“Fifty-two XK One Twenty.” Mr. Brown lets go of my hand. “Something, isn’t she?”

“She sure is,” I reply.

Introductions complete, the paterfamilias gives me a look that I interpret as an invitation to disappear.

With pleasure.

Last Friday, a few days before Robin and I left for Maine, I came home from her house to find the paterfamilias simonizing his prized possession. This labor-intensive process begins with a soapy hand-washing using only natural sea sponges, then a careful drying using special goatskin shammies, followed by polishing and buffing. I know the process intimately because for years it was my responsibility once every spring and fall. I hated it, just as I hated all the chores the paterfamilias foisted on me. As if I were conceived specifically for the role of household peon.

That afternoon, I paused to watch while he squatted beside one of the car’s broad fenders, rubbing away the dried whitish simonizing compound with a soft cotton cloth. His tanned forehead was dotted with sweat, the slightly brownish trail on his temple evidence of the hair dye he’s recently started using. I wondered if he was recalling the good old days when he’d been able to make me do all the work.

“Don’t you usually do this in April?” I asked.

The paterfamilias wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’m going to a classic-car rally up in Newburgh.”

That sounded odd. As far as I knew, he’d never gone to a classic-car rally before. Especially on a summer weekend, when his chief preoccupation was playing three or four hours of tennis each day.

A few hours later, he left.

Friday ended, Saturday passed, and on Sunday afternoon, Robin and I departed for our ill-fated Maine fling, heading east on the Long Island Expressway toward Orient Point, where we would catch the ferry to New London. We were near the Melville exit when something in the westbound lanes caught my eye. It was the gold MG with the top down. For a moment, it made no sense. The paterfamilias had said the classic-car rally was in Newburgh, which is in upstate New York, not out on Long Island.

But there he was in the driver’s seat.

And next to him was a blonde.

Sunday, June 29

I would like to be

A famous writer.

But I am neither brilliant

Nor dead.

“I adored that book.” Tinsley reaches over and touches the spine of my dog-eared copy of Trout Fishing in America.

“Yeah, pretty trippy.”