the keys. “Thanks,” he said taking them, but walking completely around the car before getting in. Elizabeth got in the passenger side. “Look at this interior,” he said when he got in, running a hand over the upholstery. “You don’t mind if I drive?” he asked.
“Mind if you drive? I want you to buy it... I want you to always drive it.”
“Yeah, me too!” Peter said, starting the engine.
He drove completely around the lake and Elizabeth didn’t mind in the least. In fact, she couldn’t remember when she enjoyed herself more. Of course, it wasn’t what it looked like. But she let herself pretend that it was what it looked like... like she was going for a ride with an interesting and yes, attractive, man around a beautiful lake.
Neither of them spoke, and they both seemed very comfortable with that too. Elizabeth stole a glance at Peter, at his artistic long-fingered hands on the wheel. She noticed that his nose had a bump and she found herself liking that too.
She was sorry when he pulled into his driveway. “Handles like a dream,” he said. Then he chuckled. “I’m known for my clichés. Come on in.”
They went through the garage, into the kitchen. The east wall of the kitchen was entirely glass and faced the lake.
“How wonderful!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “What a view!”
“Um?” Peter said. “Oh, I guess so. I’m too used to it. Make yourself comfortable.” He gestured to a small dinette. Elizabeth sat and looked out at the lake. It was very still, no one was on it except a few white ducks.
“Tea?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, please.”
“Strawberry or Earl Grey?”
“Strawberry sounds nice.”
Peter put on the tea kettle then came over and joined Elizabeth at the dinette.
“I love this house!” Elizabeth said. “Open and light and modern.” She started to say, just this morning I was thinking about moving into a place like this, but her second thought was that that sounded forward and then she remembered the dream, of Grandfather – which right now she didn’t want to think about at all. So she said, instead, “I’ve never been to The Lakes. I’ve lived all my life in Orange County and I only vaguely knew these lakes were here. I had no idea it was so charming.”
“It’s nice,” Peter agreed, but not very firmly. “I suppose. However, I’m sort of tired of it. You know what I’d like?”
The kettle started whistling, Peter got up and attended to making tea.
“No,” Elizabeth said, “what would you like?” She was curious to know and she didn’t want the subject to change.
Peter brought back tea mugs effusing warm strawberries, and milk and sugar and spoons. He poured sugar and milk in his tea. “I’d like some big old turn of the twentieth century place, with the parlor and drawing room and music room, with the old light fixtures and maybe even the front stairs and back stairs. You know the kind of place I mean?”
Elizabeth sat with her mouth hanging open. “But.... “
“”I didn’t think that was shocking,” Peter said.
“No, not shocking,” Elizabeth said. “Amazing and well, yes, shocking. You’ve just described my home exactly. Exactly!”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not in the least.”
“Look, woman, you have my car, you have my house... why have you been keeping them from me?”
Elizabeth giggled. “Well, you have my house!”
“Maybe we should trade,” Peter said.
Elizabeth looked at him with an intensity she rarely dared to look at anyone. “Maybe we should.”
“Wow,” Peter said. “When I came down the stairs, I wanted to thank you for providing me with the face I’ve been searching for. A character in the book I’m working on hasn’t quite gelled yet, and I came down the stairs, and there was my face. I mean your face. But I’m going to borrow it, hope you don’t mind. And then you have the car I’ve been trying to find and the house I’ve been wanting.”
Elizabeth felt embarrassment coming over her. Everything seemed suddenly so personal. She didn’t know how to answer, so she changed the focus to Peter.
“What do you write?” she asked.
“Usually westerns and science fiction.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “Westerns and science fiction. I can see the connection.”
“How so?”
“No. That’s my sum total ability to be, ahm, funny.”
Peter laughed right out. “Now that’s funny. So, I take it, you don’t read either genre.”
Elizabeth shook her head. For some reason she felt rude that she’d never read either a western or science fiction, much less having read a book by Peter Shamus.
Peter appeared to read her like a book. “That’s okay. You wouldn’t have known if you’d read one of my works anyway, since I almost always write under pseudonyms.
“But,” he went on, “the book I’m working on now, the one that your face is going to help me finish, this book is, I hope, literary. I’m actually using my real name on it.”
“What’s it about?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh, boy, please don’t be offended if I don’t talk about it. It’s one of my many quirks not to discuss a work in progress. Books I’ve finished I don’t mind talking about. Except I usually can’t remember them.” Peter laughed. Elizabeth liked his pretty teeth and she liked how the angles of his face softened when he laughed.
“Anyway,” he continued, “tell me more about your house. Is it haunted like old houses supposedly are?”
Elizabeth stiffened. “No, it’s not haunted,” she answered.
“That’s a pity. Ghosts lend so much character to a place.” Peter picked up his tea mug and gave Elizabeth a look over it in mid-sip. “I made you uncomfortable, didn’t I?”
“A little, yes.”
“Why?”
<
br /> “I don’t know,” Elizabeth said. “I... I’m strange. My grandfather died recently. I’ve lived in that house with him all my life, and now I’m alone. It’s the reason I think of moving, so I can figure out what ‘a life of my own’ means, without the constant reminder of my grandfather all around me.”
Peter nodded to everything Elizabeth said. “I’m sorry your Grandfather died, and I’m sorry I upset you.”
“Don’t apologize, please!”
They sipped their tea and slipped back into the comradely silence they’d shared in the car. Elizabeth felt a quiet happiness steal over her like nothing she’d ever known as she watched the cheerful little ducks on the lake.
“Soooo, anyway,” Peter said after a few moments, “your car, how much do you want for it?”
“Oh! – I don’t know. I have absolutely no idea. And I mean, no idea.”
“How about I call Eddy and have him tell us what it’s worth and if that sounds fair, I’ll write you a check.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth said.
A few minutes later Peter was writing Elizabeth a check and stopped in mid-signature. “Wait,” he said, “I should just as well go to the bank and cash this and then we can take the pink slip to Eddy and have him notarize it. Then you can get your new car... and I can have your old one, and the business will be done.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth nodded to everything he said, assuming that it made perfect sense, as that’s how it sounded. She gave Peter the keys again.
“On the subject of your house,” Peter said as he drove them to the bank.
“Yes?”
“Now I’m beginning to feel like I’m twisting your arm, but if you’re at all interested in selling, I mean, seriously, I hope you’ll let me be the first to know.”
They pulled into the bank parking lot. Elizabeth got out a pencil and a slip of paper. “Here’s my address. Feel free to come by anytime to look at the house. Anyway, with your appreciation of the antique, I think you’ll enjoy looking at the place. It’s sort of a museum.”
Peter took the slip of paper Elizabeth handed him. “I definitely look forward to seeing your house.”
In less than two hours Elizabeth had sold the Chevy, waving bye to Peter as he hurried back to his deadline, and then she’d bought a new, shiny, black Prius.