The Red Car Page 4

  “Yes, Leah, I still work here. Don’t be rude. I am a manager now. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked.

  “In the plural,” Diego said and he laughed. I remembered that laugh. He was so good-looking. Latin. Why was it that I had married an Austrian? Hans was so methodical about things, while at the same time, he was such a mess.

  “Get yourself on a plane,” Diego said. “This is Judy we are talking about.”

  “I loved Judy,” I said.

  “I know you did. She knew you did.”

  “We haven’t talked in years,” I said. “I think I hurt her feelings. I used to write her emails in my head, but I never sent them.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter.”

  “I had lunch with her last week, Leah,” Diego said. “It doesn’t matter. We talked about you.”

  “You did? You talked about me?” I did not know why I was so hurt. Why hadn’t they called me? Judy. Diego. Why was Judy dead? There were no tissues in the room, just an empty tissue box. I wiped the tears from my face with the bottom of my T-shirt.

  “Are you crying?” Diego asked.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. It was obvious that I was crying. “I’m not.”

  “Do you know what I am doing right now?” he said.

  I shook my head again, knowing that Diego couldn’t see me. I did not know what he was doing.

  “I am putting a work order into the computer.”

  “A work order,” I said.

  “Done,” he said.

  “That was fast,” I said.

  “I type faster than anyone.”

  I remembered. He had long, slender fingers.

  “Okay,” Diego said. “So I found a flight that leaves in four hours. It’s the last plane out tonight. You get into San Francisco insanely early, more like the middle of the night. You’ll be in time for the funeral. I will be heroic and pick you up at the airport. Can you do that?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m married.”

  “So?”

  I did not have an answer to that.

  “Do you have a baby?” Diego asked.

  I shook my head again.

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “No,” I practically screamed.

  “Well, your husband can take of himself.”

  “He made pad thai for dinner.”

  Diego missed a beat. He did not know quite how to respond to that. “Well, good,” Diego said. “When do you want to come back?”

  “Come back?” I asked.

  “I thought you went to writing school.”

  “I did,” I said. “Why?”

  “Well, your articulation of the English language is lacking. When do you want to come back? Your return ticket. I have to put something into the computer.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does a week sound good?”

  “No,” I said, surprising myself.

  “It doesn’t?”

  “I don’t think it’s enough,” I said.

  “I think you are right,” Diego said.

  “I could go to Calistoga,” I said.

  “Wine country,” Diego laughed. “Mud baths.”

  I had gone to Calistoga, once, with Daniel. We rode there on his motorcycle, stayed in a bed-and-breakfast, swam in an outdoor Olympic-size pool filled with sulfur water from a natural spring. California, it seemed like a dream.

  “Do you know how Judy died?” I asked.

  “It was a car accident,” Diego said. “Didn’t Beverly tell you?”

  “But how? Can you tell me again? Because I don’t understand.”

  I remember sitting in that car, Judy driving me home once late at night, after we went to a movie, I remember feeling like there was something else in there, with us. I remember thinking that death was inside the car, hovering close by.

  “Another car plowed right into her. Apparently it sailed through a red light. Completely not her fault.”

  “That is so awful,” I said.

  “Done,” Diego said.

  “What?”

  “I just booked your ticket. You fly back in two weeks.”

  “Two weeks.” I didn’t know. Was that long enough? Too long? Two weeks in San Francisco. I was supposed to be unhappy, but the idea of it made me happy. “How much does it cost?”

  “No worries.” Diego laughed again. I loved his laugh. It was so loose and sexy and easy, just like Diego. “The department is paying for it.”

  I could hear noises, splashing out the window, the TV in the living room, the buzzing in my brain.

  “What am I going to tell Hans?” I said.

  “Hans?”

  “My husband.”

  “You tell him you are going to the funeral of a dear friend and then on a small vacation. I have no doubt you deserve one.”

  I was not entirely sure why, but I felt afraid. The idea of telling Hans. I did not want to tell him. I wondered if I could ask Diego to tell him for me. That was ridiculous.

  “Your flight leaves in four hours, Leah,” Diego said. “You have the money to take a cab to the airport, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I do,” I said, though actually I didn’t. I would have to run to the corner to a cash machine.

  “So start packing.”

  “I can’t believe she is dead,” I said. “Judy.”

  “I know,” he said. “It doesn’t feel real. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “You will?” I asked. “Really?”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Diego said. “I got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Can I talk to Beverly?” I asked.

  “Nah,” Diego said. “Beverly wandered off somewhere. She is probably at the water cooler, complaining about how much more work she has to do now that Judy is dead.”

  I laughed. That was probably exactly what she was doing.

  “I am sending you an email with the confirmation of your ticket,” he said. “Airline, flight number. I’ll see you soon.”

  I DIDN’T WANT TO TELL HANS that I was going to San Francisco without him. But now that the ticket was bought, I felt giddy. Giddy and a little bit confused. How could I be happy when Judy was dead? Judy had not wanted me to get married. And now, now that she was dead, I was leaving my husband. Only, I wasn’t leaving him. I was just taking a trip. That was all that I was doing.

  It was good that I was already in the bedroom, the door closed. I opened the closet door and took out a small suitcase, put it on the bed. I packed ten pairs of clean underwear. Socks. Jeans. I took off the jeans I was wearing and put them in the suitcase, too. I did not want to fly in jeans. I would wear leggings. Hans knocked on the door but came in without waiting for me to answer.

  “What is taking so long?” he asked.

  “Get out,” I said. “I am getting dressed.”

  Hans looked confused. “We are married,” he said.

  I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. I had taken my jeans off. I was wearing striped cotton underwear. Of course, he would have ideas. Hans always wanted to have sex with me. I mean, that made sense, we were married. Some people would say that was a good thing, but I almost never wanted to have sex. It was fine, sex, when we had it. I just never wanted to. I hastily picked up a pair of gray leggings off the floor and put them on before he could get closer to me. I felt that even though we were married, I was entitled to my privacy. He had knocked on the door. He could have waited until I said, “Come in.”

  “That was a long phone call,” he said. “I have been waiting for you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I told you not to wait.”

  “I wanted to wait,” he said. “I made us dinner. I want to eat it with you.”

  Somehow, Hans hadn’t noticed the suitcase, so I left the bedroom. I wasn’t sure what I thought I would do, maybe pack in secret and climb out the window.
I would have to tell him. I didn’t know what my problem was, why I was afraid. Our friends thought he was the nicest, kindest man in the world. But none of them ever got to see him angry, that was all reserved for me. And I knew my going to San Francisco, that would get him angry. He would want to come. I was sure that he would want to come. Diego had only bought one plane ticket.

  I walked slowly over to the couch in the living room. There, on the coffee table, were the two untouched plates of pad thai, the beer mugs, one half full, an open beer, Sriracha hot sauce.

  I would not be able to eat this food.

  “Judy’s funeral is tomorrow,” I said.

  “Oh,” Hans said. “That is sad.”

  It felt to me as if Hans had already forgotten that she had died. He wanted us to eat dinner, watch the next episode of Six Feet Under. Hans had never met Judy. I had never told him that Judy had told me to put off getting married. Probably, I had told him very little about her. She didn’t really figure into my life anymore.

  “I guess I am going to her funeral,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have a plane ticket and I am going.”

  “How can you have a plane ticket?”

  “I don’t know. It happened so quickly. Diego filled out a work order and used the company credit card and I have a plane ticket so I can go to her funeral tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Hans said. “I want to come, too.”

  I blinked. I knew him, I knew him too well. Sometimes, Hans would say that we shared a brain and what one of us didn’t know about ourselves, the other knew. I never thought of this as a good thing. I wanted full possession of my brain.

  “I am going for a funeral,” I said. “Judy left me some things in her will. I have to go. You never even met her.”

  Hans stared at me. He was growing his hair long again, even though I preferred it short. The pad thai sat untouched on the coffee table in the living room.

  “I have been telling you for a while now,” Hans said. “That we need to go on a vacation.”

  “This isn’t a vacation,” I said quietly.

  “How long are you going for?” Hans asked.

  The answer, I knew, was wrong.

  “Two weeks,” I said, even more quietly.

  “Two weeks?”

  “Diego bought the ticket.”

  “Who is Diego?”

  “This guy I used to work with. He is in management now. Actually, I’m not sure. That’s what he said. I just know he used company money to buy me a ticket.”

  “Well, great, call him back and tell him you want him to by me a ticket, too.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t.”

  “We are married. Married people go to funerals together. This is common knowledge.”

  “You didn’t know her.”

  I had told him that. I was having difficulty breathing. It had been a while since our last fight. I hated fighting with Hans. I hated fighting. I hated it.

  “We are married.”

  “I am sorry,” I said. “Diego bought the ticket. He got the only available dates.” This part, it wasn’t entirely true, but it sounded good. “I can do my job from the West Coast, it won’t be a problem.”

  “But what about me?”

  I looked at Hans.

  “I want to go, too,” he said.

  “The plane ticket is in my name,” I said.

  “Not alone. I want to go with you. I want to go to San Francisco. With you.”

  I shook my head. I had tried to tell Diego that Hans would react this way.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said, remembering what Diego had said. “Look at how well you cook. You can take care of yourself for a while.”

  Hans threw his pad thai across the room, breaking the white plate, noodles flying everywhere, small bits of chopped peanuts landing on the white wall, bean sprouts on the floor.

  “Call him and ask him to get me a ticket, too.”

  “It’s a funeral,” I said softly.

  “It’s not just a funeral. You are going for two weeks.”

  “You’ll be fine,” I said, my eyes focused on a single bean sprout on the floor. “You are a grown man. I would love it if you were to go away for two weeks.” I knew that I should stop talking but I could not stop talking. “I would do anything to be alone for two weeks. I am grateful when you go out for the night.”

  It happened so fast I didn’t even see it coming. I don’t know how it happened, Hans’s hands were around my throat and he was choking me, my legs were twisted out from under me, and I was on the floor, unable to breathe.

  I wet my pants.

  Hans stopped choking me.

  I lay there on the floor in my wet leggings and didn’t move. Hans lay next to me. I don’t think he saw it coming either. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Now, he was stroking my hair.

  “Oh, Leah,” he said. “Leah. I am so sorry.”

  I think I nodded.

  We both lay on the floor, breathing hard.

  “I am just going on a trip,” I said. “Can I go on a trip? Please.”

  “I am sorry,” Hans said, again and then again. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want you to go. I want to go with you.”

  “It’s just a short trip,” I said.

  “I don’t want to be left all by myself. Please don’t go.”

  “It is just a short trip,” I whispered.

  And maybe that had been true.

  Before Hans choked me.

  IN THE AIRPORT, I WAS SURPRISED by how little it took to make me feel happy again. I bought an Interview magazine which featured a French actress that I loved being interviewed by an American actress that I loved. They were both starring in the same movie directed by a Polish director whose movies I also loved. I bought a bag of Peanut M&Ms. I bought myself a coffee. I sat at the gate, reading my magazine and eating my M&Ms, drinking my coffee.

  I watched the people at the gate who would also be boarding my flight to San Francisco. I saw a family, a mother with two babies, and I wondered if I would ever be her. I had never talked to Hans about whether or not we wanted to have kids. I watched a businessman look very serious and important, typing important things into his laptop. I had also packed my laptop computer. I could sit at a table and type fast, appear to be a very important writer. I could wear my thick tortoiseshell glasses, the ones that made me look more like a writer.

  It seemed incomprehensible that just a few hours ago, Hans had choked me because I was going to go the funeral of my old boss who was dead. And that not long before that, we had been about to eat dinner and watch a new episode from our favorite TV show. It seemed incomprehensible that I was off to spend two weeks in San Francisco. I could not remember what I had packed.

  I did not know what I should be more upset about. That Judy was dead. That Hans had choked me. That I did not feel in control of my life. How every day happened, and then the next day, and I didn’t have a greater plan. I remembered, again, that I had finished a draft of my novel. That I did have a plan. It seemed as unreal as Hans choking me. I had been thinking I might tell him my news while we were eating pad thai. This was before I had gotten the email. Instead I found myself cleaning pad thai off the hardwood floor. It was something to do, while waiting for the cab to the airport.

  I decided to shut off my thoughts like I would shut my laptop computer. Click. I would give all of my attention to the French actress. I learned that she had been in a near death accident while waterskiing and had to have emergency brain surgery, but now she appeared to be perfectly fine. In the interview, she talked about her new film, the accident, her famous father and also her new album, because not only was she an actress, she had a music career beginning to take off. I had her new album. Hans had gotten it for me without my asking because he knew that I wanted it.

  Hans, he could be thoughtful. He loved me.

  An amplified
voice called out that boarding would begin, first class and disabled passengers, passengers with children. I watched the line starting to form. I looked at my boarding pass to check my seat number. I was in row 8. That seemed like a very low number. I went to the counter. The woman looked at my ticket and told me that my ticket was first class. I could board now.

  “I am not first class,” I said.

  The woman smiled at me. “It can sometimes be considered a state of mind,” she said. “But your ticket is first class, so you can board the plane.”

  She looked at the magazine that I was clutching to my chest. “I love her,” she said, pointing to the French actress on the cover of the magazine.

  “So do I.”

  “Cool,” the stewardess said, but then I remembered that the word was no longer “stewardess,” and that it was possible that she would not actually be on my flight. This was unfortunate, as I wanted her to be my friend. I wanted her to sit next to me on the flight and we could talk about French movies and I could tell her that my husband had tried to choke me when I had told him about my trip, but that that was an aberration, and that he was a very sweet man, and that in the past, more than one person had proclaimed to envy me because I had married such a sweet man.

  I boarded the plane.

  Row 8 was the last row in first class.

  “Look at all this legroom,” I said.

  Suddenly I could sense the presence of Judy, my dead boss, nodding in approval. This surprised me. I was not one to see ghosts and I did not think Judy was the type to be a ghost. She was much too practical for that.

  I wondered if Diego knew that he was buying me a first class ticket. He must have. He must love that his job allowed him to do things like that. He was a manager. I had always thought that he would go back to Costa Rica and become a diplomat. I had never thought he would still be at the office. I had forgotten about Diego. I felt excited to see him. I buckled my seat belt.

  After the flight took off, I drank my complimentary glass of champagne and then I asked for another. I did not eat the meal that was offered to me, though it looked good. The idea of dinner made me think of the one that I had not eaten. The idea of dinner made me feel guilty. I wanted to turn off my thoughts. Click. I asked for and received a third glass of complimentary champagne.