Benjamin “Benny” Blake, the new city councilor, hoped to become governor by the time he was forty. To do so, he would need to accumulate impressive achievements. Having an old car removed from an alley wouldn’t qualify as an impressive achievement. But it would be an achievement nevertheless.

Benny emailed the city manager. The city manager emailed back to say he would contact the head of code enforcement. The head of code enforcement would send a crew to tow the car to the auto graveyard on Snakeskin Road. Problem solved. Achievement achieved.

Benny had learned about the car only recently, and not from the people of Redwood, the neighborhood in Sherman, Ohio, where the car was parked, but from one of his campaign donors, a contractor who planned to raze three houses that the alley served in order to build a Dollar Tree. The contractor said his vehicles needed “clean access” to the alley. Besides, he said, the old car, rusted and smashed beyond saving, was an eyesore.

On his drive to the monthly meeting of the Redwood Neighborhood Association, which would be his first, Benny decided he wouldn’t boast about the car’s impending removal. He would allow its soon-to-be absence to speak to his effectiveness as a leader, then sweep in to next month’s meeting to receive his rightful due.

The meeting was held in a basement room of the Last Apostle Church on the southernmost edge of Sherman. The ceiling was low, and one of the two fluorescent lights flickered as if intending to provoke an epileptic fit. The room smelled like waterlogged Bibles and whatever had last been burned in the adjoining kitchen. Benny claimed a foldup chair at one end of a foldup table. He estimated he was the youngest person in the room by half a century.

The five other attendees introduced themselves. On his right were Sally and Stan, who, although they were married, looked like brother and sister, with the same flour-white skin, silver-gray hair, and gray-blue eyes. On his left were Martha and Larry, who, although they weren’t married, behaved like they were, sitting inches apart and whispering into each other’s ears. Martha was heavyset and tall, Larry slight and short. At the opposite end of the table was Mitch King, a Black man who wore a blue pinstriped suit and had a voice that, had it come from the sky, could have passed for God’s.

While Benny met most prerequisites for a successful politician—he was a more or less faithful churchgoer, was good at remembering names, and knew how to wrangle an extra $50 or $500 from a donor—he lacked gravitas. In his less-than-Lordly voice, he recited his biography as he’d done dozens of times during his campaign. He hadn’t campaigned in Redwood—it was the Sherman neighborhood with the lowest percentage of registered voters—but he mentioned his friendship with the developer, adding, “I know about the old car in the alley.”

The car was a 1973 Jaguar, Sally explained. It had belonged to Cecille Rodriguez, a local girl who became a Broadway actress and bought the car with her earnings from West Side Story. Benny admitted that he’d never seen the play.

“Do you know the music?” Stan asked.

Benny wondered if he should lie.

“My favorite from West Side Story,” Larry said, “is ‘Tonight.’”

Stan sang, “Tonight, tonight, won’t be just any night.”

“I don’t know it,” Benny said.

Stan continued singing, “Oh, moon, go bright, and make this endless day endless night.”

“It’s about anticipating ecstasy,” Larry said.

“I used to anticipate ecstasy,” Stan said. “Now I’m only hoping for a good night’s sleep.”

“A good night’s sleep is ecstasy,” Sally said.

“Owning a beautiful car used to be ecstasy,” Stan said.

“Especially if you had a beautiful passenger,” Larry said.

Benny remembered his first car, a Honda Odyssey, inherited from his mother, who’d used it to ferry her five children around town. Benny was her youngest. By the time he learned to drive, she didn’t need to play family chauffer anymore, so she bought herself a lipstick-red Chevrolet Impala. The Odyssey wasn’t the sexiest car, but its size was a plus. He would drive his classmates to Lake Erie and Cedar Point, to rock concerts and Cleveland Indians games. The day after his high-school graduation, he drove his girlfriend, Mary, and four of their friends to Blues Beach, West Virginia, where they camped for three nights and drank enough beer for three weeks.

On the first night, on a blanket on the banks of the South Branch Potomac River, Benny and Mary lost their virginity to each other. Although they’d intended to return to their tent, they fell asleep. He woke at dawn with her in his arms, her yellow hair as brilliant as the sunrise. She smiled as if it would be the first of a million mornings together; he knew otherwise. In the fall, she would be going to a junior college in a town an hour’s drive from Sherman. He would be attending Ohio State. His life would outshine hers.

He’d lost touch with Mary—she had no social media presence—although he’d heard she’d moved out west. He hadn’t settled into a career because he hoped politics would become his career. He augmented his modest city-council stipend by working three days a week at his uncle’s hardware store. He’d traded in the Odyssey long ago.

“I remember when Cecille bought the car,” Martha said.

“She roared into town like she was leading a parade,” Stan said.

“She was in her early twenties.”

“We all were.”

Mitch, his voice a bass drum, said, “One of us was looking at his twenties in the rearview mirror.”

“She was living in New York,” Sally said, “but every month or two she drove back home to visit her parents.”

“She was showing off,” Larry said.

“She deserved to,” Mitch said.

“She played the lead in all of our musicals in high school,” Stan said.

“And you had a crush on her,” Sally said.

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Even I did,” Larry said. “And that was after I knew I was gay.”

The old people laughed.

“Remember when she brought Robert Redford home to meet her parents?”

“He wasn’t Robert Redford.”

“She said he wasn’t Robert Redford. But she said he wasn’t Robert Redford so everyone in town wouldn’t stare into her parents’ windows.”

“How would she have met Robert Redford?”

“She spent a few years in Hollywood, remember?”

“Disappointing years.”

“I’ll take her disappointment. She was in a bunch of movies.”

“Always as the girlfriend of a Latin gangster. She hated the stereotypes.”

“The stereotypes kept her employed.”

“Up to a point.”

“When she turned thirty, the Hollywood jobs dried up.”

“She went back to New York. Broadway. Then off Broadway. Then off-off Broadway.”

“Not so off-off Broadway that she ever performed in Sherman.”

“Or even in Cleveland.”

Benny looked at his watch. He had a sense they’d had this conversation a hundred times. He cleared his throat, hoping it might encourage the group to focus on business. No one acknowledged him.

“But she never forgot her roots.”

“She would have been happy to forget her roots. If her parents hadn’t lived here, she never would have come back.”

“Not even to see you, Larry?”

“She loved me. She just didn’t know it.”

“Eventually, she gave her Jaguar to her father.”

“He kept it in great condition.”

“And then Camille’s brother…”

“He was the black sheep.”

“He was sweet but ever so troubled.”

“He was a poet.”

“Which is what I mean by sweet and troubled.”

Sally turned to Benny: “He crashed the car.”

“It was drivable but totaled.”

“Insurance doesn’t pay if you’re drunk.”

“Camille’s father had a heart attack three months later.”

“So there it is, in the alley behind Camille’s mother’s house.”

“It’s the centerpiece of our modern art museum.”

The neighbors laughed.

Benny had lost track of the timeline. When had Camille’s brother crashed the car? He looked at his watch again. At neighborhood meetings, he was supposed to be more observer than participant, noting what problems needed solving and assessing whether he could help solve them. In the future, he decided, he would encourage the group to move more efficiently through its agenda. Of course, there was no agenda.

“It was such a beautiful car.”

“Camille had good taste—in both cars and men. A Jaguar and Robert Redford.”

“She never had Robert Redford.”

“She could have had me.”

“If she had, my dear,” Martha said to Larry, smiling, “we wouldn’t be talking about her good taste in men.”

The old people laughed again.

“What happened to Camille?” Benny asked.

The room grew quiet. Mitch said simply, “Cancer.”

“It wasn’t a long struggle. Maybe a couple of months.”

“Her mother stayed with her in her hospital room the entire time, knitting in a chair in the corner. She was making a blanket but it turned into a shroud.”

“Everyone in town came to the funeral.”

“The choir sang ‘Tonight.’”

Benny glanced at his cellphone. He was supposed to meet Danielle “Little Danny” Brezinski for a drink. He wondered if he should text her to tell her he might be late. He’d started dating her a month after he announced his council candidacy. She was the daughter of Daniel “Big Danny” Brezinski, who owned three car dealerships and was his biggest donor.

Although Little Danny’s familial connection to one of Sherman’s richest families might have been her most appealing attribute, Benny thought she might be The One. He imagined the two of them sitting at a table at Le Reve, the new French restaurant on the Sky River. After sliding a ring box next to her chocolate mousse, he would whisper, “What would you say if I told you that, one day, you would be the first lady of Ohio?”

He was becoming impatient to see her. Or maybe he was impatient to eat. Meetings gave him an appetite, thus the six-and-a-half pounds he’d gained since he’d become a city councilor. “Listen,” he said, interrupting the old people’s chatter, “I understand the issue. I’ll work on it.”

They all turned to him, their faces expressing degrees of befuddlement. “Don’t worry,” he added, as if they were in his Odyssey and he was driving on an ice-covered road, “I have it under control.”

“Were we ever out of control?” Larry said.

“I’ve seen you out of control,” Sally said.

“Of course you have. You were at my twenty-first birthday party.”

“And your fiftieth. And your seventy-fifth.”

“Wait until my eightieth.”

As the old people continued talking, Benny composed a text to Danielle: Might be a little late, Little D. Counting the seconds til I c u.

“Blanca celebrated her ninety-fifth birthday last week. She’s outlived her daughter by half a century.”

“So sad to see one’s child die.”

“It was such a beautiful car. When Blanca looks at it, I bet she remembers it the way it was.”

“It was midnight blue.”

“It was sky blue.”

“It was ocean blue.”

“What’s the difference between sky blue and ocean blue?”

“It depends on whether we’re talking about the Pacific or the Atlantic.”

“We agree it was blue, anyway.”

“We remember it the way we want to remember it.”

“If only we remembered each other that way.”

“I’m way better looking now than I’ve ever been,” Larry said.

There was laughter.

As if Benny had asked, Sally turned to him and said, “Camille never married.”

“I wonder if she was happy,” Stan said.

“Maybe she would have been happier if she’d stayed in town.”

“Maybe we would have been happier if we’d left town.”

After adding three red hearts to his text, Benny pushed send. He looked up and said, “Is there anything else to discuss tonight?”

“We were going to decide what movie to show in the park during the neighborhood picnic,” Martha said.

“I thought we decided,” Stan said.

“If it’s a Robert Redford film,” Larry said, “I’m changing my vote.”

“The Wizard of Oz.”

“Didn’t we show The Wizard of Oz last year?”

“The Wizard of Oz would be good a hundred years in a row.”

“Great choice,” Benny said, grinning. His campaign manager, who’d been his roommate at Ohio State, had warned him that his grin sometimes looked too wide to be sincere. He narrowed it.

“We hope you’ll come,” Sally said. “Your predecessor always did.”

“Of course!” Benny said with what he hoped didn’t sound like insincere enthusiasm. He found The Wizard of Oz, with its whiny heroine and her bumbling sidekicks, tedious.

His opponent in the council race, Gabriel O’Connor, had held the seat for twenty-six years. O’Connor was full of inscrutable phrases such as “What is is sometimes what ought to be” and “You can travel halfway around the world or you can wait twelve hours and be in the same place.” O’Connor must have listened to the Redwood Neighborhood Association discuss the old car at every meeting. Obviously, he’d done nothing to have it removed. In the campaign, Benny had raised five times more money than O’Connor but had defeated him by only nineteen votes.

With a feigned show of reluctance, Benny stood up. “If there’s nothing more,” he said, “I better head off to my next appointment.” Before departing, he said, “I heard you tonight. I’ll handle everything.”

At the next meeting of the Redwood Neighborhood Association, Benny strolled into the basement of the Last Apostle Church like a triumphant athlete into a post-game news conference. But no one mentioned the car. The neighbors resumed discussing the movie to be shown at the neighborhood picnic. Stan sang a subdued verse of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” There was discussion about whether to offer the church a contribution for permitting the group to meet in its basement. The association had $98.68 in its bank account. The old people debated about whether to offer $10 or $15. They compromised on $12.50.

When there was a lull in the conversation, Benny filled the silence: “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I had that old car removed.”

“We noticed,” Sally said.

When no one followed up on her remark, Benny said, “It was no problem.” To emphasize his point, he snapped his fingers like a magician over a hat.

There was more silence.

“If there’s no more business,” Sally said, “we can adjourn.”

Benny looked at his phone. He had again arranged to meet Little Danny. He would be early.

The neighbors shifted in their seats but didn’t stand.

“Quick meeting,” Benny said. He stood to go. “I’ll see you in a month. In the meantime, if there’s anything you need my help with—you have my email address and my cell phone number.”

“We even know where you live,” said Larry, who waited a beat before laughing.

Benny left the room but lingered behind its insubstantial door. He could hear the neighbors talking. Larry mentioned Camille. Sally mentioned Camille’s mother. Martha said, “It might be what kills her.”

“Maybe,” Mitch said, “we could have it towed from the graveyard.”

“Bring it back from the dead.”

“The Jaguar could roar again. So to speak.”

Benny wanted to laugh. The old people were talking about the old car again! At the next meeting, he would remind them of his campaign slogan: Progress isn’t a U-turn.

…

Fourteen months later, Benny lost his reelection bid to Gabriel O’Connor. Little Danny, meanwhile, had decided she didn’t want to be the first lady of Ohio. She was now dating a local musician famous around town for his holiday shows at the Sunrise Manor, where, in addition to Christmas carols, he sang every Frank Sinatra and Elvis song the elderly residents requested.

On a Friday night three weeks after his defeat, Benny was supposed to meet his campaign manager at the Book and Brew, but his old roommate texted at the last minute to cancel. Benny downed several beers anyway. Admittedly, he was feeling sorry for himself. Once an illuminated highway, his path to the governorship was now a meandering backroad. Or maybe it was a dead end. He’d begun working full-time at his uncle’s hardware store.

Too drunk to drive, he left his Volkswagen Golf in the parking lot and stumbled toward his apartment. Several minutes later, he decided to take a shortcut on a side street paved with bricks. There were no streetlights, but the moon provided sufficient illumination. Tonight. Tonight. Tonight the world is full of light. His mother had an old vinyl recording of West Side Story. As a kind of penance, he’d played it three times the morning after the election.

Benny wasn’t far down the road when he realized he was lost. Never one to admit defeat—Progress isn’t a U-Turn!—he continued.

Presently, up ahead, he saw his Odyssey. Parked against the right curb, it was rusted around the wheels, and the moonlight gave its maroon color a silver glow, but it was as familiar as his favorite song. He stepped up to the car, caressed its driver’s-side door, and peered into its interior. The gum wrappers in the cup holder might have been his. He tried the handle; the car was unlocked. He slipped into the driver’s seat.

Where was the key? If he had it in his palm, he would start up the car and drive across the night to Blues Beach, where Mary would be waiting on their blanket, her sunshine hair so radiant, so wild and bright, that dawn, conceding defeat to a worthier rival, would never break.