1983, Andorra La Vella
Desperation seeps its seedy way through my bones. I have no choice but to get rid of the fabulously fantastic Alfa Romeo. Between legal shenanigans in Spain and our imminent move to the United States, the best thing is to cut one's losses and dump the car. Ouch!
I swear my Romeo blinks away a tear as it reads my thoughts.
I park him in front of one more car dealer, Automóbils Jordi, on the Avenida Santa Coloma. Please take my car. I'm hoping nobody can hear my thoughts, nor sense my desperation. Maybe Jordi won't realise that my Alfa Romeo was manufactured in Brazil for export to Poland, and that somehow it ended up in Heidelberg, Germany where I purchased it. Maybe he'll be just dying to buy a lovely Italian car. I inhale deeply and march in.
"Do you want to buy my car? It's a delightful and magnificent Alfa Romeo." Do I sound bright and cheery?!
"No, señora. If I buy it from you, then I have to sell it, don't I?" He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know of anyone who'd want to buy your car. That's the problem." He stares through the showroom window at my sad-looking vehicle. Word must have already got round that there's some really red and pale, blotchy foreign woman trying to sell an Alfa Romeo with a spurious pedigree.
"I'll just leave it in the street, then. I can't take it back into Spain." I get ready to leave.
"One moment, señora. Maybe I can help you after all." He knows I'm desperate. His eyes are twinkling as he sums me up.
"You want to buy the car?"
"No. I don't. But I can try to sell it for you. Just give me the documentation of the car and I'll see what I can do for you."
Call me a fool, call me a stubborn fool. But I'm simply not about to hand over the documents, not without getting paid! Little does he know, that I'll take anything, even five thousand pesetas.
"And how would you get the money to me once you sell it? I live about five hours away."
"Oh, señora. Don't worry. I'll mail you the money." He's smirking at this point.
"No. No deal. Give me the money now, and I'll give you the documents."
I'm surprised at my tone of voice. I feel as if I'm in a boxing arena fighting a World Heavyweight.
"Señora, señora. Don't you trust me?"
That question doesn't even deserve an answer. Ha ha.
In the end we reach a compromise. I leave the car with him, but I retain the title deed of the fabulously fantastic Alfa Romeo. He's to contact me if he gets a buyer and I've to rush back to Andorra with the documents.
What a daft situation! It would have been better to have just rented a car instead of getting messed up with foreign plates, the Guardia Civil, and now this escapade of fleeing to Andorra. Financially it would have been the same. I think the fabulously fantastic Alfa Romeo cost $3,000. Still, it has been an adventure!
P.S. Do you think I ever hear from Automóbils Jordi?!
P.P.S. And I wonder where my fabulously fantastic Alfa Romeo is now?
