The car didn't respond.
Someone honked.
He tilted his head to the side, listening for any signs of life. He twisted the key again, imagining that the repeated motion was warming the car up and he'd be on his way soon. No luck. For now, the Crunch was dead.
The waiting vehicle had already whipped into the spot he’d vacated. His dead car blocked traffic in the narrow row.
It wasn't like he was unfamiliar with this type of humiliation. He put the car in neutral and got out and pushed. The car wouldn't budge and it didn't take long for someone to be moved by the sorry sight. A couple of guys from a waiting car jumped out to help. The Crunch lurched forward. He kept a hand on the wheel.
"Where to?" one of them called.
There was no place to go. Every available inch of blacktop was either filled with a car or part of the narrow aisle that snaked through the lot. They kept pushing and he gamely steered forward. There was a white striped area next to a handicapped space.
"How about there?"
"Not going to work," Tommy said, but the car's momentum was headed straight for that spot. The guys gave one last push and then ran back to their car.
He jumped in the driver's seat and guided the vehicle as best he could, but it blocked part of the no parking zone and the walkway from campus to the parking lot. He got out and propped the hood open and thought through his options. Campus had an automotive program but the only person he'd ever spoken to was the guy who’d agreed to let him park the Drivemaster behind their main building. Perhaps they could help him with this emergency.
Then he checked the time. There was no way he could wait around for that. He'd promised Linda that he would get to the meeting. He grabbed the paperwork from the car and hurried back to the office, slotting this development into his long list of troubles. He'd expected to drive this car into the ground, but he didn't think it would happen this soon.
As he headed back to the office, he left Cody a voice message. "Hate to bug you, but the Crunch died. I'm on campus. Can you get me a tow? I'll owe you one. Another one."
Linda had a stash of public transportation passes in her desk and he dug around until he found one. He got on the computer to make a transit plan. He was typing in the destination address when the phone rang.
"Crooked Rock," he said, his eyes never leaving the computer screen.
"I'm looking for Linda Bird?" someone asked.
"Not here. She'll be in tomorrow," Tommy said.
"Do you know where she is?" The caller had a sexy rasp to her voice and he pictured a woman with flowing hair driving near the beach in a commercial for a luxury car. He might have enjoyed the sound if he weren’t so distracted by all the knives he was juggling.
"Meeting."
"Do you know how I can find her?"
Tommy opened another tab to search for a map detailing bus stops near campus. "Who is this?"
"I'm her niece."
"I've known Linda for a long time. She's never mentioned a niece." According to the trip planner, there was a bus stop on the other side of campus and he had ten minutes to get there. If the bus was early, he was doomed.
"She's my cousin. My mom and her mom are cousins."
"Ah, Indian country," he said.
"Rez life forever," she responded, then laughed. "Who's this?"
"One of her lackeys. I'll tell her you called," he said. "I gotta go. I'm on my way out the door."
"Tell her we're going to be there tomorrow. Me and Aunt Dotty."
"Your aunt is dotty?"
"Dorothy Scott," she said like he should know the name.
"Great. Who are you?"
"Elizabeth. We need a place to stay. I want her to expect us."
Tommy stood up. "She will be informed. Drive safely." He hung up the phone before Elizabeth with the sexy voice could ask any more questions.
He dashed out the door, back across campus and up the hill to the bus stop. A half-dozen other students waited, wearing backpacks or carrying books. Too late he realized he'd left the paperwork on the desk. There was no time to go back. He took an enormous head-clearing breath. The statement was barely three pages, he could remember that, right? He tried to picture the first few lines but his mind became a panicked blur.
The document had to be accessible from his phone. He scrolled through his email, hoping Linda or Ester had sent it to him.
The phone chirped, and a text message displayed.
U take me 2 meeting?
Angie.
After all the hassles and worries, this was the moment she chose to reappear. He wanted to yell at her or lecture her or say something about how uncool it was that she'd run off. But here she was and finally asking to go to a meeting.
You okay? I'm at work.
Take a break? I want to go to the native one.
Tommy ran a hand through his hair. The deep rumble of a bus engine sounded and his bus approached the stop. Since Angie had arrived, he'd managed to drag her to barely a handful of meetings. She had a long list of special requirements, disliking meetings that were too big, or located in church basements. She preferred not to speak. It was hard to be optimistic about her success.
The bus came to a stop and passengers filed off.
Yes or no, what to decide. Employment fail, or cousin's life?
Linda would be furious but if he went to her meeting, he wouldn't get home until after five. Any number of troubling things could happen to Angie in that time. If he blew off the tribal youth thing, he could have Angie at the native meeting in an hour. Ditch one meeting for another meeting. She wanted to go. She was asking to go.
He texted her back: On my way.
5
Elizabeth should have predicted it. George didn't show and instead sent an apologetic text about being out on a boat, leaving her to scramble around for another ride. Kora came to the rescue and took them to the train station. The train ride had been uneventful, they made it to the city, and now they were in a rideshare headed for campus.
"We need the Indian Center," she told the driver.
"I don't know what that is," he said. "They have maps on campus. Someone will help you when you get there."
The rain came down in big gray drops that drummed across the windshield. Granny gazed out the window, her expression unreadable.
"We gonna stop for lunch?" she asked.
"We'll eat as soon as we find Linda," Elizabeth said.
"I'm hungry," she said.
"I heard you." Being in the car on the busy city streets had reanimated Elizabeth's nerves and shrunk her appetite to nothing.
There was another long stretch of quiet, other than the plinking rain and the dull drone of the tires on the wet road.
"What time did you tell Linda we would get here?" Granny asked.
"I didn't talk to Linda," Elizabeth said.
"She don't know we're coming?" Granny said, giving her a comic look of dismay.
"I talked to some guy on her staff," Elizabeth said.
"You didn't call her?"
"The cell number I had was wrong so I called her office. Okay?"
Granny made a disagreeable grunt and let it drop.
The rain remained steady. Muddy pools dotted the roadway. A sign with big block letters announced they'd arrived at the campus.
"Let me figure out where to go," Elizabeth said, trying to read the map on her phone.
The driver waited to turn into a parking lot jammed with cars as if someone used advanced calculations to fit as many vehicles as possible. Up ahead, a line of cars crawled forward, each one in the futile business of finding an open spot. For the longest time, nobody moved.
The driver grumbled to himself before saying, "Everything is messed up. A banged-up car is getting towed. You gotta get out here."
"I'm not sure," she said, trying to get her bearings.
The guy pulled the car into a pedestrian thruway and somebody yelled. Elizabeth turned in time to see a bicyclist lean over and slap the side of
the car.
The driver swore to himself.
Elizabeth's heart pounded in her chest. "Bags," she managed to say.
The driver popped the hatch and got out.
Elizabeth opened the car door. "Give us a sec to get our rain gear, too."
The guy set their matching backpacks on the wet ground. She jumped out and pulled the rain ponchos out. The guy watched, his impatience adding to her anxiety.
Elizabeth had bought identical leopard-print rain ponchos at an outdoor market before she left school. She yanked hers over her head. A car horn bellowed behind them and she jumped.
"How do people live like this?" she muttered.
The driver helped Granny out of the car, so she stood there in the rain until Elizabeth could get the poncho on her.
The driver took off before she could get Granny's cane.
"I don't know about that one," Granny said. The hood of the poncho left a circle that exposed her face and a wedge of gray hair. She looked like a ghost dressed as a bright yellow leopard. The rain ran down her hood and dripped into her face. "I need something to eat," she said.
"I know. Hang on to me while we find Linda." Elizabeth heaved a pack over each shoulder and helped Granny up the path. The rain was driving into their faces and she tried not to worry about the rain worthiness of their bags. She searched for a sign or a map or maybe a building that could be a student center. Anything to give them a clue.
People streamed by, each one focused on a destination, no individual lingering in the downpour. Granny grabbed someone's arm.
"We're lost."
The guy had no rain gear, only sweatpants and a hoodie, all of it growing wetter by the second. His dark hair was plastered around his face. If she had to bet, Elizabeth would guess he was Native, but his face was worn with fatigue, and he moved like a man on his way to his final battle.
He gave their bright raingear the once-over. "How is that possible? I'm pretty sure there are people three time zones away who can see you right now."
Granny grinned at him. She still had a grip on his sleeve. "We need the Ind'n Center."
"Longhouse is that way," he said, gesturing to a walkway.
Elizabeth met his eye, and they held eye contact for a couple of extra heartbeats.
"I'd show you, but I'm in the middle of a...crisis." He nodded toward the parking lot, his face grim.
"That's okay," Elizabeth said, her eyes still glued to his. "We can find it."
"Good luck," he said, and he trotted off into the rain.
Tommy would never have left an elder wandering around in a downpour if he had any other choice.
The rain had been going on and off all day, but it was back on now, and he couldn't remember where he left his rain shell. He hurried to the parking lot and back to the dead Crunch, hoping to get there before Cody.
He was this close to having one problem solved.
Meanwhile, he kept up with Angie by sending a text every half hour and for now she wasn't responding. She was troubled but she was trying.
When they were teenagers back home, they'd spent many a weekend siphoning cheap vodka or gin out of big jugs that they knew they would find hidden in the backs of cupboards, or in outdoor sheds. They'd sneak off to a picnic site by the lake and get drunk while plotting how to get more. There was never enough.
He wished his sobriety was something he could siphon off and share with her. She’d asked him to take her to the meeting and then insisted they leave before it finished because someone made her uncomfortable. She’d kept him up half the night, weeping about the unfairness of life and how everything was against her. One minute she begged him to forgive her for being so messed up and the next minute she blamed him for being gone during the day. She’d finally dropped off to sleep, and he had tiptoed to bed and locked his door, hoping she would still be there in the morning.
She was.
The woman needed to go to rehab. If she was going to succeed she needed more than he could offer, but every time he brought it up she freaked out and promised she was trying. The family counted on him and he hated to give up on Angie when she hadn't given up on herself.
He found the spot where he'd left the Crunch.
It was gone.
His lunch roiled in his belly. He called Cody. "Any chance you already picked up the car?"
"Nope, on our way. Something happen?"
"Yeah." He should have known better than to leave it overnight, except he’d been trying to save Angie. Didn't he deserve a break for that?
Cody said, "Sorry, bud. Find out where it's impounded and we can tow it from there."
"Car is gone. Forget it," Tommy said, envisioning his future with public transportation. He couldn't afford the impound, and the car didn't work anyway. Problem solved.
"Terrible idea," Cody said. "Get me an address. You can pay me back later."
People being kind made it worse. Like he was always going to be the guy who leaned on his friends. "Thanks. I'll get back to you."
He walked back to the office, soaked through and damp to his bones, shivering all the way to his toes.
Now on top of everything else, he had to figure out how to get by without a car. The Crunch wasn't just transportation, it was sanity. When the world felt uncertain and he craved a drink or needed to think quietly to himself without interruption, he relied on the Crunch and its crappy radio playing classic country music to keep him company while he drove along the backroads, clearing his mind, recharging his spirit and preparing to deal with life again.
He took a deep breath and went into the office. Ester would have a snack stashed somewhere. All he needed was a cup of coffee and some food and he could get through the rest of the day.
The ladies were crowded around Linda's desk, coffees in hand, sandwiches and cookies spread out in front of them. The coffee pot was empty.
"Coffee?" he said.
"You drink it, you make it," Rayanne said.
Ester jumped up.
"There's nothing wrong with him making his own coffee," Rayanne said.
Ester said something he couldn't hear and all three of them gave him a concerned look. Great.
"Do you have dry clothes you can change into?" Linda asked.
"I'll dry off in a second," he said.
Ester moved her space heater to his desk before coming over and emptying the coffee grounds into the trash. "Everything okay?" she asked, preparing the filter for a new pot.
He could never shake the feeling this was the kind of kindness extended to a loser.
"Compared to what?" he said, faking a lighthearted tone.
"How did it go yesterday?" Linda asked cheerfully. "Not as bad as you thought, I bet."
Tommy froze. That feeling of dread and remorse that he'd been suppressing all morning during the other distractions returned. His body sagged. The coffee maker made a gurgling sound. He kept his eyes on the orange light.
Ester blinked several times. "You didn't go?" she whispered.
He didn't say anything. He grabbed a cardboard cup. The coffee hadn't even started trickling out yet. As soon as it did, everything would be okay.
He was aware of Ester at his side gesturing or something, Rayanne's sharp intake of breath, Linda's frustrated sigh.
"Tommy?" Linda said.
"Sorry," he said. "I had a situation." That was as much as he wanted to share. A tremor started in his hands.
"Go sit down," Ester said. "Warm up. I'll bring it to you when it's ready."
"I'm fine," he told her. He didn't want to sit next to Linda. She had her head buried in her hands. Rayanne shot him a look of pure thunder.
"What does that mean—a situation?" Linda said, enunciating each syllable.
"Long story," he said.
"We asked you to do one thing." Linda's voice rose. Whatever attempt she'd made not to get angry was failing.
He wasn't even sure which excuse to make. The coffee finally came sputtering out of the machine. Ester took his cup and pulled
the pot out so that the first drops went directly into his cup. When it was mostly full, she handed it back to him. "It's okay not to be fine, Tommy."
He understood where she was coming from, but the kindness only made him feel worse. "Not now," he said.
Linda finally sat up and shook her head. He was alarmed to discover that her eyes were half-filled with tears.
"I need to be able to count on you," she said. "Especially now. You know what the city told us yesterday? We can have the space. In three years." She barked out the last three words. "We need to make a plan and I need you, if you're going to be here, to be reliable. Do you understand this?"
Tommy nodded and sat down. Ester took half of her sandwich and put it on a napkin and gave it to him.
"You must fix it. Phone them. Apologize. Tell them you need to submit a written statement. Ask about coming to a different meeting. I don't care what it is. Failure is not an option."
Kinda late for that now.
Rayanne sputtered out a few words, but Linda shut her down.
"Sorry," he repeated, keeping his eye on the sandwich. Life would be so much easier if Linda would just fire him.
The office door opened a crack, and someone peeked in. "Linda?"
"Yeah?" Linda said, squinting at the door.
The visitor pulled the door fully open and urged a companion in, both of them dripping rain.
"Finally. We tried the longhouse first. They said you were here."
"Aunt Dotty?" Linda said. "Elizabeth?"
It was the elder and her friend in the blinding yellow rain ponchos who had been looking for the Indian center. This Indian center.
"We couldn't move fast because the rideshare guy took off with her cane." The elder tottered carefully, lurching to the first table and gripping it. Tommy jumped up and helped get her out of the rain gear before giving her his chair.
Sweetheart Braves Page 3
