"I'd like to know about this one."
"Sure." The smile was starting to cost him something. "What do you want to know?"
The old man took one hand out of his pocket and pointed, not quite accurately, at the window sticker taped to the inside of the rear passenger glass. "That sheet there. I'd like you to read me the part about the safety equipment. And the gas mileage. If you would."
Kade looked at the sticker.
He knew what was on it. He knew what was on all of them, more or less; he had spent his first month on the floor walking the showroom after close with his phone, listening to the Ford product training modules through his earbuds while he stood in front of each vehicle, and he could tell you what the Escape Hybrid did and did not have the way he could tell you the starting five of the 2012 Kentucky Wildcats. But the sticker was a dense gray block of small type in two columns, standard equipment and optional equipment, with the long legal names Ford gave everything, and the old man was not asking him what he knew. The old man was asking him to read it. Out loud. Word by word. Standing next to him.
He felt the old familiar heat climb the back of his neck.
"It's all right there on the sticker, sir," he said.
"I can't make it out."
"It's pretty standard stuff. Blind spot, lane keeping, auto braking. Forty-something city. You'd love it." He tapped the glass with one knuckle near the top of the sticker, where the big numbers were, without looking at it. "Honestly, the website has everything. Way bigger print. You can zoom right in."
"I don't have a computer."
"Okay. Well." Kade laughed a little. It came out wrong. Across the showroom, through the far doors, he could see a black Tahoe pulling into the lot, and his heart jumped. Burkhart. It had to be. "Look, sir, I'm going to be straight with you, because I respect you. It's the end of the month. It's a crazy day for us. I've got appointments stacked up. Maybe it'd be better if you came back on a weekday with somebody who can help you out with all this. Your son, or your daughter, whoever. Somebody who can read through it with you. Or, like I said, take a walk around the value lot. No pressure back there." He was already stepping away. "Brochures are right by the door. Take as many as you want."