Scheherazade Project-Cars

Here's my submission for the S-project. Be forewarned. One reviewer accused me of putting him in sugar shock. Just consider it a modern day fairy-tale. Nothing gritty or realistic about it!

Also, in case you're wondering, Leroy is a composite of two men I worked for one summer as a painter. The car analogy is theirs, all the way down to the Blue Book clause. And, yes, I loved them both as much as Prue loves Leroy.

HERE IN MY CAR...

Men are like cars. At least that’s what Leroy liked to say and he knew because he was a man. The analogy made sense the way Leroy explained it.

“You have your fast cars, Prue—the Porsches, Lamborghinis; cars like those are made to drive fast and hard, but you know they aren’t really practical for everyday use. Men like those kinds of cars, but the men who drive them all the time aren’t really useful for much,” Leroy said.

Leroy was a janitor at my father’s law firm. Not a sanitation engineer, or a maintenance engineer, or anything with “engineer” in the title—a janitor. Leroy would never have gone for some high-falutin’, politically-correct title meant to instill self-respect and pride in one’s work. You either had those qualities or you didn’t. Changing the title didn’t change the way a man thought about himself. Leroy liked to say that, too.

Although Leroy had worked for my father’s firm, Lockhart, Monson and Price, for over 20 years, I didn’t meet him until the summer before I started college. Dad and his partners wanted to remodel the four-story mansion that housed the firm. In an effort to save money on the remodeling costs, he assigned the task of painting the interior to Leroy. And in an effort to engender a sense of responsibility and appreciation for my own good fortune in life, he informed me I would be assisting Leroy for minimum wage.

It might be a bit of an understatement when I tell you I wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea. The summer plans I’d hoped for were more along the lines of laying out at the beach or going on an extended road trip with my two best friends, Glennie and Carolyn, both of whom were going to different colleges than I was.

“Can’t you just tell your dad you don’t want to?” asked Glennie, petulantly. The three of us were sprawled out in Carolyn’s room debating my parentally-imposed employment. The matter was simple for Glennie, who always did exactly what she wanted without too much concern for anyone else.

“We’re college women now,” she continued. “We’re adults.” Her pronouncement would have carried more weight had we not been sitting in her bedroom, a revoltingly frilly concoction of lace, ruffles, and stuffed animals, only slightly mitigated by three over-sized posters of Sting, and a cardboard cutout of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“Besides,” added Carolyn, “we’re moving to opposite ends of the coast. It’s the last summer we’ll have together.”

“That is so not true,” said Glennie. “We’ll always be friends.”

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same,” said Carolyn. “I mean, yeah, we’ll always be friends, you guys. But we’re going to college now. Far away from each other. We’ll all make new friends and gradually we’ll stop calling each other as often and summers home won’t be the same anymore. In fifteen years, I’ll be living in Connecticut with my husband, the doctor, and I’ll be much too busy with my children and volunteer activities to keep in close contact; Glennie will be a famous movie-star, too important to remember her little friends from home; and you’ll be…who knows…working for your father?”

“Wow,” I said. “You are really a pessimist. And kind of bitchy, too.”

“Bitchy, maybe, but not pessimistic,” said Carolyn. “Realistic. I’m just saying… I’m sorry, Prue. Play with us this summer. We’re young and we’re supposed to be having fun. We need to play now before we start looking like our mothers. Just tell your dad you can’t work for him this summer.”

“Too late,” I replied. “He used the word, ‘responsibility,’ and the phrase, ‘teach you to appreciate your own good fortune.’ He thinks he’s teaching me a lesson. No way is he gonna back down.”

He didn’t either. The day after Glennie and Carolyn took off for a road trip to Austin, Texas, I showed up at Lockhart, Monson and Price in a pair of worn overalls and reported to Leroy at precisely 8:00 A.M.

“You must be Prue,” said Leroy, extending a calloused hand. His hands were huge, with large oversized palms and short bent fingers. He wasn’t very tall, average maybe, not quite six feet. But he was stocky-built like the proverbial tank. He appeared to be in his late fifties, early sixties. Unlike my father, who was around the same age and balding, Leroy had a full head of steel gray, thick, wavy hair. No one could ever call Leroy vain, but I would quickly learn that he was very proud of his hair and meticulous in keeping it neatly groomed.

He was sizing me up the same time I was sizing him up. Finally he said, “You look like a Prue. That’s a good name.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I replied. “Now I don’t have to worry about changing it.”

Leroy laughed. “I like when people look like their names. Makes it easier to remember.”

We spent that first day painting the conference room. “It’s a big room for your first day painting, but pretty straight-forward,” said Leroy. “No weird corners to look out for.”

Leroy showed me how to prep a room before painting: taping the baseboards, removing light-switch covers, and draping everything. He showed me the proper method of stirring, pouring and storing paint. He taught me how to cut and paint walls so there weren’t any lines, and then he taught me how to put everything away correctly when we were finished, rinsing the brushes and rollers until the water ran clear.

The first week passed quickly by without much conversation, aside from instruction, by Leroy.

The next Monday we started on the lobby. We worked for a while in silence, the only sound the sticky splatter of paint being rolled onto the walls.

“You got you a boyfriend, Prue?” asked Leroy suddenly.

“No,” I answered, which was mostly true. I’d dated Christopher off and on throughout my entire high school career. We were currently off, but he’d shown up over the weekend and taken me to see a movie.

“I was just wondering,” said Leroy. “Seems like a nice girl like you probably has the boys hanging around. My boys would like you.”

This was new. I didn’t know Leroy had children. This was the first time he’d mentioned them.

“I got three boys,” he said. “No girls. Wouldn’t have minded having a daughter though. I’m proud of my sons but I bet if we’d had a girl, she’d have been pretty like my wife.”

“How old are they?” I asked.

“Well, they’re all grown-up. Oldest is 34; youngest is 22. They’re good men. They were good boys, too. ‘Course we trained them up to be Honda Accord or Ford Taurus types instead of Pintos. No son of mine is gonna be a Pinto,” said Leroy grimly.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“A Pinto?” I asked. “What do you mean by that?”

“All men are like cars,” said Leroy. And that was the day I heard Leroy’s analogy.

“You got your Pinto guys; they’re good for nothing, make a lot of excuses instead of just working hard. I drove a Pinto once and it was a pain to shift gears. They get the job done, but barely, you know what I’m saying? Then on the other end of the spectrum, you got your fancy sports cars that cost upwards of $100K. Now those cars look nice and go fast, but they don’t like to stick around in one spot. You understand?”

I nodded. I had the gist of it at least, but since when did a Honda beat out a Ferrari? I needed clarification. “So you’re saying a Honda Accord is better than a Ferrari because?”

“Well, a Honda Accord is a nice looking car, don’t you think? Plus it’s reliable—has a good service record. You get you a Honda Accord and it’ll take you where you need to go, plus you’ll look pretty respectable driving it. People will look at you in your Honda and think, ‘now there’s a real nice down-to-earth person.’ But you get you a Ferrari and you start driving too fast, ‘cause a Ferrari is built to go fast, people look at you and think, ‘that’s a lot of car for one person. Wonder why they need that much car.’ Plus, when you want to slow down, the Ferrari wants to speed up.”

“Yeah,” I began, “but a Ferrari looks way better than a Honda Accord. Besides they’re both just cars. They can both break down, for instance.”

Leroy grinned at me. “Well, I can tell you it’s way more expensive to fix a broke-down Ferrari than a Honda Accord.”

“Okay, but c’mon…a FERRARI. No one’s going to think less of me if I drive a Ferrari,” I persisted.

“Not if you happen to be a Ferrari yourself. Then it’s fine for you to drive a Ferrari.”

“Leroy,” I protested, “are you saying I’m not a Ferrari? Should I be offended?”

He laughed. “No, I don’t think you’re a Ferrari and you shouldn’t be offended at that. You’re a nice girl, though. I can see why a Ferrari might pull up to you and offer you a ride. Just don’t lose sight of the fact that he’s a Ferrari and you’re not.”

“So what am I then?” I asked.

Leroy shrugged. “You gotta figure that out for yourself.”

“Foul!” I exclaimed. “That’s avoidance. Not a good answer, Leroy.”

“Too bad,” he replied, grinning at me. “It’s the only answer you’re getting from me.”

Later that day I asked him, “What about a Cadillac? Can I date a Cadillac?”

“Too old for you, Prue,” he said. “Don’t go dating a Cadillac.”

The summer passed by quickly. Each day Leroy and I learned something more about one another. One day he told me how he met and courted his wife. Another day he told me about the day he received his high school diploma at age 35. He didn’t want a GED. He wanted a real diploma, and he worked hard for it. He told me about his dog he had when he was a boy and how much he loved it. “Lived a long time, that dog. I still miss him.” He still had dogs, too. “It’s not a home without a dog.” His wife loved cats and he had finally reconciled himself to the way “that damn cat” would curl up into a ball on top his newspaper every time he tried to read it.

And each day Leroy would tell me, “Be careful, Prue. Don’t pick yourself a lemon. You need a good, steady, reliable automobile. I saw one of those Nissan Altimas the other day. Nice car, but a little flashy, don’t you think?”

I left for college late August. Before I left, Leroy gave me a gift—a copy of the annual Consumer’s Digest Auto Rating issue. Inside he’d scribbled, “Just a reference guide in case you need it. Love, Leroy.”

It took me a while to adjust to life on campus. I was lonesome at first and I missed Glennie and Carolyn. But one day everything seemed to fall into place and I knew where I fit and who my friends were. I even got lucky by being assigned a roommate I really, really got along with.

That first year my roommate fell in and out of love on a regular and predictable schedule. Eddie lasted through fall semester. Dan took her through spring break. Will lasted exactly two weeks, but it wasn’t until Benjamin broke her heart that I showed her the Consumer’s Digest Auto Rating issue and told her about Leroy’s analogy.

“That makes so much sense,” exclaimed Janice. “I mean, think about it—some cars are beautiful, but they have a horrible maintenance record. I know this one girl with a Jag and the thing is always breaking down,” she said. Then she added, “Of course, when it’s running, she looks totally hot.”

After that Janice began describing each crush: “Darren is a F-150, kind of sturdy and good-looking…Joe is sort of like a Mustang convertible, he’s gonna be fun while it lasts…Alex is a total Mercedes!”

They were fitting for the most part too. Darren turned out to have a lot of baggage, hence the extended truck bed. Joe was definitely a hot convertible, problem was, he knew it. But Alex turned out to be an early model Mercedes, the ones who chug gallons upon gallons of diesel fuel. I couldn’t help thinking Janice would be better off with one of those eco cars, the ones that run on electricity.

Each summer I went home, and no visit was complete without stopping at Dad’s office to see Leroy. He asked a million questions about what I’d been doing, always ending with an admonition to stay away from the fast cars. “They’re fun, but you miss the scenery when you’re going that fast!”

My senior year, I met Brian. He was a geology grad student—obsessed with rocks. Our early dates consisted of prolonged drives to various geological hotspots to examine the strata. He could be absentminded, but every now and then he’d look at me just so and my heart would start beating fast. I told my family and friends about him. I bored Janice to tears rhapsodizing on his wonderful qualities. When I realized I wanted to tell Leroy about him, I knew I loved him. I also knew Leroy’s first question would be, “What kind of car is he?”

I flipped through Leroy’s Consumer Digest magazine trying to figure out what Brian was. An SUV like an Explorer or a Suburban? No, Brian was ecologically minded, but he wasn’t a Prius either. He also wasn’t a Saturn, a Mazda, a Volkswagen, or any of the Korean automobiles. Maybe a Jeep? Those were outdoorsy geological type automobiles. A Jeep, then. But not a fancy Jeep, tricked out with tons of extras. He was a bare bones Jeep Wrangler, a true off-roader.

I picked up the phone and called Leroy.

“I met the perfect car,” I said by way of greeting.

I could practically see Leroy’s left eyebrow rise as he asked, “What kind of car is he?”

“A Jeep,” I said.

“A Jeep,” he repeated. “I’ve seen some damn ugly Jeeps in my life. What kind of Jeep exactly?”

I laughed. “Just a Jeep Wrangler. Not one of those fancy ones or the type with monster tires. Just a Jeep.”

Leroy paused a moment. “Just a Jeep,” he repeated again. “I guess a Jeep ain’t so bad. Any nicks or scratches? Any dents?”

“None that I can see,” I said. “I mean there’s probably some somewhere—there’s bound to be. He’s only human. But I like him, Leroy. I like him a lot.”

“You bringing him home?” he asked casually.

“We’re not at the bringing home stage quite yet. But maybe. Maybe soon,” I said.

“A Jeep. Okay, so’d you check Blue Book?” he asked.

“You never told me about the Blue Book, Leroy.”

“Prue, you gotta consider everything. How can you not look at Blue Book?”

Leroy sighed as I laughed out loud.

“Leroy, he’s nice. You’ll like him when you meet him, I promise.”

“Okay,” he began, “but don’t do anything till you bring him home. Your folks ain’t the only ones who have to approve.”

Eventually Brian and I got to the bringing home stage. Accordingly, he came home with me with me for spring break. My parents liked him, and Gwennie did too. Carolyn wasn’t around to pass judgment—her school’s spring break wasn’t until the week following. Brian charmed everyone with ease, but he was a little worried about Leroy.

“There’s nothing to be worried about,” I told him. “Just be yourself. He’ll like you fine.”

Brian wasn’t so sure. “You have him on a pedestal, Prue. If I can reach that high, I’m sure I’ll like him. I’m just worried he won’t like me very much and I’m afraid if he disapproves, you’ll cut me loose. I don’t want to be cut loose, Prue.”

“You won’t be,” I promised.

Brian met Leroy the night before we had to leave. Leroy’s wife, Diane, made dinner for us, her special spaghetti and a salad with warm crusty bread. After dinner I helped Diane clean up while Brian followed Leroy into the living room.

Diane and I quickly set up a system with me rinsing dishes off and Diane loading the dishwasher. “Leroy cares about you, you know,” she said. “He always calls you the daughter we were supposed to have.”

She smiled at me. “Did he ever tell you what kind of car he thinks you are?”

“No,” I said. “Did he tell you? Please tell me he told you-then you can tell me, because he’ll never say.”

Diane laughed. “Can’t do that,” she said. “If he hasn’t told you, then he doesn’t want to tell you.”

“Gimme a hint?” I begged. “Please??”

“Nope! Sorry, kiddo.” She started the dishwasher and led me out of the kitchen. “We’d better go rescue your friend. Leroy’s probably grilling him on his maintenance records and mileage.”

As we were leaving that night, Leroy pulled me aside and whispered in my ear. “Yep, a Jeep. But a good one, I think.”

One year later, Brian and I were married. Our reception was big and noisy. My entire family was there, along with Brian’s family, Dad’s business associates, and a few well-heeled clients. Glennie and Carolyn flew home to be my bridesmaids.

Leroy was there, too, with Diane. They’d been among the first to arrive at the wedding and reception. They danced together most of the afternoon, Leroy holding Diane tightly as they moved together on the dance floor.

Later, as Brian and I were dancing together, Leroy tapped him on the shoulder. “May I cut in?” he asked.

“Of course,” Brian said.

Leroy was surprisingly graceful for such a stocky man. He moved like Fred Astaire and compensated beautifully for the fact that I was no Ginger Rogers. We danced together in silence. Occasionally he would smile down at me, his eyes and mouth crinkling with the evidence of years of laughter.

“Did I ever tell you what kind of car I think you are?” he asked.

Finally! “No, you didn’t,” I said, expectantly.

“Oh,” he replied, and then lapsed again into silence.

“Leroy,” I said with exasperation, “aren’t you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” he said.

“The car, Leroy. What kind of car am I?”

“Oh, that,” he said. “Don’t you know what kind of car you are?”

I rolled my eyes. “I want to know what kind of car you think I am.”

Leroy cocked his head to one side and considered for a moment. “Don’t really matter much what I think, does it?” he said.

“It does matter, Leroy” I said. “It just does.”

He smiled again and then gently led me back to Brian. “Here she is, just as pretty as she was a few minutes ago.”

“Wait,” I exclaimed to Leroy. “You have to tell me!”

“Don’t have time now,” replied Leroy. “I think your daddy wants you to go cut the cake now.”

I could hear Leroy’s amused laughter trailing me as Brian and I made our way to the cake table. The cake was beautiful: a three-tiered masterpiece covered in yellow and pink roses, with the traditional bride and groom decorating the top. As we got closer, though, Brian nudged me, “What happened to ‘little us’ on top of the cake?” he asked, pointing to where the bride and groom used to be.

The bride and groom were indeed gone, replaced by a model Jeep and something else. I glanced back at Leroy. He smiled and nodded. Leaning against the Jeep was a model Vespa, painted powder-blue.

A Vespa? Leroy thought I was a motor scooter? I looked again at Leroy, holding Diane’s hand, smiling at me with suspiciously shining eyes.

“Always liked Vespas,” I heard him say to Diane. “They’re sort of open, you know. Real friendly and fun and young enough to still think the world is a wonderful place full of possibilities.”

Leroy smiled at me, leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Always wanted a daughter,” he said. “Tell your daddy thanks for sharing. He’s a bit of a Rolls Royce, if you ask me.”