Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
The day was already hot, and the black asphalt reflected the heat back up, making me sweaty. We walked up and down the used car lot, looking at the parked cars. I had made a list of must-haves:
All four hubcaps. (I was vain.)
All one color with a nice paint job. (Vain, remember?)
Working AC. (Practical!)
Automatic. (Easy to drive.)
Less than 60,000 miles. (I wanted to drive this one into the ground.)
Cost less than $16,000. (I wanted a cheap car payment.)
So I had my list. Sedans were the most practical choice, as they were the cheapest on gas. But I kept eyeing a cute compact SUV. It was white and in my price range, but had seventy thousand miles, and with gas prices going up, my brain was saying no.
Walela liked the navy-blue Chevy Malibu. It was newer and under budget, but it was like sitting in a tin can. I would likely buy that one, but I kept looking at that cute white compact SUV.
“Why don’t you test-drive it?” Danuwoa suggested.
“What if I love it?” I asked.
“Isn’t the point of getting a new car to get one you love?” He liked to answer me with more questions. It was infuriating.
“It has ten thousand miles more than my target mileage.”
“So?”
“And it will cost me more on gas.”
“You live close to the office. I don’t think it would cost that much more.”
“It’s cute.” I looked down at my list and crumpled it into a ball. “Yeah, let’s just test-drive it. It might drive like shit, and then I’ll just get the Malibu.”
“There you go. Walela,” Danuwoa called. She was talking to the sales rep who insisted on following us around. “You want to test-drive this one with us?”
“No, I’m hot! I want water,” she called back as she brought the sales rep to us.
Danuwoa explained we wanted to test-drive it, and the salesman headed inside to get us the keys, taking Walela with him.
It was just going to be Danuwoa and me in the SUV. I needed Walela as the buffer to keep things PG. Danuwoa showed up today wearing a fitted T-shirt that had no business being that tight. The hussy within me wanted to test-drive more than just cars today, and I didn’t know if we could help ourselves from just completely going at it in a pretty spacious SUV. If I crashed the car in the process, then I’d definitely have to buy it. If we didn’t also get arrested for public indecency.
My mind was whirling from inappropriate arousal, and out of nowhere, Danuwoa asked, “You looking forward to going to California?”
“I’ve never been on a plane before.”
“My first time flying was two years ago for my first work trip. The private plane is pretty nice.”
“I bet. It’s crazy how the other half lives,” I said just to say something. I looked at the entrance of the used car dealership, waiting for those keys.
“One percent,” Danuwoa corrected me.
“What?”
“How the other one percent live. Half the population does not fly on private jets.”
“It was just an expression,” I grumbled.
“And I was just teasing.” He crossed his arms and smiled.
“Stop doing that.”
“Teasing you?”
“That and smiling and being likable in general.”
He took a step toward me and lowered his voice. “I promise to try to hate this car for you. Is that better?”
“Much.” I gulped, because he was so close, and just under that lavender soap scent, I could smell his sweat. I was cringing internally for thinking that too, but human biology was making me like that masculine smell. I needed help. Divine intervention and maybe a bucket of ice water to douse the flames burning in my core from Danuwoa’s stare.
“All right!” The cheerful salesman’s arrival broke the mounting tension. “You’re all set. Just bring the car around to the front when you are done.”
I got into the front seat, and my butt was happy. Wow, there was a lot of cushion. The tan cloth seats were clean and soft, and the matching steering wheel was smooth and sturdy in my hands. It was a terrible sign—I liked it already. I turned the key over, and it purred to life instantly. No stalling. No sputtering. It worked great. The best part? As I pressed on the gas, we smoothly entered traffic. I cranked the AC dial and let the cool air blow my hair wild like I was in a Shakira music video.
“This car sucks. It’s too nice.” Danuwoa’s laughter was infectious as I drove in a large square around the dealership, a big smile plastered on my face. “Why would you want working air-conditioning? Get me out of here.” He must have pulled the lever to recline the seat, because it fell back, then promptly sprang up straight. “Hey, the passenger seat works. Unacceptable!” His laugh floated around me, and I couldn’t help but join him.
“Okay, okay. I’m buying it.”
He rolled the power window down, stuck his head out, and howled. I pushed my window button and did the same.
Inside the dealership, it was ice cold from the air-conditioning, and I loved it. I also loved that I was getting a cute new compact sports utility vehicle.
“Please follow me. My office is just over yonder.” The salesman led the way.
We all three piled into the small enclosure. His nameplate read jeff . Man, I felt bad I didn’t remember his name from earlier. I was too excited looking at all the cars.
An hour into the process I was wilting, painfully hungry. “Does it usually take this long?” Jeff left a third time to ask his boss about the payments to try to get them lower.
“Yeah, probably three hours.” Dan shook his head.
“Y’all can leave! This is ridiculous. You’ve both done so much to help me already.”
“Relax, this is fun.” Walela patted my hand.
“He’s going to come back and offer you gap insurance,” Danuwoa leaned over and whispered. “Don’t take it. It’s just another way the dealership makes more money.”
“What the hell is gap insurance?”
“Oh, he’ll tell you.”
I was about to make him explain, but Jeff came in shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Cardinal. That’s the lowest we can go, but I hope the fact that we accepted your car as a trade-in worth five hundred dollars eases things. The monthly payments of two hundred seventy-seven are the best we can do.”
“Jeff, you’ve been more than fair to me.” Truly, Danuwoa lugged my hunk of junk to his place last night and brought it to the dealership to get it off our hands. We probably would have been turned away and pointed to a junkyard, but Walela worked her charm. They would sell the Contour for parts. The fact that they offered me a $500 trade-in value made me think they were going to make a lot more than that off it.
“Great, now for six dollars more a month, we can tack on gap insurance. You know about gap insurance, right?”
“Why don’t you tell me.” Danuwoa and Walela snickered next to me.
“If you were to drive out of this lot and the car is totaled, your insurance company might not cover what you still owe. Gap insurance will pay you the gap between what your car insurance deems your car is worth totaled and what you still owe on the car loan. It’s the smart thing to do.”
“I can say no?”
“Well…er…technically,” Jeff stretched the collar around his neck.
“Great, no thank you. I’m very hungry. Can we speed this process up?”
“You’re a little bossy one, aren’t you?” To Danuwoa he said, “How do you keep her in line?” He chuckled like he’d cracked the world’s funniest joke.
If I didn’t so desperately need this car, I would have walked out. That’s the way it was for women. We had to suck it up and accept misogyny and sexism so we could get through our business.
Danuwoa crossed his arms and glared at Jeff. Jeff got the hint and began typing away on his computer to process my car loan.
“The stoic Indian, huh?” Jeff let out a nervous chuckle. I swear saying nothing was always better than filling the silence just to fill it. Especially when you didn’t contribute anything and offended those around you.
“I get hangry, so can we quit the chitchat?” I asked, because if this guy said one more ass-backward thing, we were going to walk out of there without a car, but with our dignity intact. I would like both a car and my dignity. Sometimes that seemed like too much to hope for.
Finally, an hour and a half later, I had my new keys in hand, and I felt like a new woman.
“Walela, you riding with me?” I asked.
“Heck yeah!” She fist-bumped me.
“Come on then—Danuwoa, see you at my place.”
“I wouldn’t miss the world’s best corn burritos for anything.”
I had promised to feed the Colson siblings. It was the least I could do. I swear, if either needed a kidney, I’d give it. Without them, I’d have bought the sedan and been stuck with higher payments with the damn gap insurance and probably still chitchatting with racist and sexist Jeff.
Joanna was sunbathing on a plastic folding chair on our “balcony.” It was the railed walkway that led to our apartment door and the four others down the way. She was in cutoffs and a lime- green bikini top. I honked my horn like crazy and she flipped me off. I don’t think she could tell it was me driving—I hadn’t told her what I was getting, because I wanted to surprise her. I pulled along the curb and got out. “Fuck you too!”
“Oh, what? You got that ? What happened to my cheap and cautious friend?” She stood, hands on the rail, and laughed.
“I’m still getting groceries from the dollar store, but this baby drives like a dream. You eat yet?” I yelled up to her.
“Nah, I was waiting for you!”
“My buddy and his sister will be joining us. I’m making corn burritos!”
“My girl, let’s go!”
I got back in the car and turned to Walela. “Brace yourself. Joanna is my best friend, but she is wild.”
“I can be wild.” She stuck out her chin.
“I bet.” I giggled. “I hope you like wigs.”
—
“I like the purple wig the best. Danuwoa, can I dye my hair purple?” Walela asked as she flipped the purple cropped synthetic wig’s hair off her shoulders.
“Maybe after your reign,” he countered as he sipped his beer from the couch after our meal. I was impressed; he ate six of my little fried corn burritos.
That appeased her as she continued digging through Joanna’s beads, the wig still on her head.
I got up from my spot on the floor and went to the bathroom. Once I came out, Joanna was leaning against the wall, waiting for me. She nodded to my room, and I followed her in.
“You like him.” She crossed her arms.
“Of course I like him. He’s my friend.” To distract myself from Joanna’s piercing gaze, I emptied my tote bag onto my bed.
I lifted my crumpled sweater, and a white rectangle floated down.
“Ugh, Sage,” I groaned, and chucked my sweater harder than was necessary into the plastic laundry basket I kept by my dresser.
“What is that?”
“Sage bullshit.” I took it and shoved it into the top drawer, right under all my socks and undies.
“When we go back out there, actually sit next to your friend . He isn’t a leper.”
“No, what he is is trouble and off-limits.”
“Nobody’s gotta know,” she sang.
On the one hand, I was grateful Joanna didn’t dig deeper into the envelope; on the other, I wished she would stop trying to get me to seduce the IT guy from work.
“Will you promise not to embarrass me?”
“No,” she said with a deceptively sweet smile.
I rolled my eyes, and with confidence I didn’t feel, I went back out to the living room and sat next to Danuwoa on our worn couch. He nudged my knee with his. I smiled at him. It was nice. But nice things never lasted for me, so I looked away.
“I like what you’ve done to the place,” he said, and pointed with the beer bottle’s neck at the old cardboard box we used as an end table.
I feigned offense. “We covered it with a pretty textile.”
“Ember once bought the cutest coffee table for thirty bucks at a garage sale,” Joanna offered. “It was painted green and was the perfect size.”
“Where is it?” Walela asked.
Joanna looked at Walela conspiratorially. “She felt so guilty spending the money that she sold it on Craigslist for forty bucks.”
“I made a profit at least.”
“Walela, tell Ember she is allowed to have nice things,” Joanna ordered.
“Ember, you’re allowed to have nice things,” Walela said.
“I’ve had to get over my poor pride,” Danuwoa said, taking a swig of his beer.
Poor pride was what my family and I flaunted instead of Ben Franklins. We didn’t need money or fancy shit. We didn’t need anything. We had each other. All our friends and family were poor, and we looked down on those who had money. Like they weren’t as tough as us. It was backward, but it was just how it was for us.
“How’d you get over it?” I asked quietly.
“Walela needed new shoes. Then one day at Walmart, a flat-screen TV was on sale. I kept walking past it, probably three times before Walela demanded I get it. It’s easier to spend money on her than myself. I love that TV.”
“I love my new car.”
Danuwoa gave me a crooked smile as his eyes melted me into the couch. I was no longer Ember; I was a puddle of molten lusty girl lava.
My hand was resting on the couch between us. Danuwoa took my hand in his and squeezed it.
Then he sighed. “We should head out.”
“Aw, I want to stay,” Walela said.
“Yeah, you guys can stay,” I offered.
“Really? Don’t you have your bowling league tonight? If I’m not mistaken, you told me you played with your team every week. It’s Sunday night; did you think I forgot?” His smile was borderline vicious. I did think he forgot. Hell, I even forgot! Shitass. He was daring me to admit to my lie. That was not going to happen.
“Leroy is sick tonight, so practice was canceled.” I batted my eyelashes incessantly, staring up into Danuwoa’s warm chocolate eyes, sending a message: Nice try .
His deep laugh and eye roll said, You can’t fool me.
I needed to drape my T-shirt over the fan in my room to cool down. I was sweating and slightly aroused. Not good, not good at all.
The Colson siblings got up to go, and I walked them both out to their truck.
“Thank you for keeping me company while car shopping. I didn’t know it would be such a chore.”
“I liked it! Danuwoa, you should buy a new car so we can go back.” Walela’s happy enthusiasm was contagious. Danuwoa gave her the keys and sent her ahead.
It was just Danuwoa and me in front of my apartment complex. He opened his mouth to say something, and I refused to hear it. I wasn’t ready for anything to change. I had enough to worry about at the office, and I didn’t want Danuwoa caught up in it. I tackled him in a hug and whispered another thank-you, before I kissed him on the cheek. It took all my self-control to break away and run back up the stairs.
“See you at the office!” he called after me.
“What just happened?” Joanna asked me.
I was flushed and out of breath from my sprint. “Nothing.”
“Mm-hmm. You have that look about you.”
“It’s buyer’s remorse. I just signed up for five years of car payments.”
“You can’t lie to yourself forever, you know.” Joanna headed back to her room, to escape into her beadwork no doubt. I was still reeling. I didn’t want to be a liar. Not to myself and most certainly not to Danuwoa. Nothing and everything happened. Danuwoa was stealing my heart, and if I didn’t distance myself, I’d never get it back. If we both lost our jobs, he wouldn’t look at me the way he did tonight.
My life was a mess.