Chapter 13

The next morning, Will saw Claire off to work, and then requisitioned her vacuum cleaner to do some final clean-up work on Bob's truck.

Like polishing a turd, he thought as he laboriously cleaned the nooks and crannies of the old Dodge, sucking a motley collection of coins, ancient French fries, and other debris into the refuse container of Claire's bagless vacuum. It's not like they're going to allow more than the junkyard value of this thing on the trade.

It turned out that he had underestimated the willingness of the car salesman to move last year's models off the lot. Christa wasn't working today, so Will picked her up after driving the truck through a car wash one last time, like taking a death row inmate to a final shower. They drove out to the highway leading to the airport, which had the highest concentration of car dealers in the area code.

"The world-famous airport motor mile," Christa said, mimicking the local television advertising in an exaggerated Southern drawl that reminded Will instantly of Erica's renditions. "I wonder on which basis they claim some international connection. I've never seen anything but local license plates. Hell, our local sales tax rate is almost ten percent. I can pretty much guarantee you there aren't even any out-of-staters shopping here."

"They probably had a customer once who may have been a foreign exchange student," Will remarked, and they both laughed.

Bob's new ride would have to include enough cargo space for passengers and a wheelchair, which limited the suitable range of vehicles greatly. In fact, the only thing suitable for the task was a minivan. They went to four different dealerships on the Motor Mile to compare different kinds of minivans and gauge their suitability for wheelchair use. At the fourth place, a Dodge dealer, Christa and Will took a test drive in a Grand Caravan. Will preferred sports sedans, so he had no favorite among all the vans they had tested so far, but Christa immediately fell in love with the Dodge, and when the salesman demonstrated that all the seats save the two front ones could be folded into floor bins with very little effort, the deal was sealed.

Will wasn't very good at haggling, but Christa was an expert. She took charge of the negotiations, and got the salesman to concede fifteen hundred dollars as a trade-in value on Bob's old truck. Will suppressed a smile when he understood that Christa maximized the trade allowance by letting the dealer assume she'd finance the rest, and the salesman barely managed to avoid a nonplussed expression when she informed him that the rest of the vehicle's value would be paid in cash. Will had checked with his accountant earlier in the morning, and the money earmarked for his own traditional biannual car trade would have paid for two minivans. For the first time in ten years, Will labeled the practice wasteful, and his accountant practically cheered in response.

Christa further proved her financial shrewdness by rejecting the purchase of a brand new Grand Caravan, and instead opting for a lightly used one from last year's lineup. It was fully loaded, with electric sliding doors and virtually every option from the accessory catalog, and the twelve thousand miles on the odometer meant that the grand total rang up to almost ten thousand dollars less than a brand new model. Christa agreed to an extended warranty, which added another fifteen hundred dollars to the bill. In the end, Will signed over a check with a lot of numbers on it, and they drove off the lot in a forest-green Grand Caravan that still smelled like a new car.

They met up with Claire for lunch at an Applebee's a short distance from the bookstore. Will smiled when Christa was eager to show Claire the features of the new minivan, and walked inside ahead of the two women to claim a table.

"That's a swank ride," Claire said when they finally joined him at the table a few minutes later. "I love all the extras. It has like three cup holders for every passenger."

"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" Will replied. "I've never been a fan of minivans, but that thing is almost enough to make me want to buy one, too. It's like a rolling living room."

"And you know what else is cool about it?" Christa said as she reached for one of the menus on the table. "It's a minivan. It's big and boxy and uncool. That means that Erica is not going to ask to borrow it when she gets her license this year."

"Are you buying her a car?" Will asked.

"Well, that's the thing. Bob says she should spend some of her savings, so she'll appreciate it more, and we were going to match that dollar for dollar. The problem is that I don't want her driving around in a two thousand dollar shitbox with no safety features."

"You don't want her to ding up a brand new car, either," Claire said.

"Exactly."

"Go to one of those city and county auctions where they sell old government vehicles," Will suggested. "Get her an old police cruiser, one of those Crown Vics. They have a lot of miles on them, but they come with cow catchers and heavy-duty electrical systems. She'll be safe in one of those. Plus, people are going to slow down on the highway when they see her car. They'll think it's an unmarked cruiser."

"That's not a bad idea," Christa said. "Those things are ugly, though. She'll want to borrow the van instead after all."

"Nah, it's Erica," Will shrugged. "She won't care about what it looks like, as long as she can come and go without having to ask anyone for a ride."

"I'm worried about letting her drive out on the road by herself. People drive like retards. The other day, I almost got clipped by this old bat who had to do fifty in the grocery store parking lot."

"Just wrap her in two tons of surplus cop car, and she'll be okay. She's a smart kid. I'm sure she'll be fine."

"I suppose," Christa sighed. She looked at Claire and smiled.

"Just wait until you have kids, Claire. You have no idea how much can worry about someone until your child leaves the house by herself for the first time."

Will cringed inwardly at Christa's innocent remark—he had never shared the story of Claire's miscarriage with anyone—but Claire merely returned the smile.

"Oh, I don't doubt it. I have a hard enough time leaving Oliver at the vet's overnight." She caught Will's glance and gave him an almost imperceptible little smile.

"Well, that settles it, I guess," Christa said. "She'll get a police cruiser. Maybe they have one that still has the cage in the back seat, so she can make sure her dates keep their hands to themselves."

After lunch, Will and Christa returned to the house, where Christa spent a half hour filling up the storage bins of the Caravan with various items from the garage.

"This is awesome," she proclaimed when Will came out to check on her. "We can haul around all the junk that's usually cluttering up the garage, and it all just disappears under the floor."

He watched as she arranged the contents of the storage bins until she was satisfied with the results. When she was finished, she closed the lids of the floor bins carefully, and then stepped back to appraise the clean interior of the van. Then she walked over to Will and hugged him firmly.

"Thank you for that loan, Will. You have no idea how much this is going to help. I couldn't have budgeted in another car payment."

"Don't mention it," Will replied, and patted Christa's back lightly. He felt a flush of embarrassment at her praise.

"It's not much of a sacrifice for me to have to keep driving an almost new BMW, is it?"

In the afternoon, Will decided to get back to work for a little while.

Living with Claire and being around his brother's family had emphasized the point that he didn't have much of a work schedule even on his most organized days. Claire got up every morning at five thirty, and she opened the store every day at eight thirty. Christa went to work almost every day now, and Erica spent the same predictable eight-hour block of time in school. Bob was still in the hospital, of course, but Will knew that his brother's writing schedule had been set in stone before the head injury. That left only Will looking for something to do during the day.

Back at home in Maine, he had followed a comfortable daily routine of sleeping in late, going for a run or a gym visit, eating lunch at one of his half dozen regular favorites, and then taking a nap before playing with his laptop keyboard until happy hour. On most days, the nap stretched right into happy hour, and then he would go back out to have some dinner before returning home to his well-stocked bar. Now, surrounded by people who had well-defined work schedules, Will felt like a slacker, and he knew that it was an accurate self-assessment. He was also bored out of his mind during the day, and he had spent so much time at Claire's store lately that even Libby had come to take his presence in stride.

Now, with no other distractions or excuses presenting themselves, Will dug the new laptop out of the computer bag that had not left the corner of Claire's bedroom since the first night he had spent here. Oliver had accompanied him into the bedroom, delighted to have unexpected company in the middle of the day, and now he wagged his tail at Will in a tentatively optimistic manner.

"Sorry, buddy," Will said. "I think I'll drive over to the café and do some work. They don't like doggies there."

He laughed when Oliver managed to look dejected, undoubtedly reading the tone of his voice.

"Tell you what. I'll give you a pig ear to make up for it. Want a treat?"

Oliver's ears perked up at the mention of the magic word, and he followed Will into the kitchen, tail wagging furiously. Will went to the pantry where Claire kept the dog treats, and reached in to extract a roasted pig ear from its container. They smelled awful once they got moistened by dog saliva, and chewing them produced a horrid crunching noise, but Oliver loved them, and just one of those pig ears usually kept him busy for a good ten minutes. Will handed the treat to Oliver, who took it gingerly before trotting off into the living room with his prize.

"See you tonight, buddy."

Will left the house and locked the door behind him. The air outside was cold and clean, and he paused to study the clear winter sky. A pair of crows circled overhead, cawing a dialogue, and Will watched them for a few moments as they flew their unhurried pattern above the quiet neighborhood.

He remembered reading that crows were monogamous, mating for life to a single partner. If one of those birds was blotted out of the sky by a hunter, or run over by a car while scavenging roadkill, the other one would be lonely for the rest of its life. The thought depressed him.

And they say monogamy is an unnatural state, he thought. Once upon a time, he had bought into that theory, but now he wasn't sure about the validity of it anymore.

The bookstore café wasn't nearly as busy as it had been the evening Will had joined the Friday Night Literature Club. There were a handful of people scattered at various tables, college kids with laptops and retirees perusing the store's variety of newspapers for free while sipping coffee. Will bought an iced coffee and picked a table by the window, as far away from the occupied tables as possible.

It felt strange to open the laptop and bring up a blank word processor page, and Will realized that it had been months since he had last put a word down. He briefly browsed through the documents he had salvaged from Erica's laptop recently. There was a novel that was a third of the way finished, a half dozen first chapters that had never made it beyond page ten or twenty, and various bits and snippets that didn't even look familiar to him. He opened the abandoned novel and read the first few pages, only to shake his head and conclude that this particular one wasn't likely to see the light of day. The idea had been good enough—it was supposed to be an insightful and clever story about a small Maine mill town that finds itself hosting a few hundred refugees from Somalia—but he hadn't even thought about the story in over a year, and it was as dead as freeze-dried fish.

Maybe I should stop poking at leftovers, then, he thought. He reopened a blank page in Word, collected his thoughts for a moment, and then started typing.

Surprisingly enough, the words came easy.

A good while later, when his wrists were starting to hurt, and the second refill of his iced coffee was drained, Will took his hands off the keyboard again and leaned back in his chair. When he checked his watch, he was surprised to find that he'd spent two hours hunched over his laptop. He brought up the Word Count feature, and let out a low whistle when the computer told him that he had just cranked out almost four thousand words. His usual daily quota was a thousand words, and on rare occasions he had been on a roll and managed two and a half thousand, but he could not remember having written this much in one sitting since he was working on the second half of Crow's Lament over ten years ago.

Will saved his new file with a feeling of satisfaction, and then closed the lid of the laptop.

That's more like it, he thought. And maybe, when I read through it tomorrow, only half of it will be unmitigated shit.

He had just left the bookstore when his cell phone rang. He switched the laptop bag to his left hand and pulled the phone out of his pocket, answering it without checking the caller ID.

"This is Will."

"Will! Are you sitting down?"

"Hi, Rachel. I can sit down, if I need to."

"I think you do, Will. I'm in the middle of a major bidding war regarding that manuscript you sent me."

"No shit," he replied. His stomach suddenly felt strangely buoyant. There was a green cast iron bench next to the door of the bookstore, and he walked over to it and sat down.

"No shit," Rachel affirmed. "I have the Big Five trying to outbid each other, and a dozen of the smaller houses."

"Good God, Rachel. How many places did you carpet-bomb with that manuscript?"

"Everyone who has something on the New York Times list this week, and then a few more," Rachel laughed. "Will, they're tossing numbers around that you wouldn't believe. I could pretend I'm not excited about the agent's cut on this one, but I'd be lying through my teeth. Doubleday is offering an advance that has more zeros than a History Channel special on Pearl Harbor."

Despite the sudden dread he was feeling, Will had to laugh at this.

"Oh, crap, Rachel. I'm in deep shit now."

"If by 'shit' you mean hundred-dollar bills, then yes, you're in it up to your eyeballs."

"Not exactly." He paused, trying to think of a way to dampen her excitement without making her hang up on him.

"Rachel, can you promise me something here?"

"What's that, Will?"

"Sit on the manuscript for a while. Compare the offers, negotiate better deals if you want, but don't commit to anything yet. I'm going to have to clear something up here, but I'll call you back as soon as I can. Just don't buy a bigger condo on the Upper West Side yet, okay?"

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A Bettered Life

Michael Lindgren

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