“Technically, I didn’t suggest she take off her clothes. I suggested she keep them on.”
Hank rubbed his chin. “You shouldn’t have made any reference to her clothes at all, especially since you’ll be working with her for the foreseeable future. That’s just unprofessional.”
“Unprofessional?” I couldn’t believe the words out of my friend’s mouth, especially considering his practice of sending strippers to welcome me home was what caused this mess in the first place.
“Don’t look at me like that. I work in a strip club; you work in an auto shop. Of course I have to talk to my employees about their costumes and such.” Hank gave me a keen look as he brought the beer to his mouth and said before taking a sip, “The only stripping you should be discussing with this woman is salvaging for car parts.”
3
“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
* * *
*Beau*
“Hey. It’s me. Beau.” I glanced at the back lot of the auto shop, rubbing my neck, not sure what to say and finally settling on, “When you get this, give me a call back . . . bye.”
Lowering the phone from my ear, I examined the screen. I hadn’t heard from Darlene except for the single text yesterday when she told me she wouldn’t make it to her parents’ house for the weekend.
I was not a fan of uncertainty. I didn’t much like surprises—the good kind or the bad kind—and now I was discovering that an exclusive relationship—or potentially exclusive relationship—between two people apparently came with a truckload of uncertainty.
A strange and persistent pinch in my lungs had me taking a deep breath as I tucked my phone in my back pocket. Not paying particular attention to my surroundings, I strolled into the garage and back to Mrs. McClure’s Honda Accord. She’d dutifully brought it in for the 240,000 mile service, and I was in the middle of changing her timing belt.
Next up was the air conditioner for Naomi Winters’s Corolla, then Mae Evans’s bent flywheel, Joseph Fletcher’s radiator, and so on.
And then finally, hopefully, when all the real work was done, I’d be able to work on the shop’s new 1958 Plymouth Fury, the one I’d spotted in the parking lot earlier in the week but didn’t recognize. Someone in Knoxville had come by out of the blue while I was in Nashville and sold it to Duane, needing the cash.
It was a matching numbers car, a real beauty of a ride, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her. A matching numbers car is the term we classic automobile aficionados use to describe cars with original major components, or major components that match one another. Matching number cars are extremely rare, especially sixty-year-old Plymouths with less than sixty thousand miles on them.
I had some ideas on how to fix the problem without introducing any new parts.
Distracted, I didn’t immediately catch the sound of voices until one of the speakers shouted, and it sounded angry. Sitting up, I leaned around the propped hood of the Honda and scanned the front of the garage. I spotted Shelly first, standing ramrod straight with her arms crossed, her chin tilted defiantly, and then Drill—a senior full member of the Iron Wraiths motorcycle club—in front of her, hollering so hard his face was red.
“. . . do you think you are, you crazy bitch? Do you know who you’re talking to?”
Now, I’d had similar thoughts about Miss Shelly Sullivan on Monday upon first making her acquaintance. But I was admittedly hungry and tired at the time. Shame on me. She was my employee and my coworker; more than that, she was a human being.
Besides, calling someone a name in your head in the heat of a hangry moment is a lot different from screaming it at their place of work.
I jogged to them and heard Shelly say, “I don’t need to know who you are to comprehend you're a waste of blood and organs. If you were any more inbred, you’d be pastrami.”
“What? Pastrami?”
“You know, ‘in bread’ like pastrami. In a sandwich.” She said this slowly, like he was dumb as dirt.
I winced at that, especially at her delivery. I was also amused by the insult. The woman was as clever as she was cold. Yet, being cold didn’t mean she deserved to be harassed by Drill.
“Now, wait a minute,” I called, stepping between them and trying to force them apart. Drill took three steps backward, the vein on his forehead throbbing. Shelly, however, didn’t move an inch. I felt her body directly behind mine, stubbornly holding her ground.
Drill was a real big fella, bald and beefy, not someone I particularly wanted to fight. But I knew him to be reasonable, for the most part. I had hope I’d be able to diffuse the situation.
“Hey there, Drill.” I reached out my hand, moving my entire body in front of Shelly to block his view.
The big man blinked at me, like it took him a moment to see past his own anger and bring me into focus. At last, he accepted my handshake.
“Beau,” he said tightly.
Releasing his hand, I placed both of mine on my hips. “What can I do for you?”
His stare darted past, his features turning dark. “First I’d like to know why y’all hired this fucking harp—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I lifted my hands between us and shook my head. I could still sense Shelly behind me because she’d just taken a deep breath and released it. I felt the air on my neck and the brush of her chest against my back. “Now, wait a minute. I don’t know what the lady—”
“Lady?” Drill snorted, speaking through clenched teeth. “That ain’t no lady.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s just stop right there.” I gave Drill my most practiced smile, the one I used on Cletus when he got into a tizzy, and turned to Shelly. She still hadn’t moved. I was forced to take a step back in order to avoid stepping on her toes. “Uh, Miss Sullivan? Could you give us a minute?”
The sight of the woman’s glare—which, as usual, gave my brain a quick hiccup—communicated volumes. I half-expected Drill to burst into flames behind me.
Slowly, slowly she shifted her eyes to mine and, thank the Lord, a good measure of her fury dissipated. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have said her gaze softened. She blinked at me, swallowed, and nodded her head once.
Without a word or sparing another glance for Drill, she turned and unhurriedly strolled into the garage.
I waited until she was about twenty feet away before turning back to Drill. “All right, you want to tell me what happened?”
“That fucking—”
I narrowed my eyes on the big man, holding up a hand and quickly shook my head. “See now, that lady works here. She is in my employ, and I can’t have you speaking that way about her, or Duane, or Cletus for that matter.” I paused for effect, shrugging, “Okay, maybe Cletus.”
The joke worked and Drill released a short laugh, rubbing his face with a meaty palm. “Hell, Beau. Where’d you find her?”