When he heard her voice, he leaned against the wall in his kitchen. “This is a surprise,” he told her.

“So you got a job? A good job?”

“Yeah. I give advice and eat a little carbon.”

“How much you make?”

When he told her, the line went silent for a long moment. “You still there?”

“Why they paying you so damned much?”

“What, you think I’m not worth it? Should I tell them I’m just a dumb coon-ass from Tiger Island and they shouldn’t throw so much money away on me?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess that was what I was thinking. You must have something they can’t find around here.”

“Old machinery, babe.”

“What?”

“I know the old stuff nobody can fool with anymore. Canneries. Museums. Somebody with the state park service paid my shop a hundred and twenty-five dollars an hour to have me come over and set the valves on a Hardy-Tynes compound Corliss they have on exhibit.”

“You learned about all that from those greasy old books you used to leave around the house?”

He smiled at the word house. It brought everything together for a moment. “Those greasy books are making money now.”

“What’re you doing with your paycheck? You buy another accordion?” Her voice was light, joking more than cruel.

“I bought a car.”

“What kind? No, let me guess. A used Caprice.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “Crown Vic.”

A laugh came over the phone. “I knew it. Hey, your job got a title?”

“Yeah. Everybody’s got a title out here. You know that.”

“It gives you credibility,” Colette said. “How you going to maintain it driving a car that looks like a taxi?”

He closed his eyes and sniffed, as though she were in the room. “You want to go for a ride in my big car?”

“Maybe.”

He straightened his back. “I found an Italian place that’s not too bad.”

“If it’s a place you like, it must have a squad of old greasers playing R&B.”

“Aw, Colette.”

“I’m kidding, sort of.”

* * *

He picked her up and she ignored his car. At the restaurant, they didn’t say much to each other. Paul let the word credibility roll around inside his head like an indigestible meatball. He watched Colette eat, looked at her hair, which was pulled back, tight, tight. He asked about her parents and she ignored the question, making a comment about his big Ford.

“Colette,” he complained. “It gets me around. It holds my tools and coveralls in the trunk. What’s the big deal?”

She wiped her mouth and put a hand palm-down on the table. “The big deal is that you are seen in that brontosaurus every day. People like your boss will form opinions about you. Your boss’s boss, he’ll look at that white thing and say to himself, ‘blue collar.’”

“Hey, it’s a four-year-old Vic, not a Gremlin with sheet plastic in the windows.”

Colette took a drink of water from a stemmed glass. “Like it or not, you’re in a faster lane out here. You’ve got to compete.”