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I sighed. “It’s good.”

“How good?” Frank asked.

“Depends on the condition.”

Lorrie handed it over, gentle with the sleeve.

“You’re terrible at this,” I told her. “We’re supposed to get a deal.”

She winked at Frank. “I don’t negotiate against dead brothers.”

Frank laughed again, which cost me at least ten dollars.

An hour later, I had four boxes in the truck and less cash than I’d planned to spend. Lorrie had somehow talked Frank into throwing in two wooden display racks from the basement because his wife wanted them gone along with the ABBA album.

“I saved you money,” she said as we loaded the second rack.

“You cost me sixty dollars.”

“You were going to buy the records anyway.”

“I wasn’t going to buy all of them.”

“Yes, you were.”

I set the rack against the side of the truck bed.

On the way back toward Madison, the sky finally opened.

Rain came down so quickly that for several seconds the road disappeared behind a sheet of water. I slowed the truck while Lorrie rolled her window up, then frowned when rain continued hitting her shoulder.

“The window leaks.”

“I know.”

“You could have mentioned that.”

“I thought you liked adventure.”

“I like adventure when it doesn’t end up with me soaked to the bone.”

Another drop hit her cheek. She wiped it away, shook her head, and started laughing.

The rain pounded the roof hard enough to drown out conversation, and within minutes the side of her tank was wet, my left leg was getting sprayed through the gap near the door, and Otis had flattened himself between us.

I pulled into the first place I saw, a roadside diner with a faded Pepsi sign, three pickup trucks out front, and a handwritten notice advertising daily specials.

We took a booth near the window where I could keep an eye on Otis and the truck. Lorrie wiped her face with a napkin, her tank wet on one side where the truck window had leaked.

A waitress brought us coffee without asking whether we wanted any, and Lorrie took one sip before making a face.

“This is worse than yours.”

I tasted it and had to agree.

We ordered cheeseburgers and fries with two burgers to go for Otis, then sat there while Otis waited in the truck under the overhang outside, staring through the window with the wounded expression of a dog who had never been fed in his life.

Lorrie waved at him and he barked. For a moment, with rain running down the window and the waitress arguing with someone near the kitchen about whether the jukebox had eaten another quarter, I thought Lorrie looked beautiful even with her hair wet and her mascara running down one cheek.