There are certain cars that those who love automobiles fall in love with at first sight. The Black Tiger was just such a car for Woody. For the next few days he could do little but think of it. He longed to be associated with it, even in the humblest way. He would have cheerfully washed and polished the Black Tiger for nothing more than the privilege of being able to look it over in detail, from the small compact wicked-looking power plant in the rear to the sable tiger emblem, set on a field of silver on the front of the hood.
It would have been heaven to be behind the wheel of the Black Tiger, a racing helmet and goggles on his head, taking her down the straightaway of a race track at full throttle.
He besieged Worm with questions about the Black Tiger, and Worm told him a great deal about European sports cars of all kinds. Worm seemed to be familiar with every kind of car that had ever been manufactured, and Woody was abashed to discover that in Worm's opinion the kind of mechanical work they were doing in the garage was closer, as he put it, to butchery than surgery.
"These buckets o' bolts don't call for a real mechanic," Worm said. This so annoyed Woody that he protested American cars were acknowledged the finest in the world.
"Aye," said Worm, "for what they're built for—plenty of horsepower so ye don't have to change gear, fast getaway, and enough springing for a feather bed. Ye can no beat them there. But they'll no take a sharp corner fast. They carry aboot a ton of chrome fittings just tae make them look pretty. They'll nae gie ye more than twelve or fourteen miles tae a gallon of gas. Hoot mon. Do ye call it engineering when somebody builds a two-ton car to take a two-hundred-pound man tae work?"
That quieted Woody for a while, and he went back to his dream of the Black Tiger.
In the meantime, Mary Jane was beginning to find that the philosophy of salesmanship and the company of Bob Peters left something to be desired as a steady diet. It was fun, to be sure, to drive around town in a yellow Buick convertible with the wind whipping through her dark, curly hair. Bob had taken her out three times since their first date and each time for the kind of adult evening that she wished Woody would get interested in. The first time he'd taken her to a nice quiet place where there wasn't a juke box (always a mark of sophistication for Mary Jane) and then to a lecture at the civic auditorium. The lecture was given by the sales manager of a big rubber company, and he had discussed selling techniques for an hour and a half.
Bob had spent the hour and a half taking notes in a black notebook with his name in gold letters on the front of it. Mary Jane was slightly piqued because he hadn't said anything about her hair, which she had fixed specially for the evening. But she reminded herself that she was being childish and told Bob that she had found the lecture very exciting.
This had the effect of encouraging Bob to invite her to two more evenings of a similar nature. At one of them, a personnel manager had discussed factors in the making of young executives. Bob took notes on that too. At another, an advertising manager had discussed the results of an experiment in which five hundred people had been sent circulars in which they were promised a dollar if they returned the circular with their names and addresses on it.
The only bright point in that lecture was that somebody had apparently collected twenty copies of the circular from other people's trash barrels and so got twenty dollars for himself.
When, therefore, Bob called her again with a proposal to hear a visiting psychologist lecture on "Egotism as a Factor in Sales Resistance," she decided she had had enough and said she was busy.
"I just don't know what's the matter with men," she said putting the phone down. "When Woody takes me out, all he does is talk about cars. And when Bob takes me out, he keeps trying to improve my mind. Isn't there anybody who will take me out just because I'm me?"
Her mother, busy with ironing, made no comment.
"Didn't Daddy ever take you out just for you before you were married?" Mary Jane asked.
"Oh, yes," her mother replied.
"What did you talk about?" Mary Jane asked, intrigued.
"His business mostly, I think," said Mrs. Jackson.
"Didn't he take you dancing, or for a ride in a horse and buggy in the moonlight?"
Mrs. Jackson put down her iron and contemplated her daughter. "Horse and buggy!" she said. "How old do you think I am? Your grandmother probably went on dates in a horse and buggy. I went in my car. It was a Chrysler two-seater—one of the first they ever produced. And, young lady, I owned it. Sometimes I used to think that your father dated me just to drive the car. He said when we were married he'd buy me a much better one."
"Did he?" asked Mary Jane.
"No, dear," her mother replied. "He bought me a house full of furniture. It was much more practical. But anyway, if you're not doing anything this evening and you want to, why don't you call up Woody?"
"Oh, Mother, I can't," said Mary Jane. "We're not speaking. Besides, he's probably busy with his silly old hot rod."
Mrs. Jackson said nothing but went on with her ironing.
"Do you really think I ought to call him?" Mary Jane asked. "Sometimes we used to have a lot of fun together. Though he's so boyish."
Mrs. Jackson still remained silent, and Mary Jane said, "I wonder if he's still at the garage?" She went to the phone and dialed the number.
Woody was so surprised by the call that he could only answer Mary Jane's seemingly very casual questions in nonsyllables. He said yes he was feeling well, and no he hadn't been sick. He almost let Mary Jane hang up before he recovered himself sufficiently to ask her for a date. And when he came away from the phone, he was grinning as he hadn't grinned since he sold the wreckage of Cindy Lou.
"Ye'll be taking yere lassie out tonight, nae doot?" said Worm.
"Yes, sir," said Woody all smiles.
"Nae doot ye'd like a leetle advance on yer pay," Worm went on. "Or are ye fixed for money? I could let ye have maybe a dollar."
"Thanks," said Woody, "but I think I've got enough."
"Weel," said Worm, "dinna spend a lot on her. Them that takes yere money aren't the housekeeping kind."
When Woody called for Mary Jane he had the whole evening planned. He'd borrowed his father's car—a '54 Merc—and was dressed in the dark blue suit that Mary Jane liked. He had spent half an hour cleaning the grease from under his fingernails, and passing a drugstore, had had the happy inspiration to buy a box of candy.
Mary Jane kept him waiting for only twenty minutes. When she appeared she looked slimmer and more vivacious and more attractive than Woody ever remembered. She was not an exceptionally pretty girl but had a certain grace to her ways and walk that completely captivated Woody. Her nose was perhaps a little too snub for perfection, but her dark brown eyes, set wide apart, gave her a frankness of expression that was especially appealing.
"Hi, Woody," she said as she entered. "Sorry to keep you waiting. My hair just wouldn't stay in place this evening." Woody glanced at her hair, thick, dark, and curly, and didn't mind the twenty minutes of thumb twiddling in the Jackson living room.
When they were in the car, he suggested that they go to Merton's for dinner. Unfortunately Merton's was the place to which Mary Jane had been with Bob Peters, and she now associated it with a certain amount of boredom.
"We could eat there and then go to the civic auditorium," he suggested. "There's somebody giving a lecture there on something to do with psychology. I thought you'd like to hear it." Woody had been briefed on tactics by Steve, who knew that Mary Jane had developed a passion recently for lectures.
"Woody Hartford," said Mary Jane. "If you mention the word 'lecture' to me again, I won't speak to you all evening."
They went instead to the College Try, a place halfway between a soda fountain and a restaurant. It had a juke box, and Mary Jane played all the new swing records she could find, and they danced. Woody decided that Steve had given him a bum steer, but he didn't mind. He was having a wonderful time, and Mary Jane was even more vivacious and attractive than usual. She even asked him about Cindy Lou, and Woody told her that it had blown up and he'd sold what was left of the hot rod.
If he'd been a little more observant, he'd have noticed that there was the tiniest expression of satisfaction and even victory on Mary Jane's face when she got this news. But Woody went on to describe how he'd gone to the tech inspection and seen the Black Tiger. And when he talked about the Black Tiger, it was with such enthusiasm and devotion that Mary Jane realized Cindy Lou had merely been replaced by another rival.
"I don't see what you get out of all this car business," she said a little pettishly. "It's all so boyish. You just work in grease and dirt all day long and then you take a car to a race track and perhaps drive it two or three miles an hour faster than anyone else. And that's all you get for your pains."
"Oh, it's a lot more than that," said Woody. "There are things in it that are hard to explain. There's making an engine work better. It gives you a sense of having done something. And there's challenge to it. And some danger. And there's a feeling of belonging to a bunch of really good guys. It's exciting all the time. Look. Steve and I are going to the road races at Torrey Pines near San Diego next weekend. It's a two-day event—Saturday and Sunday. And the Black Tiger will be racing for the first time in America. Why don't you come along? You'd really get a kick out of it. I know you would."
"Oh, I don't think Mother and Daddy would let me," said Mary Jane.
"Worm's going," said Woody, "and he'd take care of you. Your Mother and Dad both know him. And Randy will be there." He launched into an enthusiastic description of Captain Randolph that made it quite clear that the owner of the Black Tiger was now Woody's hero.
"Well, I don't know," said Mary Jane. "We'll just have to see."
Mr. Jackson was at first reluctant to let Mary Jane go to the Torrey Pines race. But Mrs. Jackson came to her daughter's aid.
"She's almost eighteen," she said, "and you've just got to get used to the idea that she's very nearly grown up. She isn't a child any longer."
"Young people these days haven't any sense," grunted Mr. Jackson. "I'm just concerned about whether she'll get hurt at the races. That's all."
"Well, she could just as easily get hurt crossing the main street here," said Mrs. Jackson.
"Oh, all right," said Mr. Jackson, who had suddenly recalled that his grandmother came West in 1865 in a wagon train at the age of fifteen. Secretly he realized he was rather pleased at his daughter's enterprise. It would be something to mention casually at the club next time Wilson mentioned his son's speedboat.