I stepped outside carrying coffee and my laptop bag.
For several seconds, my brain refused to understand what I was looking at.
Something red was dripping down the hood.
I stopped walking.
My coffee remained halfway toward my mouth.
A thick line of red paint crossed the yellow finish.
Then another.
Then another.
The paint had been poured across the hood, splattered onto the windshield, dragged across the driver’s-side fender, and kicked onto the door.
Across the center of the hood, someone had painted one hateful word in huge uneven letters.
I stared at it.
For a moment, everything around me became strangely quiet.
Then I heard laughter.
Beside the car stood my neighbor’s nineteen-year-old son.
He was laughing with his girlfriend.
He still had the open paint can in his hand.
Red paint covered two of his fingers and dotted the front of his shoes.
His girlfriend had her phone raised toward him.
She was recording.
He leaned against the damaged fender like he was posing beside something he had accomplished.
When he noticed me, he smiled wider.
“Morning.”
His girlfriend laughed.
I looked at the paint can.
Then at him.
Then at my car.
He lifted the can slightly like he was making a toast.
“What?” he said. “You don’t like the new color?”
His girlfriend nearly doubled over laughing.
I did not answer.
He started mocking my business.
He said everybody knew people like me exaggerated how successful they were.
He said the Lamborghini was probably rented.
He said maybe I had borrowed it for social media.
He said I had bought it because I wanted the neighborhood to believe I was somebody important.
I put my coffee on the driveway.
Then I took out my phone.
The moment he saw the camera, he laughed harder.
“Yeah, record me.”
So I did.
I photographed the paint can.
His hand.
His shoes.
The red streaks.
The damaged mirror.
The splatter pattern across the driveway.
The hood.
The fender.
His girlfriend filming.
Everything.
That was when his mother came storming across the lawn.
She did not look shocked.
That was the first thing I noticed.
She did not look at the ruined Lamborghini and ask what happened.
She did not ask her son why he was holding a paint can.
She did not ask why his hands were covered in red paint.
She walked directly toward me.
“You probably did this yourself.”
I stared at her.
“For attention,” she added.
Her son laughed.
His girlfriend kept recording.
I felt my chest tighten.
The easiest thing in the world would have been to yell.
Part of me wanted to.
But twelve years of running a business had taught me something important.
