“Different sheet metal from the roof down, though,” said Ray Reeve. “But I take your point. The Ford folks must have got the hang of making ’em by then.”
“I never did see many of them rusting in junkyards,” said Jim Powell. “And it’s not like anybody would bother to rescue one.”
“So not the Fairlane,” said Cayle. “Okay, y’all agree on that?”
They nodded.
“Me, too. So that leaves the ’64 GTO and the ’69 Chevelle.” She considered it. “Both GM A-bodies.”
“Yeah, but not the same,” said Ray Reeve. “Remember they designed a new from-the-ground-up A-body in 1968 for all GM intermediates, which included the Chevelle.”
“And the Skylark, the Olds Cutlass, and the Pontiac Tempest,” said Cayle, nodding. “We had a burgundy Cutlass when I was a kid. Well, my dad had it, but the rest of us got to ride to church in it.”
“That’s an awful lot of makes and models,” said Jim Powell. “And then the government started throwing all those safety regulations and pollution controls at the manufacturers, so maybe things began to slip a little at the factory.”
“So which rusts first? The Chevelle?”
Jim Powell and Ray Reeve looked at each other and nodded. “In a junkyard? Chevy first,” said Ray Reeve. “I can see it. There’d be some rust at the base of the back window. It’s a steeper angle, so the water would collect there, and after the water took hold in there, more water coming in would rust the rocker panels and the lower rear fenders.”
Jim Powell gave him a thumbs-up. “The GTO would be the next to rust out. In a junkyard.” He smiled. “Unless-”
“Unless a car buff chances upon them and decides to rescue one,” said Cayle, grinning. “And he sure wouldn’t pick the Fairlane. He’d save the GTO, I think.”
“Would, if he had any sense,” said Ray Reeve.
After a moment’s silence Jim Powell said, “Didn’t know you knew so much about cars.”
Cayle laughed. “Doesn’t my name tell you?” she said. “I was daddy’s ‘boy.’ I used to toddle around the garage after him and my uncles, learning car talk. Can’t fix ’em, though.”
Jim Powell sighed. “I couldn’t even teach our Jean how to drive a stick shift.”
“Cayle,” said Ray Reeve thoughtfully. “Cale Yarborough. He was all right. If he was still around I might root for him. But he’s not Dale.”
“I know how you feel,” said Jim. “Nobody was hit any harder than we were when Dale was taken, and Arlene spent last season crying through damn near every race, but you know, like I told her, I don’t think he’d want you to give up the sport for him. He wasn’t into giving up, was he?”
“I wonder which one of those cars Ralph Earnhardt would have salvaged?” said Cayle.
The three of them spent another hundred miles rehashing memories of sixties’ iron, and when Cayle drifted off to sleep Jesse Franklin was telling Ray Reeve a war story about a soldier’s wife named Dora Jean who was afraid her husband’s ship would sink in the harbor when it came home to port, so she had an affair with the captain of the minesweeper.
“How are you liking the tour?” said Terence politely to his new seatmate.
Karen sighed. “I wanted to go to the beach,” she said. But she was too worried to make small talk. With a tentative smile she said in her smallest voice, “I need to ask you a question. I mean, since you’re a guy. I need some advice. Before we get to Daytona.”
Terence Palmer closed his magazine with no apparent enthusiasm. “I hope it’s about your stock portfolio,” he murmured.
“No.” She glanced around to make sure that no one was listening. “But it is kind of an ethical question.”
Terence blinked with alarm. “Why ask me then? There’s a minister on board.”
Karen wrinkled her nose. “He’s nice, but he has to be older than Mark Martin. You’re the only guy on this bus who’s anywhere near Shane’s age.”
Terence turned away, rattling his magazine. “I can’t help you.”
“Well, you could listen,” said Karen. “You don’t have anything better to do. Maybe it would help me just to talk about it.”
Terence closed his eyes and sighed deeply, which was what his family did instead of shouting and throwing plates, but meant the same thing. “All right,” he said. “Talk about it.”
“Okay, suppose you tell somebody a lie because you love them and you don’t want them to feel bad, but now you think they might find out the truth and be mad at you for keeping it from them.”
“Okay,” said Terence.
“Oh, good, so you think it’s all right?”
“No. I thought you just wanted to think out loud. Now you’re asking me to say what I think?” His eyes drifted back to the open magazine.
Karen snatched his copy of Fortune and stuffed it into the seat pocket.
Terence reached for the magazine, but he succeeded only in pulling out the letter that had been the bookmark in Karen’s book about the Irish princess. He opened it before she could snatch it back.
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention that to anybody,” she said. “Especially Shane.”
“Why would I?”
“Well, you might not realize it was a secret. He doesn’t know. Listen, I need some help here. I’ve only been married six days, and I’m afraid I’ve ruined things already. Or I will have, when Shane finds out.”
“About the letter?”
She shook her head. “Something else.”
“Something else? What-no-don’t tell me. Doesn’t matter. You sound like my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“It’s the sort of thing she’d do. One year-I think I was nine or ten-they sent me off to camp for two weeks, and I had a pet hamster. I wasn’t allowed to have a messy cat or a smelly dog.” He did a passable imitation of his mother’s Tidewater Brahmin accent. “The only reason I had the hamster was that we’d had it in the classroom at school, and the teacher asked for a volunteer to take it home over the summer. So every day from camp I called home to ask about Chip, the hamster, and Mother always said he was fine. Was she feeding him? I’d ask. Giving him a little lettuce or a peanut? Oh, yes, all taken care of. So-two weeks later I get home from camp-”
“And the hamster is dead?”
“Gone, anyway,” said Terence. “I don’t know if she let it go, gave it away, or forgot to feed it. Anyhow, it was gone. The cage was gone. Like it had never happened. And when I started to cry, she said, ‘I did it for your own good, dear. You really didn’t need any bad news to make you sad while you were at camp.’” He shrugged. “You know how that made me feel?”
Karen shook her head.
“Enraged, of course. But insulted, too. Who was she to decide what I was capable of handling? Who was she to lie to me and then expect me to be grateful?”
She studied him for a moment. This was the longest speech she’d ever heard Terence make. His voice shook with anger. “You’re still mad about that hamster after all these years, aren’t you?” she said.
He shrugged. “I don’t think about it.”
“But you wish she’d told you the truth, even if it hurt you at the time?”
“Look, don’t try to solve your problem based on a dead hamster. I don’t know what you did or how upset Shane would be about it, so my advice would be useless.”
Karen leaned over and whispered a few words into his ear.
Terence’s eyes widened. “You told him what? You’d never get away with that.”
“If he ever heard any different, it didn’t sink in. It’s what he wanted to hear.”
“Well, if it matters that much to him, I hope I’m not around when he finds out,” said Terence.
Karen, looking shaken, went back to her novel about the princess of Ireland. She didn’t notice Terence staring at the book cover, lost in thought.