Timberline Road

Dara Vanderveen had been smiling beside a beige sedan since ten in the morning, and by noon the muscles at the corners of her mouth had begun to hurt.

The car sat on a low platform at the Eugene home show with a fake kitchen built behind it: laminate counters, a bowl of plastic lemons, a casserole dish that had never held food. A television monitor played the same commercial every six minutes. On the screen, another woman’s hands turned a steering wheel while a man’s voice promised room for everything a family could become.

Dara’s job was to climb into the driver’s seat when the announcer called her name, point out the upholstery, answer the safe questions, and stand close enough to the dealer’s microphone that couples took a brochure when he offered one. The company had put her in a white blouse with a blue scarf knotted at the throat. The scarf had a dealer logo stitched into it in gold thread. By eleven, she could feel the knot rubbing the side of her neck.

A woman with two children asked whether the back seat would take a car seat and a baby carrier. Dara leaned through the open door and showed her the belt clips. The woman’s husband stood with his arms crossed, pretending the price did not matter to him.

“It holds both,” Dara said. “The kids may hate each other anyway.”

The woman laughed. The husband looked at Dara, then at the car, and took a brochure.

From the side curtain, Marty Danner made a small motion with two fingers. He meant stop adding things. Dara smiled at him and finished the script exactly as it had been written.

At the first break, she slipped behind the curtain and took off her shoes. Her right heel had been rubbing since morning. The stocking had stuck to the raw place. When she peeled it down, a bright strip of skin came with it.

“Jesus,” said a voice behind her.

Dara looked up. A dealer representative named Cal held out a paper cup of coffee. He had gray hair, a red dealer pin on his lapel, and the cheerful face of a man who spent his days telling people things would work out because he had already been paid.

“You need a Band-Aid?” he asked.

Dara pressed the stocking against the raw strip on her heel. “I need a chair.”

Cal glanced toward the curtain, where the announcer was beginning the next pitch. “Can’t sell cars sitting.”

“Then they chose the wrong woman.” She took the coffee from him anyway and held the cup against her ankle for the heat.