“Are you guys hoping to upgrade your family car?” says a besuited salesman, who seems to have popped out of thin air. He’s younger than me and has a very angular, pointy face.
I’m about to say no, but Megan cuts me off. “Are there any women sales assistants around today?”
The guy frowns and looks between the pair of us, but reorganises his features into a smile. “I can make you an appointment on a Saturday, Monday, or Wednesday with Kate if you’d like? What kind of thing are you looking for?”
“I’m not looking, she is,” I say.
“Nah. I’m gonna get a Jimny,” Megan says.
“When did you decide that?” I ask.
The salesman ping-pongs his gaze between us.
“About five seconds ago, but you should totally buy this one. All the cool professional athletes drive Discoveries,” she says. Then adds, “I won’t mention a single thing to Georgia.”
I close my eyes and breathe slowly through my nostrils. Damn it. I turn to the sales guy. “How much?”
“Well . . .” He squirms. “This model starts at sixty, but there are a range of finance—”
“K?! Sixty K?! Sixty thousand pounds?” I’m laughing too much to hear what his answer is. Megan laughs as well, and eventually even the sales assistant gets swept into our mirth. “Pard . . . no. No thank you.”
He waits until Megs and I have calmed down. “There are a variety of finance options available, and we have some excellent secondhand models in our showroom. If you trade in, that could bring the agreement down quite a bit. Depending on what your current car is, it might be as much—”
Megan interrupts. “It’s a twenty twenty-three Impreza.”
“Oh, that’s your Subaru outside?” His eyes light up, and I can practically hear the cha-ching sounding off inside his head.
“No, no. No, no, no. I see where this is going, and no, I don’t need a new car. My car is too pretty to trade in.”
“Let’s take a look at the secondhand ones,” Megan says, but not to me. To the sales guy.
“Certainly,” he says, and the pair hotfoot it out of the showroom.
Okay, what would Pi do? I ask myself. He wouldn’t let himself get tempted by shiny new things. He’d put his foot down and drive away in his sensible, reliable family car. Even though my Impreza has none of those qualities.
Wait, would he want me to buy something more sensible? Oh no. Probably.
By the time we reach the forecourt, Megan has become besties with the sales guy. His name is Lewis. He’s twenty-two, likes Arsenal and snowboarding, and dislikes hot dogs. I don’t trust him.
The first car he shows us is a 2024 Discovery. Black, like the beast in the showroom, but this one has fifteen thousand miles on the clock and is twenty thousand pounds cheaper.
“Loads of leg room,” Lewis says, looking me up and down and then opening the driver’s and passenger’s doors. “And the same in the back. Great, if you two ever have kids.”
“He already has a kid,” Megan says. “Logan. He’s nearly seven?”
“No way, that’s what I want to call my son when I get older,” Lewis says.
I side-eye him, unsure if I should be more offended by the slimy ass-kissing or the fact that he thinks at four years his senior I’m an “older” person.
“Loads of boot space,” he says, opening that too. “Do you have any dogs?”
Megan slaps my arm with the back of her hand, and I know she’s immediately thinking of Trekkie too.
Trekkie. I can just imagine Pi’s face if I rocked up in a car with an exclusive safe zone for his little buddy.
“Not really. But I have a friend with a dog.” Oh god, Eggs, stay strong. Don’t volunteer up such valuable bargaining tools.
“The previous owner had a dog guard installed right here.” Lewis shows us the trunking of the dog cage and where it would be fixed in the boot. “Gives you a good idea of the size. It’ll fit two medium-sized dogs in very comfortably. You can open the door right up like this and your dog—I mean, your friend’s dog—can hop straight in and out. And you’ve still got all this space here for groceries or luggage, or whatever else you have.”
