Chapter 4
When I thought back, I couldn’t really recall the last time my mom had given me a hug or a kiss. We weren’t like that in my family. When Ian was little, of course I had held him, and kissed him, and carried him—he had been like my own baby. But even the two of us, now, rarely had physical contact.
Digger was different. He took my hand and pulled me close to him, then put his big arm across my shoulders and tucked me in next to him. “What got you pissed at me again? I wasn’t late, was I?”
Lorelei made a noise like a snort and disappeared into the garage behind the blue door.
“I think you tricked me,” I told him. “I thought you wanted…but you wanted me to help Lorelei. Which I’m glad to do,” I said quickly. “But I don’t like tricks. I would have come anyway if you had told me the truth.”
“I tricked you. By asking you to come down here?” He swung me so that I was facing him. “Nah, that wasn’t a trick. I wanted to show you something. I was going to talk to you about Lori’s son when you got here.” I looked up at him, skeptical. This could have been like the time when Devon, the leader of the fifth-grade girls’ mafia, told me she wanted to show me something then pushed me through the fire escape door so the alarm went off and I got in trouble. “Come on,” he said.
We walked through the office and into the garage, and it was pretty loud in there. I pulled my hand from Digger’s and covered my ears. Maybe it made me look like a child, but I had to keep the hearing I had totally intact. Digger started yelling something and the room got quiet.
He took my hand off my ear. “Better?”
“Did you make them stop working?” I asked him.
“They can take a little break.” He was still holding my hand, and we walked through the now-quiet garage with all the guys staring at us. I looked closely at my shoes.
The shop floor was much bigger than it looked from the outside. Behind the lifts with the cars in the air, there was almost a warehouse-sized room filled with vehicles in various stages of repair. Disrepair. Digger led me all the way to the back, to a brown hunk of rust sitting in the corner.
“There,” he said proudly. “Do you know what that is?”
I examined it. “I’m pretty sure it’s a car. Is that right?”
He laughed so hard he leaned back against another car that didn’t have any doors or a hood. “Yeah, it’s a car, baby girl. It’s a 1955 Ford Thunderbird. The first year they were produced.”
“Oh. Can you drive this one?”
“Not until I get an engine in it.” It really was just a rusty shell. “This has been sitting in a barn up in Omena for the last sixty or so years. They drove it until it broke down, then they parked it and stripped it for parts as needed. And now it’s mine. This is why I was late on Saturday, going over to meet you. I drove this here in a trailer from up north.”
“Do you think you can fix it?” I ran my finger along the fin at the back.
“I can fix it. But it’s going to take a while. You going to come ride with me when it’s done?”
Did that mean he was thinking about the future, with me in it? I nodded. “That would be fun.”
“I don’t get to go out much, run around and wine and dine. I wanted to explain that to you. I don’t know what you’re expecting.”
Me? Nothing. I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Mostly I’m here at the shop working or at my house working. I’m fixing that up, too. Right now it looks about as good as this car.”
I could almost feel my eyes light up. “Really? You’re remodeling?”
Digger was messing with something on the rusty car door. “I guess you could call it that. Want to see?”
I resisted the urge to look at my phone to check the time. I was an adult. I could go over to a…a man’s house if I wanted to, without worrying about getting in trouble. Anyway, my dad was on his way to Toronto by now. “Oh, I guess I can come,” I said. The words were good but the tone was way too eager. God, I was so bad at being cool!
“C’mon.” We walked back out through the silent garage. “Back at it!” Digger bellowed as we walked out and the clanking and yelling started again.
We got back in his car, the Ford Fairlane, named after Henry Ford’s estate in Dearborn (I had looked it up). I was freezing in the not-quite-airtight car and Digger grimaced when he looked at me.
“I’m going to have to take my shirt off so I don’t cook in here with you,” he mentioned, and turned on the heater.
Well, the thought of that did make me feel warmer. “I’m fine,” I answered, clenching my jaw so that my teeth wouldn’t chatter as I talked.
“Bench seat.” Digger patted the vinyl next to his leg. “Slide over and cuddle.”
I swallowed and tightened the seat belt. “I don’t think that’s very safe.”
He laughed. “Yeah, probably not. A lot can happen on a bench seat. I lost my virginity in the back of a sixty-three Lincoln Continental.”
I glanced into the back seat. “That sounds like an interesting story.”
“Yeah, sure was an interesting story.” But thank God he didn’t elaborate. Or ask me to share my own interesting virginity story.
“My new house is in Boston Edison. Do you know where that is? How well do you know the city?” Digger asked me.
“Not very well. I’m not supposed to come south of Ten Mile Road.” The border of Detroit was Eight Mile Road, and I was strictly forbidden from going to the city, along with a whole list of other places.
“Are you serious?” He was staring at me.
“I mean, when I was in high school, that was the rule. Of course, not now, now that I’m an adult. Not anymore,” I lied, staring fixedly out the window.
Digger didn’t say anything for a few miles and I sat there sweating. Well, I would have been, if it wasn’t so freezing in his car. Why had I said that? It made me sound like a baby. Stupid and worthless.
“What’s happening at work? What’d you do?” he asked casually, and I looked at him to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. He was just driving along as though I wasn’t a 24 year old with a curfew and geographic restrictions. I told him about my boss, Melina, and her digestive problems and her corns and her very poor attitude. We both ended up laughing.
“She thinks I’m so dumb,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Yesterday she asked if I had remembered to clear the snow off my windows before I drove in. As if I had driven to work without being able to see and just figured I would probably make it ok.”
“Why does she think that? That you’re dumb?”
I shrugged. “Because I’m not supposed to have that much responsibility. It’s my dad’s business, passed down to him just like yours was, and he worries about it. He doesn’t want me to mess it up, the little that I could from my job, and he doesn’t trust me very much.”
“Why?” Digger persisted.
“I guess he doesn’t trust anybody very much.” That was true, but of course, I was a special case in my family. No one thought I was trustworthy, maybe even Ian. “My dad doesn’t like anyone very much either, except he can tolerate my brother. It’s not possible to hate Ian.” I told him about Ian worrying about college and grades. “Almost every other kid in his class has a team of tutors, but Ian can’t. My dad would flip out if he knew that Ian needed help with calculus. I’m too stu—I never took that math, so I can’t help him.”
Digger glanced over at me. “I bet my sister could. She’s a fucking genius. They could just do it over the phone.”
“Really?”
“Sure, why not? You still look cold. Slide over here, baby girl.” I slid over slowly and Digger put his arm around me and pulled me closer. “Buckle up. Better?” I nodded. I really did enjoy the bench seat.
Boston Edison was a beautiful neighborhood, full of old, stately homes. From the outside, Digger’s house was beautiful too, despite a few obvious flaws. It was a gracious brick building with a big front yard and a huge tree at the street. Besides the pretty tree, however, the rest of the yard was mostly ruts and frozen mud, and it was littered with construction debris. I looked down the driveway at a portable toilet and the garage, which looked to be listing heavily to the left. But the bones of the house itself were absolutely lovely, and I told Digger that.
He grinned, studying the facade. “1919. That’s when they built it, and it only had three other owners until now. Nothing living in it anymore except me. Pretty sure.”
“Wait, what does that mean?”
He was pulling me up the steps to the front door. “There were some critters. There were holes in the walls, the floors, the ceiling. A little nature got in. But I patched it up.” He pushed hard on the door with his shoulder and it groaned open.
“Nature? Critters? Like, animals in the house?” I looked around the entryway, eying the dark corners. “Could you turn on the lights?” It didn’t seem to be any warmer inside than outside and I blew on my fingers.
“No electricity yet down here. I’m working on it.” He strode through the half-darkness and I hurried after him. He pointed out the living room, with the original floors, where they still existed—“That corner is just a hole into the basement. Don’t walk over there. Just in case, don’t go in this room alone, Cinderella”—and the beautiful mantle. Somehow, that had survived. In the kitchen, there were broken counters and cabinets and graffiti, but no appliances. Large pieces of plywood covered all the places where I assumed windows and a door to the outside should be, but cold wind still whistled through. “A little water damage,” Digger mentioned, pointing to a brown-stained wall through which I could see daylight. “I’ll get to it. See that hole?” I didn’t want to ask which one. “That’s where the milkman used to make deliveries. Cool, huh?”
He showed me around the library, with the hand-milled bookshelves, and then directed me to the safe path to walk up the stairs to the second floor. I held on to the back of his t-shirt as the staircase creaked and swayed. The house was big, five bedrooms, and he showed me every part of it except the basement (“You probably don’t want to go in the basement. Needs a little work,” he told me), including a few more rooms on the upper level that he cautioned me not to enter for various reasons (ceiling coming down, etc.) “This is the room that’s the closest to done,” Digger said, and opened the door to a large bedroom with some furniture in it. “I spend most of my time in here when I’m home, if I’m not working on fixing something.”
“Wait a minute, you’re living here? Right now?” I asked, aghast.
“It’s all good now that the water is on. Electricity works in here, too.” There was a bed, a chair, some boxes. The plaster was crumbling off the walls, one window was broken and another was boarded up. There was a small, portable heater, and I assumed sleeping in a house with no heat was too much even for Digger.
“This house is amazing. It does need a little work,” I said cautiously.
“Yeah, it’s hard to find the time.” He sat down on the bed, sprawling back on his elbows. “Come here, Cinderella.”
I ignored that and tried to pull open the door to the closet, which was firmly stuck shut. “You’re doing all of this yourself?”
“Mostly. I trade off with some guys, an electrician and a plumber, work on their cars. Sixty-seven Mustang and 1974 Maverick. Cinderella, come here.”
I walked over slowly, eyeing him. This is it, I told myself. Get ready. It’s about time, anyway! Now you’ll understand what Tracey is talking about. I eased myself onto the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress with my back ramrod straight. Digger sat up and tugged off my coat, then put his arms around me and laid back down, pulling me to rest on his chest. “You look at me like I’m going to eat you,” he told me. He picked up his head and regarded me, looking just like the devil I had first thought he was. “Maybe that’s not a bad idea.” He turned so that I rolled onto my back. My arms automatically looped around his neck as his weight pressed against me. I turned my head to the side a little so that he couldn’t see my ear and he grinned and lowered his head.
Oh my God. Digger was kissing me. Not awkwardly, or fumbling, like what had occurred on the very few times I’d tried this before. His lips pressed firmly against mine and then his tongue was sweeping in my mouth, confident and…amazing. He made a noise in his throat and kissed me harder, deeper. I found myself clutching a handful of the back of his t-shirt and twining my other hand into his thick, dark hair. We kissed and kissed, and I lost track of time, and place, and temperature, and everything but Digger.
He settled me under him, leaving his hand on my butt, squeezing and massaging. Now I made a sound too, a little moan. Digger picked up his head. His eyes were glittering. I licked my lips and he kind of attacked me, kissing me again, pressing me against him with his iron-hard arm, biting my neck, tonguing over along my jaw to my ear—
Not that ear. What was I doing? I barely knew him! I sat up, pushing him off me, pulling my hair over my shoulder and patting it down. “Ok, um, just a second.”
“Take your time.” He waited for a moment. “Ok?”
“Ok.”
He slid his hand up from my waist under my sweater and his warm fingers found my breast. My eyes closed and my lips fell open as he gently kneaded and rolled my hard nipple between his thumb and index finger. His mouth came back to my neck and I felt him easing me down on the bed. No, no, I couldn’t.
“Digger.”
“Yep.” He had pulled down the neck of my sweater to kiss along my collarbone.
“Hang on, ok?”
He pulled away, up on his elbows. “All right, Cinderella. We’ll stop.” But his hand was still inside my sweater and he pinched my nipple lightly, making me gasp. “Is that ok?”
“Yes,” I said breathlessly.
“Let me just check one thing.” He flicked open the button on my nice work pants and his nimble fingers moved quickly inside, cupping me between my legs.
“Digger!” I arched my back, pressing against him.
“Yeah, all good down there. Have to be thorough.” He leaned down and kissed me again, and re-fastened the button. “It’s ok, Cinderella. We’re not in a rush.” I nodded at him and he grinned. “Pretty fun, though, right?” I nodded again. “Plenty of other things to keep us occupied. Did you ever want to see a raccoon habitat? I’ve got one going the in garage.” Digger stood and helped me to my feet. My legs were shaking and I leaned against him for a moment. “No woman could say no to an offer like that. Let’s go.”
The raccoon habitat was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen, but my mind was elsewhere—back up in his bedroom, with his hands…I had to swallow hard. If that was what Tracey was feeling every weekend, I didn’t question her behavior in the least, not anymore. I had felt like I was going to burst into flames. I felt like I still might.
On the way back to the garage for me to get my car, Digger told me more about his plans for the house. Mostly he was concerned about filling holes and making it physically safe, which made sense. “What about finishes? Like paint, fixtures, things like that?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I thought I’d go down to the hardware store.”
“Oh, no, not with a house like yours! It’s so beautiful! It deserves more than what you find at the hardware store. Like, in the kitchen, would you think linoleum was crazy for the floors? Did you ever notice in the corner by the back door, well, where the back door used to be, there’s a little piece of the original linoleum there?” It had been hard to see in the darkness, but I had glimpsed it. “And you could put in a really pretty sink where the big hole is now. I wonder what used to be there. I bet you could find a reproduction or maybe even an old one that would look great.”
Digger was nodding. “I’ll take whatever ideas you have. You’ll probably need to come back down and take another look. A closer look.”
“Yeah, if you really want my help, I’d love to! I need to take pictures and measurements. I can go room by room figuring it out…I mean, I don’t want to get in your way.”
“You wouldn’t be in my way.” He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Did I not tell you about the benefits of a bench seat? Slide your cute little ass over here.”
I scooted over next to him. Then, “Digger, your hand is…” Around my breast.
“I know where it is. I need to flex my fingers a little.” He did, and I was kind of out of breath when we arrived at Brody’s Automotive.
By the time I left, I had plans to go meet Digger at his house later in the week for a more thorough walk-through. “I’ll put up some caution tape where you shouldn’t go. Better yet, I’ll get some guys in there working so I won’t have to worry about you getting hurt,” he said, and kissed me goodbye in front of the garage.
I realized I was humming on the way home. And smiling, too.
Without my dad there, away on his business trip, we didn’t do a formal dinner. Even when my mom was at the table she barely ate, and tonight she took a small bowl of almonds and went up to her bedroom alone. She hadn’t told our cook to make anything, so that meant that Ian and I were on our own, which I preferred. I made chicken with pesto sauce and mozzarella, his favorite, and a big salad, and he sat at the kitchen island to do his homework while I cooked. He was having issues with Maryam, his girlfriend of two months, so we talked about her quite a bit.
“Like, she gets pissed at me for not knowing why she’s mad. How am I supposed to know?” he asked me. “It doesn’t make any sense to get madder when I don’t know what I did in the first place. Do you do that?”
In my long experience of not having a boyfriend? “Maybe I do, sometimes. Maybe Maryam thinks it’s so obvious why she’s angry that you should already know. Do you remember when it started?” He had a fuzzy recollection that they were supposed to meet for lunch but then he had needed to go to his math teacher for extra help. “I was starving,” was the clearest memory he had of the event.
“She was probably upset if you stood her up and didn’t tell her why,” I explained. Duh.
“It wasn’t a big deal. I have a math test on Friday.”
“It sounds like it was a big deal to her. Just because you feel one way, you can’t assume that she does, too.”
“When I move out, you’re going to have to give me a cheat sheet of this stuff,” my brother said. I thought about him moving out, moving on, moving away. I turned quickly back to the stove.
“You’ll be fine if you listen to me now and absorb all my wisdom. Are you ready for that math test? Because if you’re not, I have a lead on someone who could help you.”
Ian thought he was ok but, of course, would find out for sure after the test. “Did you take down all the college lists that Dad put up?” he asked.
“I got sick of seeing them.” I got sick of the look on Ian’s face whenever he had seen them. I had torn them down fearfully and secretly, looking over my shoulder the whole time.
“Dad is going to be mad when he gets back.”
It would be worth it to me, with how relieved Ian seemed now with them gone. I rubbed over my hip, where the bruise from when I had been pushed into the table had turned a reddish-purple. “It’s ok. He’ll come up with a new way to torture you.” As was my custom, I quickly looked around for him as I said it, then told myself that our dad was hours away. We were safe for a few days.
“Who do you know who’s a math tutor?” Ian asked.
“A friend of a friend.” I slid the chicken onto his plate, and when I looked up at his face, he was smiling at me.
“No friend of Tracey’s would be doing calculus. I’m glad you met somebody else, Wreck.”
I nodded. “Me too. Do me a favor and use a knife to cut up the chicken rather than swallowing it whole.”
“It’s so good,” Ian told me. “I think I was dying of hunger.” Luckily I had made four breasts, three for him and one for me. He was still growing.
After dinner I sat with him as he did his homework and I carefully read through Lorelei’s Lamb’s Academy application for her son. I had printed it out and went over it word by word with a pencil as a guide. I pretty much despised reading. I had never gotten the hang of it when everyone else learned, and since then I worked to avoid it as much as possible.
“Wreck.”
I sat up and rubbed my neck. “Yeah?”
“Want me to read that out loud for you?” Ian asked me.
“No, it’s ok. You’re busy.”
He closed his book. “I’ve done enough American History for the night. What is that?”
I passed him the papers. “An application to Lamb’s for an incoming fifth grader. Tell me what you think as you read it.” I closed my eyes and listened and between the two of us, we made a lot of additions and changes. By the time Ian and I were done editing, I thought the application sounded great. I sent our marked-up version back to Lorelei, saying my brother had helped me, too, and he would look for her son around the school next year.
With that fresh in my mind, I called the woman I knew in the Lamb’s Office of Admission, Sylvie Bowen—now Sylvie Bowen Everhart—from my tiny office the next day. She remembered me and was as friendly as ever. In fact, she suggested having coffee together.
“Ok,” I told her. “Thank you.”
“It will be great to catch up!” she said cheerfully. “I love hearing what people are up to.”
Tracey was apparently having another crisis at school, so I avoided looking at my phone for a few hours and focused on my actual job. I had been thinking a lot about how we handled the auction item inventory. All the calling and the cross-supervision between Melina and Kelvin, the boss the warehouse, just didn’t make any sense. I carefully typed out a list of questions for Kelvin, asking his opinion on the process and protocols, and listed some ideas that I’d had that might make things more streamlined. Like a 1955 Ford T-Bird. I had looked at a lot of pictures, and they were beautiful when they weren’t lumps of rusty metal like the one in Digger’s garage.
Kelvin emailed me back almost immediately saying that he agreed with me that things weren’t working well and asking if I could come down to the warehouse and talk to him about it. He said he liked my ideas about some potential changes, too. I felt a glow of pride. So far I was two for two that day, working things out. It felt pretty good to get stuff done for a change.
I drove to the warehouse and talked to Kelvin for quite a while about improvements we could make. “This is great,” he kept saying. I agreed—the current system was just so redundant and dumb. Anything would be better. Then he said, “I’m so glad you’re taking over from Melina.”
“Oh, no. That’s not happening,” I corrected him. “She’ll go on maternity leave for a while, but it will be short.”
“Really? Some guy from the main office called down here saying that Melina was done working at Lindhart Auctions. That they didn’t have a new contact for me yet. I thought the new contact might be you.”
I stared at him. “Not as far as I know. I still work for her, I think. No one has said anything different.” Except for Arthur from Accounts, who had asked me if I liked working in my department…
I walked out of the warehouse with Kelvin, a little lost in thought. “Sorry about the guys,” he told me ruefully.
“Huh?”
“The whistling and yelling, all that stuff. I’ll talk to them. That’s no way to treat a lady, especially the daughter of the big boss.” I hadn’t noticed. Kelvin’s office had been quiet, but the main floor of the warehouse was loud and echoing. I just nodded, wondering what they had been yelling. “I’ll type up a memo and you and I can talk about who to send it to. Let me know if you hear anything about Melina,” he told me, and I nodded again. I would have liked to know more about that, myself.
“Wreck! Finally,” Tracey complained when I answered her umpteenth phone call as I arrived at my house. “Where have you been?”
“Busy at work.”
She snorted derisively. “Yeah, right. You’re just a lackey, admit it.”
“Yeah, I know.” I pulled off my coat and took out the flour, then reached for the baking powder. Ian’s team was getting cranberry-walnut scones this afternoon after practice.
Tracey told me about her parents, and how they were crawling up her ass for no reason, and the principal at her school, who was acting the same way. Completely baselessly, except that she had been late a few times—six times already in January alone—and perhaps had fallen asleep for a while in one of the beanbag chairs.
“They’re really comfortable,” she confided. “And the book I was supposed to be reading to the kids was so fucking boring. It knocked me right out.” That, and the pill she had taken that morning from her mother’s medicine cabinet had also contributed. Her mom’s pill supply had always been an endless buffet for Tracey.
“You shouldn’t be driving, or teaching, if you’re taking that,” I said, trying to cajole instead of sounding critical. “It makes me worried about you.”
“Shut up, Wreck! I need a little entertainment in the day. I might as well be dead, with the way things are going.”
“Don’t say that. Tracey, seriously.”
“I don’t mean it,” she told me quietly. Neither of us spoke for a minute. “I don’t like anything, anymore. Nothing’s fun. Maybe I need to go on vacation.” She and her parents had just gotten back from two weeks in St. Croix over Christmas.
“Maybe you should try something new,” I suggested. “Like, I have some new projects to work on. Maybe you could volunteer someplace.”
She burst out laughing. “Wreck, we already got in to college! No reason to pretend we like community service anymore. I heard about a new place for us to try this weekend, supposed to be really cool. Good guy/girl ratio.”
My heart sank a little. “I may have other plans.”
There was a huge silence. “With who?” she asked finally, sharply.
“With…with Ian. And his girlfriend.”
“Now you’re going to be the third wheel with your brother? Do you think they want a chaperone dressed like a nun going out with them? I’ll pick you up and we’ll go on Friday night.”
“Tracey…” I hesitated. What was I going to do, sit around and wait for Digger? “Yeah, ok.”
“Good,” she said briskly. “Now, what about going to get our hair done? I called my salon, and they can fit you in.”
“Trace, you know…” I didn’t have the money for that. I got an allowance, not a salary, and if I wanted something special, I had to save for a while.
“My treat, ok, Wreck?”
She was a good friend.
“I don’t want you looking so ratty when we’re together,” Tracey explained.
I took back that good friend thought. “When’s the appointment?” I figured she owed me after the “ratty” comment.