Peter thanked him and recorded the feedback. Later that day he mentioned it during the staff meeting, not as proof they had finally solved every problem, but as an example of the service they ought to have provided all along. The girl did not purchase a car, and nobody made a prediction about how rich she might become in the future. Her curiosity had been a sufficient reason to treat her kindly.
William heard the story at his next board review and called Christina that evening. He told her about the retired driver, the granddaughter, and the red sports car, expecting her to be pleased. She listened and then asked whether anybody had given the girl a chance to ask about the engine.
"Evan spent nearly twenty minutes answering her questions," William said.
"Good. That's the part I like."
"I thought you'd say that."
"You can admire a beautiful thing without owning it," Christina told him. "And a business that forgets that has forgotten where its customers come from. Some of them are buyers today. Some are children with dreams. They all have eyes and hearts."
The blue Porsche remained in William's garage, carefully maintained and driven far less often than Christina had imagined when she purchased it. He still used his practical sedan for long workdays and Atlanta traffic, but once or twice a month he took the sports car out on quiet roads and tried to make time for the pleasure of driving it. Sometimes he picked up Christina, and they went for lunch at a diner she liked near the old alterations shop, where the waitress knew her name and called William the little boy who had finally grown taller than the doorway.
Christina delighted in the waitress's ability to embarrass him without being mean. She would order pie, criticize his habit of looking at his phone during meals, and ask for news of people he had not thought about since childhood. William answered as best he could, occasionally recognizing how much he had allowed his work to narrow the part of life he considered important. Their drives became a small ritual neither wanted to cancel, a gift whose real value appeared each time they found themselves with an entire afternoon to talk.
Anna remained in their lives too. She visited Christina for coffee, helped organize a community design workshop at the library, and teased William whenever he tried to turn a simple neighborhood project into a venture with a budget forecast. Christina enjoyed having a friend who did not ask her to be anybody's grandmother for an hour. They argued cheerfully about music, shared recipes, and sometimes spoke about the showroom only when a new memory made it necessary.
As for Richard Croft, he found a position outside automobile sales several months after leaving Sterling. The details of his employment belonged to him, and the gallery did not circulate them. He and Christina never became friends, and she did not invite him into her life simply because he had apologized. Once, when she passed a man in a gray suit outside a grocery store, she felt a brief rush of the old anxiety and was reminded that a painful experience did not disappear when the paperwork surrounding it was closed.