by Roxy Harte
I chuckle. “There are rumors about everyone in these parts and I don’t put much faith in any of them.”
“But there’s no salvation for that one.”
“You know, John, if I remember right, you said the same thing about your truck. Good thing there was a Hemi under the hood.”
Chapter Eight
Classic
The one thing I didn’t expect was to be walking around a car show, arms linked with Janice the yoga teacher. I went alone. She found me, latched on to me, and here we are…walking, talking. I even show her the business cards I had made after her enthusiastic response to the do-it-myself paint job on the shop sign.
She holds it out a little ways to focus better. I keep myself in check and don’t make any sarcastic comments regarding needing longer arms. She’s such an honest-feeling person I’d be surprised if it is vanity keeping her from wearing reading glasses and think it’s more likely that she just left them at home. “You really are multi-talented. I love this.”
“I do too. Not to be too prideful but for a crap, rush job and a mobile phone photo, they look good.”
“There is nothing crap about these cards and this photo is the best,” she sighs. “It’s like a step back in time, a photo taken from an open car window catching the nostalgia of the moment, but then there’s your name,” she winks, “a little edge to it.”
I hadn’t looked at it that way.
There’s something about Janice. As hard as I try to dislike her, I can’t. She’s always upbeat, looking at the sunny side of life. She’s kind of fun to be around. And she knows everyone. “Give me a stack and I’ll set them on the counter at the yoga school. Lord knows those women spend enough time looking out the window trying to catch a glimpse of you. If they have a business card in hand maybe they’ll be pushed into bringing their cars in for an oil change or tune-up.”
“I’d appreciate that. Lord knows business is slow.” That’s an exaggeration. Dead is more accurate. I ask, “Have you lived here your whole life?”
“Lord, no. If I’d have grown up here, I’d have run screaming in my teens.”
Don’t I know.
“This is the kind of place you come home to after the world has chewed you up and spit you out. I can appreciate this place now that I have older eyes…and an older heart. Does that make sense?”
I smile. “I think it does.”
“Oh there he is!” She smiles and waves at a man ten car lengths away.
“He?”
“Tom. My husband. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
Husband? Oh shit! I try to duck and run but Janice isn’t about to let go of my arm.
“Don’t worry. He’s a big ole teddy bear.”
“The size of a linebacker.”
When he is four car lengths away, I whisper, “Does he know about what happened in the garage the other day?”
She gives me a sideways glance that makes me even more nervous. Of course she didn’t tell him. Why would she tell him? I don’t know what to do in this situation. I’ve never had an affair with a married woman. Oh god!
“This isn’t 1949, Danni. Of course he knows. He encouraged it.”
My eyes widen. I think I might just puke now. “Don’t get any ideas. He isn’t watching next time around. I don’t do threesomes.” I cross my fingers behind my back. I don’t do that kind of threesome.
She bumps my hip with her hip. “Don’t you get any ideas either, mister. That was just a one-time thing. No strings. Now we will just have to settle for friendship.”
Two car lengths away. Want to run! Run, run, run! “Friendship.”
“Tom!” she says excitedly. “This is Danni!”
He stretches out his hand. “Danni. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Oh god. Kill me now. I can just imagine. I shake his hand and it’s huge. I feel like my hand is child-size inside his. He keeps holding mine, turning my palm over and looking at it.
“You’re really a mechanic?”
“Really am.” As if the nicks on my knuckles aren’t proof enough, there’s a slight remnant of dark grease under at least two nails that no amount of scrubbing was going to remove.
“Unbelievable, but I’ve heard you’re pretty good.”
Please let go of my hand now.
“I bet your hand fits about anywhere.”
Was that a sexual innuendo? Eyes wide, I am going to jerk my hand out of his if he does not let go.
“That’s why I don’t work on my own vehicles, not even oil changes. Damn hands too big.”
He finally releases his grip.
“I do oil changes.” God, I sound like a moron. Why did I just say that?
He smiles. I smile. Janice smiles. Aren’t we just one big, fucking happy mess?
Chapter Nine
Mending Fences
On my way to the Morrisons’ farm I discover a few of her Angus decided the orchard of ripening apples on the other side of the fence was worth braving both splinters and a solid electric jolt for. I managed to both wrangle them back to where they belonged and erected a temporary boundary to hold them until the entire fence line was repaired before making my way up her long driveway to meet with her.
When I knock, there is no answer, but then I remember Sunday and church and start looking for the list of instructions I am sure she’s left in plain view. Sure enough, I find it tucked just inside the back screen door, a list that takes up the front and back of the page. I think even if I spent the next year’s worth of Sundays on her handyman projects there might still be some left undone…
I thought she might have an urgently pending job waiting, but after reading her list I decided the most important task I could complete today was mending that fence properly and went right to work to do just that.
The next thing I knew I was staring up into laughing blue eyes and the face of an angel surrounded by a glowing golden halo. “Am I dead?”
“You should be, idiot.”
Not the voice of an angel. I sit up.
“Do you know how many volts of electricity are running through that wire?” Jessica demands.
“It didn’t stop the cows,” I say smartly.
“Sure stopped you in your tracks though, didn’t it?”
I manage to stand and brush clinging dry grass from the back of my pants. This is embarrassing as hell.
“So what are you doing here anyway?”
“Mrs. Morrison asked me to do some things around the place for her.”
“Hmmph.”
“Hmmph, what?”
Jessica shrugs. “Just wondering why she didn’t ask me. I’m here almost every day.”
“Maybe she thinks I look like I’m made of sturdier stock than you.” I flex a biceps. “You kind of seem like more of a fresh manicure kind of girl.”
“Hardy-har.” She snorts. “Like I have time for manicures.”
I shrug. “Just call it like I see it.”
“I was that girl once,” Jessica says sadly. “Then I got knocked down a peg or two.”
Kapow. Right in the gut. At least that’s what it feels like, a punch in the middle. Why does this girl always make me feel as though I’m in some way responsible for her bad reputation? Maybe it’s just all men…and she didn’t get the memo that I’m not a real man. “Are you always this pathetic, or just around me?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Shut up, stupid. “So how do you know Mrs. Morrison?”
“Jessica Morrison. She’s my grandmother.
“I did not know that.”
“If you’d have known would that have stopped you from being nice to her?”
“You did it again. Why do you keep saying things like that? Do you expect the worst from everyone, or just men? I’m guessing everyone.”
Jessica shrugs. “It’s a tough town. You get knocked down so many times, sometimes it’s just easier to stay down.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t believe that.”
She
drops her face, looking at her feet, but I lift her chin. “Friday you offered me friendship and I was an idiot to not accept. I admit, I was so blinded by your beauty my intentions were misplaced at the time, but if you’re willing?”
“You want to be my friend?” she asks suspiciously. “Why? Because like every other male jerk you want to get into my pants?”
“I was the male jerk last week.” I wink. “I’ve evolved.”
She laughs. “I can agree to a truce. We haven’t worked back up to friends yet.”
“If I wave a white flag of surrender, will you help me with this fence?”
Jessica studies a fingernail that has seen better days and I regret my manicure comment even more. “I don’t know. I might break a nail.”
I grab her finger and twist it a little, not enough for her to say “ouch” but enough that she makes a face. “Pick a different nail, sweetheart. That one’s already broken.”
“You’re wicked,” she says, jerking back her hand. “Why should I help you?”
“Because I’m charming?”
“Oh-h, is that what they’re calling obnoxious these days?”
I laugh and I’m glad when she smiles.
“How about if I turn off the current for starters?”
“Good idea,” I agree.
* * * * *
Time flies when you’re having fun and that’s the only phrase that comes to mind when I consider the hours working side by side with Jessica under a blazing July sun. “I think your nose is sunburned.”
“I know your shoulders are. Ever heard of SPF 100?”
“I guess I wasn’t planning on working outside all day.”
“I wasn’t planning on working outside at all but I put it on this morning, just like I do every morning.”
“You apply sunblock every morning?”
“Do you see this blonde hair and pale skin? Duh.”
I nod, not understanding at all. Then I lean in, not thinking, not planning, and kiss the bridge of her nose. I whisper an explanation. “Looks like it hurts.”
“And your kisses are going to make it all better?” she asks, suddenly slightly breathless.
“They might, never know. More investigation would have to go into that theory.”
Jessica steps back from me and I don’t believe for a minute it’s because she isn’t interested, not if her dilated irises and racing pulse are any indication. And I know her pulse is racing because the vein in her neck is beating as though there is a trapped moth beneath the surface of her skin.
“I should get up to the house.”
I catch her hand. “Why? Why now?”
“I think this is the line in the sand that defines our truce.”
“Why am I confused? Friday you were Miss Curious, wanting to know if the bulge in my pants was real or fake.”
“Friday I was stupid.”
I tug her hand, pulling her closer. I’m glad she doesn’t resist. “If stupidity can be called, that foul is all mine. I’m sorry.”
Jessica licks her lips, a sure tell of a girl desiring to be kissed if ever there was one and I don’t aim to disappoint. I lean in slowly, terrified of scaring her away. She ducks a little, blocking my attempt. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Why?” I whisper. “Don’t like girls?”
“Don’t like boys, Danni, and I haven’t figured out what you are yet.”
There it is. Kapow. Ouch. I exhale hard, releasing her hand and allowing her to walk away. Again.
Chapter Ten
Mom
It’s weird finding my mother home when I get in from work. Usually she returns from the hospital after I’ve gone to bed and leaves again before I get up. I’m not sure how she’s doing it, and have worried how much longer she’ll be able to keep up this pace. At first I’m terrified something has happened to Dad, and once assured he’s fine, I’m just glad she’s home early enough that we might eat dinner together. We’ve hardly had a single conversation since I’ve arrived.
I offer to order pizza delivery, she insists on making pasta and a salad. I set the table and am forced to remember so many past meals shared in this room. The illusion of bright cheerfulness created by the sunflower-patterned wallpaper was shattered by so many arguments. I resolve to keep the dinner conversation light.
“Dinner in twenty minutes,” she says, setting food on the table. “We’d still be waiting on pizza an hour from now.”
“You’re right, Mom.” See? Completely agreeable. I can do this.
“And it’ll taste much better than that fast-food crap.”
I sink my teeth into a mouthful of spaghetti coated in sauce she just whipped out of a few tomatoes, vegetables and garlic harvested from her backyard garden. Heaven, pure heaven. One thing for certain, Momma can cook. This I’ve missed. “Much, much better. I wish I could cook like this.”
“You had no interest in the kitchen growing up, that’s for certain.”
I tell myself she didn’t mean it as a jab even though it felt like one. It sounded like one too. I take a deep breath and keep eating. I tell myself the tightness in her tone has nothing to do with me and everything to do with worry for Dad.
“Last night I picked the red tomatoes from the garden and some of the squash, but there are about a million cukes out there that we’re going to have to figure what to do with before they get too big.”
“I seem to remember you make the best bread and butter pickles ever.”
“Well, I’ve no time for canning.”
“Maybe Mrs. Henry could do it for us. I could pick them after dinner—”
“It’s the Sabbath.”
I drop my chin and focus on my plate. I know from the vehemence in her voice that she’s been offended by more than pickles. And I was foolish enough to think she was home earlier than expected because she really just wanted to spend time with me.
“What were you thinking? I can only take so much humiliation.”
Holy crap. What has she heard? I haven’t been in town long enough to…
“You were out at Mrs. Morrison’s today?”
“She needed her fence fixed before all the cows escaped.”
“It had nothing to do with Jessica Morrison?”
“I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.”
“Rumors are flying like crazy. Did you spend the day with her or didn’t you?”
Just how do these rumors get started? Fuck. We were in the middle of Mrs. Morrison’s property. I didn’t even think we could be seen from the main road. Obviously, I was wrong about that. “She helped me load my tools into the truck after I spent all day mending and painting the fence.”
“And that’s all that happened?”
“My god, are you asking if I had sex with her on the side of the road for God and everyone to see on a Sunday morning? Sorry, she’s cute, but she isn’t my type.”
“You watch your tone and you stay away from that woman. God, the reputation that girl has, and you’re already high priority on the town gossip network. No one knows what to make of you as is.”
I laugh, I can’t help it. I feel as though I took a trip back to the nineteen fifties, but Mom doesn’t stop there. Has to sell her point…
“You don’t be looking for your type too hard around these parts. You got big city ideas about what’s right and wrong. We understand real decency around here based on biblical standards. You need to let off some steam, go to the big city to find someone to date. You certainly don’t need to be chasing the skirt of a woman that already has two fatherless brats.”
What? Jessica has kids? I have to try a little harder to focus on the subject at hand. “I’m not here looking for a date. I’m here to keep the garage open.”
“Is that the story you told Janice Gentry?”
Exasperated, I demand, “What does Janice have to do with anything?”
“So you admit you’re involved with her?”
“What? No!” I shake my head, wondering how my mot
her seems to know every detail of my life even though as far as I know she’s spent almost every minute of the day at the hospital.
“You might want to tell her that. Did you know she has a husband? Probably won’t for much longer though. I heard she’s been singing the praises of your skill to all of her closest friends.”
“Stop! This is not a conversation I’m having with my mother.”
She grabs my crotch and immediately jerks her hand back. Eyes wide, head shaking, she takes two steps back. “I wouldn’t have believed it. I can look the other way on a lot, how you dress, how short you keep your hair, but that thing is a perversion. Your city ways are not going to fly around here. Word about this spreads and—”
I shake my head. Standing in the kitchen of my youth, I feel twelve again. Nothing has changed. I’m still hoping to be accepted for who I am, not for who I am not. Hell, Mom hasn’t changed the yellow ruffled curtains hanging over the window above the sink in twenty years, why do I expect her to change her thinking? “What, Mom? What’s the worst that can happen?”
“The sign happened. Were you even going to tell me it was vandalized?”
“The sign wasn’t vandalized. I painted it to spell Danny’s with an ‘I’ instead of a ‘Y’.”
“Why would you do that?”
Why did I do that? To force this conversation between us? Now isn’t the time but there may never be a time.
“Tomorrow morning I want you to clean that mess up. What would your father say? He’ll never live down the embarrassment once he returns to the shop.”
“He isn’t coming back to the garage, Mom,” I say as gently as I can. “Please stop pretending he is. I’ll keep the garage open but it won’t be under the pretense that he’s going to get well and go back to work like nothing happened.”
Slap. I grab my cheek, not believing my mother just hit me.
My mother crosses the room and puts her back to me, facing the sink. I’m not surprised when she starts running water to do dishes. “Go home, Denise. Go back to New York City. It was a mistake having you come here.”