Drives Like a Dream (30 page)

She hadn't heard from him since and wished more than anything that she could announce to the family tonight that she and Norm were breaking up. "You were right," she could say to Jessica. "It all happened too fast." Lydia could say that they'd had a terrible fight, perhaps in the aftermath of Norm's flying off again to Minneapolis. She'd seen a side of him, she could say, that made her seriously doubt their future. Looking out the window, she saw how much work her kids had done preparing for the yard sale. "I just decided things weren't right," she could say and leave it at that. But then Lydia caught a glimpse of the
FOR SALE BY OWNER
sign, and knew she had gone too far.

Ivan called from the stairway, interrupting her train of thought. She opened her office door.

"This you've got to see, Mom." He was holding an old crate. "I think it's one of Grandpa Warren's designs." He set the crate on the floor and opened the top, scattering dust and flecks of old newspaper.

"Where did you find this?" Lydia exclaimed.

"In a corner of the attic, partly covered with insulation." Carefully Ivan pulled out a clay model car, built to one-eighth scale, unpainted but sealed with shellac to keep it from cracking.

Back in the fifties, Lydia's father had shown her the whole process of car design. He began with sketches and renderings, then created small-scale models, shaping and reworking the clay. Eventually, with Harley Earl's approval, the best of these smaller models would be made into full-scale clay prototypes. Then a whole team of designers, with Earl at the helm, would mold and perfect the life-size car, painting and adorning it so that even up close it looked like a production model.

The clay car Ivan held up was a two-door, more streamlined than those her father would have designed at GM. Lydia had never known him to keep any models. She would have been surprised if Mr. Earl had allowed one to leave the GM studio. Ivan turned the car and before Lydia even saw it she knew it would be there—right in the middle—the third headlight, the "cyclops" eye, trademark of the Tucker car.

"Isn't this cool? I've never seen an actual clay model," Ivan said. "There are tons of boxes from Grandpa and Grandma Warren's house up there." Lydia had moved all of her parents' boxes to her own attic after her mother died, but had managed to look through only a fraction of their belongings. The car had been up there all these years.

"There was an old portfolio sitting under this box, too. Want me to bring it down?"

Lydia traced her finger over the hood of the car.

"Mom?" he asked again.

"Of course," she said, only vaguely aware of Ivan stepping away.

Here was the Tucker Torpedo, engine in the rear, all-hydraulic drive, "more like a Buck Rogers special than the automobiles we know today." Lydia could hardly believe that she was holding in her hands the very source of her father's dispute with Tucker. She took the model into her office to compare it to the advertisement on her wall:

Now! FLOWING POWER!
Sure as a mighty stream, moves from engine to wheels
for a ride as free as a seagull's glide.

The year after this advertisement had run, drumming up support for "The Car You've Been Waiting For," Tucker's emphasis had changed from power to safety, from the Torpedo to the Tucker "48," and Gilbert Warren was out the door. Lydia hadn't yet looked through all his papers. After talking to Walter outside the library, she'd lost heart.

Ivan returned from the attic with an old carrying case under his arm. The zipper was rusted, so he pulled it open slowly. The smell of dust and old cloth kicked up in the air, and Lydia felt vertiginous, wanting at once to rip the portfolio open and close it forever, not seeing what was there. Inside were sketches of the Torpedo from a dozen different angles. With its sharp nose, tapered back, and art nouveau shape, the car was the very picture of
built for speed.

"Looks like the Batmobile," Ivan said.

"I think these are his early drawings." Lydia laid them out gently around the office. "The car got more practical later." She had read in a design book once that her father had originally wanted the steering wheel in the middle, in line with the "cyclops" eye. Passengers would sit in movable seats on either side, and the car would have T doors like the later DeLoreans.

"We should get these framed." Ivan studied each picture closely. "Can you set them aside?"

Lydia was lost in thought. She barely even noticed when Ivan left, taking the clay model downstairs to show Jessica and Davy.

She gathered the sketches into a pile and opened the portfolio. As she was about to slide them back in, almost relieved not to have found anything there, she changed her mind and put her hand in the pocket of the portfolio. She pulled out a manila envelope. Clasped and sealed, it had no name or address on the outside.

She cut the envelope open and spilled its contents onto her desk: the same ad that hung on her office wall, some of the same articles in the
Chicago Tribune
and
New York Times
that Walter had copied for her. An actual transcript of the radio broadcast by Drew Pearson, another copy of Tucker's "Open Letter," and the newspaper photograph of Tucker emerging from the courthouse in 1950, cleared of all charges.

Underneath all the clippings she found a letter, folded into an unsealed number-10 envelope and addressed, in her father's crabbed hand, to Preston Tucker, Ypsilanti, Michigan. The return address was the Warrens' house in Indian Village, Detroit. But the letter had no stamp or postmark, no indication that it had ever been sent. Lydia's pulse quickened as she opened the envelope and began to read the typed words:

January 25, 1950

Dear Pres,

I am writing to congratulate you on your victory. It's been a Pyrrhic one, we all know. But justice, at least in court, has prevailed. And I'm happy for you.

I feel I need to clear the air on a few matters now that this thing is over. First I want you to understand that I had nothing to do with the leak to Drew Pearson that started this whole mess. He was fed that trumped-up story by someone at the SEC and not, as I've heard in certain quarters, by me or others formerly in your employ who might have had an ax to grind.

I have read in the papers that you believe certain "spies" or "traitors" conspired with the government to cook your goose. I wish to make it known to you that I am neither spy nor traitor, and to my knowledge nobody at General Motors has so much as lifted a phone to hasten your undoing. I have spoken to no one here or in the press about your methods and have said not a single word against you. At the same time, when you might have needed a friend in court, I have not spoken up for you either. Mine has been the silence of the one cast out, something I have chosen to live with.

The truth is, I had expected more of you. When I left Ford to work with you, people told me I was foolish hitching my wagon to the bumper of a used car salesman. The press has called you brash, careless, a charlatan. But I believed that we could make the first truly new automobile in a generation and I maintain today that my design could have been that car. You disagreed. We call that a difference of opinion. But you didn't have to give Alex all the credit after I left. You didn't have to say that I represented the old design. You actually pointed your cane at the door. I'll never forget it. There was no conversation. Everyone in the shop heard your voice that day.

Now I thought I should let you hear mine.

Sincerely,
Gilbert

B
Y THE MORNING
of the yard sale, Jessica was amazed at how much everyone had accomplished in the past week. The painters had finished yesterday, and with the boxes and furniture all out of the house, she saw how beautiful the place looked, with the new paint, fixtures and crown molding repaired, the ceiling fans in the bedrooms gendy spinning for the first time in years.

When Davy and Teresa had climbed out of the U-Haul the other night she'd figured, Here comes trouble. But instead they'd gone straight to work, unloading the truck, running to the store for cleaning supplies, making themselves so busy that they didn't have time to argue. Teresa dusted the entire house and polished the brass lamps in the living room, while Davy washed windows and set up tables on the lawn. On Friday morning, Teresa got up early and made brunch for everyone, roasted potatoes and egg frittatas so oversalted that Jessica's heart went out to her.

Jessica realized that in the past three years of Davy and Teresa's relationship, she had never gotten to know this thoughtful, determined woman Davy had fallen in love with. In a way, she had never considered Teresa beyond the label of Davy's girlfriend, and now Jessica had to admit that both she and her mother had been guilty of enforcing that sense of distance. For the first time, Jessica saw that Davy and Teresa were more than just a bickering couple, and she found herself genuinely saddened when he drove her to the train station later in the afternoon. Jessica pictured Teresa looking out the window of the Amtrak train as she headed to Cleveland to stay with her family for a while; Teresa's father and brothers would pick her up at the station, asking "So, how's Davy?"

Ivan had marched in here like a mad general, and in the past few days he'd been on a charge. He'd cleared out the attic almost by himself, put yard sale posters all over the neighborhood, and moved the
FOR SALE BY OWNER
sign closer to the curb, so people could see it more easily from the street. He'd persuaded Jessica, still uncomfortable with selling the house, to pretty the place up for potential buyers. Jessica had cut black-eyed Susans and zinnias from the back yard, arranging them in vases in the living room. Part of her was curious to see what her mother would do if she received an offer.

Ever since Ivan's arrival, this closing out and moving had taken on a real momentum, and Jessica, like everyone, had been caught up in it. She'd been here three weeks and had gone through a century of keepsakes and heirlooms. It would be, by the end of the day, a retrenchment of the Empire of Lydia. As much as Jessica wanted to hold on to her childhood home, she knew that her mother probably ought to move forward, step beyond the borders she had drawn around herself.

Norm, apparently, was much to thank for this progress, though they had done all the work without his help. Lydia had said he'd gone back to be with his daughter again, and had hinted that it was causing a rift.

"Aren't you bothered that you haven't met Norm?" Jessica had said to Ivan."
I
haven't even met him. No one has."

"Sure, it's odd," he agreed. "But Mom knows what she's doing. I swear, you worry about her almost as much as she worries about you."

Jessica ignored this. "It seems that suddenly all is not well on Fantasy Island."

"Relationships are hard. Just ask Davy."

"Well," Jessica said. "I guess we'll wait and see."

Among the early arrivals at the yard sale were the Spiveys, with the Spivey-Modines in tow. M.J. came up the steps first in a black linen tunic, black beads, and what looked to be a very large comb that she wore to one side of her hair. Even the cast on her wrist was black, all of which made her stand out on this bright summer morning.

She gave Jessica a hug. "Lovely to see you," she said. "Now show me to the china."

Just that morning, Jessica and her mother had argued about whether to sell Lydia and Cy's wedding china. Lydia said that as a gift from her mother it had sentimental value and besides, wouldn't Jessica want it for herself some day? "No thanks," Jessica said, and in the end Lydia decided to sell her own and keep her mother's china. Cy and Lydia's wedding gifts—silver and crystal, gravy boats, and soup tureens—sat out on a table next to the dogwood. Jessica pointed M.J. in their direction.

"So where is your mother, dear?" M.J. asked.

Lydia had opted to station herself out back and let Jessica and Davy work the front of the house. "She's running our furniture department," Jessica explained. "You'll find her on the back patio."

She greeted her father and Ellen, who both looked fit and tanned. Cy, in a melon-colored shirt, wore wraparound mirrored sunglasses. Ellen had added light auburn highlights to her hair. Her cropped pants matched her pink sleeveless polo; her eyes had the cerulean look of colored contact lenses.

"So how was the trip back from Saugatuck?" Jessica asked.

"Slow," Ellen said. "We had to keep the folks in the back of the van. They're not much into motion right now."

Casper limped up the steps, refusing any help. He wore a foam neck brace, his arm in a sling, and white gauze over one eye. Even limping and looking battered, he was still a charmer. He kissed Jessica's hand and whispered in her ear, "I understand you ordered our drivers. What do we owe you?"

She smiled. "Nothing at all. But if you'd like a butter dish—"

M.J. was admiring the china and showed some of the pieces to Cy. "It's similar to the pattern we gave you. That same blue floral. Are you using it?" she asked.

If Cy noticed that this was the china from his first wedding, he didn't say so. "We had a dinner party just last week. The plates were a big hit." It was impossible to read his eyes with his sunglasses on. "Hey, while I'm standing here, Jess." He held up a shopping bag. "There's something I wanted to give you."

Moving some of the china aside, he pulled out several photographs in eleven-by-seventeen frames and rested them on the corner of the table. "This one's from Sedona." He put his arm around Jessica. He was acting as if their argument had never happened. "You probably don't remember John Wayne's
Angel and the Badman
." He pointed to the mountain backdrop in the photograph. "That movie was shot here. The scenery is spectacular."

It looked like a slightly out-of-focus postcard. "I love the reds and oranges," Jessica said.

"I took it at sunset." He lifted up the next photograph. "Recognize any of these people?" It was Davy, Jessica, and Ivan lined up on the steps on their father's wedding day. Jessica had not remembered smiling—she'd felt rushed and annoyed with her mother for wanting to take pictures—but somehow she and her brothers all looked happy, almost serene. "I found it on an old roll," he said. "I think it's definitely the best ever taken of you guys."