“Called a few times. Haven’t heard back from her.”
“She still in town, though? Or has she gone home, after all this?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How about you? Headed home soon?”
“Headed where?” Frank answered, and Ezra nodded, and they drove on in silence.
Nora didn’t get back to the shop for five days. The cops had taken Vaughn’s Lexus, and now she had no cars left but the Mazda that Jerry had refused to repaint. Nobody to fix any cars that came in, either. She tried to finish the Mazda herself, spent three days on the paint job, creating runs and streaks and then sanding them back down and starting over and making it worse. By the third day the car was an absolute disaster, and she finally called another shop across town and towed it over to them. The owner, a man who’d known her father well, painted it in one day and then had it towed back to her shop, with her check for the work sitting on the driver’s seat.
She called the car’s owner to tell him it was ready, and he came over immediately, more anxious for conversation than for the car. He’d read about her in the papers, he said. Hell of a story.
He left with the car, and then it was just her and an empty shop. No business, no employees. More bills on the way.
Frank Temple had called a few times, left messages. Why did he want to see her so bad before he took off again? Did he think there was some sort of closure for this, some nice, neat wrap-up to such awful events? She didn’t call back. It was surprising that he was even still in town.
Her mother called daily, first to politely urge her to return home, then to demand it. Nora said she was considering her options, and then she called the local newspaper and put out an ad for a new body man and painter.
The ad ran for a week, and she interviewed two guys. Told them she’d be in touch, but the truth was they couldn’t handle the job, and she couldn’t pay them even if they could. That Friday, she answered her father’s constant question honestly for the first time, told him, no, we don’t have any cars. Then his face fell, and she responded with a lie, promised some were on the way in, that things would be too busy by the first of the week.
The shop was lost, and she supposed she should have felt relief at that. It ended the uncertainty, at least. She could go home now. So why did she feel so damn sad? Her father was part of it, of course—the idea of leaving him in this town without any family still haunted her—but today she was more aware than ever of what had always helped her linger: She didn’t know what came next. It was that simple, that sad. While her peers were caught up with their families or careers, she still waited for the road sign that told her which way to turn. Tomahawk, and Stafford’s Collision and Custom, had provided a welcome delay. Now the delay was past and the uncertainty remained and, worst of all, she’d failed at the one goal she’d set. The family shop was closing, and not on Stafford terms.
The next Monday found her alone in the empty shop. The phone rang several times, but it was always a long distance number. Reporters, not customers. It was nearly noon and she was getting ready to leave for lunch when Frank Temple came through the door.
“Hey,” he said, letting it close softly behind him. He looked good, all the bruises and nicks gone. The black-and-blue streaks on her arms were gone, too, but she continued to wear long sleeves every day.
“Hi,” she said. “I know, I owe you a call. It’s been hectic, though. I figured you might have left town already.”
“No.” He looked around, taking in the quiet place, her sitting alone in the little office. She felt pathetic, didn’t want him to see it.
“How are things?” he said, and she meant to tell him they were fine, she really did, but somehow the truth came out instead. She wasn’t weepy about it, wasn’t sentimental, just told it like it was. She was going to have to close the shop, and that was that. Head back to Madison, or maybe, much as she hated to think of it, to her stepfather’s house in Minneapolis.
“I saw your ad,” he said. “If you hired somebody new, couldn’t you get it going again?”
“The truth is, I couldn’t afford to pay anyone until we’d made some money, and that takes time. Most body men don’t want to work on spec. And really, I need two people, because most aren’t going to be able to do what Jerry did.”
He nodded. “How much would you need to make it till then?”
What was this about? She didn’t like the question.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but it’s going to be more than a bank will want to loan a company that’s already overextended and has no employees and no customers.”
He nodded again, just taking all of this in as if it were minor stuff.
“I was thinking I’d like to invest in something,” he said. “I’ve got some money left, and rather than burn through it and then go looking for income, I thought it would be a good idea to put it into something promising. An up-and-coming business, something like that. Or maybe one with some history. Some tradition. You know, a proven entity.”
She was shaking her head before he was done.
“I don’t take handouts. It’s generous, a very sweet offer, but no.”
“I don’t give handouts,” he said. “Maybe you missed the investment part of what I said? I’m thinking of something different entirely. More like being a partner.”
She kept right on shaking her head.
“I don’t want a partner. If I can’t do it alone, then I’ll just get out.”
“You know,” Frank said, “being strong doesn’t necessarily mean being alone.”
She looked at him for a long time, then pulled her chair closer to the desk.
“Dad told me the only partner worth having was one who’d get his hands dirty, share the job side by side.”
“Then I’ll share the job.”
“You don’t know anything about fixing cars.”
“No,” he said, “but we can find some people who do. And I’m pretty sure I could drive a plow in the winter.”
“In the winter.” She said it carefully, a verification.
“Made more sense to me that way,” Frank said. “But if you want me to drive the damn plow in the summer, Nora, I’ll do it.”
He stopped talking and looked her in the eye, and she saw something surprising there, a deep and powerful quality of need.
“You could think about it,” he said. “You could do that much, couldn’t you? I don’t want to go. I’d like to stay here. It’s the best chance I’ve got.”
They sealed the deal on a handshake. It was a start.