Breakdown (Crash into Me) (13 page)

Do-gooder
:
Are you still with me, Jumper?

Me:
In class. Go away.

Do-gooder
:
Not at work? Damn. I was hoping for something sweet to eat—a food product, that it.

Do-gooder
:
Get your mind out of the gutter, Jumper.

I laughed so loud the girl who had nudged me awake looked up from her notes to give me a dirty look. Luckily, no one else seemed to notice. When did I find dirty jokes so funny? And when did it become socially acceptable to type entire sentences into text messages? I considered both of these points for the remaining painful fifteen minutes of class. Once again I was the first one out the door after I managed to scribble down the assignment from the board.

Me:
I only work in the mornings and afternoons. Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

Do-gooder:
You only work on the weekends while you go to school?

Do-gooder:
Ha. Lazy.

Me:
Now you sound like my mom.

Do-gooder:
If I want to see you and get diabetes I have to wait till tomorrow?

Okay, so I’ll admit it, my heart fluttered just a little at the idea that he was not only willing to see me, but that he
wanted
to see me.

Me:
Yep.

Do-gooder:
Way to own it, Jumper. Stay in school. ;)

With the foolishness of a little girl, I stared at the winking face he sent me all day long, entirely aware of how pathetic I was being, but not caring enough to stop.

Chapter Seven

After getting into work the next day, I was only slightly creeped out by the sight of the display cake I had picked out for my wake and not at all by the fact that I had said good-bye to the place a week ago. Plus, with a possible visit from William to look forward to, I focused on everything else I had to do, nodding my hellos to the manager before looking over the list of orders for the day. In my head I had already decided that the faster I worked, the faster the day would go, prompting me to work that much harder.

The illegals had already been there for a good hour or two, taking care of the food prep and at least one of the delivery trucks before they start up on the dough prep. My lack of upper body strength and knowledge of the machinery had me sticking mostly to fruit and nut chopping, glazes, and pie crusts, which was fine by me. I didn’t need to get yelled at in Spanish to know that I slowed them down.

Despite William’s compliments, I was far from the world’s greatest baker. Truth be told, I wasn’t even particularly good at baking more obscure things like bread and croissants. My knack for baking was always with the sweeter things. I had an unusual aptitude for decorating wedding cakes and monster cookies, cupcakes and tarts. A talent that even Mom couldn’t deny.

Like most weekdays, we weren’t that busy, and in those first hours I only sold a few loaves of bread, and a couple dozen danishes and scones to busy businessmen who had obviously pulled the short straw at their office. When they ran out, I refilled the coffee pot, cleaning up the spilled creamers and sugar whenever I got a chance.

Unlike what I anticipated, I hardly thought of William at all. Alternatively, I smiled at customers as I recommended the raspberry tart over the strawberry, iced almost all the mini cupcakes pink—inspired by Tabby’s hair—and I drank dark roast coffee to fuel my daydreams of squealing tires and revving engines. Maybe, I reasoned, this was just the eye of my madness, or, worse yet, the calm before the storm. Either way, I knew better than to let it go to waste.

At 11 o’clock, our morning routine came to a head when the other counter girl took over the register and the guys who had been working the kitchen went home for the day. Once they were gone I took their place, and though there were only a couple of specialty orders—and most of them had already been filled—I was still glad to have something to do, anything really to keep myself from thinking about the possibility that William wouldn’t show up at all.

I started decorating elaborate patterns on the mini cheesecakes, and from there intricately selected the blueberries and where they went into the muffin mix. When I ran out of those, I scrubbed some of pans until the water in sink evolved from hot to lukewarm to downright chilly. I had just started picking out dried icing from bags and their tips with a knife when my fellow counter girl sauntered her way into the kitchen.

“Hey, Lottie? There’s a guy here to see you.”

When I dropped the icing bag the water from the sink splashed up onto my shirt, sending suds and a chill all through my torso. I took a quick glance down at myself. As per my usual mid-day work appearance, my arms were battered with flour and squished fruit. The t-shirt and apron I wore with the bakery’s logo were stained with coffee despite multiple washings, and I didn’t need to look in a mirror to know my loose pony-tail was probably greasy from cleaning supplies and sweat.

Even if I wanted run to my bag and attempt to fix my ponytail, I couldn’t do anything about what I was wearing, not to mention the skunky smell of flour and body odor. I sighed and gritted my teeth. This would have to be the ultimate do-gooder test.

Though she wasn’t particularly pretty, I wasn’t surprised to see William leaning against one of the display counters and chatting with my female colleague. In fact, I was beginning to think he didn’t know how to be around members of the opposite sex without turning on the charm.

“Hey you, get out if you’re not buying.” I pretended to brush imaginary dust from a tower of wedding cake toppers instead of noticing the way he grinned when he saw me, how his eyes lit up at the sound of my voice.

“Jumper! I was beginning to think you had fallen into a mixer or something back there.” Fixing his hands into his pockets, William walked over to me without giving my co-worker another thought. For an instant, I almost felt bad at the way her face fell—almost.

“I’ll have you know that some of us work for a living.” I cross and uncrossed my arms, trying quickly to think to something clever to say and wanting to kick myself when I couldn’t. “Instead of, you know, just playing around with their cars.”

I was sure he laughed just to be nice. “I’ll have you know, Jumper, that I work just as hard as I play.”

I rolled my eyes, “Uh-huh.”

He waved from his neck to his oil-stained boots. “You think I dress like this because it’s fashionable?”

The truth was that I had been too busy looking at his face to notice what he was wearing. Now that he mentioned it, the pale blue overalls with stains worse than mine were hard to miss. I stared intensely at the name patch embroidered with “Billy”, wondering if the quotation marks around his nickname were intended to be sarcastic or not. 

“A mechanic.” I nodded. “Of course.”

William looked me up and down like he was thinking of something terribly difficult. “And if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were a baker.”

I rolled my eyes. His stare made me feel defensive again, and I took cover behind the display case and pretended to fiddle with a tray of cookies, picking up red and yellow sprinkles that Elmo and Big Bird had lost.

“Even your name tag is smart-ass,” I mumbled. “How are
you
in the service industry?”

“Meh.” He shrugged. “I’m like you, I work in the back.”

I shook my head and turned so he wouldn’t see me smile. The simple comparison that William made between the two of us made me ridiculously happy, flattered me in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. It took me a solid minute to realize that it was because, in my mind, I considered the similarity a compliment. And that was because I liked William very much.

Maybe I could learn to like myself too.

“Do you get a lunch break, Jumper, or what?”

I rested my palms against the cool of the counter and sighed. “Or what.”

“And I’m the smart-ass?” He chuckled.

He almost had me smiling again before I could stop myself. Frankly, if my fellow counter girl hadn’t been eyeing us so closely, making me feel so self-conscious, I just might have. “What do I need a lunch break for? I have coffee, food—”

“
Can
you take a break then?” If possible, he smiled a little wider. “I noticed your Subaru leaks a little oil. I could take a look at it if you want me to.”

Leaning hard against the counter, I glanced out the storefront window into the early afternoon sunshine. I only had another hour or so before my shift was over, and if I really wanted to, I could easily have given William my keys, permission, and said thank you. After all, it wasn’t as though my car was worth anything, and if I was going to trust him with anything it would have been my car. But more than I was ready to admit out loud, I was eager to spend time with him, even if it was only in the very mediocre acquaintanceship sense.

“Okay,” I said.

He nodded happily, slapping his hands together so the sound echoed. “Nice! But first ring me up one of them fruit things. A man can’t work on an empty stomach.”

I grabbed him the biggest danish on the tray. “Drama queen.”

“Damn straight.” He reached into his pocket, but I beat him to it.

“Consider it a down payment for services rendered,” I said, taking off my apron. “Now come on, let’s see if you work as well as you play.”

While I sat on the curb I watched, watched how his long and muscular legs stuck out from my ugly car, a strange contrast if there ever was any. William hummed happily to himself though, and the sound echoed from all the metal pieces. Vaguely, I thought he kind of looked like a turtle with his head in his shell—just an extremely handsome turtle whose head I couldn’t see.

I thought I probably could have watched him all day and all night if the sun stayed with me, but the bakery closed at two, and before I left I had to do some dough prep for the next day and close out the kitchen, not to mention the fact that I hadn’t exactly told my manager I was taking a break.

“So, will she make it, doctor?”

“Yeah.” He slid out from under my car like the pavement wasn’t even there. Vaguely, I imagined his bare back, hard with muscles and the faintest of scars from boyhood adventures.

I had to pinch myself to make the image go away.

“It needs a new oil filter and the gasket is a little loose, but I already tightened that up pretty good.” William flipped the large wrench in his hand, catching it expertly enough to suggest he had done it a thousand times before. I flinched anyway and he laughed. “I can order you a new filter. It’ll probably be here in a day or two.” He shrugged, still laughing. “Shouldn’t be too expensive.”

I had to admit that was something of a relief. I had been putting off the funny noise coming from my car for weeks, not worrying about it since I figured it would soon not be my problem. Now that I would continue to be stuck with my car, however, it was nice to know I wouldn’t have to spend a small fortune on it.

“Wait.” I rewound William’s words in my mind like a tape in a VCR. What was it about what he had just said that sounded so strange? When it hit me, I frowned. “Why is your car a
she
and mine is isn’t?”

“Well…” He took a torn rag from his back pocket and used it to wipe the dirty wrench. “I’d explain it to you in detail, Jumper, but I don’t want to insult your taste.”

When I saw how hard he was trying not to laugh, I reached my leg out to kick him, but he dodged the second before my foot made impact with his ankle. We laughed together.

Setting the rag and wrench down, William sat on the curb beside me, almost close enough so that our knees would touch if I moved the right way. I inhaled deeply and tried to play it off like the end of my laughter.

“To be honest, Jumper, I’m surprised you don’t have new BMW or something with that big house of yours.”

I shrugged.

“My mom wanted to get me a car when I graduated from high school… ”

“You kidding me? Why wouldn’t you
jump
all over that?”

“Ha ha.” I rolled my eyes. “You wouldn’t either if you knew my mom. It would have been the brand she wanted and the color she wanted. Besides, I wanted to buy my first car. If I didn’t, she would have held it over my head as long as I lived.”

William nodded. “I felt the same way about my first girl. Buying that first one is a serious thing, a real matter of pride.”

“Can I assume you’re talking about a car?”

Feigning offense, he pulled away like he was truly disgusted. “Of course, Jumper! I’m not some kind of a pervert!”

“Really? Tabby tells me you’re with a new girl every week.”

“Who? Oh, you mean Frenchie!” He scoffed and waved me away. “Don’t listen to Frenchie, she likes to run her mouth. Maybe it comes from working with so many women. Is she right about you being a business major?”

I nodded shamefully. “Yeah.”