old cars of the ozarks

In my neighbor's car graveyard: TK

I'm not really one to make fun of car graveyards. Some of you know where my old Fiat is buried.  But you're not telling, right?
    I stole that Fiat. From my boyfriend. (Who coincidentally or not bought the thing accompanied by the man who subsequently became my husband, if you can follow that. They all met at Time.) The boyfriend also had a VW bus, and for some reason put the Fiat in my name when we were starting a newspaper together in Springfield, Ill. Bad plan. When he took up with Another Woman, I took up the car and headed East, back to New York City.
    It got towed away the first day. (I had never had a car in New York before. Speaking of car graveyards!) Me and my next boyfriend had a lot of fun in that car. Maybe too much, but I won't go into that.
    The boyfriend I started the newspaper with sold it and split the money with his business partner. They both broke up with the girlfriends who had lived and breathed the thing with them, and the girlfriends got squat. I figured I deserved the car and so I told the ex-boyfriend when I saw him next. Besides, he had put it in my name—almost the same as giving it to me, right? He said if I would give him a viyella Brooks Brothers shirt we could call it even. So I did, and we did.
   The takeaway (besides the radio) from this whole adventure should have been never to engage in startups without a piece of the action. However, I did not learn: I worked my heart out for Billie Jean King's womenSports relaunch (fail), People magazine (success), TV Cable Week (major fail), Picture Week (never launched), Life weekly during the first Iraq war (cancelled) and innumerable redesigns of Life monthly (fail).

My own car graveyard: the Fiat radio.

Actually, I did get stock options, which enabled me to develop the property where the Fiat might lie. (The radio from it is the only souvenir. It now dwells in my yard in the Ozarks as is only appropriate.) And I got a nice pension from People. And the other girlfriend made good at National Geographic, while the boyfriends got out of the magazine business. So it all worked out and everyone lived happily ever after.
   Except the Fiat.