The girl laughed, rich and warm. “I’ll tell you one: It’s quiet here,” she said. She wiped at the thin film of sweat that had gathered on her forehead, using the moisture to comb back a couple of loose strands of hair. He could hear his dad around the back, testing the engine on the semi that had come in a few hours earlier. Hudson returned his attention to the car, tomorrow’s interview being pushed to the back of his mind.
“It reminds me of where I grew up,” the girl said. Hudson heard her chair scrape on the floor as she scooted it back and walked in his direction. He expected her to stand next to him, but she settled in somewhere behind him, out of sight. “At the elementary school that I went to, there was this soccer field. It seems like nothing but an unkempt field of grass if you drive by it.” Hudson had to stop himself from turning around to watch her lips move as she spoke. “But every kid in Fredericksburg knows about the anthills. There’s two of them, one at each end of the field. One’s full of black ants and the other red. Every summer the soccer field gets overrun by this ant-on-ant war. I’m not sure if they’re territorial or they just happen to feed off each other, but it’s an incredible sight. All these little black and red things attacking each other, like watching thousands of checkers games being played from very far away. And it’s this little Fredericksburg treasure, just for us.”
Hudson caught himself smiling at the engine instead of replacing the spark plugs. “That’s great,” he said, the words feeling too flat. The girl hadn’t just let him ramble on; she’d known exactly what he meant. No one, not even Hudson’s dad, had ever understood him so perfectly.
There was a pause that Hudson didn’t know how to fill. He thought about asking her why the car was registered to an address in Louisiana instead of Texas, but it didn’t seem like the right time. He was thankful when the engine of the semi his dad had been working on started, and the truck began to maneuver its way out of the garage in a cacophonous series of back-up beeping and gear shifts.
When the truck had rumbled away down the street, Hudson turned around to look at the girl, but, feeling self-conscious under her gaze, he pretended to search for something on the shelves beside her. “When I’m done with your car, want to go on a treasure hunt?”
Hudson wasn’t sure where the question had come from, but he was glad he hadn’t paused to think about it, hadn’t given himself time to shy away from saying it out loud.
The question seemed to catch the girl off guard. “You want to show me around?” She glanced down at her feet, bare except for the red outline of her flip-flops.
“If you’re not busy, I mean.”
She seemed wary, which felt like an entirely reasonable thing for her to be. Hudson couldn’t believe he’d asked a stranger to go on a treasure hunt with him.
“Okay, sure,” she managed to say right before Hudson heard his dad enter the garage and call his name.
“Excuse me just one second,” he said to the girl, raising an apologetic hand as he sidestepped her. He resisted the urge to put a hand on her as he slid by so close, just a light touch on her lower back, on her shoulder, and joined his dad at the garage door.
“Hey, Pop,” Hudson said, putting his hands on his hips, mimicking his dad’s stance.
“Good day at school?”
“Yup. Nothing special. I did another mock interview with the counselor during lunch. Did pretty well, I think. That’s about it.”
His dad nodded a few times, then motioned toward the car. “What are you working on here?”
“General tune-up,” Hudson replied. “Filters, fluids, spark plugs. A new V-belt.”
“I can finish up for you. You should get some rest for tomorrow.”