Matthew Heiti's "Damned Good"

He becomes a car salesman as he walks into the dealership. He’s five minutes early but the transformation happens at the last possible moment. He’s not a car salesman as the doors go swish and the air conditioning goes woosh but then he steps over the threshold and he’s just a car salesman. That’s all he is now. That’s everything.

The tile floors shine, the cars in the showroom shine, the countertop he steps up to shines. Sally’s name tag shines and her teeth shine as she smiles shinily at him. “First day?”

“First day.”

“Well you know what they say,” she says, in a knowing Sallyish way. “What doesn’t kill you.”

The hesitation is unnoticeable to anyone but him before he laughs, like a car salesmen, because he is a car salesman. He eyes the big door behind the counter. “The boss in?”

“Wanda? She never leaves,” Sally says, rolling her eyes. So Sally to roll her eyes. “Go on in.”

He smiles, straightening his car salesman tie and pushes through the heavy glass door into Wanda’s office. There she is, Wanda, dropping a pod into an off-brand Keurig. She’s wearing a car salesman’s jacket and car salesman pants, because, he understands, she’s a car salesman, like him. Only, unlike him, her name is on the marquee outside. It’s the same logo on the coffee cup she’s bringing up to her lips, while she stares at him over the chipped rim. Wanda Fine Cars.

The steam fogs her horn-rimmed glasses. “You the guy?”

“I am.”

She takes another sip. “The last guy Harv sent me didn’t work out. He looked the part but he couldn’t sell a free meal to a starving man. I need a damned car salesman.”

“You got one.”

She drains her coffee and pops another pod in the machine. “You want a coffee?”

She drinks coffee. She’s Wanda. Wanda is a car salesman. Car salesmen drink coffee. “Sure.”

“Good. Last guy, he was a tea drinker.”

They take their coffees back out to the lobby. “We’re going to reconnoiter the herd,” Wanda says to Sally as they head off to the showroom. Wanda gestures at one car and then another with her mug. She says Italian things that he understands to be the names of different brands. He eyes the badges on the hoods and mouths the Italian words. He’s always been a quick learner.

“How do they look?” she says when they’ve finished reconnoitring, raising her cup to him. “Fine?”

He laughs in a decidedly car salesmanly manner and raises his own cup, with the logo facing her. Wanda Fine Cars. “Better than fine.”

“Good good good,” she says, turning back to the front door as it a stampede might come at any moment. “I tell you. The car companies, they think these things sell themselves.”

She runs a finger down the sleek red hood of the car next to her. Maserati, he now knows. She turns back to him and jabs him in the chest with the same finger. “If that were true, they wouldn’t need us. And what are we?”

He feels the pressure of her finger through successive layers of polyester and wool. He shakes it off. It’s not an accusation, it’s connection. Wanda and he, they’re the same. “Car salesmen.”

“That’s right. Damned good ones, right?”

Not waiting for an answer, she clinks her coffee cup to his. “Go get em, killer,” she throws over her shoulder, heading back to her office. He stands in the middle of all those shiny new cars, shiny new him. The coffee, still sloshing back and forth in his cup, drips to the shiny white floor. Spat, spat, shiny black spatter. Just coffee. Not a red spatter smeared redly all over the dirty basement floor. It’s not happening all over again, like the last time. That’s not him. It wasn’t him. He’s a car salesman.