Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
“No, bring it,” Marjorie said. “Definitely bring it.”
When Marjorie didn’t change her mind by Friday, I had the car delivered to her house. I even had them wrap the giant, tacky red ribbon around the hood. Might as well, right? There’s no downplaying a Ferrari anyway. Then I got to the party early to make sure it was perfect.
Marjorie came out to stand beside me while I was circling it, my face right up to the shining black body.
“Are you sniffing the car, Dom?”
I spotted the tiniest smudge. Buffed it out with the microfiber cloth I’d brought. Then I straightened up and gave Marjorie a one-armed hug. “Come on,” I spread my other arm out, encompassing the car. “Admit that you love it.”
Despite our tragic and shitty history with cars, Marjorie and I both loved luxury, however it came. She held herself back more than I did, as evidenced by the shitty Nissan currently parked in her garage, but she loved it all the same.
“I love it,” she admitted easily, walking away from me to circle it herself. She held up her hand, and I tossed her the microfiber. She bent over, buffing out another nearly invisible smudge. A satisfied grin unfurled across my face. My sister was hooked. Jake was going to lose his shit.
My nephew was driving down from San Francisco for his birthday weekend. His high school friends started to arrive, and all of us ended up congregating in the driveway. I made sure they gave the car a wide berth, but I understood why they wanted to be basking in its glory. Hell, it was making me want a Ferrari and I’d been a Mercedes loyalist for almost two decades.
Bryan, Jake’s dad, had bought me my first one. A shitty, broken down, 2005 SL-Class. They practically paid him to haul it away, and then we’d spent months restoring it.
“Quality is worth the work,” he’d told me. “Don’t ever go cheap and easy.”
The memory of Bryan’s face was starting to fade. I could really only picture him clearly as a photograph. Too young and too happy in his wedding picture with my sister, one arm around her waist, the other around my shoulders. Now, though, a slice of memory came through, sharp and crystal clear. Oil smudges on his forehead and cheekbone, his wide grin, his white teeth, his blue-gray eyes just starting to crinkle in the corners, handing me a wrench. Both of us crouched on the floor underneath the chassis. Me, scared as shit because didn’t Bryan know this was a whole fucking car we were about to mess with? Him, so confident. So sure, just like my sister, that everything was going to be fine.
My heart tripled in weight, and I pushed the memory away like it might crush me. Today was about celebrating Jake turning twenty-five. Not remembering his dad when he was twenty-five. I walked inside to pour myself a drink, and when I came out, Jake’s car had just turned onto the street. His group of friends cheered when they saw him, and collectively huddled together to block the Ferrari from his view as his car slid past and parked on the street.
I stayed on the porch with my beer, shaking my head at the sad, burping Honda my nephew was unfolding himself from. Odds were good that Marjorie had bought it for him based on the safety ratings.
I watched him approach the crowd, his head cocked, a wide easy grin on his face. He knew something was up. His friends loved him, but they didn’t usually wait outside for him. They chorused his name, and he heard it in their voices too.
“What’s going on guys?” he asked, reaching the group.
“I got you something, Jake,” one of them said.
“No, I got you something.”
“We all chipped in.”
Slowly the amoeba of twenty-somethings shifted aside, and Jake’s jaw dropped. He looked askance at Marjorie. She shook her head and nodded her chin to the porch where I was standing. Jake bounded up the steps and grabbed me in a hug. I hugged him back with one arm, careful not to spill my drink on him.
“She’s never gonna let me keep it,” Jake said when he pulled back. His eyes were shining anyway though. Happiness, tears, all emotions lived right on the surface for Marks’ men. His dad had been the same way. “But I’ll never forget the five minutes of my life that I owned a Ferrari.”
“I think she might.” I looked over at my sister. She was looking at the Ferrari the same way she’d looked at Jake when he was a baby. Overwhelmed adoration. She caught my eye, and a grin spread across her face. Jake had his dad’s expressions. Easy, open, sincere. Marjorie and I were different. Her grin held shades of malevolence and mischief. She’d come to a decision about that car, and I might not like it.