Page 31 of Meet Me in the Garden

“No. It’s exactly right.”

“Well, okay then. Great. This was unexpected.” He tells me about the car as I drive. The fuel mileage, how often he gets it serviced. I pull into the driveway. All the lights are off in the house.

“Everyone’s sleeping,” I say. “Do you mind waiting here?”

“I don’t mind. But there’s no hurry. We could talk awhile.” There’s a tension, a look of deciding something, and I realize he’s about to kiss me.

“Let’s keep this businesslike,” I say, and he pulls back. We sit for a minute in the dark. “Did Bernard or Al ever tell you that you look just like my late husband?”

He turns to me. “No.”

“You do. If I’ve ever seemed rude, it’s just that it was hard to be reminded.”

“What was his name?”

“Cyril.” He waits for more. “I’ll be right back,” I say.

I tiptoe to my room, take my shoebox off the closet shelf, turn my bedside lamp on to count the bills. He’s lowered the price to nine hundred for me, a kindness I find hard to stomach but will accept anyway. It’s almost all the money I have.

Marcus is shutting the car door when I step back outside. I hand him the money and he hands me the key. He signs a sheet of paper, using the hood as a surface. “This terminates my rights to the car. It’s yours now.” I take it from him, step back to look from a distance. It’s handsome in the driveway, parked next to Al’s. They’ll be shocked, looking out in the morning, seeing it. It’s selfish of me, rash and impulsive and maybe even petty. If only my sisters had joined me for the ten o’clock show.

“What did you make of the movie?” he asks.

“I thought it was incredible. You?”

“I agree. Difficult to watch, but very artistic.” He’s less and less Cyril every moment. His face, in profile, is entirely his own.

I say, “The part where the doctor’s interrogating her and then it cuts away to the storm and the ocean and the waves and she’s drowning…”

“Powerful.”

“It’s really a film about memories, isn’t it? The ones we have and the ones we repress.”

“I suppose it is.”

“That part when the shadows are huge, towering over everything…”

“I imagine we’ll all have strange dreams tonight.”

“Are you interested in dreams?”

He raises his hands up, interlaces his fingers, stretches. “I’m no Freud or anything like that.” He drops his arms. “But yeah, dreams interest me.” We talk for a while longer. At one point he pauses and takes a long look at me. Smiles when I cock my head. Says, “We seem to have a lot in common. And our business transaction is over with.”

“I’m not looking to date,” I say. “It’s nothing personal.”

He’s perplexed by me, I can tell. It’s clear he isn’t used to being turned down. “All right,” he says. “Just thought I’d give it one last shot.”

The taxi I called for him pulls up. We say goodnight.

Before I go back into the house, I follow the path to the driveway, slide into the car. I shut myself in, run my hands over the soft seats, press my foot on the clutch and the gas and the brake, touch the ceiling and the window glass. I sit and breathe. The car smells like leather and clove and metal. It’s mine.

When I get up the next morning, Adele’s standing at the kitchen sink, drinking coffee, staring through the window at the driveway.

“How much did it cost you?” she asks.

“Nine hundred.” I’m tired from the late night, my head still fuzzy with waking.

“I thought we had a plan.”