The Fix-It Man

by Donald Wells

  “Tori!” No use. She was blocks away in seconds.

  Felicia grinned at me.

  “You used to do much better with girls.”

  “It’s not funny. I think she just left me.”

  We stood there, simply looking at each other, but then we spoke at the same time.

  “Listen Felicia, what I said about—”

  “Johnny I’m sorry that I hit—”

  I gestured at the door. “Why don’t you come up and we’ll talk, hmm?”

  She smiled. “I’d love to.”

  We started up the staircase, and as we climbed, I thought back to the first time I’d brought her upstairs.

  * * *

  It was summer, and I had been dating a girl named Shanna O’Leary. Shanna was a natural redhead with green eyes and large breasts. Shanna and I were about to go up to my room and have sex for the first time, when Felicia appeared, with tears in her eyes.

  I rushed over to her. “What’s wrong baby?”

  Before she could answer, Shanna spoke.

  “Johnny, what the hell?”

  “One minute, can’t you see that she’s crying? Felicia, what’s wrong?”

  Felicia looked over at Shanna’s angry face and started to walk away. “I’m sorry, I’ll come back later.”

  I took her hand. “It’s okay, tell me what’s wrong.”

  I watched as more tears fell.

  “It’s daddy and Mona… they’re always fighting, I just had to get away for a while.”

  Shanna tapped me angrily on the shoulder. “What the fuck!”

  “Shanna… why don’t you go home and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “You’re kidding me right? I thought we were gonna…”

  “Tomorrow okay, tonight I gotta help Felicia.”

  Shanna stamped off, while cursing my name.

  “She’s really mad Johnny.”

  “She’ll get over it. C’mon upstairs with me and we’ll talk.”

  Felicia eyed the stairwell guardedly.

  “Upstairs? Is your grandfather home?”

  “He’s at the VFW; he’ll be there until late.”

  I guided her by the hand and started climbing, halfway up the stairs, she stopped.

  “What’s wrong?”

  With her eyes cast downward, she began to speak.

  “It’s just that, Mona told me to not go anywhere alone with a guy, that something could happen.” Then she looked into my eyes, as her own eyes betrayed a blend of nervousness and hope. “Is… is something going to happen Johnny?”

  I was seventeen, and Felicia, with blossoming body, was three days away from her fifteenth birthday. I looked into her face, that beautiful face that more than once I had had to stop myself from kissing, because once we kissed, I knew that everything would change.

  I gave her hand a squeeze. “No baby, nothing’s going to happen. We’ll just watch some TV until you’re ready to go home, all right?”

  She uttered a sigh of relief, while in her eyes I caught a twinkle of disappointment.

  “All right Johnny,”

  “I’ll walk you home later too.”

  “No, my father doesn’t—”

  “I know. I’ll just walk you to your corner, not the door.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Anytime baby.”

  * * *

  And now we were alone together again.

  Is something going to happen Johnny?

  “Johnny? Did you hear me?”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “I said the place looks great, you renovated, huh?”

  “Yeah, I turned my grandfather’s room into an office for Tori.”

  She touched me then, tenderly, on the cheek.

  “I’m sorry you lost him.”

  “Thank you…”

  “Baby,” She said.

  “What?”

  “Thank you baby, isn’t that what you meant? Even when you don’t call me that, I still hear it in your voice.”

  I went and settled on the sofa and she followed and sat beside me.

  “This Tori… do you love her?”

  “Yes. It’s not what we had, but yes, I love her.”

  “Had…”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Nothing, does she love you?”

  “Very much, God knows why, but yes, very much.”

  “Good, really, I’m glad you’re not alone. What’s Tori like?”

  “Smart, intuitive, she’s got my number, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Janey only told me that you were dating a rich lawyer.”

  “Yeah, she comes from money, but she didn’t have a great childhood, and her family, well, let’s just say there are some issues there.”

  Felicia grinned at me. “Another bird with a broken wing, I should have guessed she needed mending somewhere, if you were with her.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s just that you attract the broken ones, I should know, I was one.”

  “And how are you now, really?”

  She gave a sad shrug.

  “Overall, life’s good.”

  I pointed to her ring. “You must love David, you married him.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “I don’t love him. I only married him because he tricked me.”

  “Tricked you how?”

  “He faked a pregnancy.”

  “He faked?…Listen, I know the rich are different but—”

  Felicia laughed then, and I thought my heart would stop from the joy of it.

  “No, I didn’t mean he was pregnant. While we were in Paris, I got sick and saw a doctor, the next day, David told me that the doctor called and said I was pregnant. Well, you know how I am, I didn’t want the baby born illegitimate, and so I married him. Four days later, I had my period.”

  I said, “This is the guy you left me for, huh?” and surprised myself by the level of rage in my voice.

  “I was seventeen, a stupid seventeen-year-old girl.”

  “I know how old you were.”

  She turned toward me on the sofa, her face inches away, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Are you ever going to forgive me?”

  “I forgive you… it’s just that I thought we were forever.”

  “We are, at least that’s the way I feel. I still love you Johnny, I’ll always love you.”

  “Baby… I love you too.”

  And then we kissed, and I felt a part of my heart start beating again for the first time in years, but, my mind, my mind began screaming and I pushed her away.

  “I love you. God knows I love you, but I can’t, unless this is forever, I can’t. I can’t break Tori’s heart for only one night.”

  She was crying now. “I can’t promise forever. I’m married.”

  “Leave him!”

  “I can’t… it’s complicated, my aunt… and other things, things I wish I could…”

  “Leave him Felicia. Baby I’ve missed you so much, and I swear there hasn’t been a day when I didn’t think of you.”

  “Really? Oh God I can’t, I love you too, but I can’t.”

  “Why the hell not? You say you don’t love him. Are you afraid of him? Intimidated by what your aunt would say? What? What is it?”

  “It’s complicated Johnny.”

  “It can’t be the money. I know you wouldn’t stay just because he’s rich. And anyway, I’ll soon have as much or more than—”

  Just a flicker, a flicker of… something, when I mentioned money. I was about to tell her that I had finally done it, had finally built my engine and that money would be the least of our worries.

  Could she really have changed that much?

  I asked myself that and then I remembered the sad little thing she was, when I first laid eyes on her. The tattered clothes, the money she carried inside a wad of tinfoil, because she had to keep it hidden away in a wall, otherwise her father might take it from her. She grew up in a house where
she was poor and beaten, in a town where most people just got by, and then she was rescued by her aunt and taken to a virtual palace, complete with handsome prince. Sophie and David showered her with attention, with travel, fine clothes, and gave her the sense of family that she always craved. But she loved me, goddamn it she loved me, not David, and I couldn’t believe that she would destroy us completely for a life of ease, that she would value money over love.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” She said.

  I took her hands in mine. “Listen to me. Tori and I have been living together for five years. I love her dearly; I swear I do. If there were no you, she would be you. But baby you’re in my blood. We have a history, a past. I’ve spent the last few years telling myself that we were over, that I’ve moved on, but I got one look at you at the wedding and I knew that I loved you more than ever. Come back to me. I’ll send Tori away, it will kill me, but I’ll break her heart if I have to. I’ll tell her that the last five years were a lie, and I’ll do it all for a chance with you, and I promise that someday I’ll give you the life that Thorne’s given you. Trust me on that, I won’t always be just a mechanic.”

  Eyes filled with longing, grew moist, as she began to pull at her hair.

  “I can’t. I swear I love you, but I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have obligations, things that…”

  I rose from the sofa and stared down at her. “Love’s not enough for you anymore, is it?”

  She started to speak, but couldn’t, she was sobbing too hard to talk.

  I let her cry it all out, and as she did, I looked around.

  Fresh flowers on the kitchen table, everything clean, organized, simple. A simple place for living and lived in by two people who simply loved each other. I loved Tori and I loved Felicia, but I was beginning to think that the Felicia I loved was gone, grown up and changed into someone who valued things over people. And what about Tori? She changed her life for me. She moved to a town she never even heard of just to be with me, to live with me, to love me. And my God, tonight I nearly shoved her out of my life as if she had been a mere diversion, just something to do until Felicia deigned to come back to me. It suddenly hit me how little my so-called love for Tori meant.

  I’d been living like a fool.

  I helped Felicia up from the sofa and hugged her. “I guess we can’t go back to what we were.”

  She wiped at red eyes. “No, I guess not.”

  I kissed her tenderly. “I think we’re saying goodbye again.”

  She glanced toward the bedroom. “I can’t stay forever, but I can stay the night and we—”

  “I can’t. It would end Tori and I.”

  “You would tell her?”

  “Yes, just like you told me when you slept with David.”

  She said, “With the same results,” and ended our embrace. “I don’t want to cost you another relationship. I want you to be happy.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes for countless seconds, while things unspoken remained unsaid.

  “I love you Johnny.”

  “I know baby, I know.”

  “We’re really saying goodbye again aren’t we?”

  “Yes, but maybe it’s better this time, hmm?”

  “Yes, it’s better, it’s better because you won’t be alone.”

  * * *

  We were at her car, still attempting to say goodbye.

  “Give my love to your Aunt Sophie, and then she’ll probably ball it up into a lump and set it on fire.”

  Felicia laughed, as she started the engine. “She’s not so bad; really, she’s the one that talked David into allowing me to come to the wedding.”

  “What do you mean, ‘allow?”

  “David has… control issues.”

  I asked my next question carefully, in a calm voice, not wanting to scare her into answering untruthfully.

  “Is he violent, does he hit you?”

  “No, never, he just wants everything done his way.”

  “Baby please leave this creep. You say you don’t love him. If I’m not enough for you anymore then find somebody else who is.”

  Felicia got out of the car and wrapped her arms around me so tightly, that I thought she was trying to climb inside.

  “Please don’t ever think that you’re not enough for me. You’ve always been better than I’ve deserved. Johnny I want you to know something, that if I could, I would melt myself and pour it all right into your heart.”

  I gave her a kiss.

  “You’ve had a home there since the moment we met.”

  And then she got back into the car and rolled away, and was gone, once again, gone.

  28

  Five minutes after Felicia left, I was doing eighty on the Harley and headed for Tori’s apartment in Philly.

  When I arrived, I didn’t waste time waiting for the elevator, but sprinted up the four flights of stairs and rang her bell.

  Tori opened the door and leaned in the threshold, blocking my entrance. I could tell she’d been crying and on the coffee table behind her was an uncorked bottle of wine.

  By my estimate, she had probably gotten to Philly no more than thirty minutes before me, and so I’d hoped that the brief amount of time spent with Felicia would dispel any accusations of infidelity.

  Tori snorted. “It must have been a quickie.”

  “What’s that mean? Why do you assume that I slept with her?”

  Tori leaned in and sniffed me. “That’s a nice perfume you’re wearing.” She then used her thumb to wipe at a corner of my mouth. “Lipstick,” And as her eyes drifted downward, she asked. “Where else might I find it on your person, hmm?”

  “We hugged and kissed, yes, but I didn’t sleep with her.”

  “Was it offered?”

  I sighed. “Yes.”

  “Slut!”

  “Tori, honey please, can I come in.”

  “You can say it here John.”

  “Say what?”

  “Goodbye, that’s why you’re here isn’t it?”

  “God no! I want you to come home.”

  Her mood softened and she turned and headed for the living room. I followed and settled next to her on the sofa.

  “You hurt me today, fighting in public with Felicia, and practically in front of the whole town. It was as if once she appeared I wasn’t even there.”

  “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way, it’s just that Felicia and I had a lot to talk out, and we did. Things are more settled between us now.”

  Tori gave me a sour look.

  “More settled? What’s that mean? You’ve agreed on which motel to meet at when you cheat on me?”

  “Hey! I have never cheated on you. Yes, today I kissed my old girlfriend; if that’s cheating, than yes, I cheated. But things are resolved between Felicia and I now and we’re through, we’re still friends, but we’ll never be more than that ever again.”

  Tori searched my face. “What did she do? For you to talk like this, she must have done something wrong.”

  I looked down at the floor.

  “It’s money. The reason she never came back to me is money. I couldn’t compete with Thorne.”

  “She said that?”

  “No, but I saw it in her eyes.”

  Tori leaned back on the sofa and pursed her lips.

  “Oh my God,”

  “Yes.”

  I felt Tori’s gaze upon me, scrutinizing me.

  “Did you tell her about the engine, that someday you’ll be richer than a hundred David Thornes?”

  “No, what would be the point?”

  “She may have come back to you then.”

  “For money, so again, what would be the point?”

  “She’s dead to you, isn’t she?”

  “Let’s just say she’s not who I thought she was.”

  I got down on my knees before Tori then, and held her hands.

  “You once asked me a question, that if Felicia wanted me back wo
uld I take her, would I take her back and end us. The answer is no. I’m sorry as hell that it’s taken me years to answer that, but the answer is no. I love you Tori, I don’t think I truly realized how much until tonight.”

  She began crying and stood up, while pulling me along.

  “I want you to leave now. I promised myself on the way here, that no matter what happened, I would take time to think.”

  As she led me to the door, it opened and a woman stepped in.

  “Oh, hi, Tory I thought you were coming alone?”

  “This is John, Marta. John, this is Marta, she was my college roommate. I let her stay here while she’s in town on business.”

  Marta smiled. “It’s nice to finally meet you John.”

  Marta was tall, pretty, with shoulder length blond hair and light blue eyes that spoke of deep intelligence. She suddenly noticed the tears in Tori’s eyes and excused herself.

  “Well, I’ll let you two talk. Again, it was nice meeting you John.”

  When we were alone, I kissed Tori.

  “Come home, please?”

  “No, I need time to think.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a damn fool. I love you.”

  “I know, now go, and please don’t call me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ll call you when I’m ready; I think we need time apart.”

  “Please tell me you’re not leaving me.”

  “I’m not… I mean I don’t know. I just need to think.”

  I stepped out into the hall as if I were stepping before a firing squad. I gazed back at her through the open doorway.

  “I love you Tori, and I want to spend my life with you. When you come… if you come back to me, I want it to be as my wife.”

  No reaction,

  She said, “Goodbye John.” and shut the door in my face.

  I stood there for a moment, remembering that a little over an hour ago, I was willing to give Tori up forever to get back with Felicia, and that now I had practically proposed marriage to her.

  I shook my head as I walked away from the door, while talking to myself.

  “Goddamn it John, how the hell did you fall in love with two women?”

  I had no answer for him, or for me.