by Krista Wolf
I thought back to the accident, where I’d been T-boned by some moron running a stop sign. Luckily I got off with a few weeks’ worth of a sore neck and back, but my cute little RAV4 took a fatal hit. With its frame bent beyond fixing, the car was totaled and the guy who hit me wasn’t even insured. That left me busing it for a few weeks, at least until I saved enough money for a semi-reliable junker.
Then again, that was five whole months ago.
I shook my head as we made the next stop. I really should have a car by now. Each paycheck I’d been throwing some cash into the coffee can under the sink, but I’d been taking some out, too. And by some, I mean most of it. And by taking it out, I mean paying bills with it… and even then, not paying all of them.
“Miss?”
I shifted my ass to the window seat as the man standing over me took mine. I’d seen him before. He was big enough that his elbow would be touching me the whole ride, whether I liked it or not. And in the end, there wasn’t much to like about a strange elbow in your ribs.
Skip the gas bill this month, the voice in my head murmured. Water too. Gotta pay the electric, though.
The bus turned left, jerking us collectively right as I began my weekly juggling act of which bills to eliminate, which to pay the bare minimum, and which to outright ignore. It wasn’t a fun game. It was a necessary game though, if I wanted to continue living beneath the semi-leaky roof of the house I’d owned since Eric carried me over the threshold nearly eight years ago. Or to be more accurate, the house I solely owned once the divorce papers arrived from his lawyer complete with his signature, all the way from Italy.
Piss off, Eric.
Getting married at twenty-four might’ve been a little too young, but doing it after an intense, six-month courtship turned out to be a colossal mistake. I’d inherited a fifteen-year old stepson who barely knew me, and who was more interested in his own life than in anything to do with mine. Not that I could blame him at that age. It just didn’t leave much room for common ground, or bonding over anything.
That left me alone with my newlywed husband. An older man — no, a mature man is how I put it at the time — who I was convinced would love and take care of me. Eric was thirty-five, already divorced, and more focused on his job than anything else. I didn’t realize back then, until he started spending more and more time away, that it was a job that would always come first… leaving David and I tied for a distant second.
“Do you have any gum?”
I shook out of my trance and shook my head at the man with the sharp elbows. Sighing in disappointment, he turned back to the task of scrolling through his phone.
Yeah, the bus sucks.
Getting a car, I decided, would become my new priority. I’d cut a lot of corners so far, but there were few left I could work on. For example, I could skip getting my nails done and start doing them myself again. And now that I’d let go of the landscaper, it was just a little bit more I could save each week.
The landscaper…
Man, I’d been thinking about him a lot! More than I should’ve actually. Aside from the images I’d tucked away of his perfect body all covered in glistening sweat, I kept recalling our little encounter over and over in my mind.
Was he flirting with me? He had to be. Even worse, was I flirting with him?
Ahem…
I rolled my eyes as the little voice in my head cleared its invisible throat.
He grew up with your son, remember?
Stepson. Not son. Stepson.
And hell, he was gone now for almost as long as Eric was.
Still…
I closed my eyes for a moment, envisioning Jacob’s chiseled body, his handsome face. His stubbled jawline pressed lightly against my face as he showed me how to start the lawnmower…
Damn. I could remember it all, now. The sensual way he breathed into my ear. The feel of his strong, calloused hand, closing over my fingers.
He seemed young and warm and boyishly innocent, yet there was something strangely sensual about him. Plus, he’d all but pressed his crotch into my ass as we pulled the cord together. For one brief glorious moment, I even imagined I could feel something stiff and hard pushing against me, right at the junction of my ass and—
The poking of a grubby finger snapped me back to reality. I turned back to my fellow passenger, ready to draw my lip into a snarl.
“Isn’t this your stop?”
Oh shit. It was.
“Thank you,” I smiled gratefully. “Really.”
“No problem,” he grunted back. As I slid past him, he looked up at me hopefully. “Bring gum next time?”
Out through the bus’s window I could see the looming facade of the big chain restaurant I worked at. Just the sight of it made my feet hurt.
“Sure,” I smiled back at my ride-buddy, hoping there wouldn’t be too many next times. “You got it.”
Four
TATE
“He’s guilty,” I shouted at the television. “C’mon, he’s obviously guilty!”
The plaintiff had rested. The defense too. Somewhere in the back of Judge Judy’s mind her finely-tuned bullshit detector went off, and she spent the next two minutes verbally destroying the guy who’d tried counter-suing the neighbor his dog had bitten. Smiling through the last of my tuna sandwich, I silently cheered.
“Get em’ Judy.”
I threw the rest of my lunch in the trash, then wiped my hands on my jumpsuit. I hadn’t even cleared the door to the break room when the old man showed up out of nowhere.
“Did you finish rebuilding the carburetor on that Honda?” he grunted.
“The one you nagged me to rebuild three times already?” I quipped.
“Yeah smartass,” he scowled. “That’s the one.”
I laughed inwardly, looking down at my uncle. Or rather my father’s uncle, which I guess made him my great uncle even though he wasn’t so great.
“Well? Did you?”
Ah, who was I kidding? The man was a goddamn legend.
“What do you want to hear?” I sighed theatrically.
“That you’re doing your job?”
“Then yes, sure,” I lied. “I rebuilt the carburetor.”
“Good, because you have a customer out front,” he jerked his thumb. “Pretty lady, looking for something used.”
“Everything we have is used,” I chuckled.
“Then you should have no problem selling her something.”
“Well I am your number one salesman,” I said immodestly.
“You’re my only salesman. So you’re the worst one too.”
The old man was grinning now, his cracked lips showing off his one yellow tooth.
“Ouch unc. That hurts.”
“Yeah, well your ego can take it. And after you sell her a car, I’ve got another job for you.”
“And what’s that?”
He dropped something heavy and circular into my hand: the choke plate and throttle lever assembly from the Honda. I had to laugh.
“Rebuild that friggin’ carburetor!”
I hefted the pieces in my palm for a moment, then smirked inwardly.
“This isn’t from the Honda, old man. It’s from the Oldsmobile.”
My grand-uncle squinted and scratched his head. He was short and squat, but still built like a brick shit-house. I always told him he reminded me of The Thing from the old Fantastic Four comic books.
“It is?” he asked worriedly.
“No,” I laughed. “But you’re so blind it could be the crown jewels of England and you wouldn’t know it.”
I laughed even louder as he shoved me through the hallway, then spun off in the direction of the coffee machine. He was right, of course. I’d rebuild the Honda’s carburetor before heading out today, but not before giving him a little more shit about it.
I pulled the less dirty of two rags from my back pocket and rubbed my hands again, trying to get them as clean as possible. The old man had been running this garage-turned-c
ar-lot for as long as anyone knew, since he came back to town after the Vietnam war.
Turning, I glanced up at the shadowbox on the wall. There was an old green combat jacket in there, mounted below a string of colorful medals. I’d looked them up once, and found out my grand-uncle had been a sharpshooter. A Marine sniper, with a string of accolades that left me looking at the old man in a whole new light. There was a faded black-and-white photo pinned in there too, in which he was young and tough and ruggedly handsome. His tour of duty was the one thing he never talked about… and therefore the one thing I never teased him on.
“Uhhh, hi?”
I looked up just in time to avoid bumping into the woman who’d wandered into the garage. She happened to be a beautiful strawberry-haired bombshell, in a blue and white sundress.
“Sorry ma’am, but you can’t be in here.”
Her lips pursed together a little before curling up at the corners.
“Yeah, well I’ve been waiting out there for more than ten minutes,” she pointed out.
“Sorry for that too,” I apologized. “I was just in the middle of—” I stopped suddenly, mid sentence. “Mrs. Nelson?”
“It’s McShane now,” she sighed. “And actually, it’s just Serena.” Eyeing me for a moment, she squinted back. “Wait, how do you know me?”
“Been to your place a few times,” I nodded. “I was on the team with David.”
Her eyes lit up with recognition. They were pretty eyes, too. “Ah, yes. You and Jacob.”
“Yeah, him too.”
Images floated to mind, fuzzy memories of the last time I’d seen her. We’d been at David’s for some reason, his birthday maybe. But Mrs. Nelson — or Serena, apparently — was just as beautiful then as she was now. Truth be told, maybe she’d even gotten better.
“Speaking of Jacob, he’s the one who sent me,” she said. “He told me to ask for you. I’m looking for something cheap and reliable.”
“Really?” I asked, a little surprised. “Why not just make your husband give you the GTO?”
“No more husband,” she replied, without even the slightest hint of remorse. If anything she seemed proud of the statement. “And what the hell is a GTO?”
Now it was my turn to look confused. I remembered Mr. Nelson’s 1969 Pontiac GTO more than I remembered him, or David, or anything else to do with high school. As far as car fantasies went, it was pretty far up there.
“You mean that thing taking up space in my garage?” she asked abruptly.
“You still have it?”
“Unfortunately yes,” Serena responded. “I have the car, the engine, and the dozens of different parts still laying across the hood. Exactly where Mr. Nelson left them three years ago, when—”
“They’re on the hood!?” I practically screamed.
The woman I’d known only as Mrs. Nelson blinked. “Well there were pieces everywhere!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t keep tripping over them whenever I went in the garage.”
Panic stole over me. In my mind’s eye I could see the carousel red factory finish of that beautiful muscle-car suffering beneath the scratches of a dozen engine parts. I could see the garage, as it existed in my high school memory. That amazing piece of Detroit-built steel, throwing its guts up obscenely all over itself.
“C’mon,” I said, grabbing her hand and moving past her. “Let’s go.”
She stiffened at the abruptness of touch, but rolled with it anyway. A dozen steps later I was dragging her from the garage.
“W-Where are we going?” Serena asked, bouncing along.
“To your place,” I told her on the way to my truck. “Apparently we need to stop a crime.”
Five
SERENA
“Oh my fucking God!” Tate swore, his voice dropping to what amounted to an astonished whisper. “He was going to paint it?”
We were in my garage now, staring down at my ex-husband’s never-ending project. The old car sat exactly where he’d left it when he took off for the last time, all covered in pieces of itself.
“I think so,” I confirmed. “I mean, he talked about it.”
“You should’ve cut off his tongue,” Tate snapped.
The image of my tongueless ex-husband struggling to talk brought a smile to my face. “He took off all the grills and headlights and stuff.”
“At least you put down towels,” Tate breathed a sigh of relief. “Hopefully that saved the finish. Still, there could be dents underneath. We won’t know until we take everything back off, and wipe the whole thing down with—”
The cute guy from the garage looked even cuter now that he was talking to himself. I’d admired him the whole ride over, wondering how many engines and transmissions he had to hoist to get those beautifully-carved arms. Every time he shifted I watched the muscles flex, winking at me in the afternoon sun.
Easy there, killer.
Hey, I was only human. And not unlike Jacob, this guy was really pushing my buttons.
Push your own buttons, the voice in my head told me. It’s worked for this long.
One by one, Tate began removing whatever parts and pieces I’d stacked unceremoniously on the car’s hood. Back when I was trying to clear a path to the breaker box, I hadn’t really been all that picky.
“Why aren’t you driving this?” he asked, practically wringing his hands. His vocal inflection was that of a sane person talking to the batshit crazy.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” I laughed, “it’s kinda in a million pieces.”
“Yes, but are all the pieces here?”
Tate was looking directly at me now. Beyond the wild dark hair and sexy stubble, his piercing green eyes held me prisoner for a good five or ten wonderful seconds.
“Serena?”
“I— I uh…”
God, he was absolutely stunning! How could I not have remembered him? It wasn’t like David brought a lot of people around. When the whole team came over, he must’ve got lost in the shuffle.
“I think they are,” I shrugged, guessing. “Honestly I really couldn’t tell you.”
“If this is yours you should be driving it,” he said, turning his attention back to the car.
“Oh it’s definitely mine,” I assured him. “If that asshole left me with all the bills, then this comes with it.”
“This thing is a classic!” Tate went on. “It’s amazing! It’s—”
“Probably expensive as all hell to fix up?” I interrupted him. When he didn’t immediately answer, I raised an eyebrow. “No?”
He’d been bent at the waist, trying to look at the paint’s hopefully unblemished surface from the level of the hood. I on the other hand, was staring at his perfectly-round ass. It was covered in jeans that were just tight enough to hypnotize me. In all the best ways, of course.
“Working a few hours a night I could put this back together in a week,” he said. “Give or take a day or two.”
He turned back to me, expectantly. It took me a moment to realize what he was driving at.
“I— just don’t have the money,” I said simply. “Sorry.”
Tate paused, rubbing the side of his face with the back of one hand. His expression changed. The whole way he looked at me changed in fact, as he eyed me up and down.
“Who said anything about money?”
I was suddenly very aware of him. Not as a friend of David’s, or someone who stopped in for pizza one night four or five years back with the rest of the basketball team.
No, I was suddenly aware of him as a man.
“Well…”
The word caught in my throat. For no reason in particular, my heart was beating twice as fast as before.
“What exactly would you want?”
The words left my mouth before my brain could double-check them. What was I saying? What was I asking?
“I don’t know,” he said, folding his arms over his jumpsuit. They were ridiculously strong arms. A man’s arms. “What’s on the table?”
Befo
re I could process anything else, he took a step in my direction. My mind screamed at me to take a step back. To flee, or stop him, or say something. Say anything at all.
Instead I only stood there, biting my lip.
“You know when we were in school we didn’t know your name,” he said. “But we didn’t call you Mrs. Nelson either.”
“You didn’t?”
He shook his head, and a flop of thick dark hair fell over one emerald eye. He brushed it back with the practice of having done it a thousand times.
“No,” he said, his voice going lower. “A bunch of us referred to you by the same little nickname. You were never Mrs. Nelson to us. You were always David’s super-hot mom.”
My stomach lurched. I swallowed dryly, as he took another step forward.
“Stepmom,” I corrected him.
“Whatever.”
He was even closer now, and rubbing his hands on his jumpsuit. Like he was cleaning them to touch something important.
“How is David, by the way?” he asked.
“Wish I could tell you.”
“He left with his father, didn’t he?”
“No,” I sighed. “David went his own way. After Eric — I mean his father — left, David begged me to send him away to school. Somehow I did, and he ended up dropping out for some girl.”
“And left you stuck with the student loans,” Tate assumed.
“Yeah,” I laughed bitterly. “Stupid, right?”
“No,” said Tate, taking another step in my direction. “Not stupid at all. The way I see it, you were only trying to help out. Trying to do the right thing by him, after his father ditched you both.”
Relief flowed through me. That was exactly the way I saw it too. As strange as it was, it was good to hear from someone else.
“If anything it’s David who’s the stupid one.”
He was only a few feet away now, still staring me right in the eyes. I felt caught beneath a hunter’s scope. Helpless. Powerless…
Nah, fuck that.
“When would you start?” I asked, folding my own arms.
