I just felt tired. I got out of the car and, with the door open and one hand on the steering wheel, pushed it to the side of the street, out of traffic. The car was a piece of crap, had been a piece of crap since the day I’d bought it from a now defunct used-car lot, and part of me was tempted to leave it where it was and walk off. But, as always, what I wanted to do and what I actually did were two different things.

I locked the car and walked across the store to a 7-Eleven to call AAA.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, I suppose, if I hadn’t been so far away from home, but my car had died in Tustin, a good twenty miles from Brea, and the belligerent Neanderthal who was sent out by AAA to tow my car said that he was authorized to bring my car to any mechanic within a five-mile radius but that anything beyond that would cost me $2.50 a mile.

I didn’t have any money, but I had even less patience, and I told him to take my car to the Sears in Brea. I’d charge the tow, charge the auto work, and hitch a ride home from someone.

I got home at the same time as Jane. I gave her a thumbnail sketch of my day, let her know I wasn’t in the mood to talk, and spent the rest of the evening lying on the couch silently watching TV.

They called late Friday afternoon.

Jane answered the phone, then called me over. “It’s the job!” she whispered.

I took the receiver from her. “Hello?”

“Bob? This is Joe Kearns from Automated Interface. I have some good news for you.”

“I got the job?”

“You got the job.”

I remembered Tom Rogers, but I didn’t know which of my nonspeaking interviewers was Joe Kearns. It didn’t matter, though. I’d gotten the job.

“Can you come in Monday?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I’ll see you then, then. Come on up to Personnel and we’ll get the formalities straightened out.”