by Pamela Morsi
“After you,” he said politely.
Jelly frowned. “I don’t like to sit in the middle,” she explained.
“Jelly,” her sister scolded. “He’s hurt and he’s a guest.”
“But I don’t like to sit in the middle,” she repeated.
“It’s okay,” Pete said. He hoisted himself into the truck and eased himself across the bench seat. His left knee would not bend sufficiently to accommodate the gearshift. So he tried sprawling slightly sideways, but Jelly wouldn’t let him get away with that.
“Scoot over, you’re hogging the whole seat!” she complained.
Pete tried to rearrange himself, but there was just no way to make himself fit easily into the small truck cab.
“My left leg is stiff,” he explained to Andi. “I need to stretch it out on your side of the gearshift.”
“Oh sure, of course,” Andi answered.
Pete didn’t look at her, but he could hear the discomfiture in her voice. He straddled the long piece of black metal, vacillating between giving Andi plenty of room near the gas pedal or plenty of room to change gears. In fact, there was not a lot of room for either.
Jelly bounced in beside him, squeezing him further in Andi’s direction.
He murmured an apology.
“These trucks, they’re not really all that roomy for three people,” she said.
“Andi always gets to drive,” Jelly said. “I don’t get to drive. But I could. I know I could. But Pop says if you can’t read, you can’t drive. I don’t know why because you shouldn’t read when you’re driving anyway.” She hesitated. When neither Pete nor Andi responded, Jelly went for confirmation. “That’s right, right? You can’t read and drive. That’s silly. Isn’t it silly?”
“Yes, Jelly,” Andi said. “It’s very silly. But you can’t drive because you don’t have a license.”
Jelly sighed heavily. “Yeah, that.” Her deflation was only momentary. “I drove a go-cart once,” she told Pete. “I drove really, really fast. You don’t need a license to drive a go-cart.”
“I guess not,” he agreed.
“I wasn’t speeding away from a crime scene,” she clarified.
Andi turned over the ignition and the little truck sputtered to life. As she stepped on the clutch and placed her right hand on the shifting knob, she shifted into Reverse. That gear was unfortunately to the far left and all the way down. Putting her hand squarely in Pete’s crotch.
He pretended that he didn’t notice. So did she.
She backed out of the parking spot quickly. And once she shifted into first, Pete let out a long breath. There wouldn’t be any more backing up. He’d make sure of that, even if he had to direct her around the block three times. As it turned out, he got her through the streets and to the front of his home without incident.
“This is it here,” Pete pointed out. “Third house on the left.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath. “What a great house!”
“Thanks.”
“It must have been wonderful growing up here.”
“Oh, yeah, you know it must have been.”
She turned sharply to look at him. “You didn’t grow up here?”
“Me? No. I bought it a few years ago.”
“Oh, I thought it must be your parents’ house,” Andi said. “It seems like such a family place.”
“Yeah, it does.”
Pete didn’t want to say more. He didn’t want to stir it all up in his mind or be caught in some kind of long explanation. The house had said “family” to him. And he’d bought it with that idea, that ideal, as a dream on his horizon. But it had turned out to be a mirage. Now the house served him as little more than a big dorm room with high property taxes.
He glanced over at Jelly who had her earbuds in place and was quietly rocking to the music she heard playing. She showed no indication of moving.
“Maybe getting out on the driver’s side would be better anyway,” he said.
“Oh yeah, sure,” Andi said and unhooked her seat belt as she opened the door.
Pete scooted in that direction. He heard the slam of a front door and rapid footsteps when he stepped out into the sunshine. He caught sight of Mrs. Joffee hurrying down her walkway. When she caught sight of him, she halted abruptly, then, after an instant of hesitation, she continued forward more slowly.
“What’s happened, Pete? Have you been in an accident?”
“Nothing much,” he assured her, surprised at her concern. “I just fell down and these ladies gave me a ride home.”
She smiled at Andi. “Hello.”
Andi gave her a polite nod and responded, “Hi.”
“Do you need help getting up the stairs?” Andi asked him.
“No, I think I can make it.”
“Let me help you that far, anyway,” she said. As she offered a shoulder, she asked a question. “Who is your busybody neighbor?”
“Oh, it’s Mrs. Joffee, from the department store.”
“Yeah,” Andi said nodding. “I thought she looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. So she’s like your personal mother hen, huh.”
“No, not at all,” Pete said. “We get along, but typically, she doesn’t pay much attention to me. I must look a lot worse than I feel.”
They’d reached the bottom of the stairs. The eight steps looked very formidable, but Pete couldn’t ask her to help him. If she went to the top of the steps, she might ask to see inside the house. He couldn’t let that happen. She liked the house. Her first reaction to it had been the same as his own. He couldn’t let her see it as it was inside. An untidy collection of still-packed boxes and dirty laundry scattered on the floor. It was a family house and somehow he couldn’t bear for Andi not to see it that way.
“I can take it from here,” he told her. “I’ll just hang on to the railing.”
She nodded. “Well, put some ice on that knee. It’s already swelling.”
“Yeah, I will.”
“Hi, Mrs. Joffee! How is your yellow kitty cat?”
“He’s fine, Jelly,” the woman answered. “He’s around here somewhere.”
Jelly scrambled out of the truck and headed to the woman’s yard as if she had done so a million times.
Andi and Pete shared a puzzled glance.
Andi didn’t bother to dress up this time when she went down to City Hall. Opening a car wash where a car wash had been merely required a permit of occupancy. She paid her fee to Mr. Gilbert and made an appointment with the fire inspector to visit the property.
Mr. Gilbert seemed pleased that she’d taken the decision of the council without complaint and was now intent on opening a business that was already suited for the site.
Andi just smiled at him. Nowhere on any of the paperwork or within any of the questioning did the subject of what her employees might be wearing come up. It was merely a car wash. As such, it didn’t require any special uniforms or safety gear.
She was humming to herself as she left the building. She was fully aware of what she was doing. She was not lying. Lying meant saying something that was not true. Everything she’d said about her car wash business was true. She’d just been careful not to say everything.
She called Tiff to tell her that everything was on track and to discuss the best way to make a splash opening.
“I’m thinking Saturday morning would be the best,” Andi told her. “We’ll have more traffic down Grosvenor Street. And more of them will be people with jobs who have to run errands on the weekend.”
Tiff chuckled. “I really don’t think you’ll have trouble getting the word out,” she said. “This news is going to be on the lips of everybody in town.”
Andi laughed, too, but her heart wasn’t really in it. She was determined to do this, determined to make it work, determined to snub her nose at the city fathers. But she also just wanted to make a living, she just wanted a business, her own business, without excuses or controversy.
Her father and Jelly were at the c
ar wash when she got there. They had opened a big five-gallon bucket of white paint and Pop was rolling it on to the white brick walls.
“What are you doing?” Andi asked, astounded.
“Just thought you ladies could use a nice, clean look.”
“We’re tampering with evidence!” Jelly said joyously.
Andi smiled at her before standing back to assess what they’d done.
“What do you think?” Pop asked.
“I think you’re a miracle worker,” she said. “It’s looking great.”
Her father nodded. “It was amazing how easily a tired old eyesore can start looking cute and quaint.”
“I bet you tell that to all the old gals at the church,” Andi teased.
Pop feigned disapproval. “Polish girls are never cute, Andi,” he reminded her. “They’re handsome, smart and hardworking. We let the Irish girls be cute. They’re better at it.”
Andi laughed. It was an old joke of her mother’s, as familiar to her as her own childhood and special to hear from her father’s lips. It felt strangely like old times, the times when they had all been together. The times that were gone for good. She held on to the sweetness of the feeling, refusing to allow the sadness in.
“So, if you’ve got time to lend a hand here,” Pop said. “I think we can get this done before Jelly and I have to go to St. Hyacinth’s.”
Andi took over his paint roller as he picked up a brush to get into the tight corners.
“So how did it go at City Hall?” Pop asked.
“Good,” Andi answered. “The inspector is coming out tomorrow and with luck, we’ll be ready to go by Saturday.”
Her father nodded. “You might call Williard Hoskins, my old plumber. See if he can come out here this afternoon and snake these drains. Drains have always been this building’s Achilles’ heel. Draining is vital.”
Andi nodded. “Okay, I’ll give him a call.”
“What are you going to do about the sign?” Pop asked.
Andi leaned her roller against the side of the building and walked out to the sidewalk where she could assess the faded red letters painted onto the brick front facing of the overhang.
“Do you think I should get it repainted?” she asked.
Her father sucked at his teeth thoughtfully. “You probably should,” he said. “But with all the expense of getting opened up, maybe it could wait.”
“Still,” Andi said. “There’s nothing like something new on the street to get people’s attention.”
Her father agreed. “Maybe you could hang a banner,” he said. “A banner might be cheaper.”
Andi was thoughtful for a moment. “You know, it would be a lot cheaper if I did it myself.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you can do that?”
“Hey, Pop,” she answered. “You’re the guy who told me that I can do anything.”
He chuckled appreciatively.
By the time her father and Jelly left for their meals on wheels deliveries, the front of the building was looking clean and bright. Before starting on the back, Andi took the ladder out to the end of the overhang and took measurements for her banner. One of the unexpected advantages of being in groups like the math club and Science Explorers was that, unlike pep club or band boosters, there was never any money for flags or decorations or signs. Andi had figured out how to do those things herself and to do them well enough that she didn’t need to be ashamed of her efforts. She’d make a banner that looked good. One that was simple, readable and would catch the eye. And sometimes, she assured herself, homemade could be more appealing than anything slick, flawless and commercial.
Lunchtime came and went with her stomach growling. She remembered with sensual pleasure the sandwich that Pete had brought her. Sandwiches just like that were only a parking lot away. But she tamped down her hunger and kept working. There was nothing like imagining herself standing around here on the street in her skimpy bathing suit to encourage dieting. Just thinking about it had her stopping her work to do a dozen repetitions of lunges or wall squats. Her thighs were not going to be bikini ready by Saturday. But ready or not, Saturday was coming.
Mr. Hoskins showed up a little after one o’clock. Andi hadn’t thought she knew him, but she recognized him as soon as he drove up. His aging, rusted, windowless panel van was exactly the kind of vehicle that the serial killer in the movies would always drive. Hoskins himself, however, looked more like Santa Claus than a suburban slasher. He was a short round man with a long, scruffy white beard. There were no roses in his cheeks, but his nose was about as red as Rudolph’s. Andi suspected this might have been the result of forty years of Happy Hours at Glombicki’s Beer Garden.
He was amiable and agreeable and seemed to know his business.
“I’ll snake through this,” he told her. “And then we’ll send the camera down to see what we’ve got.”
The snake he spoke of was a coil of metal wire whose movement was driven by a small motor about the size of a suitcase. The man whistled while he worked, clearly enjoying his oneness with the sewer line. His big, weathered, rather dirty hands looked incongruous with the keyboard of the laptop computer he set up on the seat of his van.
Andi found herself standing behind him as she watched with interest as the images of the inside of the underground pipe flickered on the screen.
“This is really pretty neat,” she said.
Hoskins nodded. “For plumbers it’s the best invention since the plunger. It can check out your pipes all the way down the lateral to the main sewer. If there’s any blockage, it can show us exactly where to aug or, in the worst cases, where to dig.”
“I hope I won’t need any digging,” Andi told him.
“Everything looks pretty good,” he told her. “Good enough for a while anyway. You see these little cracks?” He indicated an area that looked something like a roadmap etched into the side of the pipe. “Within another year or so, these will be wide enough for roots to get in. Once they do, we’ll have to auger them out and sleeve this section.”
Andi wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded like it might be expensive.
“How much would that cost?”
Hoskins shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much,” he said. “Especially not yet. If your dad couldn’t make a go of this business anymore, then I figure next year will probably not even be an issue for you.”
Andi felt almost as if she’d been slapped. Hoskins’s words were neither critical nor angry, simply matter-of-fact negativity. She was stung.
“My father is a very good businessman,” she conceded. “But I have some…some new ideas for the car wash that he wouldn’t have implemented.”
Hoskins eyed her and nodded, but clearly he didn’t believe her. If Pop hadn’t been able to keep the place open, she wouldn’t either.
Hoskins gave her a clean bill of health on her drains. He even managed to come up with a very official-looking piece of paper, showing that they’d been video surveyed by a certified technician licensed by the National Association of Sewer Repair Companies. He managed to hand it to her with only one grimy fingerprint.
“This seems good,” Andi said.
Hoskins nodded. “I think it’ll carry a bit of weight with your inspector,” he told her.
He was loading up his truck when Tiff and Caleb showed up. Andi was delighted to see them.
“Have you had lunch?” Tiff asked. “I’ve got some cheese and crackers in the car. Or we could walk down to Connor’s and get you something.”
Andi shook her head. “I’m avoiding food,” she said. “I tried on one of my old bathing suits last night.”
Tiff laughed. “I hope it’s a little string bikini.”
“Well, not quite,” Andi admitted.
“So, we’re here to help,” Tiff told her. “I figure if we’re opening up on Saturday, you’re going to have a million things to do. And I see that I was right.”
Andi nodded. “I’ll take all the blood, sweat and
tears you’ve got to offer.”
“My mom’s not a big sweater,” Caleb informed her.
Still, they both seemed happy to jump right in. Neither seemed lacking in work ethic or energy.
“I got a new video game,” Caleb announced proudly. “My dad got it for me. It is so cool and I’m good at it. I’m already on level three and I have magic powers and I can destroy all the evil invaders and even cyborgs.”
“Hey, that sounds fabulous,” Andi agreed.
She put the magic cyborg killer to work on the back of the building, rolling paint. It was exactly the kind of potentially messy job that kids love to do.
“Should I help him with the high spots?” Tiff asked.
“We’ll finish it off when he gets tired,” Andi suggested. “I need your thoughts on something.”
Tiff followed her to the building’s interior.
“Last night I made up our price list,” Andi told her. “We have got to post the prices, but I don’t want to come up with the cheapest sign possible. And I started thinking about these windows. We don’t have any products to display, so I think they would be perfect as signboards.”
Tiff nodded, but looked worried. “I hope you’re not thinking that we could hand letter these. I’ve never been good at stuff like that.”
“Me either,” Andi admitted. “But I can do stenciling. So I printed out everything. It’s all backward. If we cut the letters out with a hobby knife we can use the pages as a stencil for the lettering.”
Tiff agreed to give it a try. It was quickly evident that she was very good with the knife. She was both quick and accurate. So Andi handed the job to her and began the measuring and marking necessary to get the lines straight and adequately spaced. But by the time they got the first line of stencils taped up, Caleb was getting bored with his painting project and making up excuses to come ask questions. Tiff finally told him it was time to take a break. The young boy gladly seated himself against one of the pillars of the overhang and focused all his attention on the tiny screen in his hands.
“So Caleb seems pretty pleased that your ex came through with the new video game,” Andi said.
Tiff nodded. “He got some day labor cleaning up one of those old factory sites down under the viaduct,” she said. “He showed up at our door as soon as they paid him. He hasn’t quite caught up on his child support, but I couldn’t fault him for spending a few bucks on Caleb.”