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12
MATT
I’m finishing the clean-up after an oil change when I see Lenore standing in the doorway.
The first thing I notice is that she’s even paler than usual and breathing like she’s run a marathon. I lean my broom against the wall and quickly go over to where she’s standing frozen by the door.
“Nore?”
She’s staring into space, shell-shocked, as if her mind were stuck somewhere else.
“You okay?”
She looks up at me and shakes her head no. My first thought is that something happened with a customer, but the only person I’ve heard inside other than her in the last half an hour was her friend dropping off a box of things from her old office.
I don’t plan on reaching out to her when I get close—I’ve seen how she sometimes reacts to touch—but she throws herself into my arms. She wraps herself around me and presses as tight as she can to my chest.
“Can you squeeze?” When I don’t respond right away, she continues. “Sometimes pressure helps.”
Carefully, I put my arms around her and apply light pressure. “Panic attack?”
I feel her nod against my chest. “Tighter.”
I squeeze tighter, conscious of the fact that I’m so much taller and stronger than her. Against the pressure of my arms, I can feel her chest expanding in breaths that go from shallow and quick to slower and deeper the longer I hold her.
“You want to talk about it?”
Her head shakes against my chest, and the ends of her ponytail brush my bare forearms. Eventually she lifts her head, and I let my arms fall to my sides, unsure how to handle myself.
“Thank you.” She scrubs a hand over her face, and I notice that some of the color has returned to her cheeks. She tugs the band from her hair loose, and it tumbles around her face, a dark, wavy curtain surrounding her shoulders.
I watch her try to scoop it up and gather it back into the orderly ponytail she started the day with, but there’s still a faint tremor in her hands that lets stray hair escape whenever she tries to twist the band.
“May I?” I gesture toward it after she pulls the band back out in a huff.
“You want to help with my hair?” Of the whirlwind of things we’ve experienced in the last two days, this seems to be the most surprising to her.
I hold out my hand, and she places the band in it before turning and giving me her back. I step closer, attempting to imitate the way she scooped it all up high on her head so there aren’t any bumps or loose hairs hanging free. My fingers glide through the strands, and I feel how thick it is. I’m hypnotized by its silky weight and take the opportunity to run my fingers through a second time, smoothing imaginary bumps. I gather the mass in one hand and twist the band around it with the other, holding my breath that it all will stay where I think she wants it.
The whole process has brought us close enough that she’s leaning against me when she sways backward. I settle my hands on her shoulders and give her a light squeeze before releasing her.
“There’s a mirror over the sink if you want to check.” I nod toward it.
She pats, feeling out my work, and turns back around. “Feels fine.”
I’m still not sure what happened or why she had another panic attack, but I don’t want her to go back inside where she won’t have anything to do but think about it.
“Want to learn how to change someone’s oil?”
“What?” She freezes, a hand still hovering over her hair.
“I have an oil change coming in next. Want to see how to do it?”
I don’t have one of the sunken floors like some commercial shops, but I have a lift so it’s a quicker process than doing it at home. Plus, maybe understanding cars better will help Nore be less anxious about them.
“I suppose.” She looks around like she expects them to pull in at any moment. “Do I need one of those things?”
She points at my chest, and I realize I’m still wearing my coveralls. I look back at her and see a small smudge of grease on her shirt and wince.
