Years later, after they were living together, after they had done a scripted TV ad together for MatchesMadeinHeaven.com, in which he had acknowledged her as his soul mate, he still hadn’t forgiven her for finding his car. That she knew he continued to resent her gave him a certain advantage in the relationship. For the first several years, before indifference set in, Clarissa did whatever she could to make it up to him for having occasioned his humiliation on their second date. With what she thought were the best intentions, the intentions of love, she had willfully done him a favor she might have known in advance he didn’t want.
The lost car was traded in three months after its recovery and its successor, a newer model of the same car, was kept in a garage except for extended excursions and it was never on any occasion, or almost never, allowed to sit unattended on city streets.