Return to Paradise

by Laina Villeneuve

  You walked right into that trap, I scolded myself as I slowed in front of the restaurant.

  She opened the door and then swung pouty honey-brown eyes to me. “It’s slushy.”

  I did clench my teeth at that, but I still backed up and pulled up right next to the sidewalk in front of the place, so she wouldn’t have to get her inappropriate footwear wet. Unbelievable. I hated it when she angled to trade my labor for food. If I didn’t count on the repeat business from locals, I would never have put up with it. I have to admit, too, that the way she treated my friends, Hope and Dani, bothered me. She’d been a real bitch when the couple came out, and I was going the killing-her-with-kindness route to teach her that none of us were any threat.

  She leaned back into the car letting all the heat out of my little sedan. “Thanks doll. See you back here in a bit.” She tossed her hair and strutted inside.

  I wanted to pound my head on the steering wheel but eased off the brakes instead, rolling back out to the main drag. When I got back to my shop, I opened my bay door again and ran my hand along the Nova’s trunk. I had to admit that even though she’d treated it like crap, I still loved it and cared for it the same as I did the VW.

  I was sure Shawneen had history with the old tank, and I appreciated someone who stuck with a finicky car instead of tossing it curbside. I bet she’d never climbed into the front seat of anyone else’s car mistaking it for her own. Some of my other customers had cars so ubiquitous that they told me stories about approaching a car that looked identical to theirs, puzzling over why their keys didn’t work until they realized their car was parked three spots over.

  I released the hood latch and attached the ammeter to the negative battery cable to see how many amps were being drawn from the battery when the car was turned off. As I predicted, something was drawing power. I wanted to explain to Dennis that the trick to diagnosing the culprit is to pull the fuses until the meter shows a reduced reading. For the inexperienced, the process could take a while, but with experience comes wisdom, suggesting the glove box and trunk lights as the most likely candidates.

  Closer to the engine, I suspected, disconnecting the glove box light. The meter swung down, confirming my choice. The parasitic drain on the car I could fix. I couldn’t help wondering if there was any way to fix the drain the vehicle’s owner had on me.

  Chapter Eight

  Madison

  I had no good excuse to offer the realtor for being an hour early. No storms or roadwork warranted giving myself such a large buffer. Reluctant to reveal how anxious I was to call the property my own, I retraced my first trip through town a month ago, ending up at Rainbow Auto again.

  Idling in the center divider, I realized how idiotic it would look to approach the Homecoming Queen with a question about my truck that I’d had to leave down in Paradise. I’d driven that truck for six years, and it had never failed to turn over, until this morning. Charlie kept the keys to his “Love Machine” up on the sun visor, so I’d used it to try to jump-start my pickup only to find that the battery wasn’t the problem. Fearing that the dead engine was a bad omen, I simply drove Charlie’s truck up here instead. He had taken the ranch truck on a long haul and wouldn’t miss his old Dodge.

  Roaring up the canyon in the same truck Charlie had used to take me away from Quincy tied me up inside. I’d only been four years old, too young to have any memory of sitting between my mother and father. Still, I imagined my smaller self moving my knees to the side every time I pushed the gearshift into fourth. Did we drive anywhere as a family? Were there times they’d been happy or had they hurled insults inside the cab? I talked to the old truck as if it could provide the memories I lacked.

  I knew it remembered them loving. One of the few times I’ve seen Charlie’s teeth was in the blushing smile he couldn’t stop when I forced him to tell me why he called the old truck the “Love Machine.” My beet-red face made him laugh harder than I’d ever heard. I tried to warn you, kid. I felt his hand on my shoulder. I felt him with me in the cab.

  So when had they soured? I rested both my forearms on the table-like big wheel on the straightaways wondering about my mother’s side of the story. Charlie had never wanted to talk about it beyond our being with Bo and Ruth as a blessing I should appreciate.

  I overshot the auto shop and found myself parked in front of an antique shop. I didn’t mind browsing and was relieved to find the store open. The door triggered a mechanical buzz, and a woman’s voice from the back invited me to look around. She kept her shop blazingly warm and bright. Shelves were lined with teapots and other fine china. The glass countertop housed jewelry, and next to the register, she had organized silver cutlery in cardboard holders. None of this interested me.

  Tools are my draw. An old awl, manual drills and boxy c-clamps, wood planes, handsaws and tiny knobby hammers, chisels, files and screwdrivers. I easily lost myself in the far corner. In shallow fruit boxes, the proprietor had gathered household hardware. One box held all sorts of door handles, metal, porcelain and crystal. Some were paired on a spindle, some lone cool orbs. Some were even attached to their plates and lock cartridge. In the box, one knob had looked brown, but when I picked it up out of the shadows I discovered a beautiful red and black swirl pattern. Without thought, I polished it on my shirt, appreciating the shine of it and the cool smoothness in my palm. The owner’s voice startled me.

  “That’s marble. Nice one. I’d bet early 1900s.” The owner of the store had emerged from the back, her white hair neatly braided and pinned up. She dusted her hands on her full-length skirt before pulling her glasses from her head to balance on the bridge of her nose. She reached for the knob to appraise it. “I wish I could say I had a key for it…” She paused and assessed me with the same intensity. “Doesn’t mean you couldn’t get it working. Take it apart, grease it up and get the parts in place, spend an afternoon with a box of skeleton keys to find one that works.”

  I smiled without a word and received it back from her. Self-conscious, I placed it back in the bin and willed her to leave me on my own. Instead, she stood at the small opening that would have allowed me back into the main room of the store.

  “Visiting?” she asked simply.

  “I’m…um…looking at a property,” I said, unwilling to lie even though her presence was making me uncomfortably hot. She wore shirtsleeves, but I still wore my jacket. The space felt too crowded to shrug out of it.

  “An older place? In need of refurbishing?” she asked, a gleam in her eye.

  “It’s in good shape. I may be doing some remodeling.” I took a step back, wondering how I’d ever get past her, wishing for once I had a watch I could glance at pointedly to get me on my way.

  She surprised me by stepping aside to pick up the marble doorknob.

  “Thank you,” I said, seeing enough space to duck through behind her.

  She stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. The other held the door handle toward me. Confused, I accepted it. “I don’t have a place for this.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s yours. Couldn’t you hear it?” She tipped her head toward it, and listened so intently, I almost believed it could communicate with her.

  I still heard nothing, but I liked the weight in my hand. I looked for a price. “How much?”

  She batted away my words. “I said it’s yours. If you find that the place you buy needs antique fixtures, I’ll expect to see you back.” With that, she shooed me out of her way and settled in behind the glass counters.

  I didn’t know the etiquette. It didn’t seem like she expected me to buy something. The marble had grown warm in my hand, and I realized how tense I felt. The warmth of the stone calmed me, and maybe it was the way the woman had put it, that the knob spoke to me, but I had the feeling that it would actually be fine to simply walk out of the store with it.

  “Thank you, again,” I said, creeping to the front door.

  “I hope it opens up wonderful things for you, dear.” She smiled warmly.

&
nbsp; I blinked out into the bright snowy day and climbed into the cab of the Dodge. The knob seemed to smile at me from the passenger seat as if ready for an adventure. I steered out onto the road, my childhood home flashing in the rearview for an instant. Something caught my eye. I craned my neck back to look through the cab, and saw the Homecoming Queen standing in front of the house, both hands shading her eyes, watching me as I drove away.

  Chapter Nine

  Lacey

  It couldn’t be, I thought watching the old Dodge pull away from Martha’s shop. But vehicles stick with me, especially old ones. I turned tail back to my shop and pulled a cigar box down from the windowsill. I’d discovered it when I was a kid. One summer, we rearranged the furniture in my room, and I found a small door cut into the bottom of the wall. My room was right next to the downstairs bathroom, and the door revealed the pipes for the tub. Tucked inside, I’d found the box.

  I’d opened it, of course. I’d lined up the little treasures someone had gathered: an odd assortment of tiny animals. A tiny green plastic penguin, his black eyes nearly rubbed off and scratches on his white belly, a white rubber dolphin, a glass bird and a few toy squirrels that had once been fuzzy but now had shiny spots and ratty tails. The box also had several stones, some smooth river rocks, an impressive chunk of rose quartz and a crystal. On top was what I was looking for—a single faded photograph, confirming that I’d seen that old orange Dodge before. It was shining new in the photograph. A young couple rested against the truck, the cowboy with his arms spread wide, hands along the length of the bed, his woman leaning against him, her head bent toward the baby in her arms.

  I would have sworn that the spacey woman with the flat tire from last week had just climbed into the cab of that same truck. What was she doing with the truck in the photograph? I frowned and replaced the items in the box, latching it shut. A wave of heat swept through me when I realized the woman Della was sure I’d let get away was back in town.

  Hearing tires on the drive, I shelved the box and stilled Della’s voice in my head screaming at me to jump in my car and track down the Dodge Power Wagon and its driver. Brenna Nelson pulled up in her Ford Bronco. She and my sister went way back, back to when she was the one getting in trouble with police, not the one issuing tickets. I had to thank my siblings, both for being more popular than I’d ever been in school and for calling all of their friends to recommend me when I’d turned my hobby into a career.

  “Mornin’ Brenna.”

  “Hey Lace,” she called out the window. “Where do you want this?”

  “Right in the bay,” I said, waving her in. The brake replacement was my first order of business for the day.

  “How’s Chrystal?” she asked. Though Brenna had been my client for years, she still felt more comfortable talking about my sister. Though age had lessened the difference between us, I knew she still thought of me as Chrystal’s pesky little sister.

  “She’s fine. She says now that the littlest is in kindergarten, she finally has a few minutes in her day when she remembers who she is.”

  “Her asshole boyfriend still around?”

  The asshole boyfriend who was around more to make babies than take care of them was the reason Brenna didn’t get her information straight from Chrystal. Chrystal couldn’t hear anything negative about Norm, and Brenna wasn’t the kind to pretend that she approved of how he treated her. “He’s still in Chico, but in his own place.”

  “That’s a step.”

  The rattle of Gabe Owens’s diesel flatbed saved me from having to comment about my sister’s choice in men and made me wonder, again, whether something was brewing between Gabe and Brenna. Brenna had pulled out her phone, and I greeted Gabe with a handshake. I noticed that Brenna had stepped away from the two of us though Gabe’s smile shone on us both.

  “How’s your Beetle coming along?” he asked.

  “I’m all done with the welding on the frame. Paint comes next, and then I’m ready to get the engine in.” I was indebted to him for helping me haul my VW bug over from Reno on that flatbed. I’d worked on that rig as well as all the vehicles out at his family’s mule ranch.

  “I can’t wait to see you zipping around town in it. What are you going to do, green?”

  “Baby blue,” I said, remembering my father’s Beetle. There was no question in my mind.

  “That’ll look sweet. You need help getting the frame to the body shop?”

  “I’m about ready for that. Thanks.” My older siblings had hung out with him plenty during school, and they all vowed that college was going to lead them far, far away from Quincy. Now he was back to living with his folks on the ranch. Rumors suggested he’d take over the reins when his father was ready since his older sister, Kristine, had made good on her promise to get out of town.

  “How’s Kristine?” I asked because I loved seeing how his face lit up and because I knew no one else in town ever asked how she was doing. She’d been pretty quiet about being lesbian when she lived in Quincy. Her moving away to the Northcoast made it easier for most people to ignore that she’d married Gloria, but reminded me again that her main reason behind leaving was her desire to have it all—career and family.

  “Real busy. Eliza and Caemon are always on the move and rarely in the same direction.”

  I laughed. I spent enough time around my nieces and nephews to know what that meant.

  “Guess I’d better get busy on the Bronco,” I said, realizing that I’d lost track of Brenna while Gabe and I chatted. I hadn’t noticed that she’d finished her text and scanned the shop for her. I found her in the passenger seat of Gabe’s rig. I rested my hands on my hips. “Something going on between you two?”

  He glanced at his rig. “Maybe.” A grin spread across his face.

  “Chrystal’s going to hear about this,” I said, inclining my head toward his rig.

  “I figured.” He crossed his arms across his chest.

  “Am I being played? Is this just you being the good guy you are?”

  “I hope not. Let me know what Chrystal thinks.” He tipped his hat and strode to his rig.

  I stood there watching another tailgate disappear down Highway 89. Brenna Nelson and Gabe Owens. I had trouble putting someone as gregarious as Gabe with someone as cool as Brenna, but maybe his warmth would soften her a bit. People had been talking about whether he’d ever find someone, especially after they all assumed he and Dani Blazer were an item after she moved into the little house on his parents’ property. There was quite a bit of upset in the community when people discovered it was Hope Fielding she was seeing, not Gabe.

  I’d be really happy for Gabe if it turned out that the lift Brenna had asked for meant something was cooking between them. I pulled out my cell and keyed my sister’s number. “What do you make of this?” I asked, laying out what I’d observed. Keeping my sister in the loop was a requirement of the referrals she sent my way.

  Chapter Ten

  Madison

  If I never signed another sheet of paper in my life, it would be too soon. I stared at the escrow agent’s bored face as she summarized each page of the loan docs. To her, it was routine, the numbers she read inconsequential. For me, they were heart-palpitating. I tried not to think about how much small print filled the pages and pushed the former owner’s failure as far away from myself as I could.

  I can make it work, I told myself every time I penned my name. Somehow that confidence felt tied to my giant white friend I looked forward to seeing. The realtor had dismissed my query about the gelding as an impossibility, but he already felt like he was mine.

  Signing the papers had taken longer than I’d thought. By the time I drove down the mountain, Ruth and Bo would have already finished dinner. I’d grab something in town.

  “For here or to go?” the cheery teen making the best of a terrible uniform asked me at the counter of the mom-and-pop burger place by the high school. She’d matched her bright shade of lipstick to the red stripe in the shirt and wore the
matching cap at a jaunty angle.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that I had another place to eat until she asked the question, and when I realized I did, I stood taller. “To go,” I answered Amy, reading her askew nametag. I was all of a sudden eager to have my first meal on what was soon to be my own land.

  “Eager to split town so soon again?” came a familiar voice from behind me.

  The Homecoming Queen. Being new to town, I assumed I wouldn’t recognize anyone, so I hadn’t bothered to look back.

  “No.”

  “So you’re not leaving, but you ordered to go.”

  “Hey Lacey,” Amy interrupted. “Did you forget something?”

  “No. I came for dinner.”

  “Weren’t you here with Coach Michaels for lunch?”

  “Now I’m here for a salad.” Lacey turned as if trying to end Amy’s questions.

  My brow furrowed as I processed Amy’s information. Lacey, a fitting name for The Homecoming Queen, was doing something outside of her norm. Her decision to stop for dinner had clearly been spontaneous. Remembering her in my rearview mirror as I drove away from her shop, I would have put money on the orange truck parked out front being what spurred the decision.

  “For here?” Amy continued.

  “To go,” Lacey snapped, confirming my suspicion. Her eyes returned to me, and she repunctuated her question by raising her eyebrows.

  I savored the idea that someone had purposely stopped to talk to me. I was used to being overlooked, not noticed. I thought about the events of the day, the reason I’d taken Charlie’s distinctive truck, her seeing me in it, and my decision to stop for dinner instead of heading straight down the mountain. Everything had set me up to let this woman know she could expect to see me around, so I came clean. I answered, “I’m eating at my place.”

  “Your place?” Her surprise spiked the pitch in the middle of your, giving it a triangular shape.

  “My place,” I said, hearing the pride in my voice. “I signed papers today.”