“Do you think it can be repaired?” I asked.
“I think the right facility will tell us honestly what repair means,” she replied.
Several days later, I received the first preliminary estimate. It was nearly one hundred eighty-four thousand dollars, subject to inspection of additional components.
I read the number three times.
The custom finish required substantial disassembly and reconstruction. Paint had entered the ventilation edges, the mirror assembly, panel seams, and areas around sensitive electronics. The mirror housing was fractured. Carbon-fiber sections showed contamination and physical damage. The driver’s door needed attention beyond refinishing. Several parts required shipping from specialized suppliers; others would need recalibration before the car could be safely driven.
I knew the work. I knew what it cost. Even so, the total hit me like something heavy and wet.
I forwarded the estimate to Dana and Marisol, then sat with my hands flat on the desk.
Marisol entered without knocking. “You look sick.”
“Read that.”
She scanned the page. “Good Lord.”
“Yeah.”
She pulled up a chair. “Insurance?”
“Covered in principle, subject to their process.”
“Business?”
“Still standing.”
She leaned forward. “Then listen to me. You didn’t cause this. You don’t have to earn the right to be upset about it.”
I stared at the edge of the desk. She knew me well enough to hear the calculations I wasn’t saying out loud. The repair number wasn’t only money. It was labor. It was years spent turning every dollar twice before spending it. Someone had turned all that history into a morning’s joke.
At home I found the drawing on my refrigerator. The yellow car with triangular teeth. Sunshine shark. I took it down and put it beside my desk at the shop. I needed to remember the car could mean something other than the red paint.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN — People Were Watching
The video appeared online that weekend. Not the entire video. A short sequence Dylan’s friends had edited from Brooke’s footage, starting after I stepped outside and ending just before the police arrived. It showed my damaged car, my face, and Dylan’s loud confidence. It made the whole thing look like a prank whose victim failed to appreciate the humor.
Someone set it to music. Another account captioned it: *Rich guy has meltdown over paint.* The original uploader hadn’t bothered to show that I’d remained calm. The caption supplied the emotion the video lacked.
For an evening, strangers argued beneath it about whether I deserved the car, whether I actually owned it, whether young people should be punished for pranks, and whether an expensive possession had somehow made the damage less real.
I didn’t respond. Dana advised me to preserve the posts and report threats without entering an argument. Marisol handled incoming calls at the shop. Theo suggested unplugging the reception phone altogether. We didn’t.
There were useful calls too. Mrs. Bell, my first customer, left a message saying she had seen something “awful” and wanted me to know she was praying for me. Robert Hale emailed an offer of temporary transportation that I didn’t need but appreciated. A young detailer in another state sent a photograph of his first rented garage and wrote, *I know what that car meant.*
At the same time, Vivienne began calling residents. She said the case had been exaggerated. She said Dylan was being sacrificed to publicity. She suggested I had encouraged him and then deliberately humiliated him. Some neighbors repeated those claims in small private conversations, but a remarkable thing happened. Other people started answering them.
