“Yes.” I couldn't keep the pride out of my voice. Lulu was very special.
“How did you keep it from rusting out?”
“She's a California girl. My brother also kept her in the garage most of the time he owned her.”
Doc walked around Lulu in a full circle. “You drove her from Cali?”
“Yes. But she's feeling the stress. Besides the wear and tear of the trip, California potholes are nothing to the craters around here.”
Moby barked from the backseat. Doc stopped to pet him through the open window. “No need to get snippety. We'll give you some attention too, girl.”
“Boy,” I corrected.
The man on the ground rolled over and stood up. The top of his head barely reached my shoulder. “And the car is a girl, I'm guessing?”
I waved my hand across the hood and grinned. “Meet Lulu.”
“You and your family have come to the right place.”
Family? I kind of liked the thought. A foster dog and a car. Nice. “She's been losing power for the past few miles. I'm pretty sure I left a trail of smoke on M-33.”
The younger man, Richard, wiped his hands on a towel attached to his belt and I wondered why. They were clean from his palms to beneath his fingernails. He swaggered over to the front of the bug and sent the other men a smug look. “Why don't you just get yourself some coffee and watch
Ellen
? We'll let you know what's wrong with it.”
“I don't thinkâ”
“That smoke was probably engine coolant. Your head gasket is most likely blown,” he said, searching for the lid handle. “But we'll take a look for you, right, Dad?”
Doc rubbed the dog behind his ears. He winked at me and curled his lip. “Sure, son.”
The young man lifted the hood of the Beetle and jumped back. “What theâ”
The two older mechanics doubled over, laughing.
I had to admit, it was pretty funny. The way his mouth dropped open, you would have thought he'd discovered a dead body under the hood.
I walked around the car and opened the trunk. I tapped the engine. “Are you looking for this?”
He peered around Lulu and turned a distinct shade of pink.
“And just for the record, this is an air-cooled car. There is no coolant in the engine.” I turned to the older men. “Everything looked fine to me the last time I had the engine out. But my guess is I may have burned a valve. Also, I have not been able to put her transmission in reverse since Montana. But I don't think that is a related problem.”
Doc held a hand out to me. “I love a woman who knows her way around an engine. You've already met Vance.” He nodded at the tiny man who continued his high-pitched giggle. Doc slapped the boy on the back. “And this boy here is my son, Richie. He's either seventeen or eighteen. His mom knows. Go easy on him, honey. He's a Beetle virgin!”
He leaned down to Vance and said under his breath, “He thinks with his brain in his pants the same way a Beetle does.”
Vance laughed even harder. Doc continued: “When he's not working here, he's working on his punts. He's a better football player than a mechanic. So we'll have to give him credit for something.”
I shook his hand. “I'm Trudy and my friend here is Moby.”
Vance was trying to look in the car, but Moby kept licking his face. “There's a cat in the office, but he's pretty good with dogs. Can we let him out?”
Once Moby was sniffing around the garage in search of the cat, we turned our attention back to business. I took off my colorful coat and rolled up my sleeves. Doc and Vance took turns sitting in Lulu. Vance acted like a boy with a crush. He sat in the driver's seat flipping switches, engrossed by every detail.
At one point he flipped down the visor, pausing to study the picture of Angkor Wat on the brochure. “You goin' somewhere?”
“That's the plan.”
“I don't know my geography much, but this doesn't look like a place you can get to in a bug.”
“No. That trip will take a little coordination and lots of money.” Which reminded me. “She's still got life in her. But maybe we could work out a little bargain, Doc.”
“Bargain?” He pulled on his chin and I decided to wait to discuss it further.
I explained to the men how Lulu stopped reversing in Montana. And then how the power started to drop off in Iowa. “I was hoping it was just an adjustment. Then she started running rough today. The smoke off the back end makes me pretty sure she has burned out a valve.”
Doc whistled and Vance scratched his head. “That's probably the cause. We can check the cylinder pressures and take a look.”
“I don't have access to the internet. Can you help me order parts when we're done?”
Vance pointed to the computer on a stand against the wall. “That is one thing Richie does well. The internet.”
Richie had been distracted by his smartphone while the men were exploring Lulu. He held it up and gave me a crooked smile.
I rubbed a bug, a real one, off the hood with my sleeve and thought of a way to minimize my repair costs. “Here's the other problem. I'm limited on cash for now. I could try to fix it myself, working on the heads with the engine still in the car. But it would be much easier to access the transmission with the engine out. I can't drop the engine by myself and if a replacement cylinder head is required, that's going to be a good chunk of changeânever mind the cost to fix the transmission. Can I do some of the labor and knock off some of the cost?”
Doc shook his head. “You sound like you know your way around a car, but there's liability and expensive tools at stake.”
I sighed. “I understand. But will you at least think about it?”
He looked at Lulu and back at me. “Let's take a look first. We'll see what we can do.”
For the next hour, with the help of Doc and Vance, I performed the delicate operation of showing them around Lulu's engine. I explained to them how I had already rebuilt parts of the old engine when I first acquired the car.
By the time we had fully discussed VW Beetles and the elegant simplicity of air-cooled engines and manual transmissions, the guys and I were old friends. We moved to the chairs in the waiting room and drank coffee, comparing notes on the classic cars we had known over the years. Who needed the ladies at the Family Fare when I could have company like this?
Richie left for football practice. Doc offered me candy corn and asked, “So I don't get it. You inherited that bookstore from your aunt?”
Only one subject could dampen my mood and he had just doused me. “Unfortunately.”
“What are you going to do with it?” asked Vance.
“I'm cleaning it out and then I'm selling it.”
“Rumor is Reeba Sweeney has an interested buyer. Is that true?”
“It was a lowball offer. I'm not sure it's going to work out.”
“That will make a few people happy.”
Doc nodded. “My wife, for one.”
“My mother too,” added Vance.
“Because?” I really didn't want to know what the women thought. But I couldn't help being curious.
“Supposedly, the interested party is Logan Fribley.”
“Who's he?”
“He runs a pawnshop in Victor. Bought one building ten years ago, and now it takes up half the town.”
“Along with an adult bookstore and a casino,” added Vance.
The men were watching me carefully for a reaction. It wasn't my business to care what happened to Truhart. I just needed to sell. I sipped my coffee.
They had already seen my travel brochure. “I want to travel. I need a good offer.”
“What about Lulu and Moby?” asked Vance.
“Lulu can live in my dad's garage in New Jersey, and Moby . . . Well, I don't suppose you know anyone who has a little land and a few sheep?”
Moby was asleep with his head on my boot. He looked up. He already seemed to know his name.
“Moby doesn't look like he wants to be separated from you anytime soon,” said Doc.
Moby liked everyone. But Lulu was my worry at the moment. “Can I keep Lulu here until the parts come in?”
“I have room on the side of the garage.”
The sun was low in the sky and it was time to go home. I still had groceries in the trunk and a gross refrigerator to clean. Home ownership came with a lot of work and I was already dreading tomorrow and the prospect of more books. Hopefully, I could slap a
For Sale
sign on the front window soon. Every hour in Truhart brought a new snag in my plans that was making Angkor Wat seem further and further away.
* * *
I dreamed I was flying over an endless ocean. At first I was happy to drift with the wind and soar through the clouds. But my wings grew heavy and stiff. They weighed me down. I couldn't find a place to land and flew lower and lower until I thought I was about to drown in the dark sea.
I awoke to a muffled sound from the room below. “Moby?”
I reached for my face and pulled my sleep mask to the top of my head. “Moby!”
The dog appeared at the open door of the bedroom. His ears were up and he was panting.
“Where were you, boy?” In the dim light that came from the doorway, I saw him standing by the bed. Then he licked my hand.
“Chasing mice? I hope you got 'em.”
He put his head on the mattress and I helped him onto the bed. Once he was settled against me, I lay awake, unable to get back to sleep. I passed the early hours of the morning staring at the ceiling, planning my trip to Southeast Asia, and remembering a day in second grade when I came home from school in tears.
I stormed through the front door and lamented to my mother that we were supposed to give a report about someplace in the world that we found fascinating. At first I wanted London. But Bobby Griggs, the boy who called me fire-head, got it. Then I wanted Paris. And Susan Schenkie, the teacher's pet, beat me to it. One by one, all the places I knew about were taken. My arch-enemy, Juliette Strayer, told me I shouldn't even bother doing the report since my projects always stunk anyway.
My mother soothed my face with a cool washcloth and held me close. “You know, Trudy, those are fine cities that those kids picked. But they don't hold a stick to the City of Temples.”
My ears perked up. “The what?”
“Angkor Wat. The City of Temples. Some people believed it was the largest city in the world at one time. Far larger than any old Paris or London.” Mom described the moats and the towers and the hidden art inside. She told me how the other temples in the region had been swallowed by a rain forest for centuries. By the time she explained the elephant gates and the way the structure aligned with the stars and moon, I had forgotten all about Paris and London. Together we created a report that blew the rest of the class away.
Not only was that report the highlight of my school career, but Angkor Wat became a symbol of all the good things that lay ahead. Mom and I decided we were going to visit Angkor Wat when I graduated from high school. We collected pennies in an old pickle jar and planned our route. Every house we lived in, the first thing we taped to my bedroom wall was the travel brochure of Angkor Wat. On bad school days when life got the worst of me, Mom would kiss me good night and put her hand on the picture next to my bed. “Just remember, we're going to Angkor Wat, Trudy.”
Even when Mom's hair was gone and she was suffering from the ravages of chemotherapy, there was still Angkor Wat. I taped the brochure to her hospital wall and told her we would be there soon.
Closing my eyes, I pictured the old brochure clipped to the back of Lulu's visor now.
Soon, Mom.
Chapter 7
F
rom my vantage point, straddling the second-story windowsill, I could see the empty county road and Echo Lake peeking through the bare branches of a dead elm tree. An American flag waved listlessly in the mid-day wind in front of the ice cream store on a street beyond. The town belonged in a Stephen King novel. The only thing missing was a low-lying fog.
The little bird I had seen the other day appeared on the eave above me. “Hello, little fellow.”
He looked down at me and angled his head back and forth. A shadow scurried below us. “Be careful, there's a cat somewhere around here,” I whispered.
He flapped his wings and flew away. Funny guy. I shook my head and returned to the shutter. It hung by a single screw from the second story. If it was the source of the noise that had been waking me up in the middle of the night, I was determined to take care of it. Sleep was too precious these days.
I shifted the dangling shutter until it was positioned properly and fished in my tool belt for a screw that was the right size. Then I placed it against the frame, using the back of my wrist and forearm to hold the shutter in place. With my free hand I pulled out the screwdriver from my belt loop and placed the blade in the head of the screw and twisted with all my energy.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Kit Darlington stood in the alley below me, looking like he had stepped out of a British roadster commercial.
“Just fixing a loose shutter and getting a bird's-eye view while I'm at it.”
“Get off the windowsill before you fall, you crazy, wingless creature.”
I swung my feet around until they hung all the way out the window. “I'm fine.”
“Very funny. But really. You're going to hurt yourself.”
“Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. I used to sit here all the time when I wanted to escape Aunt Gertrude.” At night I would crawl onto this overhang at the front of the bookstore and sit for hours, thinking of all the ways I was going to fly free.
“Shouldn't you be out studying important American things like people who wear shorts in winter and other oddities of the Midwest?”
“I'm at a lull in my work and thought I would stop by.”
I was pleased he had returned today. Not just for the help. But for the company. For some reason I felt like we were a team. Two strangers in town. And even though he was adored and I was, well . . . scorned, we were outsiders. We belonged to a more rational world beyond this two-bit town. We needed to stick together.
“Feel like lunch? I'll buy? Then I can help you the rest of the afternoon.”
That did the trick. Free meals were perfect for my budget these days.
I quickly washed my hands and smoothed my ponytail in the bathroom mirror. Then I looped my tool belt around the banister and greeted him at the back door, trying not to feel self-conscious in my work clothes. We left Moby to nap away the afternoon, and walked down the street.
I matched my stride to Kit's and watched our shortened shadows move beside us. “For how long did you say you were here again?”
“Just a month or two . . . while I do some research in the region. I'm waiting to be accepted as a visiting fellow at the university in Ann Arbor.”
“Visiting fellow? Sounds impressive.” I slowed down. “Research, huh? I can't imagine what would be so interesting about this place.”
He kept walking. When he didn't stop, I ran to catch up.
Either his research wasn't going according to plan or there was something bothering him. He didn't seem to want to talk about it any further. “Sensitive, huh?”
We reached the diner and he held open the door for me. “What was that, Trudy?”
I stepped inside and halted, my question forgotten. Every available booth in Cookee's was occupied. By women. The crowd ranged in age from ten to ancient.
“Wow, we must have hit happy hour.”
Kit stiffened. “I forgot. It's Wednesday, isn't it?”
And then it happened. When we first entered, the sound of women trying to talk over each other had been so loud it drowned out the jingle of the bells above the door. As soon as Kit was spotted, everything shifted. Muffled whispers and heavy sighs spread from the door to the back of the room. The Kit Darlington phenomenon.
Mac saw us. He shook his head and pressed a spatula down on a piece of meat with a powerful
hiss
that was the loudest sound in the hushed diner.
“Your weekly fan club meeting has just convened,” I said.
Kit ignored my sarcasm and said under his breath, “Maybe we should go somewhere else.”
Marva, of the pink glasses, flapped her hands at a large booth. “Bridget! Move over and let his lordship have a booth.” Ladies grabbed their dishes and scattered out of a cubicle like a flock of birds being shooed away by a tomcat.
“Yoo-hoo. There's an empty seat over here.” Marva grabbed a napkin and tried to clean off the table.
Kit smiled at the disenfranchised ladies who were trying to squeeze into a booth for four that was already occupied by three. “There are only two of us. We don't want to take up one of the large booths. We can wait until a table clears.”
“Oh, no one pays attention to the signs. Right, ladies?” Corinne Scott smoothed her apron and grabbed a couple of menus. She shouldered Marva out of the way and waited for us or, I should say,
him
at the newly vacated booth.
Kit started to object. But I was hungry. I nudged him with my elbow. “A free booth. How convenient.”
I slid into the seat and took the menus from Corinne. Other than coffee, organic bars, and home-cooked veggie tortillas, I had eaten very little since yesterday. Kit sat across from me and looked like he wanted to do me bodily harm.
Corinne waved her hand across the room. “Wednesdays are ladies' days. They've all had their usual coffee and doughnuts. So you two just go about your meal and ignore us, my lord.”
Kit wiggled his index finger in the air and tried to be nice. “Now, remember. No more calling me that. Just Kit.”
She put a hand to her chest and giggled. An attractive waitress with too much eye makeup stepped in front of Corinne. She set a cup and saucer in front of Kit. “I'll bet you would like some tea.”
“Thanks, Tiffany,” he said in a weak voice.
“I would love a glass of water,” I added. She didn't even glance my way.
“I can bring you something to go with your tea if you want. Lemon? Sugar?” She leaned closer, giving Kit a nice view of her ampleness. Her eyelashes actually fluttered.
“Sugar. Not lemon.” Kit's blue eyes matched the sky in the window behind him. The British accent alone was a chick magnet. But his eyes were his secret weapon.
I plopped my rucksack down on the table between them, almost spilling the tea.
“Who is that with his lordship?” someone whispered behind us.
“Gertrude's niece.”
“The nutty homeless one who was sleeping in her carâ”
“Shhh.”
I brushed my cheek to swat the fire that had ignited on my face. Kit didn't seem to have heard the conversation. Thank goodness.
Corinne returned and practically pushed Tiffany out of the way. “Do you need a minute?”
Kit flashed her a charmer. “No. We'll order now. Trudy, here, appears to be withering away from hunger.”
A familiar prickle of unease traveled up my spine. “That's all right. We can take a moment if you want.”
Kit picked up the menu. “I'll go first if you need a moment. The sooner we order, the sooner you will get your food and we can get back to work.” His meaning was clear. He wanted to get out of the diner and the swarm of admirers as quickly as possible.
I cursed myself for coming here in the first place and stared at the menu. The words blurred in front of me. I sat on my free hand, trying to keep myself from reading with my forefinger and felt sweat building at the back of my neck.
Kit took only a brief moment to scan the menu. “I'll have the Dinty Moore with corned beef.”
“I'll have the same,” said a frail old lady in the overcrowded booth behind Kit. It was hard to ignore her amazing hat. There were lures stuck all over the brim.
Corinne grabbed Kit's menu and turned to the fly-lady. “Flo. I just placed your order. You said you wanted a BLT.”
“I changed my mind.” She put her chin in her hand and smiled at Kit. That hat was so realistic I felt like picking the bug lures out of her fishing hat and sticking them in a tree for the birds.
Someone behind me spoke up, “I'll have one too.”
“Why not order a round for everyone?”
“What was that, Trudy?” I was growing irritated. Didn't these women have places to go?
“Nothing.” I grumbled and studied the menu again. Kit and Corinne waited for me to make up my mind. I hated it when people watched me read. It made things worse. I resorted to my fallback choice. “You knowâI'll just have fries, thanks.”
“Which ones?” Corinne nodded toward the menu. But I kept my focus on her.
“The regular, plain fries.”
She pointed to the menu. “Which ones?”
“Small?” It was a shot in the dark. But I must have hit it, because she wrote something down on her notepad.
“Is that all? I thought you said you were starving?” Kit teased.
I was just about to lie and tell him I had lost my appetite when Mac called out, “Make sure they know the soup of the day, Corinne.”
Corinne poked her short, bleached hair with her pencil and looked up at the ceiling as if to apologize. “Mac's been on some sort of organic-food kick today. I can't imagine what he was thinking. He made black-eyed peas and collard green soup, if you can believe it.”
“With vegetable stock,” Mac said, nodding my way.
I beamed at Mac. “I'll take a bowl of soup as well as the fries.”
Kit scratched his head and looked back and forth between Mac and me. “Vegetarian?”
“Vegan. It meansâ”
He held up his hand. “I know all about it. My sister is vegan.”
That was a relief. I hated having to explain vegan-ness all the time. I reached out and shook his hand. “The brother of a fellow vegan is no enemy of mine.”
That made him laugh. “You remind me of her. Cheeky.”
I thought we were done with the Kit worship. But buxom Tiffany interrupted my moment. “Here is the sugar and some milk.”
She was practically in his lap. Tiffany walked away and her hips moved in a universal invitation.
Kit's eyes followed her and I cupped my hand over my mouth, calling out, “And water, please.”
Marva approached and slapped a newspaper down on the faux-wood veneer of the table. “I thought you might like to see the local paper. It only comes out once a week, but there are all sorts of events and human-interest stories listed.”
“How thoughtful of you,” Kit said.
“My nephew, Calvin, is on the front page of the sports section. He's the quarterback on the high school football team.”
“The football team, huh?” I could see him trying to hold back his amusement over the soccer vs. football thing.
Marva made tiny bounces on her heels. “Football is just about as American as you can get, my lord. Why don't you come to a game? I would love for you to be my guest Friday night. It's under the lights in Harrisburg.”
“Under the lights?”
“There's a band and cheerleaders and you would love it. We even have a bonfire afterwards on the public beach.”
“I'll make sure to bring some hot tea in a thermos just for you, your lordship,” said the older woman behind him.
I added my two shillings. “And don't forget a brolly. If it rains he'll need to cover up.”
Mac snorted from behind the counter. He flipped me a thumbs-up.
Kit tapped my foot under the table.
“Dr. Darlingâah, I mean Kitâis always prepared for the weather. Tut-tut, it looks like rain and all that British stuff, you know?”
Good thing I had on boots. His foot grew heavier. “I have never been to a high school football game. Have you, Trudy?”
“Never.” It was true. My brother was a tight end for one season on the Harrison County high school team. But my aunt wouldn't let me go anywhere on a Friday night until I brought my grades up.
Marva cocked her head sideways and added an afterthought. “You could come too.”
“Peachy.”
Kit handed me part of the paper. “Here. Do you want to read the outdoor section?”
I glanced down at an article on hunting and let the paper fall on the table in front of me. I wondered why he would want to include me in the invitation for the football game. Maybe he needed me as a buffer for the paparazzi.
Marva suddenly focused on me. “Gertrude, I've been meaning to stop by the store.”
“Trudy,” I corrected her.
“Trudy. Cute. Do you remember me from yesterday? My name is Marva O'Shea.” She spoke very slowly and loudly as if I was deaf and old.
I imitated her. “Oh. Yes. Hello. Marva.”
I kept my face straight. She didn't know whether I was making fun of her or not.
“Trudy. I wanted to tell you that we, the community center committeeâthe Triple C's, we call ourselves now, thanks to Elizabeth over there”âshe nodded to the curly-headed blonde from the sheriff's SUV yesterdayâ“we are going to host a Halloween house.”
Well, that sounded like fun. I had helped out on the set of a few horror movies when I lived in L.A.