But the final payment on the carburetor rig, secondhand, would cost ten bucks. And Mary Jane was expecting to be taken out that night with the same ten bucks.
"Maybe," said Woody hopefully, still cleaning the float chamber, "I could give the guy five on the manifold and squeak by with Mary Jane on the other five." But he knew even as he said it that the compromise wouldn't work. Bob Peters, who had the manifold, wanted cash and spoke darkly of several other offers. And Mary Jane wasn't the kind of girl you could take to the corner drugstore for a lemon coke, then to the movies, and call it an evening.
Every now and then Mary Jane got it into her head that she wanted to go out in style. And Woody knew he'd better take her. She went through phases of being very sophisticated and looked upon drugstore entertainment as kid stuff. During her sophisticated intervals, she read books by Aldous Huxley and talked about the social obligations of the upper strata.
At such times, and this was one of them, Mary Jane didn't want to hear a word about Cindy Lou, in which she was normally interested. And the mention of carburetors and manifolds left her slightly hostile.
The telephone rang, interrupting Woody's reflections. He wiped his hands briefly on his khaki pants, got down off the stool, and went over to the phone, which was fastened to a wall of the garage.
"McNess Union Service Station," he said into the mouthpiece.
"Hi," said a cheerful voice at the other end. "That you, Woody?"
"Yep."
"How are things?"
Things, Woody replied, rubbing the end of his nose with an oil-blackened hand, were pretty good. He knew what was coming. Bob was on the line and after a little more palaver would want to know whether he was going to hand over the final payment on the manifold. Bob was never one to get right to the point. He was studying salesmanship and had read somewhere that most big sales were made in the course of friendly discussions with clients about their own problems and affairs. So Bob asked Woody whether he felt good and whether his dad was in good health and had he gone to the dry lakes racecourse last weekend and what he thought of the weather. Woody replied noncommittally to all these inquiries while he weighed Cindy Lou in the balance against Mary Jane. Finally Bob decided that he'd done enough of the friendly discussion part of salesmanship and should get down to the point.