Her eyes stopped on a 1983 Mercedes-Benz 190E, the so-called Baby Benz. The paint was dull, faded to a tired gray-blue, the chrome trim long gone dull. The odometer was a graveyard number, the interior cracked and sun-worn. She groaned inwardly. This was no dream find.
Back in 1993, when she graduated high school, this was the car she’d dreamed of. She remembered the glossy ads in magazines, and how it seemed like luxury shrunk to fit a suburban driveway. But she couldn’t afford it then, and now here it was, decades later, a broken shell.