left the house, a beret. A wool felt beret, light tan, the color of sand, which Loretta had bought him in Paris on their fortieth anniversary trip and which he had worn every day since. He set it on his head at a slight angle, the way she had liked it, and tugged it once, and looked at himself in the hall mirror.
He did not look, he knew, like a man who owned a hundred and thirty-nine cars. He looked like a retired schoolteacher. Or a deacon. Or somebody's grandfather on his way to the barbershop to sit and argue about baseball. He looked like what he was, which was an old man who did not care very much about clothes.
He had never once in his life dressed for anybody else. He was not going to start now.
Nia was waiting in the kitchen when he came downstairs, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a laptop and a phone held to her ear, frowning. She was thirty-one years old, tall and sharp-featured and impatient, with her grandmother's high cheekbones and her grandfather's stubborn jaw, and she had a law degree from the University of Chicago and a business degree from Northwestern and the job title of Chief Operating Officer of Booker Executive Transportation, which she had held for three years, and which Calvin had given her not because she was his granddaughter but because she was, without question, the smartest person in the company, including him. She waved at him without looking up and went on talking into the phone.
"No," she was saying. "No, Thursday's not acceptable. I told you that yesterday. The wire goes out today or we don't do the deal. My grandfather has been very clear. He pays on the day. Same day. That's how it's always been." She listened. Her frown deepened. "Then I suggest you call whoever you need to call. I'll be at your branch at ten-thirty. I'd like the paperwork ready when I get there." She hung up without saying goodbye and set the phone face down on the table and looked at her grandfather, and her face softened. "Good morning, Pop."
"Good morning, baby girl." He kissed the top of her head. "Who were you yelling at?"
"I wasn't yelling. I was being firm. It was the bank. They want to hold the wire until Thursday because it's over their internal threshold for same-day transfers without a second authorization." She rolled her eyes. "I said we'd authorize it twice. I said we'd authorize it fifteen times. They said Thursday. I said no. It's handled. I'm going down there."
"Good."
"I'll meet you at the dealership after. Noon, maybe a little after. You'll have to start without me."
"I've started without you before."
"I know. That's what worries me." She looked at him over her coffee. "Pop. Are you sure about this? Twenty at once? We could stagger it. Five this quarter, five next quarter. We don't have to replace the whole executive fleet in one go."
"The executive fleet's eleven years old," Calvin said. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove. "Half of them have two hundred thousand miles. The transmissions are going. We lost the hospital contract renewal bid last year because the other company had newer cars. We're going to lose the Benson account if we don't show them something in the spring. You told me that. You showed me the numbers."
"I know. I know what I showed you."
"Then why are we arguing?"
"We're not arguing. I'm asking." She hesitated. "Why that dealership? There's three Cadillac dealers closer to the garage. Bauer's would have given us a better fleet price. I called them. They practically begged."
Calvin did not answer right away. He sipped his coffee and looked out of the kitchen window at the backyard, where the rain from the night before was still dripping off the branches of the big old maple tree that Loretta had planted the year they moved in.
"Your grandmother used to get her hair done on Kedzie," he said at last. "Every other Saturday for twenty years. At Miss Pearl's. You remember Miss Pearl's."
"Of course I remember."
"There's a dealership two blocks down from where Miss Pearl's used to be. Prestige Cadillac. On the corner by the old bank. It used to be a furniture store. They built it about fifteen years ago. All glass and steel. Very fancy." He set the cup down. "I used to sit outside it in the car, every other Saturday, waiting for your grandmother to finish. For two hours. Sometimes three. I'd park across the street and read the paper and watch the people go in and out." He smiled slightly. "I watched how they treated the people who went in. Fifteen years of Saturdays. I got to know it pretty well."