Chapter 24: My Own Door

On Saturday morning I bought a car.

It was a used gray wagon with a dent in the rear bumper and a hundred and four thousand miles on it.

The salesman wanted to talk about the warranty.

"I'll take it as it is," I said. "I'd like to drive it myself."

I signed the paper with my own pen and paid with money from my own account.

It was the first thing I had owned in fourteen months that nobody had booked on a calendar.

I pulled out of the lot with the windows down and my drawing tube rolling around in the back seat.

I didn't go to Hyde Park.

I drove myself home, to Main Street, where Rhoda had rented me the flat above the frame shop for a price she wouldn't discuss.

It had a bay window, a stove and a door that locked from the inside.

The brass lamp stood on the sill.

Dylan had delivered my drafting table on Thursday, with a bow on it, and had refused to take the bow off.

By five o'clock I had a chicken in the oven, a pot of rice on the stove and Rhoda sitting on the counter, getting in the way.

"You're overcooking it," she said.

"It's been in fifteen minutes."

"I can tell."

Kirk arrived at six with a bottle of wine and a bag of lemons.

He kissed me in the doorway, brief and warm, and walked straight to the kitchen to take the knife out of my hand.

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