Drives Like a Dream (8 page)

Lydia felt her calm slipping. "Is it my fault that the car died, Jessica?"

"I don't believe this."

"Perhaps you'd like to speak with the manager at this lube shop where none of these mechanics know how to fix it."

"You're amazing."

"Don't talk to me that way."

"Here we are, literally walking inside the restaurant to the reception and you call looking for a rescue. I honestly can't believe you sometimes."

"Jessica, I swear to God—"

"Maybe you'd like us to send Dad out there to fetch you."

"That's not funny."

"And you're calling from Ann Arbor. Taking a little drive down memory lane?"

"Forget it. You just go ahead and shower your father with all the affection in the world on his
special day.
" She heard her voice crack. "Why am I always expected to make the world perfect for those who can't help themselves?"

"Those who can't help themselves? Look at you. Pulling a stunt like this?"

With that, Lydia slammed down the phone.

Why did her daughter hate her for caring? This morning had been fine. When had things gotten off track? Suit yourself, she thought. She would find her own way home. She had waited for eighteen months to see her kids. For this?

Just then the phone rang. Lydia picked up without thinking.

"Mom?"

"Davy, how did you get this number?"

"Caller ID. Listen, I'm sorry about Jess." He was whispering. "She was nearly in an accident on the way over. Her nerves are frayed."

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine."

"What happened?"

"I'll tell you later," he said.

"Davy?" She could hear the panic in her voice, hoped he wouldn't notice.

"I'm telling you she's fine, Mom. Has someone come to tow the car?"

"I'm having a terrible time with that."

"Why don't you not worry about the car for now. We'll be at the reception until six at the latest. Then we can come and get you."

"I'll be okay," Lydia said. She was feeling better already. She hadn't meant to get upset with Jessica. It wasn't her fault that her father was remarrying.

"No, we'll pick you up. I'm so sorry this happened." Davy's phone was breaking up. "You'll have to take a cab to a coffee shop or have a glass of wine at the Earle."

Lydia knew that the last thing she wanted to do today was return to Arm Arbor. "I'll be at the car museum in Ypsi," she decided all of a sudden. It pleased her to think that she might actually be able to salvage this day.

"If you go anywhere else, I'll leave the cell phone on buzz." And with that, Davy hung up.

So her kids were going to pull through, after all. Cheered by this thought, Lydia retrieved her laptop, called a cab, and got the okay from the manager at Uncle Ed's to leave her car overnight. "We'll deal with it by the beginning of the week, I promise," she told him.

"Don't forget Marty's standing offer," the manager reminded her. "Four hundred bucks—no fuss, no muss."

Lydia remembered how, a few weeks after Cy had taken the job with Bobby Szoradi Ford more than fifteen years ago, Cy had surprised her with the Escort. "It's about time you switched from Chevy to Ford," he'd said. "I know it's not an LTD or a Lincoln, but I got a great deal and it's a fine little car."

Lydia had never been sentimental about the Escort. It was a lousy old tin can, as her kids were quick to remind her. But perhaps, she thought now, holding on to the car had meant more to her than she'd realized.

"Thanks for everything," Lydia said to the manager as the cab pulled up. "I'll think about that offer."

It was in the cab, riding to Ypsilanti, that Lydia finally admitted it to herself: Cy was never coming back. Even if he wanted to return, she realized, there would no longer be a place for him. They had given what they could to each other. And now Lydia had to focus on getting back on track. Her children were coming to pick her up, and she had a few hours to work, to lose herself in something she knew well—her research, after all.

Her history with Cy may have already been written. But she had another story—a hundred years of the car in America—that she knew she could study and, unlike the other, neatly revise.

T
HE CASUAL CACTUS
was a Southwestern restaurant with dream catchers, Navajo blankets, and commercial art prints of desert monuments hanging on the walls. Jessica stood just inside the reception room, cross-examining her brother about his phone call. "You were talking to Mom, weren't you? I hope you didn't promise to drive out to get her. I wouldn't be surprised if she put peanut butter in the gas tank."

"Don't be so harsh, Jess. How is she going to get home?"

"I don't know. It's her problem. We've been telling her to junk that car for years." A waitress walked by, offering them a platter of grilled shrimp and red pepper skewers. Jessica helped herself to one. "You probably apologized for me, didn't you? What did you tell her? That I was having a terrible time at the wedding and not to take it personally? You always make up excuses so she feels better."

"I said it didn't help your nerves that you've been driving with the Spiveys."

Jessica pointed the skewer at her brother. "Don't blame the Spiveys. That last trip was a model in precision tandem driving. Mom is really going for it this time. She's probably wearing her wedding dress from 1965, expecting Dad to swoop into town, take her home, and start the whole dream over again."

Davy gave a tired sigh. "Come on, Jess. You've got to stop projecting everything on Mom. We see her about twice a year."

"Projecting? Don't get pop-psychy on me." Jessica folded the shrimp tail into a chili-pepper-printed napkin.

"I'm going to get a drink, and I'd highly recommend that you do the same."

While Davy went off to the bar, Jessica dropped the napkin into an empty wineglass on a side table and retreated to a quiet corner where she could scan the room. The wedding crowd seemed right at home in this
Love Boat
version of a Santa Fe restaurant. The wine, champagne, and margaritas were going around, and as people began to find their seats, the clubby atmosphere of the night before descended once again. A whoop went up as Ellen and Cy entered the room under a faux-adobe arch, then took their places at the front table alongside Gisele and the bridesmaids.

Jessica joined Davy at the next table over with Ivan and the Spiveys, just to the side of the evening's entertainment, a one-man-karaoke show called the Rick Stoker Experience. When Jessica sat down, Rick Stoker reached over, flashed a smile, and handed her his business card:
When a Band's Too Big and a DJ's Just Too Small.

Davy leaned toward Jessica and whispered, "Somebody likes you."

"Just what I need. A swinging, singing DJ."

Rick introduced Mr. and Mrs. Spivey-Modine and cued up the first dance, which Jessica recognized with a cringe as Phil Collins's cover of "Groovy Kind of Love." As the couple swayed, Ellen pulled her husband toward her—no doubt to tie up his feet and hands, his knees and elbows. Cy had a habit of snapping his fingers when he danced, and at more than one party, Jessica had seen him trotting out strange moves as well—hands on hips, karate chop, wrist over wrist. Ellen was no fool, Jessica thought as she watched them dance close and slow. The song moved into its last bars, and the guests streamed onto the floor. Ellen helped her father to his feet, and Casper led her in a series of steps. No doubt sensing his audience, Rick sang Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This," Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight," then closed with Air Supply's "Two Less Lonely People in the World."

Casper bowed to the crowd's applause, then followed M.J. around the room to greet their friends.

After the Rick Stoker Experience turned off his microphone and left a CD of dinner music playing, Ivan said, "That was pure Velveeta."

"Are you disrespecting my man?" Jessica asked. "He's got a velvety voice, and that's not all."

A waiter brought their dinner plates: rolled chicken breast and a square of salmon; Mexican rice garnished with pico de gallo. "He's the perfect singer for Dad—a mimic, a follower, someone who buys the whole package, then claims that he invented it." Ivan took a fork and punctured the top of his chicken. A stuffing of pepper-jack cheese oozed from either side.

"That sounds like the ideal consumer." Davy ran his finger over an ear of dried corn, part of the table's centerpiece. "Make the consumer believe that the product was designed especially for him—so much so that he feels like he created it."

"Right," Jessica egged him on. She could tell that Davy was looking for a way to steer their brother off the subject of Cy.

"Bring the consumer into the fold—that's the trick," Davy continued. "Teresa and I were just arguing about that. Did I tell you she's come to work for us?"

"I thought she had been." Jessica took a bite of the salmon. Overcooked, of course.

"She's full-time now."

"That's great," Jessica said, though she was thinking it was a terrible idea.

"I wouldn't say great, exactly. We were cramped before—five hundred square feet in Lakeview. Now Sanjay's put us in the same office at work. We're on each other like sweat." He paused to pick at his meal. "Every day I wonder what I've gotten myself into."

"What are you talking about?" Ivan said. "You're a change insurgent. They'll be writing about you in fifty years."

"What's a change insurgent?" Jessica asked.

"Ask Davy—he's the dot-com survivor. I'm just the man in the gray flannel suit. Actually, I have no idea what a change insurgent is," Ivan said, then suddenly got up. "I have to go work on my speech."

After Ivan left, Jessica turned to Davy, whose fork was raised. "He must be freaking out about that toast."

"Well, anyway," Davy said. "About Lowball—basically, Teresa's freaking out, and I can't do anything right. Seems like yesterday we were flush, but today we can't cover payroll. I get quiet and she gets desperate. It's a bad combination."

"But what happened to that buyer? I thought you almost cut a deal."

"We did, too, but the guy was a flake. The fact is we're not selling a product, just information and research. Plus, we've made big promises as the 'lowest of the low.' People expect more than we can give them, which should be the truth right up to the minute. But at the moment we can't even offer that."

Davy continually surprised Jessica. She never would have pictured him talking about profit margins and how to reach the consumer. She had assumed he would stay in Ann Arbor after college, working at Schoolkids Records and picking up gigs in town or around Detroit. He loved recording sounds—creaky doors, truck horns and passing traffic, the Huron River after a thaw. As an undergraduate in the school of music, he had used these recordings to texture his compositions, and ever since high school, he had played drums for local bands.

Jessica's favorite of these was Queen Bee and the Drones, an R & B quintet more progressive than its name implied. Davy played with them his first two years in college before the gospel-trained lead singer of the group grew pregnant with twins. More than a year later, when it became obvious that Queen Bee would not be returning, Davy and the remaining Drones transformed themselves into a rockabilly band: two guitars, drums and a standup bass. Davy renamed the group the 57 Nomads after the beat-up station wagon in the Modine family garage. Jessica didn't much like the music, but Cy was the Nomads' number one fan, never missing a show and even proposing that the group take him on as manager. "They're playing my songs," he liked to say. "I remember when all the guys had pompadours."

Like everything else that was popular in the late nineties, rockabilly appealed to nostalgia, so the Nomads had gotten as many gigs as they could handle, and with a bit of organization could have probably toured. But just as their reputation was growing, Davy abandoned the group, moved to Chicago, and joined the Internet gold rush when nearly all the gold had already been found. Jessica wondered if her brother was not so much drawn to the siren call of wealth as he was unable to deal with his wannabe "manager."

Cy first took an interest in his son's music when Davy was fifteen and playing with his first group, a grunge band called Silent Thunder. They covered Pearl Jam and Nirvana at high school dances and wore the standard uniform of the day: flannel shirts, baggy jeans, and Caterpillar boots. Cy caught them at the Huntington High talent show, and over the next several months began to appear at all of their gigs. Davy would call Jessica in Aim Arbor and wonder out loud why Cy kept showing up, since their father's taste in music tilted toward the easy listening end of the dial. Jessica said some parents were late bloomers. "He's trying to bond with you, that's all. Better late than never." And for a while Davy agreed.

But soon Cy was subscribing to
Rolling Stone, Billboard, Modern Drummer, Entrepreneur,
and
Opportunity World.
He sound-proofed the garage, bought Davy a new drum set for Christmas, and recited over dinner the rags-to-riches stories of bands old and new. Davy, in turn, spent less time around the house. He moved the band's practice sessions from Franklin Street to the lead guitarist's basement. But for his sixteenth birthday, Cy gave him a four-track recorder. He said that if Silent Thunder made a tape, he would fly to L.A. to shop it around.

Even at sixteen, Davy was far more of a realist than his father. "Thanks, Dad," he said. "But we're just a cover band, you know. We're still in high school."

"Look how many groups got their break in high school. Frankie Lymon, the Osmonds. What about Green Day?"

It took the mother of the standup bassist of the 57 Nomads to bring Cy down to earth. At a dance they were chaperoning together, she told him that her son had joined the band for fun. He didn't want to be a rock star, and really, who was Cy kidding with his talk about recording contracts? "The woman tore into me," Cy had told Lydia, who immediately called Jessica at college. "She accused me of being a Svengali. I couldn't believe it. I just wanted to see the band succeed."