The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [91]
Mr. Dugan frowned. Claire giggled. “Daddy hates and despises foreign cars,” she told Macon.
“What is it, you don’t believe in buying American?” Mr. Dugan asked him.
“Well, as a matter of fact—”
As a matter of fact his wife drove a Ford, he’d been going to say, but he changed his mind. He took the glass that Mr. Dugan held out to him. “I did once have a Rambler,” he said.
“You want to try a Chevy, Macon. Want to come to the show-room sometime and let me show you a Chevy. What’s your preference? Family-size? Compact?”
“Well, compact, I guess, but—”
“I’ll tell you one thing: There is no way on earth you’re going to get me to sell you a subcompact. No sir, you can beg and you can whine, you can get down on bended knee, I won’t sell you one of those deathtraps folks are so set on buying nowadays. I tell my customers, I say, ‘You think I got no principles? You’re looking here before you at a man of principle,’ I tell them, and I say, ‘You want a subcompact you better go to Ed Mackenzie there. He’ll sell you one without a thought. What does he care? But I’m a man of principle.’ Why Muriel here near about lost her life in one of them things.”
“Oh, Daddy, I did not,” Muriel said.
“Came a lot closer than I’d like to get.”
“I walked away without a scratch.”
“Car looked like a little stove-in sardine can.”
“Worst thing I got was a run in my stocking.”
“Muriel was taking a lift from Dr. Kane at the Meow-Bow,” Mr. Dugan told Macon, “one day when her car was out of whack, and some durn fool woman driver swung directly into their path. See, she was hanging a left when—”
“Let me tell it,” Mrs. Dugan said. She leaned toward Macon, gripping the wineglass that held her liqueur. “I was just coming in from the grocery store, carrying these few odds and ends I needed for Claire’s school lunches. That child eats more than some grown men I know. Phone rings. I drop everything and go to answer. Man says, ‘Mrs. Dugan?’ I say, ‘Yes.’ Man says, ‘Mrs. Dugan, this is the Baltimore City Police and I’m calling about your daughter Muriel.’ I think, ‘Oh, my God.’ Right away my heart starts up and I have to find someplace to sit. Still have my coat on, rain scarf tied around my head so I couldn’t even hear all that good but I never thought to take it off, that’s how flustered I was. It was one of those hard rainy days like someone is purposely heaving buckets of water at you. I think, ‘Oh, my God, now what has Muriel gone and—’ ”
“Lillian, you are getting way off the subject here,” Mr. Dugan said.
“How can you say that? I’m telling him about Muriel’s accident.”
“He don’t want to hear every little oh-my-God, he wants to know why he can’t have a subcompact. Lady hangs a left smack in front of Dr. Kane’s little car,” Mr. Dugan told Macon, “and he has no choice but to ram her. He had the right of way. Want to know what happened? His little car is totaled. Little bitty Pinto. Lady’s big old Chrysler barely dents its fender. Now tell me you still want a subcompact.”
“But I didn’t—”
“And the other thing is that Dr. Kane never, ever offered her another ride home, even after he got a new car,” Mrs. Dugan said.
“Well, I don’t exactly live in his neighborhood, Ma.”
“He’s a bachelor,” Mrs. Dugan told Macon. “Have you met him? Real good-looking, Muriel says. First day on the job she says, ‘Guess what, Ma.’ Calls me on the phone. ‘Guess what, my boss is single and he’s real good-looking, a professional man, the other girls tell me he isn’t even engaged.’ Then he offers her that one lift home and they go and have an accident and he never offers again. Even when she lets him know she don’t have her car some days, he never offers again.”
“He does live clear up in Towson,” Muriel said.
“I believe he thinks you’re bad luck.”
“He lives up in Towson and I live down on Singleton Street! What do you expect?”
“Next he got a Mercedes sports car,” Claire put in.
“Well, sports cars,” Mr. Dugan said. “We don’t even talk about those.”
Alexander said, “Can I be excused now?”
“I really had high hopes for Dr. Kane,” Mrs. Dugan said sadly.