I should just quit, lie to Bud about it, and pretend to go to class. I could keep up the ruse until December and if Bud kept feeding me real work, I’d be qualified for a better job. Mom might not like it, but hell, I wasn’t around them anymore. And my asshole father never approved of anything I did anyway. Screw that. After that scene with Corabelle, maybe I was turning out to be just like him.
The socket wrench fit neatly on the bolt. I remembered watching other boys with their dads, fixing bikes or playing ball with easy camaraderie. Mine had always been intense, angry, disapproving.
Once when we worked on my mother’s overheating Oldsmobile, I thought I was being so smart by using a towel to open the hot radiator. But when it spewed boiling water and antifreeze, Dad backhanded me so hard that I fell over my sister’s bike, breaking the wheel.
My life seemed like a series of missteps that pissed off my father. Now that I’d been around the block a few times, I knew some kids had it worse. They got in the line of fire just for existing.
When I was little, I felt like I deserved it, punishment for doing something stupid or wrong. Only later did I start to push back. If I went home now, we’d probably kill each other within five minutes.
The bracket came off easily, and I set it aside. Now to remove the long bolt to the mount.
Even when we got old enough to walk around the neighborhood without our parents, I never let Corabelle come over to my house, preferring the quiet simplicity of her family — mother, father, one little girl. But in that middle space when I was small enough to push around, but big enough to take a harder lick, the asshole sometimes really unleashed, like the day I got knocked across the driveway.
Corabelle had seen those bruises and looked up at me with wide sympathetic eyes. She started showing up and hanging out when my dad insisted I help him, reading or poking at the straggly flowers my mother tried to plant by the front steps. Her presence kept my dad in check, just one of the many ways that she saved me.
The mount was out, and I had to do the tricky part, get the new one to align.
Dad caught on pretty quick to when Corabelle and I shifted from little-kid friends to a boy and girl who were messing around. Early on, when I was thirteen, he grabbed me by the collar and flung me into the wall, telling me I better not go around knocking up any girls, or he’d throw my ass out.
By the time I was in high school, and Corabelle and I were crazy tight, I hardly stayed home at all. Her parents saw the handwriting on the wall and got her on that birth-control shot. Once that barrier was crossed we were insane, at each other every minute, and I couldn’t get enough of her. Now, sweating over the engine, I could picture every inch of her body.
Finding out about the baby was a huge blow. Because of the shot, we didn’t know what was going on for several weeks. She thought she had the flu, then that she was tired from staying up too late. I bought the test and stood over her while she peed on the stick. The sight of her astonished face as the two lines appeared is one of those moments seared into my memory.
We never bothered telling my parents about the baby, letting the town gossip handle it. I moved in with her and vowed never to let my father cast an eye on my son.
The new bracket wouldn’t align, so I shifted the jack up a notch, trying to find the sweet spot. I could call Mario over, get him to eyeball it while I worked the lever, but only if it took too long. I’d done it by myself before.
Clearly the work wasn’t occupying my mind well enough. I tried to shake off the past, how I worried about what sort of dad I could possibly be, having the worst possible example. When the baby was sick, and then when they told us he wouldn’t make it, I figured the score. The universe knew I wouldn’t do any better. The bad-father gene would end with me. After the funeral, I went to Mexico to make sure of it, even though I knew it meant I had to give up Corabelle.
Bud came out of the office. “How’s it coming?”
I walked around the side to check the screw mounts. They were aligned. “Just putting the last bolts in.”
“Good, ’cause the owner’s here to pick it up already, and I don’t think I can endure that woman one more minute.”
I chuckled. “Bud menaced by a woman. Never thought I’d see it.”
He looked under the hood as I locked in the bolts. “I don’t see anything damaged. She got lucky.”
The sockets were solid, so I backed away from the engine. “She should be good to go.”
“Start her up. Let’s take a listen.”
I hopped in the seat again and fired up the motor. The clunk was gone. Bud dropped the hood and came around. “She’s good. Pull it around.”
By the time I came back into the office, Bud was leading an old lady to the door. “And here’s the man who got her ready for you, Mrs. Peters.”
I handed her the keys. “Ma’am, you must live near some rough roads.”
“Oh, posh,” she said. “I live in La Jolla. I just hate speed bumps.”
Bud coughed to hide his laugh and I kept a poker face. “Well, I guess we’ll be seeing you again in about twenty thousand miles,” I said.
“Works for me!” She winked, the blue eye shadow over her eyes as bright as a peacock’s feather. “Maybe I’ll mess up something else just to come back and get another gander at you!”
Bud passed her a clipboard. “Sign here, Mrs. Peters.”
I turned to head back to the bays, but the woman grabbed me by the arm. “It wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of you if you didn’t see me to my car and make sure it is in good working order, now would it?”
Bud waved me on. “Start it up for her, Gavin.”
Mrs. Peters continued to hang on my elbow as I opened the door and led her out to the Camaro, all red and sparkling in the late afternoon sun. “What a grand day!” she said. “I don’t guess I can sneak you away for a drive!”
I pictured her wrecked and broken motor mount and imagined jumping creek beds with Mrs. Peters behind the wheel, her white hair flying. “I’m afraid I am much needed here.”
“Well, poo.” She waited by the car as I opened the door, then she slid inside. “Let’s see what she’s got.”
I handed her the keys and winced as she cranked the motor, stomping the gas so the engine revved loud enough to make people across the street turn to look. I leaned in the open door. “You might want to take it easy.”
“This car is going be around longer than I am!” she shouted over the roar. “Life is short. Go after what you love and ride it as hard as you can!”
I barely managed to close the door and jump out of the way before she shot backward across the parking lot, then slammed it into drive and careened past me again, heading for the exit.
That woman was going to kill someone. Still, I had to laugh as I headed back inside. Bud was stuffing her papers in a file folder. “She’ll be back. Drivers like her mean good money for us.” He turned around. “Let me guess, she gave you some sort of advice about life being short, and she was about to die?”
“Yeah.” Of course, that got me thinking about Corabelle. Hell, everything did.
“She’s been saying that for a decade. She’s going to outlive us all.” He glanced at the clock. “You can go ahead and head out. I’m sure whatever kept you all morning is still nagging at you now.”
I suppressed a smart-ass reply. “All right, Bud. See you tomorrow.” I wondered where Corabelle might be, at work still, or on campus. Maybe I could get that pink-haired girl to tell me where she lived.