The Red Car (3 page)

“Work,” she said. “We have a job opening for a new admin, level three, who is going to work for Harry over in contracts. Here are some job descriptions for similar jobs for you to go on. Can you write this up for me? I need a classified ad and the job description itself.”

“Okay,” I said.

I reluctantly took the folder.

There were days at this job I didn't have any work to do at all. Judy liked that I worked on my fiction at the office, advised me to lie to anyone who asked me, to always say that I was working, even when I wasn't. Judy had high expectations for me. She quizzed me about my life. She always wanted me to write more, do more, be more. There were moments when I wanted to tell her to shove it. It was not like her paintings were showing in galleries, that she had a boyfriend. But I never did. At all costs, as a rule, I avoided confrontation.

“Why don't you get this done by lunch?” she said. She saw the surprise on my face. “And then we'll go out. I have something special to show you. There's a new tapas place I want to try. Does that sound good?”

“It sounds good,” I said.

I could not tell her that I had hoped for a different morning. To play video games on my computer and drink coffee. She hired me to be her friend, but she also needed an assistant. The work was real. I wondered what it was that Judy wanted to show me.

I walked back to my cubicle. I noticed so many people looking me up and down and I wondered why. In general, I was not liked at my workplace. It was known that I was Judy's pet. The other administrative assistants knew I did not value my job. I understood this and had respect for their contempt. Many of the other employees were in their thirties and forties and even fifties. They had kids and mortgages and I did not know what else. Credit card debt.

“You look nice,” Beverly called out from her cubicle as I passed by. Beverly was one of the admins in her fifties. She had long gray hair and wore oversized linen clothes to work. “What's going on? Big meeting? Job interview?”

And then, it clicked.

I was wearing Judy's clothes.

“A date after work?”

I shook my head. “I generally don't go out on dates,” I said, admitting to too much.

“And that is one of the problems of your generation. All sex. No romance. No love.”

I could not disagree with that.

“I spilled coffee on my shirt,” I said. “Judy lent me this outfit.”

Beverly nodded her head. “That explains it. The skirt is a little bit too short for an interview.”

I nodded. I stood at the edge of her cubicle. It was not that I did not like Beverly. She made me nervous. She told me once that she only had fifteen more years until her pension. So she was going to keep on doing the job that she had for fifteen more years, even though she hated it. I felt like it was necessary to stay away from Beverly; I did not want her resignation to rub
off on me. That was how I felt about pretty much everybody in my office. That they were all resigned to mediocrity. And who was I, after all, to want so much more? Even Judy, so high and mighty. She seemed hopelessly stuck to me.

I held up my folder.

“Work to do,” I said.

Beverly gave a wry laugh. She and Judy used to be friends. They had had a falling-out. This was years ago, long before I had started working there. That was another reason I avoided Beverly, not wanting to get in the middle. But really, it was because Beverly was preparing herself for death, and while I was not entirely satisfied with the circumstances of my existence, I felt like the possibility of improvement still existed. That I could make happiness happen. That night, for instance, I was determined not to sleep on the hallway floor.

To get to my cubicle, I passed four more cubicles, and then Diego's office. Diego, he was different from the rest. He was also young, only a couple of years older than me. He wore slick suits, crisp shirts, silver and navy blue ties. He had a degree in architecture from a good school. He was from Costa Rica. I had an enormous crush on Diego. We were friends. He was clearly not interested in me and so it helped when we out for lunch or hung out by the water cooler that he knew that I had a boyfriend.

“Leah,” he called out. “You look so nice today.”

It was an invitation. I came into his office, sat on his desk. It was a flirtatious move on my part. That was what we did. Besides lunch with Judy, flirting with Diego was my favorite part of the job.

“You should dress like that more often,” he said.

“They are Judy's clothes.”

“Let's go out for lunch today,” he said.

I shook my head. “Can't,” I said. “I am having lunch with Judy.”

“That's cool.”

“We are going out for tapas.”

“Totally cool.”

It was revelatory, really. If I dressed differently, the hot guy in the office would ask me out, even if it was only for lunch. Who knows? I might even get ahead, succeed, earn more money. That, of course, wasn't what I wanted. My position at the office wasn't temporary, but I continued to think of it that way. I wondered if I could cancel on Judy and then go out for tapas with Diego instead.

“Work to do,” Diego said.

I slid off his desk, brandishing my folder.

“Me, too,” I said, and I did.

The funny thing about doing work at my job was that I was good at it. I was able to blend three old job descriptions from other positions into a new one for Judy. I knocked off the ad to post on the HR website, another one for the newspaper, and coded all of the entries properly with ID numbers, the proper codes and HTML tags. I knew that Judy would be pleased with my work. She would review, approve, make one unnecessary change just to prove her superior position, and then the job would be posted.

Judy was smart and Judy had hired me. She had seen something in me. Even if I didn't want to get ahead in the field of human resources. The job actually paid well. I had enough money to rent my own apartment, buy my own furniture. No
more crazy roommates. But I was afraid to do it, afraid that renting an apartment meant that I was forever compromised. Whereas Judy said what it would mean was I had a nice apartment and nothing more. Judy often had smart things to say to me. Most of the time, I didn't listen to her.

She was not surprised when I showed up at her office at noon and handed her the completed work.

“Thanks, doll,” she said, giving it a cursory glance. “I knew you would get this done.”

Going out to lunch with Judy was usually expensive, but Judy was my boss, and most of the time, if it was just the two of us, she paid, putting the tab on the office account. We walked to the parking lot together. I felt myself growing excited. A new restaurant. A long lunch.

“Look,” Judy said, squeezing my hand.

“What?” I said, surprised but also pleased by the physical display of affection, not usual for Judy.

I looked and what I saw was the parking lot. I saw parked cars. I looked for Judy's car and I did not see it. I followed Judy's extended arm, not sure what I was looking for. My gaze traveled from her arm down to her red nail polish to a blindingly red car, gleaming in the sunlight. A sports car. I blinked. I felt as if I had gotten something in my eye.

“It that yours?” I asked.

“I have always wanted a car just like this,” she said. “Come see. Can you believe it? It's a dream come true.”

I wasn't convinced. It was a car. Who dreamed about owning a red car?

Judy had once told me she wanted to go to Hawaii. She told me she wanted to paint large canvasses. A mural. This, this
was just a car. I wasn't sure why, but I knew that I didn't like it. It was a feeling I had. I shivered.

“It drives like a dream, too,” Judy said.

There was that word, again. Dream.

A bad dream, I thought.

I thought about spending the night on the floor in front of my apartment. I hadn't had any dreams. Strangely, I had slept well. I followed Judy to her new car. She unlocked the car with a loud beep from her key chain and I got in.

“I didn't know you wanted a red car,” I said. I felt almost betrayed, that she hadn't told me.

“All my life,” Judy said.

I touched the smooth leather of the upholstery. I put on my seat belt. I checked to see if the seat belt was secure. The car was too low to the ground. It had new car smell, something chemical and cloying, and I opened the window even though it was cold outside. “I feel like something sinister has happened in this car,” I said. “Or could happen. I don't know. Something bad.”

“I don't know what you are going on about,” Judy said, her voice sharp. I hated it when Judy was displeased with me. “But save it for one of your short stories. This car is all good. It's brand-new. It is perfection.”

I looked away, stung, not sure if Judy was putting down my short stories. But that wasn't it. I had responded wrong. A gesture had been required and I had let her down. It was Judy who was disappointed.

I hated that I had disappointed her.

I had disappointed my mother, moving so far away after college. By not calling home. By keeping secrets. I did not want to be a disappointment.

“Congratulations,” I said. “Don't listen to me. What do I know? I take the bus. This car. It's beautiful. Look at this leather interior. It's so soft, Judy.”

The leather, it
was
soft. I did like it. I looked at Judy, her short dark hair, her red lipstick. I saw how pleased she was, with her car and even with me, once again, pleased with the compliment I had paid her new car.

“You are beautiful,” I said, meaning it.

I had never thought that before, about Judy. Because she was small and she looked like Liza Minnelli. But she was, beautiful.

Judy smiled at me, placated.

“This is the nicest thing I have ever bought for myself,” she said.

“That's nice,” I said.

Judy started the engine. It was loud. Too loud. My feelings for the car, despite what I had said, had not changed.

“This is it for me,” she said. “This car.”

“That's not true.”

“You're just a baby,” Judy said. She put the car into reverse. “I forget that sometimes.”

“No,” I said, offended. “I am not.”

But I had never had tapas before. She drove us to the restaurant she had picked out. I was distracted. I realized I was not sure what I would do, after work, what I could expect. If I had a home to go back to. I let Judy order. The car had upset me. Judy had found a parking space right in front of the restaurant and I could see the red car from our table. Taunting me. There was something about the way she talked, too, that
reminded me of Beverly. Of fifteen more years at the office. A life sentence. I wanted Judy to return the car. To quit her powerful job. But she would never do these things. This, as she had said, was it for her. I was not a baby. Somehow, I felt older. Like I had aged in a day. Judy ordered a carafe of sangria. The waiter asked to see my ID.

The sangria was delicious.

“I have high hopes for you,” Judy said, refilling our glasses. “You know that. You are going to do incredible things.”

“No,” I said, though I wanted to. “I am not.”

“I am going to make sure of it,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Let's celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” I asked.

“The day,” Judy said. “This lunch. My red car. To our future good fortune.”

The waiter came to our table with a tray full of small plates of food. Judy had ordered well. Fried potatoes, roasted artichoke hearts, sautéed mushrooms, calamari.

We made a toast.

“This is the best calamari I have ever had,” Judy said.

I smiled at Judy. It was also the best calamari I had ever had, though I couldn't say how many times I had had calamari. Three, maybe. Perhaps four. I was not a baby, but I had more to do. I felt content again in the moment, with the food, with her company. I didn't even mind the red car if it made Judy happy. It was not my car, after all. It was not my life. We were both a little bit drunk by the end of the meal.

“I can't drive like this,” she said, laughing.

We drank one espresso and then another.

We sat at our table in the window, unable or unwilling to leave. “Screw the office,” she said.

I laughed, delighted to hear these words come out of my boss's mouth. I think I knew even then, that afternoon, when we never ended up going back to the office, that this day was something special. The waiter brought us an order of caramel flan, on the house. We shared the dessert, taking small bites with small silver spoons.

“Delicious,” Judy said, smiling at me.

TEN YEARS LATER

I
T WAS BEVERLY, FROM THE OFFICE
, who wrote to tell me that Judy had died. It had been a car accident. Another car had gone through a red light and plowed directly into Judy's red car, no longer new, and she had died, instantly. Her neck had broken on impact. I read the email from my apartment in Queens as my husband cooked dinner.

I was not sure how to process the information. Judy was dead. We had lost track of each other over the years. She had been happy for me when I quit my job to go to graduate school. I had been her assistant for two years and I had begun to do my work slower and then slower still. It was Judy who had urged me to apply to writing programs. She even proofread my short stories, locating typos and offering praise that I didn't deserve. Once I got in, Judy threatened to fire me if I didn't go.

Still, it had seemed ridiculous at the time: to leave a good-paying office job to get a degree in creative writing. Creative writing. Judy, for instance, had a graduate degree in painting and look where that had gotten her. To a higher-paying office job.

Beverly's email was a shock.

I had woken up early that day, before the sun had come up, and snuck out of bed, gone to my desk that was also the kitchen table and cleared space for my computer. I had written the last scene of my novel. It had come as a surprise to me. I had not realized I was so close. I had finished my novel. The entire day passed and I had not told anyone. I had not told my husband, Hans. Always looking for a reason to celebrate, he would have run out to buy a bottle of champagne. I had written the last sentence and I felt a humming inside me, a sort of quiet happiness. I did not want to ruin it.