VACANCY & ARIEL

Jerry’s pudgy, built along the lines of Papa Smurf, with a tanning-machine tan like brownish orange paint and a ridiculous toupee—he cultivates this clownish image to distract from his nasty disposition. Thanks to this and an endless supply of dirty jokes, ranging from the mildly pornographic to X-tra Blue, he’s in demand as a speaker at Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce dinners and has acquired a reputation for being crusty yet loveable. He acknowledges Cliff as a near-equal, someone who has the worldliness to understand him, someone in whom he can confide to an extent, and thus Cliff, knowing that Jerry will vent his temper on the other salesmen if he doesn’t listen to him brag, is forced to endure a richly embroidered tale of Jerry’s liaisons with Stacey, culminating with an act of sodomy described in such graphic detail, he’s almost persuaded that it might have happened, although it’s more likely that the verisimilitude is due to Jerry’s belief that it happened, that through repetition his fantasy has become real.

This is the first Cliff has heard of the “rich old fart,” but he’s aware that Stacey played her cards close to the vest and there was much he did not know about her. He tries to nudge the conversation in that direction, hoping to learn more; but Jerry, made grumpy by his questions, orders him out onto the lot to sell some fucking cars.

A little after five o’clock, he’s about to close with a young couple who’ve been sniffing around a two-year-old Bronco since the previous Friday, when Shalin Palaniappan strolls onto the lot. She walks up to Cliff, ignoring another salesman’s attempt to intercept her, and says, “Hi.”

Cliff excuses himself, steers Shalin away from the couple, and says, “I’m in the middle of something. Let me get somebody else to help you.”

“I want you,” Shalin says pertly.

“You’re going to have to wait, then.”

“I’ve waited this long. What’s a few minutes more?”

With her baggy shorts and a pale yellow T-shirt, her shiny black eyes, her shiny black hair in a ponytail, her copper-and-roses complexion, she looks her age, fifteen or sixteen, a healthy, happy Malaysian teenager; but he senses something wrong about her, something also signaled by her enigmatic comment about waiting, an undercurrent that doesn’t shine, that doesn’t match her fresh exterior, like that spanking new Escalade with the bent frame they had in a few weeks before. He leaves her leaning against a Nissan 350-Z and goes back to the couple who, given the time to huddle up, have decided in his absence that they’re not happy with the numbers and want more value on the toad they offered as a trade-in. Cliff feels Shalin’s eyes applying a brand to the back of his neck and grows flustered. He grows even more so when he notices a young salesman approach her and begin chatting her up, bracing with one hand on the Nissan, leaning close, displaying something other than the genial manner that is form behavior for someone who pushes iron—then, abruptly, the salesman scurries off as if his tender bits have been scorched. Most teenage girls, in Cliff’s experience, don’t have the social skills to deal efficiently with the two-legged flies that come buzzing around, yet he allows that Shalin may be an exception. The couple becomes restive; now they’re not sure about the Bronco. Cliff, aware that he’s blowing it, passes them off to John Sacks, a decent closer, and goes over to Shalin.

“How can I help you?” he asks, and is startled by the harshness, the outright antipathy in his voice.

Shalin, looking up at him, shields her eyes against the westering sun, but says nothing.

“What are you looking to spend?” he asks.

“How much is this one?” She pats the Nissan’s hood.

He names a figure and she shakes her head, a no.

“Do you have a car?” he asks. “We can be pretty generous on a trade-in.”

“That’s right. You always take it out in trade, don’t you?”

Her snide tone is typical of teenagers, but her self-assurance is not, and her entire attitude, one of arrogance and bemusement, causes him to think that there’s another purpose to her visit.

“I’m busy,” he says. “If you’re not looking for a car, I have other customers.”

“Did you know I’m adopted? I am. But Bazit treats me like his very own daughter. He caters to my every whim.” She reaches into a pocket, extracts a platinum Visa card and waggles it in his face. “Why don’t we look around? If I see something I like, you can go into your song-and-dance.”

He’s tempted to blow her off, but he’s curious about her. They walk along the aisles of gleaming cars, past salesmen talking with prospective buyers, pennons snapping in the breeze. She displays no interest in any of the cars, continuing to talk about herself, saying that she never knew her parents, she was raised by an aunt, but she’s always thought of her as a mother, and when the aunt died—she was nine, then—Bazit stepped in. Not long afterward, they moved to America and bought the Celeste.