We call it “the $10 couch.” Or “the awesome couch.” Both titles are accurate. The couch was, indeed, $10 at the Attic Thrift Store in South Lake Tahoe. Or rather, it was ticketed at $12, reduced, but the sales clerk gave it to us for an even $10, “just to get it off the floor.”
I remember Adrian and I putting the seats down in my ’98 Volvo station wagon, sliding the couch into the back and driving slow down Lake Tahoe Boulevard with the couch sticking out. I remember him standing outside in the snow, pounding the cushions together hard, slamming decades of dust and strangers’ dirt out of the fibers.