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White Christmas lights adorn the house and the trees on the front lawn.
I bypass the house, though I see Badger’s wife Bekka through the kitchen window stirring something on the stove. Usually, I’d sit and catch up with her, waiting for Badger to finish up work and join us.
But tonight, I walk past an old Jeep, its rag top ripped, hood crunched, an ancient Benz, the chassis of a Charger up on blocks, and a tilted Ducati with a wrinkled front fender. In the big garage, Badger’s boots and faded cargo pants stick out from under a cherry red Corvette. When the car first arrived, it didn’t look much better than the Charger. Now, it’s fully restored, gleaming, about to be shipped to its new owner, some tech mogul in California. A Christmas gift for the mogul’s new wife.
This is who Badger is. Who he has always been. A boy in love with cars. A vocation he learned from his father. Now Badger owns and runs the garage and body shop he grew up in, his dad long retired and living in Florida with a new girlfriend. It used to be Bob’s Repair and Restore. Badger rebranded it to Graveyard Classics. Bekka designed the logo, runs all the social media, does the website and newsletter, does the books. She grew him from a local mechanic to a nationally recognized classic-car restorer with more than a hundred thousand Instagram followers. He takes orders from all over the country, has a waiting list five months long. They like to call it their mom-and-pop shop.
He rolls out on a big red mechanic’s creeper when he hears my footfalls on the concrete floor.
“Looks sweet,” I tell him.
He sits up and runs a hand through his sandy-blond hair. It used to turn almost white in the summers when we were kids. But it’s darker now. He wears it long; since the pandemic he’s sported a full beard. His Game of Thrones look. He glances back at the car, offers an easy nod.
I look around for his younger brother, Chet. But Badger is alone.
“I’m happy with it,” says Badger, putting a loving hand on the tire. “The truck picks it up tomorrow, should get there in time for Christmas Eve no problem.”
I sit on the stool near his work bench, swivel a little.
“You okay?” he asks.
I tell him about the visit from Harley Granger. He dips his head while he listens, then looks up at me when I’m done, gaze intense.
“So you told him you didn’t want to talk. End of story, right?”
I nod, pick up an old Mercedes Benz hood ornament, turn the cool metal around in my palm. Badger told me that the manufacturer stopped putting them on cars because they were causing unnecessary injury to struck pedestrians. A factoid that has stayed with me. Imagine being struck by a Mercedes and having its logo imprinted on your ass, or leg, or face for life.
“He can’tmakeyou talk about it,” he says when I don’t say anything.
“He’s here toinvestigate,” I say, my voice coming up an octave. “That’s what he does. He examines cold cases and produces these long-form podcasts, writes a book. He’s solved three cases that the police were unable to solve. New evidence he gathered led to one overturned conviction. Another case is getting a retrial.”
Badger rubs at his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, his turn to stay quiet.
“I imagine he’ll come to talk to you too,” I say.
“Well, he’ll get the same answer you gave him. I have nothing to say that I haven’t already said a hundred times.”
I force myself to take a deep breath. On the radio Mariah Carey croons about what she wants for Christmas, tinny and distant in the big space.
“You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Bekka stands in the garage entrance, svelte in tight black jeans. Her silken, jet hair spills over delicate shoulders. She’s wearing a thin, nearly see-through white T-shirt even though I’m shivering in my parka. An inked vine of thorns snakes around her arm and disappears into her cuff. The rest of her body is similarly tattooed. Badger, soft bodied and thick featured, is in no way her equal in the looks department.
What does she see in me?he wondered out loud when they first started dating in high school. After.
She sees your soul, I answered. He gave me a look that could only be described as scared.
I hope not.
I never asked him what he meant by that. But for some reason it comes back to me now.
“Staying for dinner?” Bekka asks. She offers me a strained, patient smile, as though I’m a stray she reluctantly feeds because I just won’t stop coming around. We get along. It’s fine. But I’m the friend she tolerates because she knows that Badger and I share a bond that would be painful for both of us to break. She also knows she could break it if she wanted. We’ve reached an unspoken détente.
“Thanks,” I say, declining herunvitation. “I’ve got to get home to Dad.”
She nods. “Give him our best.”
Badger watches her with something on his face I don’t recognize, a kind of sadness maybe. They’ve been together since senior year in high school. Eloped after graduation. No kids. I’d describe their relationship as a barely dormant volcano, prone to sudden eruption. Has the energy between them shifted though? Is there a new distance? A coldness? I don’t know. Bekka’s veiled. It’s hard to know what she’s really feeling, thinking.
