by Pamela Morsi
He said the word “baby” with such inflection that it might have been a curse. It certainly sounded to be the worst thing on the planet.
“You’ll need to ask Mom,” Tom told him. “I’m not sure serial killer is totally okay for first grade, but Mom will know. And she won’t make you do anything ‘baby,’ I’m sure of that.”
“Okay,” Quint agreed, though there was still some concern in his voice. “Are you going to have to work late on Halloween? I hope you don’t. Please don’t.”
Tom glanced up from the refrigerator where he was retrieving Quint’s after-school snack.
“I’ll make a point not to.”
“Good. Because if Mom can’t get off to come to my party at school and you have to work when I’m trick-or-treating, then it won’t be a very good time at all.”
“It will definitely be a terrific Halloween,” Tom assured him as he set an apple, some cheese crackers and a carton of milk on the service desk. He made a mental note to tell Erica what Quint had said. It wouldn’t be long, Tom suspected, before the presence of his parents would be irrelevant to his son’s estimation of a good time.
“Hey, we’re going to be there. We wouldn’t miss it,” he assured his son. “Now eat your snack, get your homework done. Your mom will be here to get you in—” Tom glanced up at the clock “—an hour and ten minutes. Okay?”
The little boy nodded. “I’m good,” he told his dad. Tom silently agreed wholeheartedly.
Back in the shop, Tom continued working on the GMC’s valve assembly, though he was interrupted several times. The afternoon was always a little chaotic with customers calling about their cars or coming by to pick them up. And there was Quint as well. You couldn’t just ignore a six-year-old, even if you did let him play with the intercom system.
Bugg Auflander showed up to talk about the prospect of getting some work done. Bugg always talked a lot more about getting work done than he ever talked about spending actual cash having something done. But today he seemed more serious about it than usual. And Tom really wanted to get Bugg’s ’66 Pontiac in the shop. It was a great car. But that wasn’t all. There were a lot of guys among Bugg’s friends who had classic cars that they’d kept up themselves over the years. But as eyesight and dexterity become more of a problem, they were going to need help. Tom thought that if he could do right by Bugg, bring him into the process and satisfy his expectations for a reasonable price, then all those old guys might look at Bentley’s as the way to keep their classics a little bit longer.
Talking to Bugg, however, required some patience. The discussion of the problem with the fuel pump couldn’t be contained with simple stories of engine misfire; instead he expanded into long wistful tales of driving the car out to the Grand Canyon in 1974.
Tom was listening, nodding, when he caught sight of Erica out of the corner of his eye. She approached hesitantly as Bugg droned on about the gas mileage he got using only first and second gear through the mountains.
Erica waited patiently a few paces behind Bugg for a couple of moments. When it became clear that the old man was not nearing a stopping place anytime soon, she mouthed to Tom, Are you working late? He made a slight nod to the affirmative. Okay, she mouthed further. Extra food in your lunch box. He gave her a thumbs-up. Bugg didn’t even notice as he’d reached the part of the story that related the details of a right rear blowout on an icy Montana mountain pass.
Erica took Quint and headed for home. Tom continued to nod and listen for a very long ten minutes more, until Bugg got around to agreeing upon the repairs he wanted Tom to do and signing his name on the work order.
He still didn’t have the valve train repair completely done when closing time arrived. Gus was completely cleaned up and ready to go at least fifteen minutes early. Hector carefully set up the pieces of a disassembled transmission so that he could get right on it the next morning. Cliff, who had basically said nothing to Tom all day, wrote his time out on the clipboard as 6:01.
Tom closed the gate and locked the door. In the quiet, solitary shop he was able to concentrate better and finish the work on the GMC. He cleaned and shined the pieces so that it looked almost as good as new. And, from the sound of the engine when he tested it, it was going to run better than it had in years.
He glanced at the task sheet and considered trying to get in a small, quick job. Then he decided against it. He should get to Mrs. Gilfred’s house before dark. The woman might not answer her door if she saw a man on her porch.
He went into the shop’s bathroom to wash off a little bit. In the mirror he spotted the dried, caked-on power steering fluid on his hair and face, a leftover from the Taurus that morning.
“Talk about scaring the woman on her own porch,” he muttered to himself. “You look like a dirty homeless guy.”
He tried to go after the sticky mess while leaning over the sink, but with little success. Then he glanced at Cliff’s shower. A bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo were visible on the window shelf. With a shrug, he peeled off his coveralls. The water wasn’t particularly hot, but it was good enough and after scrubbing his body and washing out his hair, he looked and felt more socially acceptable for visiting an elderly person.
With no bath towel available, he dried off with a handful of shop rags. He left his coveralls hanging in the bathroom and grabbed a new Bentley’s Classic Car Care T-shirt from the office. Jeans and a T-shirt were always appropriate for a working man, he told himself. Especially so if they were clean.
He locked up and drove out to Leon Valley, his laptop on the seat beside him.
When he arrived at Mrs. Gilfred’s house, he didn’t need to knock on her door, or have her recognize him on the porch. The lady was out in her yard watering flowers with a garden hose.
Dressed in a pale lavender jogging suit that hung on her frame, she looked frail.
“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” he asked her after he stepped out of his truck.
The old woman smiled at him. “You sound like my doctor. And I’ll tell you like I told him. I’ve got the longest rest of all coming up sooner than I like, so I’ll wait till then.”
“Hello! Hello!” From the neighbor’s porch, Miss Warner called out and waved a handkerchief at him.
Tom smiled politely and waved. He tried to turn his attention back to Mrs. Gilfred, but it wasn’t that easy.
“Oh, Mr. Bentley! Mr. Bentley. So good to see you again. Might I presume upon you for a little help, please. Please.”
“Uh…” Tom began.
“Oh, good Lord,” Guffy muttered under her breath. “You’d better go see what the silly fussbudget wants. We won’t have any peace until you do.”
“I’ll be right back,” Tom told her.
Mrs. Gilfred rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that.”
Tom grinned at her before making his way over to Miss Warner’s porch. And it wasn’t that easy to get away. First she wanted a lightbulb changed. And then a picture moved. When she requested that he retrieve a box from the attic, he balked.
“I really don’t have time for that this evening,” he told her. “I’ve got to see Mrs. Gilfred on business and then I have to get home to my family.”
“Couldn’t I tempt you with some tea and a brownie? I got a pan of those wonderful brownies from the grocery store.”
“No, thank you,” he repeated over and over, as he finally backed off the porch.
Guffy had gone into her house, so Tom grabbed his laptop from the porch and rang the doorbell. She let him inside with a wry grin. “I didn’t expect you back until midnight. You must not be as polite as I think you are.”
“I’m polite,” Tom said. “But I’m not that crazy about roaming around a stranger’s attic.”
“Can’t fault you there,” she said. “I’m not even interested in roaming around my own.”
He smiled at her humor. “I took some photos today of your car,” he told her. “I came by to show them to you before I put them up on the internet.”
It smelled so good, Tom didn’t even think of uttering a polite refusal. He put the salad together while she dished the lasagna onto the plates. It tasted as fabulous and spicy as homemade lasagna can. Tom was scarfing it up when Mrs. Gilfred spoke.
“You’ve got a pretty healthy appetite.”
“This is really, really good,” he told her.
“Are you a man starved for home cooking?” she asked.
“I am these days.”
“I thought you were married. Did she kick you out?”
Tom chuckled. “Not yet. But I’ve been working such long hours the past few weeks that I haven’t been making it home for dinner.”
“That’s bad,” Mrs. Gilfred said. “I hope it hasn’t been my car keeping you from home.”
“Oh, no, not at all,” he assured her. “Besides your car doesn’t seem as much work as it is pleasure.”
“So, how is my Clara?” she asked. “Any buyers lined up yet?”
“Nothing yet,” Tom told her. “But tomorrow she’s making an international splash.”
Tom opened his laptop and showed Guffy how to scroll through the photos.
“So, what do you think?”
“Oh, Clara looks lovely,” Mrs. Gilfred told him. “She looks all shined up and ready for an adventure. I just wish I was still young enough to go with her.”
The wistful sound in her voice caught Tom’s attention.
“You know, you don’t have to sell her,” he reminded the woman. “Now that I’ve got her running, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t drive her around for another year or so. Then you could think about selling her again.”
“No, no,” Mrs. Gilfred said adamantly. “I want you to sell her. I’m too old to drive her and I want Clara to be driven around.”
Tom nodded. Somehow he understood how she was feeling, while not knowing what he might feel in the same situation.
“So tell me about this wife of yours,” Mrs. Gilfred said. “Why did the girl marry a big, rough-looking galoot like you?”
Mrs. Gilfred’s criticism was made with such honesty and kindness, Tom couldn’t help but laugh.
“I haven’t got the faintest idea why Erica fell for me,” he said. “But nobody would question why I fell for her.”
Mrs. Gilfred smiled.
“She’s smart, funny and kind and…quite a hottie,” he explained. “I mean, even looking at it as a mechanic, how often can a guy come across a high-torque, smooth-running, low-maintenance vehicle with exceptional electronics and standard bodywork that looks like custom? When a fellow meets that girl, you know he’s going to do whatever he can to try to park her in his own garage.”
The old woman laughed aloud at that.
They began to talk. Tom told her about Erica and Quint, the struggles of opening his own shop. His luck in finding work that he liked to do and that he happened to be really good at.
Guffy talked about Clara and the places they’d been together, the people they’d known, things they had seen.
It was almost ten o’clock when he finally took his leave. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. He should have called Erica to let her know that he was going to be this late. But he hadn’t. He hoped she hadn’t worried. But he didn’t want to take the time sitting at the curb calling. So he just drove home.
Tom let himself in through the garage door. He found his gorgeous wife sound asleep in front of reruns of Dancing with The Stars.
He went to the bedroom, stripped off his clothes and pulled back the sheets. In the bathroom he washed his hands and face and then returned to the living room where he leaned down and picked up Erica as if she were Quint. He carried her to bed and covered her up before slipping in beside her.
He spooned up against her back and wrapped his arms around her as she slept. Her body was warm, her skin soft. The scent of her enveloped him, clean and feminine. Tom nuzzled against her hair. He didn’t want to wake her, but he couldn’t resist just touching her.
“Future view—Tom Bentley,” he whispered to himself. “Erica beside me for the rest of my life.”
This was the best thing about being married, he thought. When he came in after a long day, without even the pleasure of talking to her, he felt loved and respected and safe. Safe. That was a word that caught him up a bit short. He was the protector. He was keeping his family from harm. Why did wrapping his arms around Erica make him feel safe as well? It was too big a question for as tired as he felt.
He sighed and drifted into sleep. But just in that middle place between conscious memory and slumber, he saw himself again in the backseat of that Buick with those people whose names he couldn’t remember.
Erica mouthed the question, Are you working late?, hoping that the answer would be no. Tom’s slight nod to the affirmative was a disappointment, but she understood. Or at least she thought she did. Tom had worked a lot of long hours during the start-up of the shop. But in the past year or so, that had become more and more infrequent. So much so that Erica had almost forgotten what it was like to not have her husband home for dinner, to give Quint a bath, to sit with her in front of the TV, to share the news of her day and to listen to the news of his.
The last few weeks, however, night after night after night, she and Quint were eating alone. Tom didn’t get home before eight or eight-thirty. He always looked tired and he never had much to say.
It was curious, really, that such a change had occurred inexplicably. And even more so that Tom never offered any kind of explanation of what might be going on.
Her husband wasn’t typically secretive, but Erica knew there were things in his past, hurts he had endured that crept into his day-to-day life. Sometimes those things would cast a shadow on him.
“Okay, Quint, have you got your backpack together? Are you ready to head home?” she asked her son as she returned to the shop’s front office.
Quint was ready. He was tired, and on the short ride home he managed to nod off. He was too big for her to carry into the house, so she woke him up. The micro-nap seemed to have rejuvenated him and he talked a mile a minute for the next two hours, mostly following her around from room to room as she cleaned, giving her every possible piece of information on the upcoming Halloween celebration.
“There’s going to be a costume contest and games and we can trick-or-treat right there in the gym,” he said enthusiastically.
Erica made no attempt to dampen his excitement about the gym with the reality that the party had been put in place because parents no longer felt safe allowing their children to wander the neighborhood alone at night, even on a celebration night. Quint would get to knock on the doors of the houses of a few friends and then they’d spend time at the school.
His choice of costume, however, she did not encourage.
“I don’t think serial killer is a good idea for a six-year-old,” she told him.
“But Mom,” he whined. “Cody Raza’s going to be Scream.”
The response that came to Erica’s lips was, If Cody Raza wanted to jump off a bridge… But she managed to choke it back. It sounded too much like something Ann Marie would say. Erica was sure she never wanted to parent like her mother.
“The Scream is a famous painting,” she said instead. “There is really nothing of educational value in being a serial killer.”
Quint’s brow furrowed in distress. “So I have to be something of educational value? I wanted to be scary.”
He looked so disappointed Erica had to hide a smile. “Well, there are many scary characters in literature,” she said. “I’m sure you can pick something that has educational value. Frankenstein or Dracula. Even vampires or mummies would have some merit, I think.”
Her son’s eyes widened. “You
wouldn’t let me watch the vampire movie,” he pointed out.
“That was when you were five,” she said. “You’re six now. But I think you have to be able to read the scary stories before you can watch the movies.”
“I’m getting better and better at reading,” he assured her.
“Okay, and I can help you. So why don’t we plan a trip to the library. You can pick out the book we want to read. But not at bedtime. This will have to be an afternoon or Saturday story.”
Quint agreed and was placated enough to head off to his room and the toys there, leaving Erica free to sort the recycling for the next day’s pickup as the pork chops cooked atop the stove.
When dinner was ready, she and Quint took their seats. The empty chair at the head of the table cast a pall on the meal. Erica looked down at her perfectly cooked meat and vegetables and felt little interest in eating.
Her son appeared equally unenthusiastic.
“It sure is quiet without Daddy here,” he said.
Erica nodded agreement for a long moment and then went into action. She rose from her seat, retrieved another plate and a roll of aluminum foil from the kitchen.
“Let’s drive up to the shop to eat.”
“Yeah,” Quint agreed enthusiastically.
Erica filled Tom’s plate and covered it with foil. She did the same for her own and Quint’s and then stacked all three into a box that would sit on the front floorboard. She got fresh silverware and napkins and then included a bag of cookies from the top of the cabinet for a special treat.
She and Quint were both laughing and happy as they ventured out. The sun setting on Woodlawn Lake was worth the trip outside, just for itself. They were both excited about their unexpected dining-out evening with Tom at his job.
Erica turned on some music and Quint was singing and rocking in his booster seat. She was moving her head to the rhythm herself.
When they arrived at the stop’s gate, Erica punched in the code and the gate opened so she could pull the car into the drive. She was surprised that Tom didn’t come out and greet them, but maybe he was way in the back. She used her key to open the office and then pressed the button to draw the gate closed.