A Song in the Daylight by Paullina Simons Page A

in, swoop in at the end, check it out with the checkbook?” Jared’s straight light hair was in a shaggy mop, he looked healthy, happy, still in a dark gray suit, pleased with himself. Leaning over, he kissed her. “But pick yourself something nice. Something babelicious.”
    “Yes, except at twenty we were riding rusted bicycles, not Jags,” Larissa said, getting up from the table, the dirty plate in her hands, the silverware, the cup, the soiled napkin. “That’s the irony. When you’re young and want to ride a flash motorcycle, you can hardly afford it, and by the time you can afford it, you look ridiculous on it.”
    The kids were playing pool in the den, even the six-year-old. Larissa hoped he wouldn’t stab his older brother with a pool cue.
    “I’m quite happy with my Escalade, Jared,” she went on. “It’d be a waste of money. Honest. I don’t need a new car.”
    “Yes, you do. And don’t be a spoilsport. What else am I going to get you?”
    “A vacation? Hawaii, maybe?”
    “Hmm. Hawaii’s a good idea. But you know, with the kids…we’ll need a vacation after that vacation. Besides,” he added glibly, “a vacation is over in seven days. But a Jag you have forever.”
    So this became Larissa’s life internal: talking herself out of going to the Jag dealership. She didn’t want a new car. She’d be satisfied with a BMW. Except Jared told her that Doug Grant thought a Jag would be finer than any other car except maybe a Porsche.
    “What, Doug is now a car expert?” She brightened. “But a Porsche might be nice.”
    “Off the table. Too expensive.”
    “I’m not sure about Doug’s opinion,” she said. “I’m going to ask Ezra.”
    “Ezra!” Jared loosened his tie. “You’re going to ask a man who drives a twelve-year-old Subaru wagon with a hatchback that doesn’t open what kind of luxury car he thinks you should get?”
    “Ezra is very smart. Do you deny that?”
    “He’s an idiot about cars!” Just to prove his point, Jared got Ezra on the phone despite Larissa’s protestations that dinner was about to achieve room temperature. “Ez, it’s me. My wife wants to know what kind of sports car you think I should buy her for her birthday.”
    Larissa was violently rolling her eyes while Jared was nodding into the phone. “Exactly. My point entirely. Thanks, man. See you Saturday.” He hung up. “Do you want to know what Ezra said?”
    “I can’t tell you how much I don’t care.”
    Jared laughed. “But you wanted to ask him! He told me. Would you like to hear?”
    “Suddenly, no.”
    On Friday, Larissa asked Fran’s opinion, her twentysome-thing friend with whom she did only one thing—sit at the nail salon. Finklestein liked the beautiful things in life, though she was a receptionist at a Midtown-based news agency and had no actual money. The girl was single, young, hip and didn’t fit in with Larissa’s other friends. Her singlehood and youth dazzled Larissa; Finklestein was what a Republican looked like to a Democrat: unfathomable. This time over a latte, flash Fran denounced Larissa’s false dilemma by administering a brutal piece of advice. Any sports car would do, Fran said dismissively. Pick the one that will please you the most.
    The ever-practical Maggie tried to talk her out of the car entirely. She didn’t share Ezra’s risible indifference to the question. Always thrifty, Maggie thought such a purchase an unnecessary extravagance.
    Larissa couldn’t talk to Bo about something so trivial as buying a car when Bo was living in a two-bedroom apartment with her unhinged mother and freelance Jonny, who’d been looking for a long-term gig for three years. Bo spent her days on the sixth floor of the Met during lunchtime, ambling through neo-Impressionist floral displays from South America and dreaming of a different life. Talking to Bo about Jaguars was as absurd as talking to Michelangelo about it, who saw a brochure his father had brought home and said,