The phone rang. That’s how interesting things begin, right? Feh.

“Hello, do you still have the car for sale?” Oh yes. Oh good. “Mmm yeah, well I completely TO-talled my Jag and I need an “interim” car.” I could almost taste the quotation marks.

They come to look at the car. “Ooooh, I was raised in Shoreline but I just looooove the architecture in this area. Can I look around.” She clops back to the bedroom and peeps in the bathroom. “Ooooh, are these fixtures original?” Sorry, honey, we hide our glocks/ferret farm/heroin rigs (or whatever you were looking for) in the Heart of Darkest Closet.

“Oooooh, look at these livingroom walls? Did you do this yourself?” She smells like wine and leather and faded rich lady perfume. Our walls are an obsequiously cheerful shade of orange.

“Oh no. It was like this when we moved in.”

“Ahhh, I bet someone did this in the 60s. There was a lot of communal living in this neighborhood then.” She whispers “communal living” at me the way someone else might use the phrase “leper colony.” She asks about the hole in the backyard.

“Oh. That used to be a mother-in-law cottage.” She shakes her head and pinches up her lips tightly. “Communal living,” she hisses again, disgustedly.

The phone rings the next day. “Can you do me a favor and go run and look at the tire size. I want to buy new rims since those ones are so dinged.” Yeah, okay, I can do that. I’ll run too, if it means you’ll buy the car.

Later, they want to come back and pay for the car. The husband hovers by the car, peering at it in the daylight like he’s studying an artifact. The wife shuffles around nervously in the entryway and smells like booze again, maybe she’s a rummy. “Why does she keeps staring at me like that?” says the rummy’s little boy, uneasily.

“Ha ha, she likes other little kids. You want a cookie, fella?”

The man comes in and lets my cat out, who is not allowed out. “Oh the cat,” says the rummy, “I’ll go get her.”

“No!” he says, and grabs her arm. “What if the cat gets out in the street? You wouldn’t want it to be your fault, would you?” He glances at me. Shifty. I’m not going to sue you if my cat gets hit by a car, you fuck.

Subject change: “Well, I wiped the car with some chemicals.” You wiped a car with chemicals that you don’t even own yet? How fucking stupid are you?

“Aah ha.”

“And it looks like a lot of it’s just road grime. I think that car hasn’t been waxed in a while.” Ha! Try never.

He gives us the check which is made out for a measly twenty-five less than the absolute firm bottom price, which is actually okay because he had lowballed us by about two grand to start with.

As she signs the title, the afternoon sun slants into the window, bouncing off her diamond and momentarily blinding me. “Your daughter’s so beautiful.” I know. It’s a shame your boy looks like a troll doll though.

“Have fun with your car, bye bye.”

When they are gone I open the windows to get rid of the lingering used tobacco and leather smell.