"He's young and stupid and we're probably older than his mother," Jane said. "I might spring for the three hundred bucks. But I'm not doing it until I've driven the car for a while."

In the end, the salesman made Jane drive the car with him in the passenger seat and Shelley in the backseat. He was pointing out where all the features were, which disconcerted Jane, although she thought he didn't know he was frazzling her.

When he said, "This handle turns the windshield wipers on," she glanced down very briefly at a stick that said "Pull." She tried pulling out the end knob. He said, "No, that means pull it

toward you."

"Oh, of course."

There was a low growl from the backseat, which Jane ignored.

When the test drive was over, the forms all filled out, the check approved, the temporary license plate in place, and everybody had shaken hands in a distinctly "manly" way, Shelley said, "I wish we'd taken a cab so I could ride home with you."

"Have you ever seen a cab just cruising our street? And would you have paid him to sit around when we stoked up on sandwiches and coffee? And then run us to the bank?"

"I guess you're right."

"We'll take a nice long drive when we've stopped by home," Jane said. "By the way, I'm never going to smoke in this car or let anyone else

do so. I've made a vow that it's not going to lose its new car smell ever."

"I've never seen you smoke in the station wagon."

"That's because I only smoke three cigarettes a day, and sometimes only one or none if I'm really busy and forget. But I have on occasion opened

the window while I was waiting on carpool kids and stunk it up."