The Fix-It Man

by Donald Wells

At last, the day arrived, Felicia’s eighteenth birthday.

  I still held on to the faint chance that Felicia would come back to me when she could, when she was legally an adult and could make her own decisions, chose her own place of residence, follow her own heart.

  It was Tuesday, September 15th and I was in the fix-it shop, keeping myself from going insane by working on my pet project, an engine.

  I had long since decided that if I was ever going to achieve greater gas mileage in an engine, then, I would have to design my own. I sat in the shop all that day, working on the computer, putting different designs and specifications into the engineering program I was using and getting absolutely nowhere.

  And through it all, I watched the door, waiting, hoping, praying, that Felicia would return to me and that I would be freed from purgatory. As the hours went on and the sun set, I felt my despair intensify and knew that my chances of leaving purgatory were indeed improving, for I would soon be in hell.

  Felicia was not coming back.

  Around ten, I opened a bottle of wine and closed my laptop. I then spent the next two hours watching the clock, sipping the wine. Midnight approached. At four minutes before twelve, I heard a car door open and close in the parking lot, and watched as a figure approached the shop door, a female figure.

  I had left the door unlocked and she entered now without knocking and spoke to me.

  “She’s not coming John.”

  “I know Tori.”

  “I’m here John.”

  “Yes, goddamn it, yes you are,”

  And I went to her and held her.

  And to my ceaseless wonderment… she took me to heaven.

  THE

  FIX-IT

  MAN

  PART TWO

  23

  Although Tori lived nearly an hour away in Philly, she still spent so much time in Castle Ridge that we were essentially living together.

  I had never lived with a woman before, and was amazed at the amount of accoutrements, accessories and paraphernalia that Tori possessed. She also kept her apartment in Philly, but rarely slept there and whenever I asked her why she kept the place, she would say only one word: Felicia.

  As the weeks turned into months, I realized that I was falling in love with Tori. At first, it terrified me.

  I still loved Felicia fiercely, and although Tori lay beside me in bed at night, more often than not, as I drifted to sleep my last thoughts were about Felicia.

  How is she? Had she fallen in love with Thorne? Did she still love me? Had she ever really loved me?

  Yet, despite my love for Felicia, I came to love Tori as well.

  On Christmas morning, under a sprig of mistletoe, I took her in my arms and said the words for the first time. “I love you.”

  Tori cried and said it was the best present she had ever received.

  The first year we were together she commuted to work, but the long hours of traveling back and forth were wearing on her and I knew she needed a change.

  While she was on a weeklong trip to Chicago on Jameson & Jameson business, I, along with Bill’s help, renovated the upstairs living quarters over the shop.

  I took the bedroom that had been my grandfather’s and turned most of it into an office. I tore down one wall and moved it in five feet to expand the kitchen. I then replaced all of the old appliances with restaurant quality equipment. Along with a range, I also added a large double oven for baking.

  Tori baked when she was nervous, she baked when she was sad and she baked when she was happy. Tori baked. I came to see that it was her hobby and also a way for her to relax.

  My garage customers were being spoiled with free cupcakes and donuts and all types of pastry on a regular basis.

  With aid from her assistant and friend Carol, I equipped the new office with what Tori would need to telecommute. Carol said that now Tori would probably only have to make an appearance in Philly once a week.

  * * *

  Tori arrived home from her trip and I followed her upstairs with her luggage.

  She stopped abruptly in the doorway and stared about.

  She whispered. “What did you do?”

  “I’ll give you the tour.”

  After showing her the improvements, we settled on the new sofa and drank wine. She seemed less animated than usual and I wondered if perhaps something had gone wrong on her trip.

  “No, nothing’s wrong.” She said, as her face grew more serious.

  I took her hand. “Honey, what is it?”

  “You,”

  “Me?”

  “Yes you, you love me, don’t you?”

  “Yes I love you, I tell you all the time.”

  “But this, this is something a man does when he’s in love, a gesture like this.”

  “You still doubt me, don’t you, still doubt us? That’s why you keep that apartment in Philly.”

  She snuggled against me, hiding her face.

  “Tell me something John, and please, please give me the God’s honest truth. If Felicia Delgado walked through that door right now and wanted you back, would I still have a home here?”

  I hesitated, moments of silence where I was caught between wanting to lie to her and wanting to lie to myself.

  “…Tori… I—”

  “That’s why I keep my apartment in Philly.”

  I never mentioned her apartment again.

  * * *

  We were together for three years before she took me to a family gathering. I had begun to wonder if she was ashamed of dating a mechanic with only a high school education. She was from a family of lawyers and had grown up privileged. Now she lived with me over a garage and fix-it shop. I guess I couldn’t blame her if she was reluctant to have me meet her family, but it bothered me some, and a week before Thanksgiving I finally broached the subject. She was livid.

  “You think I’m ashamed of you?”

  “No, but I do wonder why I’ve never met your family.”

  She reached into the pantry and grabbed a bag of flour, and then slammed it onto the table.

  “They haven’t even met me yet.”

  “What? What’s that mean?”

  “My Uncle Bruce hosts Thanksgiving every year. We’ll go to his home in Rittenhouse Square and you can meet my family.”

  “Great, I look forward to it.”

  She shook her head while beating eggs hard enough to kill the chicken that laid them.

  “Ashamed of you? Where do you‌—‌never mind, we’ll go meet my family.”

  * * *

  On Thanksgiving, we arrived at a large brick townhouse on Delancey Place, and the door was opened by an old man in a pinstriped suit, who I took to be the butler.

  Tori handed the man a golden card with an intricate pattern embossed upon it and he placed it into a glass jar by the door.

  We joined a large gathering in the massive living room, which was blaring with Christmas music and jam-packed with children of all ages, running amongst numerous groups of adults, who were shouting to be heard amid the chaos.

  From across the room, someone called out, “Barbara!”

  It was a middle-aged woman with blond hair, in fact, most of the people in the room had blond hair and many had the same general features as Tori. It was an exceptionally good-looking group.

  Tori waved to the woman. “Hello Aunt Belle,”

  I whispered, “Barbara?” as we walked over to join the woman.

  “Aunt Belle, this is my boyfriend, John Faron.” Tori said.

  Aunt Belle smiled at me and then tapped the shoulder of a man I took to be her husband.

  “Dear, say hello to Barbara and her friend Mike.”

  I corrected her. “My name is John.”

  Aunt Belle looked confused. “What dear?”

  “My name is John and this is your niece, Tori, Victoria.”

  “You’re mistaken dear, this is Barbara.”

  Aunt Belle’s husband spoke up. “No no, she’s Kelli, Barbara is Kyle’s kid; you
know, the one that went to rehab.”

  Aunt Belle now studied Tori carefully.

  “Oh, I’m sorry Kelli, I thought you were Barbara, you two look so much alike. Well, anyway why don’t you and Ken go get a plate and eat something, we’re doing buffet style this year.”

  “Thank you Aunt Belle.” Tori said.

  I pulled Tori aside. “They can’t all be like that.”

  She sighed. “Wanna bet?”

  I would have lost. Within the space of one evening I heard Tori referred to as Kelli, Barbara, Deanna, Jackie, Sara and Jill.

  For the most part, they seemed to want to call me Mike.

  We were not alone in being misidentified. I turned out to be one of fourteen boyfriends that various members of the Jameson clan had brought to Thanksgiving dinner and, at the end of the night, we all agreed that the family was in sore need of nametags.

  As we were walking to the car to drive home, Tori talked to me.

  “Now you’ve met my family.”

  I took her hand as we walked. “Were they always like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “They… they really don’t know who you are, do they?”

  She stopped walking, and appeared to be fighting back tears.

  “I could disappear and they would never miss me. That card I gave to the butler, it’s the invitation. One year I gave it to a friend of mine, Marta, and told her to go in my place. The next time I saw Marta she said that everyone took her for a family member or someone’s new girlfriend, but no one thought that she didn’t belong there, after all, she had a card. Once… once even my mother called me by my sister’s name all night; there’s just too damn many of us and between the numerous divorces and marriages, we all just blend in, we children that is, we’re sent off to boarding schools for years at a time and before that, we’re mostly raised by nannies or servants. We just blend in to the whole and grow it a little bigger and a little more impersonal each year.”

  We reached the car and I leaned back against it.

  “Honey, I’m sorry that your family is so… disjointed?”

  “I know what you’re thinking, ‘Poor little rich girl,’ right?”

  I took her in my arms. “They don’t see you, do they?”

  She began to weep. “No, no one sees me.”

  “I see you.”

  She began crying harder. “You do, don’t you?”

  “I see you and I love you, don’t ever forget that.”

  She said something unintelligible then, that I couldn’t make out.

  “What was that?”

  She smiled through her tears.

  “I said thank you… Mike.”

  24

  Tori and I had been together for nearly five years when it happened.

  I had designed and built an engine that I hoped would deliver at least a hundred miles to the gallon. It was essentially built from junk. That is, I had searched every auto graveyard from Philly to Pittsburgh to find the parts I needed, and had also gotten several pieces of my own design made from hand drawn blueprints, at a tool and die manufacturer.

  I put the finishing touches on my latest creation and then stood in front of bay number one and stared in at it. It was a Mustang, candy apple red.

  For some reason, I always used Mustangs. Other than the one that burned out from under me on the highway years ago, I had built four other versions of what I hoped would be the little engine that could.

  All four failed in some catastrophic manner, and left me wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have gone to engineering school after all. But there were also successes, each failure reached a new level of miles to gas ratio before meeting its fate, and each dead engine taught me something new.

  Tori walked out of the shop and hugged me from behind.

  “Is this the one?”

  I shrugged.

  “I’ll find out soon. I just put the gas in the tank, but I’m afraid to start it up. This one took over two years to design and build and if I’ve failed again, it could burn up in minutes.”

  “Do you realize what will happen if you ever do it, how revolutionizing the Faron Engine would be?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “The Faron Engine?”

  “I named it.”

  “A hundred miles to the gallon, it’s always been my dream, and if I’m right about this one, it’ll surpass that.”

  “John, you’ll be famous, you’ll win a Nobel Prize.”

  “I’d rather go to dinner, how about giving me a few minutes to get cleaned up and I’ll take you out.”

  She kissed me. “Sounds like a date.”

  She went back inside to change, and as I closed the garage door, Janey Winslow walked across the street from her parents’ diner. I could never look at her without thinking of Felicia.

  I knew that Janey kept in touch and often visited her, but other than small bits of news, she volunteered little about Felicia. All I knew was that she and Thorne were still together.

  “What’s up Janey?”

  She beamed as she showed me her ring.

  “I’m getting married, and you and Tori are invited, the invitations are in the mail.”

  “Congratulations, I assume you’re marrying Chris Roberts?”

  “Of course, we’ve only been dating for three years. It’s about time I’d say, wouldn’t you?”

  I thought of Tori. We’d been dating far longer than that.

  Janey put her hand to her mouth and grimaced. “Damn, did I just say the wrong thing?”

  I smiled at her. “No, and I’m happy for you.”

  “Johnny… Felicia’s coming; she’s coming to town for my wedding.”

  “…Okay,”

  “She’s coming alone Johnny.”

  I just stared at her. Not knowing what to say, not wanting to do or say anything that Janey might relay back to Felicia.

  Janey gestured down the block, towards the diner.

  “Well, I’ve got to get back to work.”

  She was at the curb when I called to her. She turned and looked back at me with an inquiring gaze.

  I couldn’t help it. I had to know.

  “Does she ever… ask about me?”

  “Yes, but she never wants details, she says they might break her heart. Goodbye Johnny, see you at the wedding.”

  * * *

  Over dinner, I told Tori about Janey’s wedding, and about Felicia.

  “We don’t have to go.” I said.

  “Oh yes we do. It’s time you found out which one of us you really love.”

  “I‌—‌never mind.”

  “You love us both. That’s what you were about to say, isn’t it, that you love us both?”

  “Yes, but I’m here with you, not her.”

  She smiled bitterly. “Not by choice,”

  “You act like I’m going to jump Felicia the moment I see her.”

  “We’re going to that wedding John, and I hope to God she shows up.”

  After we returned home, I decided to stop putting off the inevitable and take the new engine for its test drive. However, when I opened the door of bay number one there was a surprise waiting for me‌—‌nothing.

  The Mustang was gone, stolen, and with it, the Faron Engine.

  25

  I handed Bill the note. It read: I’ll bring it back. I swear!

  It was the following morning. After finding the car gone, I then discovered the note duct-taped to the wall. I explained to Tori what had happened and then I took off on my Harley in search of the car. After riding around for hours without luck, I went back home and waited all night for the thief, um, borrower to return. Don’t ask me why; but I believed the note. I really believed that whoever took the car intended to bring it back.

  Bill smiled, “It’s not signed.”

  “I noticed that.” I said.

  The last year had not been Bill’s best. His wife Cindy had recently died of cancer; she was only forty-five.

  One morning, Cindy Healy asked her husband what
he wanted for breakfast, when he answered bacon and eggs; she said fine and began cooking. Bill had been reading the paper and only looked up when he smelled the peculiar odor. Instead of bacon, Cindy was dutifully frying up one of her slippers.

  Two days later, they found the tumor in her brain and nine arduous months later, she was dead. He and Cindy had been together since high school, but now my friend found himself rambling around a three-bedroom home all by himself.

  The only thing that kept him sane was his work.

  A few years ago, while on a second honeymoon in London, Bill came across an article in the newspaper about a pair of unsolved murders; both of the victims were blonde.

  He immediately thought of the PLATINUM case here in the states and made a call to the New York strike force that was hunting PLATINUM.

  The cop on the other end of the line, a Lieutenant Garner, informed Bill that they knew of the London murders; however, they discounted them as being victims of PLATINUM because the bodies had been left in plain sight, whereas in the New York cases, the victims simply went missing. Bill agreed that there were inconsistencies, but reminded Garner of the eleven blonde women killed years ago here in Pennsylvania. He then asked Lieutenant Garner if anyone had compared F.D.R.T tests on the London and Pennsylvania victims.

  Lieutenant Garner said he never even heard of an F.D.R.T test. Bill then informed him that a Fragment Detection Radial Trace test was an innovative way to compare microscopic metal fragments, such as from a knife. The test was the equivalent of a ballistics test for firearms and boasted a 99.4% success rate.

  A month later, Lieutenant Garner called Bill at home in Castle Ridge and told him that the F.D.R.T test indicated that the same weapon had been used on one of the earlier Pennsylvania victims, as well as the London victims.

  This proved that one killer had been active for many years. What it also proved was that the killer had changed his M.O. The earlier victims had been raped before being hacked to death, the latest, the two London victims, showed no signs of sexual assault.

  This baffled the police profilers and spawned the new theory that there may be two, possibly even as many as three people killing, raping and abducting blond women.