"The cow is Mrs. Plourde's cow," the dispatcher informed her. "Her name is Barbara. Okay. We will be there in eighteen minutes. Don't touch the radiator cap, it'll burn your face off. What's your name?"
"Vivienne Wainwright."
"That's a good name. Mine's Georgie. Don't touch the cap." And the line went dead.
The tow truck arrived in twenty-two minutes, by the slim gold Cartier her husband had given her on their fifth anniversary and which she had kept after the divorce on the grounds that she had earned it. She heard the truck before she saw it, a big diesel grumble coming down the hill out of the trees, and then it came around the bend, a 1972 Ford with a white cab and a green bed and a boom on the back like the neck of a patient animal, and on the door, in gold letters with a black shadow, BEAULIEU'S. The grille did not have eyelashes. She was a little disappointed.
It pulled onto the shoulder ahead of the Alfa, backed up neatly to within a yard of her front bumper, and stopped. The passenger door flew open before the engine was off, and a child jumped down.
She was perhaps nine, small and wiry, in jeans with patched knees and a Boston Red Sox jacket two sizes too large and a Red Sox cap with the bill pulled down so low she had to tip her whole head back to see out from under it. There was a yellow Sony Walkman clipped to her belt, the headphones around her neck, and she was carrying a clipboard. She looked at the Alfa. She looked at Vivienne. She looked back at the Alfa and let out a long, low whistle that she had obviously practiced.
"You weren't kidding," she said. "That is red."
"Georgie," said the man getting out of the driver's side. "Manners."
"I said it nice."
"You whistled at her car."
"I whistled at the car, not at her." The child turned to Vivienne and stuck out her hand. "Georgie Beaulieu. Dispatcher. That's my dad. He's the mechanic. He's also the tow truck driver, and he's also the guy who answers the phone when I'm at school, which is why nobody can ever understand what he says, because he talks like this." She dropped her voice into her boots. "Yup. Beaulieu's. Yup. Okay. Be right there."
"I do not talk like that," said her father.
"You totally talk like that."
Vivienne shook the small, cold, grease-flecked hand with great seriousness. Then she looked up at the father, and something happened in her chest that she put down at the time to the altitude.