I get to work the next two days by using my parents’ extra car. I can’t really complain, even though it’s a minivan and I get strange looks from moms everywhere I go.
I’m at work when Michael finally calls. I can’t answer with my hands full of peonies and roses, but as soon as I clock out for my break, I listen to his voicemail. It confirms exactly what I want to hear: MY CAR IS READY! I imagine colorful confetti raining down around me.
Excited to be back in Familiar Car Territory, I immediately call Tom. “I need a favor,” I demand when he answers.
He clicks his tongue. “Let me think about it. Hmmm. No.”
“Tom! I need you!”
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I hear giggling in the background. “Are you with Andrea?”
“Yes, obviously. Where else would I be?”
Ugh. “Tom, really. Will you be home tonight to take me to Mike’s? My car’s ready.”
“I’ll be home at nine. If they’re still open, I can take you then, okay?”
I thank him quickly and hang up. After a few more phone calls, I get a hold of Michael to ask if I can pick up late tonight. (These back-and-forth phone calls are starting to get on my nerves.) “Yeah, sure, you can stop by late,” he says. “Levi will be there working overtime. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”
I have no idea who Levi is, but I thank Michael anyway, “Are you sure I don’t owe you anything?”
“Positive. You’re Tom’s little sister. I feel I owe it to you for all those times I stole your bras and put them in the freezer. Just don’t break your car again and we can call it square.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “I didn’t break my—”
“Hey, Bee, gotta go. Levi’s calling.”
I hang up, ignoring the little voice in the back of my head that’s wondering who Levi is, and why I haven’t met him. I clock back in and reach behind my back to retie my colorful apron.
Around me, the shop is a bright world of petals and loose leaves on the ground and gifts and buckets and glass. From my vantage point, I can see the gift shop ahead, the cooler to my left, and the designer’s workstation just behind me. Tracy is there, working away, her silver hair cut in a short bob and her reading glasses slipping down her nose.
I push up my own frames and reach for the nearest bucket of lilies to clean off the stamen. It’s one of the things I find myself doing automatically in the shop, checking for orange pockets of powder in every bud even if I’ve already gone over the flowers. There’s something therapeutic about the repetitive motions: squeeze, swipe, squeeze, swipe. After I toss the stamen in the trash, my palms are stained with orange, like splotches of sunshine.
Since the checklist for the day is completed, and it’s nearly two o’clock, I stand beside Tracy for a few minutes and watch her work. The flowers she’s using are bright, not a combination I’d particularly choose, but the arrangement comes together beautifully. The hot pink gerbera daisies and purple dahlias contrast with yellow carnations and white hydrangea to create something I would never have expected. Okay, I wouldn’t put it in my house, exactly. But somebody ordered this, and it smells amazing, and I just know they’re going to be pleased. (Tracy’s customers are always pleased.) I look at the clock. There are ten minutes till two, so I busy myself by cleaning up the mess Tracy just made, my feet constantly tapping or moving, my fingers always holding or snipping. I don’t even mind when I trip over a loose bucket on my way out the back door, or that the minivan is stiflingly hot, or that it takes an hour and a half to get home instead of thirty minutes. I’m just so excited to pick up my car, to see new tires and feel new brakes.
And to never have to drive this minivan again.
The repair shop is dark when Tom and I pull up in his car. Everything is closed down except for one of the garage doors, where a single car is raised. Two legs stick out from underneath.
My brother parks in front and nods. “There’s Levi.”
I peer into the dim light of the parking lot, trying to better see the man under the car. “I’m rather put off that everyone knows him and forgot to introduce us,” I say.
Tom snorts. “He’s been at the shop for three months and you haven’t met him?”
I’m about to retort, but then Levi is climbing out from under the car, standing, wiping his hands on his orange sweater— The Boy.
I nearly shriek. “Tom, I can’t go in there.”
“What?” He looks rather alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“I was staring at him, oh dear God, I was staring right at him three days ago, and he smirked at me, and I feel so awkward.”
Tom looks at me, completely blank-faced for exactly three and a half seconds before he bursts out laughing. His buzzed head tips back with perfect glee. If it were possible to roll around in a car, Tom would be doing it right now.
“What?” I hiss.
“You think he’s cute,” he says between gasps.
It’s not a question, not one bit. My brother knows me too well, and I swear I will punch him so hard if— “Come on, Bee. He probably sees so many people come through here every day that he won’t even remember.”
“I’m not stupid. He knows Michael is my friend, he saw me talking with all the guys, and Michael told him I was coming tonight. He knows. He knows!” I’m hissing again, which means I’m about to overload on excitement. (Not the good kind.) Tom gets out of the car and comes around to my side. He grabs my arm and helps—no, yanks—me to my feet. “Stop being such a wuss. He’s just a boy. Since when do you give a crap about what boys think of you?”
He’s right. I’m being irrational. I’m fine. I’m fine.
I’M FINE.
I straighten my coral cardigan and brush my hands down my dark wash jeans and take a deep, deep breath of serenity.
Levi greets us as we approach, his sweater and dirty jeans clinging to his form, hair mussed and twisted every which way. He shakes my brother’s hand like he knows him, like they’ve been friends forever. I’m tempted to shrink back behind Tom and just die, but then Levi is looking at me and holding out his hand, and his eyes tell me I was right: he knows. I probably look like a lost chicken, plucked clean of feathers, being placed on the chopping block.
I shake his hand anyway.
“I’m Levi,” he says.
“…Bee.” I manage to get the word out, chiding myself instantly for my ridiculous lack of control. But gosh-darn-it, he is beautiful. Even more so up close. (And I really want to touch his hair.) “Your car is good and ready,” he says, smiling. (Oh, yes, he has a brilliant smile.) “We took care of her. Michael said, in these exact words, ‘Bee’s very in love with her car.’”