Promises to Keep

by Shirley Hailstock

  “You’ll have to use this on your chest,” he told her, holding the tube out to her. She took it, squeezed a generous portion into her palm and spread it over her neck and lower down.

  Parker turned away. He wouldn’t watch her. It would be wrong, especially knowing how he felt about her. Going to the car, he pulled clean clothes from her backpack and handed them to her.

  “Why didn’t they attack you?” she asked, quickly dressing. The sun rose and even with her pain, she was cognizant of standing half-dressed in a field.

  “Apparently, you were lying too close to their nest. I was several feet away. Are you feeling any better?” he asked.

  “Well, the pain everywhere else made me forget about my neck.”

  “What about your neck?”

  “Whiplash. Don’t you have it, too?”

  “The deer was more on your side of the car, so you had the greater impact than I did.” He checked the first-aid kit for aspirin. There was none.

  Parker checked their surroundings. There was nothing around them. No farmhouse in the distance. No friendly neighbors to call on for assistance. “I think we’ve reached the point of calling this an emergency,” he told her. “I’ll need to use the phone to at least call Triple-A for assistance.”

  McKenna cocked her head. Parker listened, too. He heard nothing.

  “There it is again,” she said. “It’s a car. No, a truck.” She took a step toward the direction of the sound, this time Parker heard it, too. “By the pitch of the engine I’d say it’s a Dodge Ram. A fairly recent model, no more than two or three years old.”

  Both rushed to the edge of the field just as a blue Dodge Ram came over the rise. McKenna stepped onto the road and waved her arms. She quickly put one down and Parker understood that she felt pain in her neck.

  “Lost?” the man said when he stopped the truck.

  “Accident,” Parker said. “We need a tow truck. Is there one in a town nearby?”

  “Nearest town is forty miles away. But I can call one for you.” He picked up a phone and flipped through several numbers. “Where’s the car?”

  McKenna pointed over to where the Corvette sat.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Did you hit something?”

  “A deer.”

  “They can sure kill a car,” he said. Then someone answered on the other end and he began to talk. “Zeke, this is Paul. I’m out on the 66 where the Milhouses used to live. Been an accident. Need a tow.” He listened a moment. Then he looked at them. “Either of you hurt?”

  “A little whiplash and the lady had a run-in with some ants.”

  “Minor,” he said into the phone. Again he listened, and then said, “It looks like a sports car, low to ground, restored by the looks of it. How long before you can get here?” Pushing the phone away from his mouth, he asked if two hours was agreeable.

  “We’ve waited all night. Two hours is fine,” Parker said.

  “Okay, Zeke. And bring food for two. They’ve been here all night.” He hung up. “Zeke’ll be here soon. I’d take you myself, but I’m heading in the other direction.”

  “Thank you,” McKenna said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  Parker shook hands with the man. “I’m Parker Fordum. This is McKenna Wellington.”

  “Nice to meet you both. Be careful of those ants, and Zeke’ll be here soon.”

  They stepped back from the truck and Paul waved as he continued on this way.

  “People actually stopping to help a stranger on the road.” Parker shook his head. “Will wonders never cease?”

  * * *

  “HELLO,” MCKENNA CALLED, holding on to the last syllable as if it was the last note of a song. The cavernous space was dark inside the garage and gas station. “Anybody here?”

  She heard the scraping of wheels and saw a man pulling himself out from under a 1939 Studebaker. If she hadn’t known cars, she’d wonder who would want a car that old. But seeing it instantly gave her hope that vintage cars might be the mechanic’s specialty.

  “Can I help you?” He didn’t rise, rather he stayed on his back. She saw he was lying on a makeshift pallet. Apparently, cars weren’t the only thing old in this garage.

  “I need some help. My car broke down a few miles back on Route 66.”

  He sat up. McKenna saw his hair poking out from a baseball cap that he had on backward. Equal parts of red and grey extended past his ears and rested on thin shoulders. His face was craggy from years in the sun and his teeth were stained yellow, probably from a lifetime of coffee and cigarettes.

  “Didn’t Andy come and get you?”

  Andy drove the tow truck, which was right out of the animated movie Cars. The tow truck was old and rusted and McKenna was unsure it would make it the forty miles to Catoosa. The incongruity of a Corvette hooked to its winch was as cartoonish as the movie. The driver wore navy blue overalls that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in years. The name Zeke was sewn into his top pocket, but his name was Andy.

  “He brought us in a few minutes ago. He said I’d find Zeke under a car. Are you Zeke?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I’m sure my car needs a water pump.”

  He raised a single eyebrow. McKenna recognized the cynicism in the move. In the circles she traveled in, no one looked at her as if she didn’t know what she was talking about when it came to any type of vehicle, and that included tractor-trailers and plain old farm equipment. She could take an engine apart and put it back together in her sleep. But outside her community she was just a pretty little lady who knew nothing from nothing.

  “Do you have time to look at it? Maybe give me an estimate?”

  “There are a couple of cars in front of yours. Their owners are just as anxious as you are.”

  “If you have a water pump, I’ll fix it myself.”

  “Against the rules,” he said.

  McKenna sighed. “Anyplace I can get a cup of coffee while I wait?”

  “Diner, four blocks west.” He pointed to his right in case she couldn’t read the sun or the road sign right next to the station’s driveway. “If you want something any fancier, you’ll have to get on the highway and drive fifteen or so miles to Tulsa.” He laughed then and McKenna joined him.

  “I think the diner will be fine.”

  He lay back and started to roll under the car again when she stopped him.

  “Don’t you want to know what car it is?” she asked.

  “I imagine it’s the only flashy sportscar out there? Not many of those flying by on the 66.”

  Exactly. And given the previous reception she’d gotten with the car, McKenna decided to play her trump card. “It’s a red-and-white 1959 Corvette Stingray.”

  The man’s motion stopped abruptly and he rolled himself forward again.

  “Convertible?” he asked.

  “Why have a Corvette if you can’t let the top down?” Again they both smiled. “Since you’re working on a Studebaker, ’39 by my guess, I figured you’d be familiar with another vintage car.”

  He pointed at the car. “This one’s mine, but a Studebaker is not a ’Vette.”

  “The concept is the same,” McKenna said.

  “Never worked on one. You’d do better taking it to a dealer, but even they might not have the parts for a ’59.”

  “It’s just a water pump.”

  He frowned. “Could be a radiator. Could be something else.”

  She shook her head. “It’s the pump.”

  “Even if it is, we don’t have it.”

  “What about a bay? I can start with a tune-up until the part gets here. ” She looked down the space. There was a truck in the next bay, but the last one was empty.

  He took a moment to stand up and stared at her from head to to
e. “What happened to you?”

  “Ants. We had to spend the night in a field. Unfortunately, the ants didn’t like me invading their home.” McKenna still itched from her encounter. She forced herself not to scratch.

  “Better get something to put on that.”

  “I did. I will. I see a drugstore right down the street. I’ll go there. But, before I leave, what about the bay?”

  “Never seen a lady mechanic. Other than on television, that is. Or you got a man to do the work?”

  Immediately her thoughts ran to Parker. She did have a man with her, but saying she had a man was too weird an implication.

  “I do the work,” she answered.

  He removed his backward ballcap and ran his hand through his long, greasy locks before replacing it.

  “You know your way around cars or are you pulling my leg?”

  McKenna raised her hand in the girl scout salute. “I promise I’m familiar with cars. I built that little number outside from the garage floor up.”

  He went to the door and looked out. Andy had lowered the car from the back of the tow truck.

  “She’s a beauty,” Zeke said.

  “The accident caused a small crack in the front left fender. And the water pump is busted. I haven’t been under it yet, but my instincts are rarely wrong.”

  Crossing his arms, he leaned back on his heels. “You talk a good game, but that still don’t prove you know what you’re doing. I have insurance to be concerned about, and it won’t cover an amateur getting hurt in here.”

  “I’ll sign a waiver. If I get hurt it’s on me.”

  He thought for a moment, still with his arms crossed and still looking out at the red and white car. “I guess it’ll be all right.”

  McKenna almost jumped for joy. She hadn’t had her hands in a car since she finished working on the Corvette. She had discovered she loved doing it. It made her realize now that she had done it for herself, and not Marshall. It was hers, her creation and hers alone. Not even her husband or his memory could claim ownership of a single screw, rivet or part.

  “What’s your name?” Zeke asked.

  “McKenna Wellington,” she said.

  “Wellington?” He uncrossed his arms and stood up straight. His eyes bored into hers. “You’re McKenna Wellington, owner of M and M Wellington Parts and Tools?”

  “Guilty,” she said, twisting her mouth to the side. She never expected to be recognized. Hers wasn’t a household name.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  “You know who I am?” she asked.

  He moved back into the garage, going to a desk in the corner that was littered with parts, books, paper coffee cups and tools. Rifling through the debris, he came up with a three-year-old trade magazine. Holding it up to her, she saw herself dressed in a white suit and standing between a royal blue Chevrolet and a cherry-red Ford. New Models Roll Off the Assembly Line was the caption. A couple of coffee rings stained the cover and the cars weren’t so brightly colored anymore. The story went on to talk about her taking over as the sole head of the company after Marshall’s death.

  “Amazing,” Zeke said, his smile even wider now. “Of course you can work in one of the bays. We’ll get your car on the lift. You do everything else.”

  “Is there a rental charge for the bay?”

  “As my first lady mechanic, and for the honor of having you on-site, the bay is yours, along with any tools that I’m not using. Course, we still don’t have a water pump for a ’59 Corvette. You’re going to have to order one, and that will take some time.”

  “Deal,” she said, extending her hand.

  He looked at her long fingers, then at his dirty ones. “Maybe we’d better shake on it later.”

  “As a lady mechanic,” she said. “I’ve had grease more places than on my hands.”

  She took his and shook it.

  “Now, what are you doing to that Studebaker?”

  * * *

  USING ZEKE’S DIRECTIONS, Parker found McKenna at the diner. He slipped into the booth across from her.

  “I found a job,” Parker said. Even he recognized the pride evident in his voice.

  McKenna’s eyes widened. Before she could ask a question, the waitress arrived with a pot of coffee in each hand.

  She filled Parker’s cup, but then left. He was confused.

  “Didn’t she want our order?” Parker asked.

  “I ordered for us both,” McKenna stated.

  Parker’s brows rose. Had she learned enough about his likes and dislikes to actually do that?

  It was something couples did, he realized. Eating with McKenna for weeks now, he’d seen her choices. Obviously, she’d noted his, too.

  “Where’s the job? Doing what?” She smiled and perked up.

  “First, I tried for short order cook here, but apparently, they have enough staff.”

  “Even with Sherry’s glowing recommendation, you didn’t get the job?” she teased.

  “Even with that. However, I scored something better,” Parker said. “At least, it pays better.”

  “Good,” McKenna said. “Because a water pump for that car is going to cost at least five hundred dollars. And we have to order it.”

  Parker whistled. “Which means we’ll be stuck here awhile.”

  “Quick study, I like that.” McKenna chuckled.

  She’d begun to joke with him. They sure were back on friendly terms. He hoped it would last.

  “Tell me about this job. What is it? When do you start?”

  “Tomorrow. In a warehouse. There’s a factory at the edge of town. It’s a good walk from here, but I won’t need transportation.”

  “What will you be doing?”

  “I’ll be loading boxes on a pallet. Then a crane comes and loads them onto a truck.”

  “For eight hours a day?” Her voice was at least an octave higher.

  “If I’m lucky.”

  “Parker, that’s a college student’s summer job.”

  “True, that’s why I got it. They needed help and not enough students applied.”

  She looked down, as if guilty.

  “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy. We get towed into town and within an hour, I have employment. We should be celebrating.” He lifted the cup of coffee the waitress had set in front of him the moment he’d reached the booth.

  “Parker, you didn’t sign on for this. You’re thirty years old. You have a doctorate in Economics. And you’re going to be doing manual labor?”

  “I’m happy to help,” he said. “And just think, I’ll be more in touch with my students when we return to Chicago.”

  He was attempting to make light of their situation. He appreciated what McKenna was saying, but she was overreacting.

  “I’ll see what kind of work I can get. Maybe they need a waitress.” She tried to laugh, but failed.

  “We’re sticking to our plan,” Parker reassured her.

  It suddenly occurred to him that he’d said our plan and not her plan.

  “McKenna, we said if we needed to work to make enough money to go on, that’s what we would do.”

  “Have you ever done manual labor before?”

  “You don’t think working at Sherry’s was manual labor?” Parker smiled, hoping she’d catch on to his teasing.

  “That’s different from doing the exact same thing over and over for one-third of your day.”

  “I’ve never packed and moved boxes for an extended period of time, but I’ve done my share of lifting and carrying. I’ll be able to hold my own,” he told her. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t break the water pump.”

  “I know, but I have to fix it and you’ve gotten a job to take care of me.”

  Sh
e didn’t know how much he wanted to take care of her. “Only temporarily until you find a job. Besides, you’d do the same for me if our roles were reversed.”

  Her eyes stared into his. The truth of his words seemed to reach them both at the same time.

  He reached over and squeezed her hand, the gesture telling her everything would be fine. Then he let go and sat back.

  The waitress brought their food. Both he and McKenna were quiet until their server moved on to the next booth.

  “Aren’t you going to smile?” Parker teased again.

  “The food looks good,” McKenna said, giving him a weak smile.

  They ate in silence. Parker enjoyed the lunch she’d ordered for him. It was an open-faced turkey sandwich with broccoli and sweet potatoes. It was something he liked and it tasted better knowing that McKenna had spotted his preferences.

  He felt fairly certain he would have chosen for her the spaghetti, salad and iced tea she seemed to be enjoying.

  Both refused dessert when the waitress removed their plates, but McKenna ordered coffee and Parker had his cup refilled. He wondered if McKenna was struggling with something. She seemed preoccupied.

  She leaned forward, putting her chin in her palm and looked through the window. He glanced outside. Few people were on the street. Cars were angle parked along the curb.

  “You’re not still brooding over the job, are you?” Parker asked.

  * * *

  HE NOTICED HER HANDS. And here McKenna thought the red welts she had were less raw-looking.

  She stared at Parker’s hands, recalling how soft they’d been as he’d cleared the ants from her and then applied the cream to help soothe her skin. She considered how different his hands would be after a few weeks spent in the warehouse.

  McKenna had worked shifts in the warehouse that she and Marshall owned. She’d done every facet of every job to get their business going. Initially, she’d been run off her feet picking, packing and shipping parts during the internet-only phase of their business. Now they had bricks and mortar stores as well as their online sales. Teams of people were employed to do what she and Marshall used to tackle on their own.

  “Are you still in pain?” Parker asked.