Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
After we pulled onto the freeway, a ringtone echoed through the truck, followed by a voice booming over the sound system. “Wade?”
“Rick. Any reason you inconsiderately fucked with Gene’s head right before he flew overseas?”
“I was considerate.”
There was a scuffle in the background and another male voice I recognized joined the call. “The car wasn’t in a fender bender, Wade,” Gene’s friend Lucy said flatly. “It’s toast.”
How were they all awake at this hour?
“Fucked up beyond all recognition and heading for the junkyard. Dave screwed us last night, and if Rick’s expression is any indication, he’s lucky he’s still spending time in the drunk tank.”
“Shit.”
“That’s about our sentiment on the subject. We were thinking we could get a new car PDQ and you could get started tricking it out before Gene gets home. It might keep him from beating Dave to death with the Mustang’s crumpled bumper.”
“I’d like in on that action,” Rick said darkly.
“He’ll only be gone a few weeks.” Wade sounded exasperated. “Let me make some calls.”
“Tell your contacts we’re not feeling picky. It’s called 24 Hours of Lemons for a reason. Any car can be a racecar, especially with you as our pit crew.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to you two later.”
They hung up without saying goodbye, which was rude, but my mind was too busy reeling with new information to ponder the off-putting phone etiquette of the male species.
A plan was starting to come together in my head. Admittedly, it was kind of out there—bordering on potentially insane—but it was a plan. A year and a half ago, I would have refused to even consider it, but now? It might be exactly what I needed to help me deal with what I was missing out on. It would certainly be more proactive than feeling sorry for myself while accepting all the FaceTiming and wish-you-were-here postcards that were about to come my way.
If I’d learned anything in the last forty-three years—which was debatable after this morning—it was that there was a very fine line between a stroke of genius and a shit sandwich. I might have crossed that line too many times to be entirely confident in my own decision-making skills, but something was telling me this time could be different.
The lemon in the bunch…
It’s called 24 Hours of Lemons for a reason…
Any car can be a racecar…
Stroke of genius? Or shit sandwich? There was really only one way to find out.
2
AUGUST
It was a three-coffee morning.
When Wade dropped me off and took Myrtle away to parts unknown, I knew I’d never be able to get back to sleep. I’d taken a shower, refilled my travel mug and gone back out to the driveway to deal with the other car in my life—Mom’s bright yellow VW Beetle, Jiminy.
Naming our cars was a family tradition.
I’d needed to think, and he’d needed a bath, so I’d hosed off the cobwebs and pollen until he was shining again. Then, because my nightmare at the airport was still fresh in my mind, I’d also watched a YouTube tutorial, following the how-to-check-your-fluids instructions to make sure he wouldn’t give me the same problems Myrtle had if I needed to drive him before I got her back.
He was fine. The truth was, I’d taken better care of the cute little bug than I had my own car lately, driving him around the block when I couldn’t sleep and taking him in for all of his regular checkups. To somewhere other than Hudson’s Garage, of course.
The same was true for Mom’s apartment. My one-and-a-half-story soul-eater of a house with red-brick and white siding had been neglected. The weeds were up to the front windows, the swimming pool I never used was transforming into a murky bog of eternal sadness, and every room inside needed a thorough scrubbing. But the separate one-bedroom apartment in the courtyard-style backyard? That was pristine.
Because, unlike your house and your hair, you remember to clean it on a regular basis.
If my place sounds expensive, that’s because it was. Especially for the shape it was in when I bought it. The shape it was still in, because I hadn’t made any improvements. But I’d signed the mortgage as soon as it was put in front of me anyway.
“Mortgage” was now my least favorite word in the English language. It had surpassed both “moist” and the sentence “but you have so much potential” over a year ago.
It was also the reason I now stood, cleaning supplies in hand, in the open doorway of Mom’s apartment—otherwise known as the Mama Casita, or Home for Wayward Sea Gypsies (Morgan had made her an actual sign to hang by the door for that one).
The wild plan I’d worked up on the ride home from the airport would cost money that wasn’t in my already painfully tight budget, which meant deciding to do something else I’d been putting off for a while now. Renting this place out to supplement my income.