by Pamela Morsi
The door to the restroom was ajar. She flipped on the light and stepped inside. The heaviness of humidity and the scent of shampoo caught her attention. The place was steamy and the shower was wet. Erica’s brow furrowed. The shower stall had always been there, but to her knowledge it had always just been used as a storage closet. It was obviously a functioning shower, and someone had just used it.
“Weird,” she muttered aloud.
What was even more peculiar was that Tom’s coveralls hung on a hook on the back of the door. He’d taken a shower and changed clothes.
Erica left the restroom and walked to the building’s back door, where she unlocked the dead bolt and stepped out into the back parking area. The light, a motion sensor, came on immediately, giving her an unrestricted view of a lot that was completely empty. Tom’s truck was gone.
She carefully relocked the back door and returned to the front office where Quint had arranged their plates on the desk.
“Daddy’s not here,” she told him. “I guess he had an errand or something.”
Her son’s little face looked as puzzled as she felt. “Will he be back soon? Should we wait for him?”
No, Erica thought adamantly. Suddenly she wanted to be away from this place. She didn’t want him to come back and find her here.
“Maybe we should go back home,” she told Quint. “You know, we might have passed him on the road.”
“Yeah,” Quint agreed. “He’s probably at home.”
They quickly loaded up their box of food and returned it to the car. Erica double-checked the locks and the lights before they went through the security gate to the street.
From the backseat, her son was voicing thoughts very near her own.
“We would have seen his truck if we’d passed him on Fredericksburg or West Avenue,” Quint said. “But he could have driven through the neighborhood or stopped at the gas station or the grocery store.”
Erica nodded. “Absolutely,” she agreed.
It was full darkness when they arrived back home, and they were both disappointed when they pulled into the driveway to find that he was not there.
Enough of this, Erica scolded herself. It was getting late. Quint still hadn’t eaten dinner, and it was nearly time for his bath. Back in her own kitchen she reheated their dinner in the microwave and put the one she’d made for Tom into the refrigerator. She tried to be upbeat and eager, but she had lost her appetite. Dutifully she cut the meat, put pieces in her mouth and chewed.
“Where do you think he went?” Quint asked.
She didn’t have an answer.
After the two of them had managed to finish their food, Erica cleaned up the kitchen and then supervised Quint in his bath. When he was finally in his pj’s and settled into his bed, Quint read The Very Hungry Caterpillar aloud. He did a perfect job, but he knew the story so well that he hardly needed to read the words. Then Erica read to him from The Wind in the Willows. Normally the goings-on of Mole and Rat entertained them, but tonight they were both distracted, and Erica replaced the bookmark after only a half-dozen pages.
“Good night,” she told her son, planting a kiss on his forehead.
“Night, Mom,” he replied. Then after a moment he added, “I bet I know where Daddy went.”
“Oh?”
“I bet he went to see the woman at the hospital, the one he bought the flowers for.”
Erica nodded vaguely. What woman? she was asking herself. And the phrase “woman at the hospital” brought to mind the image of Callie Torreno.
Quint yawned and settled into the covers as Erica tucked him in. She forced herself not to question her son, not to ask him what he was talking about. Those questions should be for Tom. She’d ask him herself as soon as he got home.
She turned off the light and closed the door. Erica wandered through the house, picking up trash, putting away toys, hanging up the towels in the aftermath of Quint’s bath. Every few minutes she glanced out the front window expecting to see Tom’s truck pull up into the driveway.
Finally, with nothing much left to do, she settled on the couch to watch television. He still hadn’t called. She began to worry. Perhaps he’d been in an accident. What if he were lying in an emergency room somewhere and he wasn’t able to speak? Of course, he’d still have his wallet on him. If he was hurt, someone would call. Maybe the shop had been broken into and some deranged criminal had taken him hostage.
There was nothing in the shop for a deranged criminal to want, she reminded herself. And it had been locked up tight when she’d arrived with Quint.
Undoubtedly, he’d simply gone out to see a client or to look at a car. That was part of his job, part of his business. He couldn’t just wait for customers to come in the door— sometimes he had to go out and find them, wherever they were.
But why take a shower first?
She looked at her phone. She picked it up to check for messages. Nothing. She should just call him. If she wanted to know where he was, she should just call and ask.
What if he didn’t take her call?
That was ridiculous. Of course he would take it.
But she didn’t want to be one of those wives. One of those crazy, paranoid wives who had to know where her husband was at every minute of every day. She had never been that woman. But she knew all about her.
She thought of Ann Marie. Her mother, ever distrustful and always done wrong. Man after man proving himself untrustworthy. Her mother never letting anything get by her.
Erica did not want to be her mother. She never wanted that life. When she’d sought love, she hadn’t looked for handsome looks, family connections or a good income. She chose a man whose heart was true. Tom’s heart was true. She’d always known that. Could time change such a thing?
She shivered in the living room darkness and dragged the throw off the back of the couch to wrap herself in.
In memory she could hear Melody’s voice of warning. “Somebody from Admitting got under her skin and she ruined the woman’s marriage.”
“Nobody can ruin somebody else’s marriage.”
“She can if she targets the husband.”
Erica shivered again and drew the blanket more tightly around her. Tom would not be susceptible to the charms of some vengeful harpy, she told herself.
Then her logic reminded her that she didn’t have any ideas about what her husband might be susceptible to. Tom had had a long, complicated life before he met her. And not just his familiarity with the darker, more unsavory aspects of human existence with his addicted mother. But he’d also had his share of teenage passions and relationships of convenience. And although they had never discussed previous lovers, he had told her, “I’ve never been with anyone like you.
So the women that typically attracted him were nothing like Erica herself. She didn’t know what they were like, so they could be exactly the kind of woman she feared.
“Stop it!” she said aloud. “Tom loves you.”
She heard herself sounding more like Melody than like herself. And Melody, she thought, always protested too much.
Erica covered her ears as if she could drown out the voices that were inside her head rather than around her. Once more she grasped at reason. There was a logical explanation about where Tom had spent the evening. One that did not, in any way, involve another woman.
Chapter 13
SOMEHOW, BETWEEN THE two of them, they forgot to set the alarm. The first hint of morning came as Quint padded into the bedroom.
“Mom, I’m going to be late for school.”
Tom and Erica sat up in bed simultaneously.
“Oh, crap!” he heard his wife say.
A stronger word came to Tom’s lips, but with Quint standing in the doorway, he managed not to say it.
“Go ahead. You can have the shower,” he told his wife. “And don’t worry about getting Quint to school. I’ll take him.”
As Erica rushed to the bathroom, Tom went to the kitchen and fixed Quint a hurry-up breakfast of cereal and milk. Onc
e his son was dutifully eating, Tom went back to the bedroom and pulled on the clothes he’d taken off last night. He rubbed his chin, thinking of going without a shave, but the rough beard, along with the misshapen nose and the scar on his face, might be more than a new customer could get past. He traversed the steamy jungle of the bathroom, listening to his wife sloshing herself clean in the water as he scraped off the worst of his whiskers in a foggy mirror.
Quint was putting his bowl in the sink by the time Tom got back.
“I need to have a lunch,” he told his father. With a sigh he added, “When we’re late I always have to take peanut butter.”
Tom nodded and opened the refrigerator. His own lunch from yesterday was sitting on the shelf.
“Why don’t you take my leftovers from yesterday?” he suggested.
Quint looked skeptical.
“Why didn’t you eat it?”
“Because a nice old woman fixed me dinner,” he said. “Mom fixed this, so you know it’s great. Roast beef, yum.”
“Okay,” Quint agreed.
Tom transferred the contents of his insulated carrier into Quint’s lunchbox with the big yellow SpongeBob on the front. He added in a juice box and declared it complete.
“Go give your mom a kiss and let’s get going,” he said.
Erica was just coming out of the bedroom. She was dressed with her makeup done, but her hair was pulled up in a big clip on top of her head.
“Bye, Mom,” Quint said, running toward her for a quick smooch.
“You need your lunch?”
“It’s in my backpack,” he told her. “Dad gave me his leftovers from yesterday.”
“I’ll catch lunch out somewhere,” he told her. “And I’ve got my fingers crossed about making it home for dinner.”
“Okay.”
Tom stepped forward to say his goodbye as well. “Don’t panic too much about getting there on time,” he warned her. “I know you don’t like being late, but better late than smashed up on the road.”
“I’ll be careful,” she assured him.
Tom leaned down to place his lips on her own, but at the last minute she moved slightly and his little peck ended up on her cheek. It was unsatisfactory, but he thought they could make it up later when they had more time.
The drop-off line at the school in the mornings went far faster than the one in the afternoon, and Tom arrived at his shop with time to spare. He unlocked everything, turned on the lights, checked the task sheets and penciled in who could do what. Then he went back to the restroom and pulled on his coveralls. He was tempted to open his laptop and check the site where he’d put up the photos of the Buick. But it was too soon to expect anything, he reminded himself. And since he couldn’t be sure his employees would show up until they did, he didn’t want to be distracted.
He raised the doors on bays one and two to let the morning sunshine in and allow the smells from cars, grease guns and motor oils to escape.
Bugg was supposed to bring in his vehicle, and Tom was eager to get his hands on the 1966 Tempest. It was the lowest-priced model Pontiac had made that year, but it was still a DeLorean design, and Tom was a fan.
As he expected, Bugg arrived before Hector, Gus or Cliff. Tom spotted him coming down West Avenue driving about fifteen miles per hour, annoying the commuters in the long line of cars behind him. He pulled into the driveway and Tom directed him into an empty bay.
“She’s a beauty, a real beauty,” Tom told the older man as he stepped out of the car. “And she sounds pretty good.”
“Oh, she’s missing,” Bugg said. “She doesn’t sound like herself at all. I don’t know if it’s a pump problem or something in the line or what.”
Tom nodded. “Well, we’ll figure it out and get her fixed up.”
Bugg began to talk and talk. Tom knew he’d never get any work done if he didn’t get the old guy home. Finally Gus showed up, and Tom immediately dispatched him to return Bugg to his house.
“I’ll call you as soon as I know anything,” Tom assured him.
Bugg obviously wanted to hang around, but reluctantly followed Gus to his truck. Hector arrived and, with barely an acknowledgment, went right to work on an electronics problem left over from the day before. Tom had spoken only briefly to the man about his binge drinking and lost workdays. Hector was so embarrassed by his own behavior that he could hardly look Tom in the eye.
Not everybody was affected by the boss’s displeasure. Cliff showed up just as Tom raised the Tempest on the lift. His friend had not uttered one word of apology or regret for his erratic behavior. And the thoughtful, reflective mood that Tom had seen yesterday was absent this morning. Cliff was cheerful, happy, joking as if nothing whatsoever was amiss.
“Nice car,” he said, looking up into the undercarriage.
“It’s Bugg’s.”
Cliff nodded. “I saw you talking to him yesterday. I’m glad you finally convinced him to bring it down here.”
“It’s missing a little. He thinks it’s a fuel pump problem or maybe a dead cylinder, but it sounds more to me like a leaky valve,” Tom said. “At least they’re not that hard to fix and the parts are not that hard to find.”
“Is it the same one that’s in the GTO?”
“Uh-huh,” Tom answered.
“Well, that should be pretty straightforward then,” Cliff said. “Too bad this car isn’t a GTO. Then it would really be worth something.”
Tom hung the shop light on the frame before looking hard at Cliff. “This car is worth something to Bugg. It’s worth a whole lot to him. He has a relationship with this car. You could bring the sweetest GTO on earth in here for an even trade and it could never mean as much to that old man as this car does. It’s not just about the car’s value. It’s about its value to the owner.”
“Still,” Cliff pointed out, “some cars are more in demand. There are just some vehicles that everybody seems to want.” “I think it’s more often that some cars have just survived better than others. Either because they were built tougher to begin with or they were treated better on the road. The fancier the car, the less likely the owner will use it for long-distance commutes or hauling heavy loads. And sporty muscle cars are more often bought by people who love tinkering with them, so they keep them up, serviced and never abuse them. Once you get forty or fifty years down the road, you begin to see that the only cars still out there are the lux vehicles and the sport models.”
“Yeah, I guess there’s some truth to that.”
“But when you see a family car or a moderately priced car that makes it to vintage...” Tom said. “Then you know that somebody really had a connection with that vehicle.” Cliff shrugged and shook his head. “I guess that’s why you’re so taken with that old lady’s Buick over that fast cool Shelby we had in here last week.”
Tom nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “I’d rather have the Buick. It says something to me that the Shelby doesn’t.” “Now the cars are talking to you?” Cliff chuckled.
“Yeah, maybe I should change the name of this place to ‘The Car Whisperer.’”
“Oh, I like that. I truly like that,” Cliff said. “Maybe I’ll use it when I get my own shop.”
Tom thought the possibility of Cliff getting his own shop was unlikely to happen anytime soon. Still, he played along with the dream, as he always had.
“Great idea,” he said. “Feel free to use it. Just don’t open up next door.”
Cliff chuckled.
A small lull occurred in the conversation. Tom could tell that Cliff had something to say, so he just waited.
“Listen,” Cliff said. “I know I’ve left you in the lurch a lot lately. I’m really sorry about that, and you’ve got a right to be sore at me.”
Tom wasn’t about to deny it or downplay it. Cliff was speaking the truth, and he was walking on thin ice. Only their long friendship prevented him from being fired already.
“Things with Stacy have turned out...well, they’ve turned out different
ly than I expected. But the sneaking off and all that, I’m not going to be doing that anymore.”
“Good,” Tom said.
“I’m going to try to be here on time and stay until closing,” Cliff said. “That’s what I signed on for and that’s what I need to do.”
“Right,” Tom agreed.
Cliff hesitated again. “But I need one more thing from you,” he said. “Just one more, and then I won’t ask again.” “What?”
“If Trish calls you or comes by or has someone else talk to you,” he said, “I need you to confirm that I was right here in the shop working last night.”
Tom raised an eyebrow.
Cliff raised his hand like a Boy Scout. “Last time I’ll ask, promise.”
Tom didn’t want to promise, but it sounded as if Cliff had finally come to his senses. That was maybe the best news that he’d had in a while.
“Okay, but this is the last time,” Tom told Cliff firmly.
According to the clock, Erica arrived at work right on time. However, the fact that she typically showed up fifteen minutes early each day made her feel as if she was late.
After logging on to her computer, she grabbed her coffee cup and hurried to the break room. She was starving as well as groggy, but she knew there would be nothing in their break room but microwave popcorn and maybe somebody’s three-day-old leftovers. At ten she could go downstairs and grab a bite. Until then, she’d simply have to let her stomach growl.
Back at her desk, a cup of hot coffee beside her, Erica got to work, was eager to throw herself into it. During her morning shower, as well as on her commute, she berated herself for last night’s indulgence. Sitting around stewing about her husband’s faithfulness was beneath her. It was beneath their marriage. She could only blame this lapse in judgment on her mother, whose bad luck with men was partially caused by her poor expectations. Erica had known only love and fidelity from her husband. She had never expected anything less and was not about to change.
She clicked on her in-box, which was already filled with files on patients who’d come in during the night. Erica’s job was to read what the doctors and nurses had reported, noting the patient’s diagnosis and what treatments or procedures were undertaken. The usual and the unusual all needed to be recorded. It was Erica’s challenge to find and enter the numerical codes for all of that. It was like translating information into a foreign language. The typical things, the diseases she saw every day, pneumonia, arrhythmia, diabetes, those numbers were as familiar to her as the back of her hand. But there were always unusual things, diseases or treatments that were rare or new. Those had to be looked up and verified. Getting that right could be a challenge. But whether it was experience or a natural gift, Erica thought she had a knack for understanding what people had written. Still, she never guessed and didn’t hesitate to ask for help. And Mrs. Converse was a genius at interpretation.
