Larissa didn’t want to say she’d never eaten sushi. She hesitated. “Come,” he said. “We’ll get you a tuna roll. You like avocado and cucumber? You like spicy?”
“It’s the raw fish I have a problem with,” she said to him. “Make it medium well, and I’ll eat it.”
Kai laughed. “Regular stand-up today, aren’t we?”
She parked, and they walked in together through the automatic doors, she first. As it should be, she thought.
Age before beauty
. In the back of the store, she met Al, a friendly wide bald Japanese man with a thick accent and an even thicker goatee. She didn’t understand him at all, but he and Kai spoke a secret language. Kai asked him for something special, while Al nodded and smiled. “It really is surprisingly good here,” Kai said while they waited. “Good enough for a Maui boy who ate sushi before he drank milk.”
She hurried off to buy some sirloin for dinner.
Kai paid for the sushi, they walked out, and got inside the Jaguar, where he turned up the heat and the radio. “I can’t believe you’ve never had sushi,” he said, opening up her plastic container. “Do you like wasabi?”
“I might if I knew what it was.”
“What about soy sauce? Do you know what
that
is?”
“Oh, who’s the comedian now?” She watched him skeptically as he used chopsticks to spread a little green paste over one of the sushi balls or rolls or whatever the heck it was, then deftly pick it up with the chopsticks and…
Well, it wasn’t like the sushi was on a fork. He couldn’t hand her the chopsticks. Once embarked on a course of action, they had no choice but to see it through; it was a good thing he was so unselfconscious. He brought the chopsticks with the sushi to her, she leaned forward, and put the whole roll in her mouth.
“Well?” He was excited. “What do you think?”
Her eyes teared up from the spice. “What
is
that? It’s going right to my nose.”
He laughed. “That’s the wasabi. It’s Japanese horseradish. Good?”
“Well, sure.” She swallowed. “If you think eating Vicks VapoRub is good, then yeah, absolutely.”
He handed her the plastic tray, and she put her own wasabi on the sushi, just a drop, not a teaspoon. It was marginally better. She couldn’t believe she was eating raw fish. Forty years and never once. Now suddenly in a Jag, with chopsticks.
“In Maui,” Kai said, eating happily, drinking his Coke, “there was a place near our apartment where the guy caught the tuna in the morning and made the sushi for me two hours later. It was
most
outrageous. I lived on tuna morning, noon, and night. Then one day, Charlie, the guy who owned the joint, asked me to go fishing with him, and I got all excited, until we went out in his boat at dawn and I saw the size of the tuna. Mamma mia! I thought tuna were tiny little fish, you know, big enough to fit into a 6-oz can.” He laughed. “But they were like whales! Three times the size of our boat. I said to him, Charlie, you bastard, you tricked me. He was laughing so hard he peed himself. I couldn’t catch a thing, they scared the shit out of me, excuse my French.”
“If you’re expecting plankton and you get whale, yeah, I can see how that might have an impact.”
“But good, right?”
“It’s not bad.”
“There’s a place nearby in Madison, they make really good special roll. Crab, salmon, tuna, avocado, cucumber, and a spicy sauce. Pretty awesome.”
“I bet.” She was busy trying to gingerly carry the large roll between two wooden sticks to her mouth before it fell.
“If you buy the car, I’ll take you there for lunch as a thank you. You’ll love it.”
“Well, you’re very kind. But no thanks will be necessary.”
They sat facing the gravestones and had their sushi out of plastic containers with the car running and the classical jazz station playing Nina Simone singing, “
If He Changed my Name
.”
“I hope you don’t have ice cream in the back,” he said when they were done eating.
“No ice cream today. Just meat.” Damn, they’d had steak last night. She pulled out of the parking lot. They were a minute away from the dealership. She had to jet. It was after two, and Michelangelo was getting out in a half-hour.
“So you love the car?”
She pulled into the Jag lot, to the front, put the car in park, idled.
“I love it. But I have to go.”
“Come back tomorrow,” Kai said. “I’m here in the morning. I can show you two other models. The flagship of our line, the XJR.”
“Is the flagship a convertible?”
“No, a sedan.”
Larissa pursed her lips. Sedans were so middle-age.
He smiled. “Okay. Only quad tailpipes with polished chrome for you.”
Quad
tailpipes? What would Jared think of that? “The heated leather seats might come in handy.”
“Oh, for sure. And the leather is hand-selected.”
“What other kind would I ever want, Mr. Passani?”
“Exactly.” He grabbed the brown paper bag of empty sushi boxes. “But that’s not why you buy a Jag, Miss Stark.”
“No,” she said, “you buy it for the body-colored spoiler and the four tailpipes with bright finishes. And it’s
Mrs
.”
His smile was wide. “So you’re going to stop by tomorrow?”
For some reason he wasn’t getting out of the car.
“Kai, I really have to run. I’ve got to pick up my son from school.”
Still not moving.
She looked at him. He looked at her. “Um, car’s not yet yours,
Mrs
. Stark,” he said, keeping the teasing grin away. “Would you like me to walk you to your own vehicle?”
“Oh God!” Larissa flipped off the ignition. “Sorry.” Idiot.
“Feels like yours, though, doesn’t it?” They both got out.
He did walk her to the Escalade, even shook her hand gently. “Almost like you already own it.”
Larissa came back the next morning. When he saw her, Kai Cheshire-grinned. She couldn’t help it. She smiled back.
“I don’t want to see another car,” she said. “I want you to show me what colors you have on the one I drove. Besides burl.”
Kai got her a coffee and they sat and talked at his desk, in full view of the rest of the dealership, chatted for an hour about luxury packages and sound options, about the convertible cover, wheel coverings, rich high-gloss burl walnut. She noticed he had a battered paperback on his desk:
The Sorrows of Young Werther
.
Of all the books! “You’re reading that?”
He nodded. “
Re
reading it. Werther is so wretched and self-pitying, I love it.”
“Well, he
is
pining. That’s what happens to pining people.”
“Pining
and
self-pitying,” said Kai. “Such attractive qual ities in a man.” He pitched his baritone an octave higher. “‘Oh, why did my greatest joy turn into my greatest misery? Wah.’”
“Mmm.” Larissa tried not to smile. Kai clearly thought he was being clever and amusing. “Then how come all the girls think he is a dashing romantic hero?”
“Who? Not the girl he’s pining for. And in real life, the girls wouldn’t come within a mile of him. Girls hate a whiner.”
“Well,” said Larissa, “perhaps you’re right. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have Werther’s sorrows.” She stared away into his desk. He read. Why did that impress her? She didn’t want him to see that she was impressed; he might find it condescending. But reading
Werther
! Honestly. About a young man who falls desperately in love with a married woman and kills himself when he realizes he will never have her for his own. Blood rushed to her fingertips. Her fingertips blushed!
“So you like to read?” she asked slowly, sharply regretting giving away eight boxes of her unread books.
“Yeah, I inhale books,” he replied. “So much better when you don’t read for school, don’t you think? Everything I read for school I hated. But I can’t hate a book now. I find something to like in all of them.”
“You have a favorite?”
“Nah. I’m on a German run at the moment. I finished,
The Tin Drum
, then
Faust
, now this.”
Larissa said nothing.
“Well, you want to take the car out one more time? I want you to be sure.” Kai twirled the key on a ring around his finger.
“I’m pretty sure,” she said. Pause. “Okay, one more time.”
Afterward they got sushi by the cemetery.
That evening Larissa searched and found her old copy of
Werther
and reread it in one anxious gulp, (
why
was he reading that?) and the next day went to the bookstore and bought copies of some of the books she had recently donated, making sure they were all distributed among the shelves before Jared came home and had a chance to comment on the oddity of giving away books one week only to buy the same ones again the next.
On Saturday afternoon, Larissa returned with Jared. The dealership was busier than it had been during the week.
Jared and Kai shook hands. Kai seemed taller, if only because of his narrow lanky build. Maybe it was the biker boots he was wearing.
Werther
had disappeared, replaced with a dogeared
Confessions of Felix Krull
. Larissa kept her gaze firmly on the desk, and on Jared’s shoulder, or his chin, or the windows outside, on anything but the two men standing in proximity eyeing each other over Kai’s desk.
“Ah,” said Jared, pointing to the book. “Felix Krull, the
confidence man. I read that a long time ago. How are you enjoying that?”
“It’s pretty good,” replied Kai. “It’s witty. I especially like Felix’s identification with Hermes, here, of course, in his capacity as the god of thieves.”
“Yes.” Jared studied Kai. Larissa studied the desk. “How does the management feel about you reading a book at the dealership about the god of thieves?”
“Lucky for me,” said Kai, serious, sober, untwinkly, with a short polite nod, “the management is somewhat unfamiliar with the later works of Thomas Mann. Otherwise you’re right, I’d be in real trouble.” He took the keys from the hooks on the wall. “Shall we?”
While Jared test-drove the two-seater convertible with Kai, Larissa remained in Kai’s cubicle, her eyes on
Felix Krull
, thinking of Werther and his poetic longings, and also about Krull’s shock at discovering how in much of all that he came into contact with, reality was an illusion and illusion reality. Snow was on the ground, they probably wouldn’t go far. It was too slippery to drive fast. Would Kai take Jared to Glenside? She wondered what they would talk about. Would Kai be chatty funny, like he was with her?
They were gone ten minutes. “I like the car,” Jared said to her when he returned. “I
love
the car.” She jumped up, excited. Kai went behind his desk to take a phone call. Jared pulled her away to the showroom. “Not at
all
sure about the salesman,” he said quietly. “Has he been giving you the business?”
“No, of course not,” Larissa said, taken aback. “Why would you say that?”
“I dunno. Something about him. A vibe I get.”
“He’s a salesman, Jared,” Larissa said. “This is what they do. They try to sell us something we don’t want at a price we don’t want to pay.”
When he considered her, she said quickly, either misunderstanding him or not wanting to understand, “I do want the car, I do. Pricey, though, huh?”
“Forget that. If he’s such a fine salesman, let me ask you, why didn’t he say a single thing to me?”
“When you say not a thing…”
“I mean not a word. A syllable.”
Larissa quietly chewed her lip. “You mean he didn’t mention the revolutionary aluminum body construction?”
“Oddly, no. And that might’ve been a good thing to mention. If you’re actually trying to sell the damn thing.” Jared stood close. “We can go somewhere else. We don’t have to get it here.” He glanced over at Kai behind the desk.
Larissa tapped Jared to get his attention. “We can. But why? I like the car. Why don’t we talk to Chad, the finance guy? He’s Irish. Let’s see if the numbers add up.”
“Oh, is that synonymous with good business sense, those two things? Irish and finance?”
They were in the middle of the dealership, talking in hushed spousal tones. Jared wasn’t dressed for success today; on Saturdays he was all about the comfortable jeans and sweatshirts. He hadn’t shaved, his hair was shaggy. Larissa wished he were more formal. Might make negotiating easier. She didn’t want Jared to get squeezed. “We can go somewhere else if you want,” she said in a resigned voice.
“You want to?” Why did he sound so hopeful?
“Look, I said from the beginning I didn’t want the car. You’re the one who insisted. Now that I found one I like, you’re getting cold feet. Why put me through that? Just get me a necklace or something. Take me out to dinner.”
His hand went on her arm, on her shoulder. He drew her near. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t need my horse sense here.”
“No, just a little sense.”
“I don’t even know what it is.”
“Is it something he said?”
“No! I told you. It’s all the things he didn’t say. He acted like he didn’t even have to sell me on it.”
“And because of that you think he’s giving you the business?”
“Well, why else would he be sitting in that car as if it’s already a done deal?”
“I don’t know, Jared.”
“Revolutionary construction my ass. Okay, let me go try to talk to him. You think maybe he doesn’t speak English? Can’t be that; he was waxing all English major on me with that
Felix Krull
bullshit. Hermes, the god of thieves. The arrogance.” Jared snorted. “Wait a few minutes, okay?”
“You want me with you? For moral support?”
He squeezed her. “Let me deal with him my own way. I’ll be five minutes.”
Jared returned to Kai’s desk while Larissa sat inside the snow-white sedan on the showroom floor and anxiously played with the controls. But the two men seemed to be actually speaking this time. Kai was measured, extremely still in his body, no twitching, jerking, no gratuitous movement of any kind, not even the drumming on the desk with a pencil. Just his mouth moved. They weren’t five minutes, more like forty-five. Back and forth, Kai getting up, coming back.