Chapter 14
Lorelei was about an inch away from melting down.
“Any minute. It’s coming any minute!” she said, and refreshed her email inbox again. She rocked the desk chair back and forth and tapped her nails on the keyboard.
Her nerves made me nervous, too. Joaquim came to the garage a lot, and the more time I spent with him, the more I liked him. I really wanted it to work out with him getting into Lamb's Academy. “Let’s step back for a minute,” I counseled her. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Joaquim can stay in an underperforming school with a long-term substitute teacher who isn’t certified. He’ll get so bored he'll start causing trouble, get kicked out, steal a car, and get sent up,” she shot back. “Then in prison, he hooks up with a gang—”
“Well, yes, I guess that’s the very worst,” I interrupted her. “But I was thinking, if he doesn’t get accepted at Lamb’s Academy, we can look at the other schools in the area. You could potentially move to a new district. There are a lot of good schools, public and private. So even if—”
Now she interrupted me. “It’s here!” I made myself not look over her shoulder as she read. I went to the door to the garage and beckoned to Digger, who immediately walked over. The garage got silent. Everyone working there knew that today was the day that Lorelei would find out about Lamb’s.
“I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it,” she said.
Digger and I looked at each other. Was this good or bad?
Lorelei stood up and turned around. She had gone bright red and her eyes looked glassy. Oh, God.
“He got waitlisted,” she told us. Her voice wavered.
I let out a huge breath. “Ok, waitlisted is not the same as a no.”
“Why would they do this to him? What’s wrong with him?” she asked me angrily.
“Nothing,” Digger said firmly. “Who the fuck knows why they do what they do? Ilsa didn’t get into every college she applied to. Admissions people make mistakes.”
“And it’s not the same as a no,” I added again.
Lorelei turned on me, furious. “What did your friend tell you? Did she tell you that she was rejecting him? Did you already know?”
I stepped back and into Digger. “No, of course not! I asked her but she wouldn’t tell me anything. Not even a hint. I was sure he would get in, Lorelei, and I still think he will.”
She was still glaring at me. “Right. Sure. Dig, I’m taking the rest of the day.” She grabbed her coat off the back of her chair and stormed out.
I turned to Digger. “I really didn’t know. Sylvie wouldn’t tell me anything when I asked. I did ask.”
He scowled. “Yeah. I know. She acted nice to our faces, and all the time she was submarining Joaquim.”
“What?”
“She had us over for dinner, her fucking husband comes down here and wants my help with his car. Fake pieces of shit.” He raised his voice to everyone in the garage. “Next time you see that guy with the sixty-six Scout 800, you can tell him to go fuck himself. Tell him I said so if I’m not here to do it myself.”
“Hang on, Digger. I’m sure this decision was made by committee. Sylvie wasn’t the only one who put him on the waitlist. And Tom didn’t have anything to do with it.”
He looked at me coldly. “Anyone who fucks with Joaquim fucks with me.”
I stared after him as he slammed the blue door, hard.
My phone started ringing, showing Sylvie’s name. Despite defending her to Digger, I wasn’t really itching to talk to her at the moment. “Hello?”
“Oh,” she said. “I can already tell by your voice that Ms. Wynne read the email about Joaquim.”
“What did we do wrong?”
“Nothing. As we told her, there were very few spots open in next year’s fifth grade class. We have a new teacher starting in the high school next year and his son will get one of them. We had three siblings of current high school students also applying.” She sighed. “It wasn’t a rejection and there’s always a chance. Right now, all the spaces in the class are filled, but we don’t know. I really encourage Ms. Wynne to write and say how interested they still are.”
It made total sense. I was still mad. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“Rebecca, you can’t be angry at me over this!” She sounded exasperated.
“I’m upset at the situation,” I prevaricated. “Um, I would mention to Tom, he shouldn’t come down here with the Scout again. There are a lot of angry people. Joaquim has a big cheering section and no one can believe that anyone with any sense would say no to a kid like that.” My voice rose a little bit at the end. “Thanks for calling.”
Sylvie was silent for a moment. “Ok, I’ll tell Tom. I was afraid something like this would happen! Remember, this wasn’t a no.”
I felt bad about my behavior. “I realize that and I’m sorry, I’m just upset. I remember some of the kids who went to school there and how their parents bought them in and they didn’t deserve it. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
“Admission to Lamb’s isn’t something that can be bought,” Sylvie said, just as cold as Digger had sounded earlier. I wasn’t helping Joaquim here.
“Yes, I meant, kids who didn’t appreciate their admission.” That was not what I had meant at all. “Thanks for calling,” I repeated. “Bye, Sylvie.” We hung up. Now everyone was mad at me.
The front office was quiet without Lorelei there. I had been helping her organize the paper files that everyone had just stuffed, apparently for decades, into giant, overflowing metal cabinets. But Lorelei needed to be there with me to help decide what to shred and what to keep. I didn’t think I should continue without her.
I waited, manning the desk, but I had found out that Brody’s Automotive never took walk-ins, as I had done on that day that seemed so long ago when I had tracked down Digger. They also generally only dealt with repairs or rebuilds of vintage or antique cars, not a brand new one like I had driven. As Digger put it, they could fix anything on wheels, but he just didn’t want to. They also weren’t accepting any new customers, probably until March, they were so busy and in such demand.
The front desk was dead. I answered one phone call in an hour and then walked into the back. As they always did, they guys stopped working when I came in, so I tried not to do it often. And I brought them lots of treats.
“Digger?” He was on a creeper under a 1972 Gran Torino. “I’m going to head home. There’s nothing much going on here and I want to talk to the electrician.”
“I’m right in the middle of this, Rebecca.”
Not Cinderella, or baby, or anything. “Ok. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Fuck! Eddie, hand me that…no, the other one! Fine, yeah, see you there, at home.”
I left the garage feeling miserable. Clearly, Digger was mad at me, too. I had practically promised to get Joaquim into the school, throwing around that I went there, pretending like I could help with his application, playing up my connection with Sylvie. I had totally wrecked it all up. I was so stupid.
A car laid on its horn behind me at a light and I jumped and hit the accelerator, barely stopping before running into the car in front of me. I leaned forward over the wheel and drove as carefully as I could. What if I wrecked Digger’s loaner car, too? Or hit someone and hurt them? Totally something I would do.
It was getting dark when I pulled up on Digger’s street. The driveway and most of the block were full of the trucks of the crews working at his house; today had been a busy one. I got out, carrying the bag of groceries I had stopped for on my way back. I would at least make a good dinner. Maybe I could do that without screwing it up. It wasn’t exactly raining, and it wasn’t exactly snowing, just a steady barrage of cold, frozen pellets of moisture, so I pulled my hood up to protect my hearing aid. I carried the grocery bag with both hands, it was so heavy. I was looking forward to getting into the well-lit, semi-warm house. Maybe I would turn on the oven in the dining room to—
A hand grabbed my shoulder. Hard. Oh, my God. I knew that grip. I dropped the bag of groceries, almost threw it, and food went flying. My hood slipped off as I tried to jerk away.
“Rebecca. I should have guessed you would be living in the house with the broken windows and the animal infestation.”
“What are you doing here?” Now I did pull myself away, but only by almost falling, stumbling back.
My father studied me. “Careful. You always did have trouble staying on your feet. No one has ever called you graceful, have they, Rebecca?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked again. My voice was high and reedy, obviously trembling.
“Your mother was worried and I said I would check on you, now that I know where you live. Two daughters ran out on her. What do you think it’s doing to her? You’re going to kill her, you know. Neither of you care what you’re doing to your mother.”
“No. No, I—” I had almost said that I knew she was all right, but I would only know that if I had talked to her or to my brother. He couldn’t find that out. “How is Ian? Is he ok?” I thought I might be able to make him believe that I hadn’t been in contact with Ian, either.
He studied me. “You ran out on him, too. You left your brother injured, when he needed you the most.” He stepped forward so quickly that this time I did stumble back, and fell, an ugly grunt escaping my mouth when I hit the wet pavement. My wrist throbbed from how it had bent backwards.
He leaned down, looming over me. I scuttled back, like a crab. Like an animal. “I know where you live, I know who you live with, you whore. If you think that you’ll embarrass me like your sister did, you have another thing coming. I won’t let that happen again.” He stood up. “It would have been better if you both really were dead.”
I didn’t try to get up until he walked away, then I kind of crawled around on the ground, picking up the groceries. I went in the back door into the kitchen and immediately ran into the plumber coming up from the basement. His eyes got huge.
“What happened? Did you get mugged?”
“I’m fine.” That was an obvious lie. I was pretty much crying, carrying an armload of groceries with flour spilling out, almost all of me and all of the food wet. “I tripped because I’m clumsy.”
He tried to help me pick up the falling food, wipe up the spilled, wet flour that was quickly becoming hard paste on the floor and on my clothes.
“It’s ok,” I told him, making a grand effort to stop crying. “Thank you for your help. I’m going to go change. Um, there’s nobody in the master bathroom or bedroom, right?”
Thankfully they were empty of workmen and of animals. I stood under the dripping water, thinking that something had gone with the water pressure now that more bathrooms had working fixtures, realizing that this wasn’t making me feel any better. I studied myself in the mirror when I got out, running my eyes over my naked body to check for bruises as I had done way too many times in my life. I had a red mark on my shoulder from where he had grabbed me but I didn’t think it would turn black and blue. My wrist hurt from when I had fallen, but it wasn’t bad. It had been my own fault for not being able to stay on my feet. To stand up to him. I pictured myself, crawling around on the ground. No wonder he didn’t respect me.
I put on layer after layer of clothes and forced myself to go back downstairs, to talk to the electrician like I had said I would, to clean up the mess I’d made in the kitchen and to start dinner. I put in too much salt and forgot to add basil. The sauce was going to suck. I burned the garlic bread. I thought about what my father had said to me. The house with the broken windows. With the animal infestation.
“Something smells good.”
I dropped the spoon I was holding and screamed.
“Hey, hey! It’s just me, baby girl. Did I scare you?” Digger bent to pick up the spoon. “What’s cooking?” He took my face between his hands. “What’s the matter? You look funny.”
Great, somehow I had gotten uglier, too. “I made spaghetti sauce but it didn’t turn out. Sorry.”
“That’s what got you upset?”
I nodded. I had come to some conclusions while I took the dripping shower in the chilly bathroom, but I didn’t need to share them with Digger immediately.
“Cold?” he asked me. I nodded again. He held out his arms and I couldn’t help but lean against him. “There, that’s better. I’ve been in such a pissed off mood that I thought the guys were going to kill me. God damn it, I wish it had worked out for Joaquim. I talked to Lori and she hasn’t broken it to him yet.”
“It still could work out. Sylvie says there’s always a chance. She said that Lorelei should respond to the email and say how interested they still are.”
“Maybe I’ll suggest that to her tomorrow. Right now, I think all the Lamb’s Academy admissions people are lucky that she’s not driving around and throwing dog crap at their houses. We’re thinking of taking him ice skating tomorrow, give him a fun day. Instead of a good education.” He scowled.
“There are a lot of other choices,” I said. “Lots of other schools. If they don’t want him…”
“Then fuck them.”
“Yeah. Digger, I’m really sorry. I’m so sorry I let everyone down, especially Joaquim.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Digger held me away from him. “How did you do that, exactly?”
“I know she was depending on me…” I remembered what he had told my mom about me and Lamb’s. What a help I’d been for Lorelei. A godsend, he had said.
“Lorelei asked for your help, at my suggestion. You did help her. What else could you have done? I bet it was like you said about them being different, the admissions people saw her tattoos, and the piercings, and the fact that Joaquim’s dad got sent up to Jackson—”
“Do you mean prison?” I asked.
Digger nodded. “They probably tripped over the sticks up their asses running out of the room,” he concluded.
“Did I say that about sticks?” I tried to smile.
“You said Joaquim was going to get teased there, with all those snotty fucking kids.” Digger let me go and leaned into the refrigerator.
“Like Ian.”
“Huh?”
“Ian is one of the ‘snotty fucking kids’ at Lamb’s Academy. I was, too.”
He stood slowly. “You know I didn’t mean Ian, or you.”
I turned back to the disgusting spaghetti sauce on the stove. “I’m not very hungry. I wouldn’t eat this, if I were you. I think I’m a little tired so I’ll just go to bed.”
“It’s seven o’clock.” He was staring at me.
“Yeah, I’m just so tired.” I turned to leave.
“Rebecca. What the fuck.”
“I knew it!” The words spilled from my mouth. “I knew you were mad at me.”
“Come back here. Right now.” He pulled out two chairs. Well, buckets. “Sit down and explain to me what’s happening.”
I perched cautiously on the bucket. I didn’t want to talk.
“Tell me about this mind reading skill you’ve recently acquired,” Digger said, and he grinned at me.
I didn’t smile back. “It’s not mind reading. First of all, you called me by my name. Twice today, and you only do that if it’s something serious or bad or something.”
“Or when we’re screwing.”
I blushed. “Yes, then too. It was more the way you said it.” And right now, when I was saying all this out loud, it just sounded so stupid. “Never mind. Forget this, please.”
He put his hands on my knees. “I’m upset about Joaquim.”
“Yeah. Me too. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”
“No one blames you.”
“Lorelei does. She’s so mad…”
“She was angry and you were there.” Digger looked at me. “She’s going to tell you sorry tomorrow when we go ice skating. I was angry too, and I told the guys if we see the Scout again to take a sledge to the engine.”
“Digger!”
“I had some problems with the Gran Torino. I got madder after you left.”
“I mentioned to Sylvie that the Scout, and Tom, aren’t welcome at Brody’s.”
“Well, I thought about it more too, and you’re right. It probably wasn’t all her decision. But I’m not touching the fucking Scout until Joaquim comes off the waitlist and gets in.”
“Fair enough.” I studied his hands on my knees, gently rubbing. I thought of my father’s hand gripping my shoulder.
“What’s the matter?” Digger leaned forward and tilted up my chin. “You just got a look on your face…”
For half of one second, I thought about telling him that my father had come to the house. That from what he had said about seeing animals, I thought he had been inside, at least in the garage.
I had considered it during my shower earlier and I already knew that I couldn’t tell Digger. He would have gone to confront my father and God knew what would happen. Police, for sure. Maybe my father severely injured or even worse, which I only cared about in how it would affect Digger. “I was thinking about you destroying Tom’s car with a sledgehammer.” I was a liar, again.
“Nah, I’m not really going to do that. Come here. You’re too far away.” He picked me up off my bucket and put me on his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him as tightly as I could. He protected me, and now I was protecting him. I would never, never tell him about my father coming to the house. My father had only warned me not to embarrass him, not really threatened me. I was fine. It was all fine.
The next day, after I gave some parting instructions to the work crew, Digger and I headed to the ice rink to meet Lorelei and Joaquim. He loaded an old pair of black hockey skates into the Fairlane. “I’m thinking I should bring some pillows to stuff in my pants,” I mentioned. “I’m a very, very bad ice skater. As in, I’m pretty much unable to stay on my feet.”
He laughed. “You can’t be that bad. We’ll get you the chair to push around.” He picked up my hands. “Got your mittens?” He wound my scarf twice around my neck.
We got into the car and I played with my scarf. When Margot had left, my father had been so angry that he’d put his hands around my neck. He’d squeezed and only let go when I started to black out. I had worn scarves to school until the bruises went away. I had thought I was going to die.
“Rebecca?”
I jumped. “Yes? What?” I looked over at Digger as he signaled to turn into the parking lot at the rink.
“I’ve been talking to you for the past few minutes and you haven’t heard a word. You’re a million miles away. You ok?”
I nodded forcefully. “I’m fine. I was just thinking about Tracey.” Liar. “This is the longest I’ve ever gone without speaking to her.”
“If you’re worried, give her a call. Even if she was a little bitch to you about whatever.”
I hadn’t mentioned that our fight had been over him, whether he would want anything to do with me after sleeping with me. “Yeah, I guess it is kind of dumb to keep giving her the silent treatment. It’s just strange that I haven’t heard from her, because usually when I get mad, she gets madder. She sends me all kinds of texts and leaves messages about how everything was actually my fault.” We got out and walked around the car.
“She has your new number?” Digger closed the trunk and locked it, and slung his skates over his shoulder.
“No, but Ian said she hasn’t been calling the house either.” I smiled a little. “One time, in high school, she backed over my backpack with her car. I mean, it was sitting next to me on the sidewalk, and I had to jump out of the way so I wouldn’t get hit too. She said it was my fault for being near the street.” Oh, Tracey. “But then she bought me a new laptop to make up for the one she smashed. And a new bag and new shoes, because she said mine were ugly.”
Digger was grimacing. “On second thought, maybe keep your distance.”
I laughed and felt a thousand times better. “No, you were right. I will call her, after we skate.”
Lorelei and Joaquim were already there, bent over Joaquim’s feet to lace up his skates. Lorelei stood and looked at me anxiously.
“I’m really sorry,” I said before she could speak. “I’m sorry I misrepresented myself and made you think I could help you.”
“What? You did nothing but help me, and you were awesome at it, and I acted like a fucking bitch yesterday. I know, I owe you two bucks!” she threw over her shoulder to her son. “It was worth it because there’s no better way to describe myself. I spent the whole night rolling around in shame because of it and I’m really sorry.” She grabbed me in a big hug. “Can you forgive me and be my friend again?”
I realized I was crying onto her shoulder. “Of course.”
“Because as Joaquim and I also discussed,” she continued, leaning back and wiping my face with my scarf, “of course this isn’t the end of the world. You were right when you said there are plenty of good schools. I started looking at real estate listings to see if we can move into a better public school district and I’m going to hit my boss up for a raise.”
“Sounds like a great plan,” Digger said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Unless your boss is a total pri—jerk, he’ll probably give it to you. Let’s get you laced up, baby girl.”
Digger was a great ice skater. I’d had no doubts that he would be, given the athletic prowess I’d seen him demonstrate in pickup basketball at the garage and his general grace of movement at all times. He held my hand for a while and dragged me around then I told him to go skate with Lorelei, who looked practically professional. She had been skating with her son but she chased after Digger when he came by and goosed her. Joaquim and I held hands and inched our way around the ice.
“I’m not that upset.”
I had been focusing so hard on not falling on my face that I barely heard him. “What did you say, Joaquim? Did you say that you’re not that upset? About the Lamb’s Academy deal?”
He nodded, making us lose our balance and wave our arms wildly for a moment. When we were back to making our incremental forward progress, he answered me. “Yeah, I guess I don’t care so much about that school. I mean, I would have liked to go. It’s pretty there and they have so much cool stuff. Any my mom really wanted it for me. But I like my school and I like my friends.”
“You would make new friends, if you went to a new school. You strike me as that kind of guy.”
Joaquim considered. “I am that kind of guy. I’m like Digger, right? You know how everybody likes Digger.”
“Well, I know that I like him.”
“Me too.”
I inexplicably wavered back and forth, but kept on my feet. “I’m not so sure that it won’t work out in the end with you going to Lamb’s, but I’m glad to hear that you’re ok either way. I didn’t want you to be sad about it.”
“My mom is PO-d. Do you know what that stands for?” he asked me.
“I do. And I know that she is.”
“That’s how it is with moms, I guess,” he said. “They get really mad if someone does stuff to their kid.”
I thought about my own mom, and then I thought about how I felt about Ian. “I know exactly what you mean,” I told Joaquim.
Lorelei glided up and spun around us. “Come here, boyo. Hold my hands.” Joaquim quickly let go of me and his mom pulled him around the ice. They were both cracking up.
“Do I hear you laughing? Are you having fun?” Digger bumped up behind me and I immediately fell forward. He caught me and picked me up around the waist, making me squeak and clutch his arms. “There’s no fun allowed here. This rink is for serious skaters only.”
“I should have put the pillows in my pants,” I told him, waving my skates in the air as he glided around with me suspended above the ice. “I fell about a hundred times right on my butt.”
“I think I can help you with that. I’ll consider taking care of your ass as a personal mission of mine.” He sighed. “You’ll have to be naked, but I’ll deal with it.”
“Wow, thank you,” I told him.
“You know that you skate slower than you drive? I didn’t think anything could be slower without reversing the spin of the Earth or something.”
“Some people like to be cautious,” I remarked.
He pushed my scarf down with his chin and nipped my neck. “Some people like to take their girlfriends out to the parking lot and get in the back seat—”
“Joaquim says he’s not that upset,” I broke in. “He says he likes where he is, but he’s ok to go, too. He’s rolling with the situation very well.”
“Good,” Digger said, and gave me a squeeze. “Now, about the back seat…”
He told me a few things he’d like to do there, speaking softly in my ear as he set me back on my feet and held me against him. Fortunately, the ice didn’t start melting as we glided in circles around the rink.