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“Hi.” I walk up to the same guy. “I’m Maribeth Thorp, we talked a little bit ago.”
“Chris Fosdick.” He introduces himself. His eyes pivot to my Kia being hoisted down from the tow truck, and frowns. “What year is she?”
“2004.” I state, bracing myself for what I know will be his next statement.
“Oh.” He hesitates.
Here we go again! Nobody ever wants to work on Kiley because she’s an older gal. They just don’t realize what this car means to me. She was Momma’s. And Momma is gone now. To “get rid” of Kiley would be to “get rid” of all my memories of Momma and everything she meant to me. I realize it doesn’t make good financial sense. I don’t care about financial sense when it comes to my car. I prepare myself for the fight. It’s just money. I can always get more money.
Chris waits until Wade Karl has put all four tires on the ground, and I pay him cash for the tow service. Chris walks over to her and lifts the hood. He looks around, pulls and pushes a few things, and closes the hood gently.
“Okay, let’s get her into the shop.” He waves over another fellow and together the three of us move Kiley into a work bay with a lift, me steering and them pushing.
“You can wait in the lounge if you’d like. I can’t let you stay in here, it’s against safety protocol.”
I nod, but I feel like hugging Kiley. I want to tell her everything will be alright, like I would a child going into surgery. It takes everything inside of me to just go to the lounge like he asked. I’m too anxious to sit, so I pace.
I need something to keep my mind occupied. I glance at the magazines strewn around a coffee table, there’s two Gideon bibles on a side table. I wonder if they came from a hotel. The TV is tuned to the last third of The View, but the sound is all the way down and subtitles crawl across the bottom of the fifty-inch flat screen. I sit down and thumb through pictures I took of Michelle’s bedroom clutter on my phone. I make mental notes for where we will start when I get there this evening, and what I will say if she has pulled any of the discarded things out of the boxes Cindy packed so neatly.
An eternity later, Chris enters with a very sad look on his face. I’m expecting him to say, “We did all we could, but she didn’t make it.” I am prepared to hold back my tears. I swallow, hard.
He says, “You’re right about the ignition coils, but I thought there was some other stuff going on. So, I hooked her up to the analysis machine and she’s got some codes indicating there’s trouble with the engine. I’d have to keep her for a few days to pull it and work on it, but, honestly, ma’am, it would cost ya more than she’s worth. You might want—”
“Don’t say it!” I hold up my hand. “Look, I know. And it’s not that I can’t afford to trade her in and get something else. It’s just—” I fight the tears that are putting a choke hold on my throat. “I just can’t. She means too much to me. She was my mother’s—”
“I understand.” Chris keeps a steady gaze on me. He walks past me to where they have coffee in a giant 50 cup chrome urn and an assortment of sweeteners and creamers, cups and brown stirrers. He grabs two napkins and brings them back to me. “Sorry, we don’t have tissue.” He says as he hands them to me. “It’s not like she’s a classic and would be worth the efforts to restore her.”
My eyes meet his, and he seems to get it. His face settles into a look of understanding. “But… you’re the customer, and my daddy always said, ‘the customer’s always right.’ If you want me to work on her, I will. As long as you’re willing to pay for my work, I’ll keep doing what I gotta do to get her running.”
I want to hug the man. But his overalls are covered in oil stains and grease.
“Thank you.” I say instead and shake his hand. I don’t care that I have gunk on my hands. They’ve got pumice soap in the bathroom, I’m sure. And I can wash my hands. “So, you need to keep her for a few days?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Stop ma’aming me.” I say playfully. “You’re the first mechanic I didn’t have to put in a thumb lock to get him to work on Kiley. I think you should call me Maribeth.”
“Yes, ma’a— Maribeth.” He smiles and I return the expression. “So,” I lift my phone. “I’ll call for a ride and you call me when you’ve got her running. Do you need a deposit?”
“No. Blaze said I could trust you.” Chris says nonchalantly.
Blaze? Had he called Chris before I did? “Really? What did he say, exactly?” I glare at the poor man who doesn’t realize what a hornet’s nest he just stepped on.
“Oh,” He stepped back from me. “Just that you were his neighbor, and I could trust you to be true to your word, and that you’d want to get… Kiley, is it, fixed no matter what.”
“Hmm.” I close my mouth and hold back all the additional questions I have. “Well, I am, Chris, and I do. So, thank you for helping me with her.”
Chris looks relieved. Had Blaze told him to watch out for my temper? Did Chris really think I’d put him in a thumb lock? I want to laugh at that absurdity, but I also want him to realize I’m to be taken seriously.
I text Kate. She replies instantly with her usual, “Be right there.”
I fill out the paperwork for Chris to work on Kiley and he attaches her keys to the form, it goes in a clear plastic bag with black bias tape sewn on the edges and is hung on the wall behind him. He really did take her ahead of his other clients’ cars. I’m liking this guy more and more. “I’ll just wait in your lounge for my ride, if that’s alright?”
“Sure.” He says and goes back to the work bay. Kiley is left where she was, while Chris and his people work in the other five bays. She looks tired. Once again, I want to hug her and let her know I’ll be back. I want my car to know, no matter what, I’m gonna get her running again. Even with the tax assessment I received in the mail this morning, Kiley comes first.
I swallow the anger that roils with burning bile on the back of my throat. How could Frank pay for a cleaning service to keep the house clean for whenever he popped over, but not pay the yearly taxes? It wasn’t just the two years since he gambled the house away. He was behind by twenty years. How had he managed not to lose the house to the Department of Revenue? Had he ever paid taxes on the house? The View is wrapping up. The ladies are waving to the audience and credits are scrolling up, I turn to watch for Kate.
What was I going to do now? With the unknown cost to fix Kiley, and the house’s taxes past due, the winnings I deposited aren’t going to last much longer.
