Joy Ride
She huffs. “My, my, aren’t you a particular one.”
“Says the woman who’s giving me a hard time for showing up on the dot.”
“I’m here early because I’m worried about the seat,” she says, as she follows me into the small front office. I unlock the side door into the garage. It’s like a bank vault in here some days, given what we store inside.
“What about the seat?” I survey the garage, confirming the vehicles that slept over are still here. The Lambo is safe and sound, as well as a canary-yellow 1971 Dodge Challenger that Sam has been taking the lead on restoring. He asked me the other day for a little help on the engine to make it sing, but otherwise he’s doing a great job on his own, coming in after hours and on weekends to work on it. We’ve got a Chevelle here, too.
I inhale deeply. Ah, the scent of motor oil and leather. It’s better than freshly ground coffee.
Henley sets her purse on a chair. She takes the lid off the coffee, tears open a few sugar packets, and pours them into the drink. “I did some research on Brick’s height,” Henley says, as she drops the empty packets into a nearby trash bin.
“Okay,” I say, as I run a hand on the cherry-red hood of the Lambo. “Did you sleep well last night, girl?” I whisper to the car.
Laughter booms behind me. I swivel around. Henley cackles, her mouth wide open. “Did you just talk to the car?”
“Of course,” I say, owning my affection for this beauty. I stroke the hood, as if she’s a loyal dog and I’m petting her in the morning. “She likes a nice, tender touch when she wakes up.”
“Don’t we all,” she mutters, and I snap up my head and meet her eyes. Her sunglasses are off now; she wears them like a headband.
“Do we all?” I ask, turning her words around on her.
She narrows her eyes. Bitter dark chocolate is their color. “The seat, Max. Let’s talk about the seat.”
“What’s wrong with the seat?”
She grabs her phone from her back pocket, stands next to me, and shows me a browser window with Brick Wilson’s IMDB info.
“He is six foot four, right?” I take another drink of the near-boiling beverage. I pretend it’s a vitamin that fortifies me against her.
A small smile plays on her lips as she shakes her head. “I was researching him last night. Don’t get me wrong. He’s one tall man, but he’s not six foot four.”
“How do you know?”
“I watched the video of the three of us, then I studied the publicity shot.”
“And?” I ask, intrigued to see where she’s going.
“He’s shorter than you,” she says, a hint of excitement in her tone, as if she’s uncovered a clue to buried treasure. “By about an inch.”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. “You could tell in the pictures and videos that he’s six foot two?”
She points with two fingers at her eyes. “These work. And women are always being lied to about how many inches something is, so I’ve learned that a girl has to be able to tell size on her own.”
“Tell size? Is that like telling time?”
“Yes. But you can only do it fully at certain times . . . so it can be harder. Unless you’re really, really good. Like me.”
I rein in a grin. I want to tell her well-played. But we wound up back in this barbed-wire boat after too many dirty innuendos that went too far. “So we don’t need to move the seat back as much as we planned?”
“Nope. The network must have given us his glamour height by mistake, not his real height. So we slice off two inches,” she says, and I cringe, picturing her as a demon barber, ready to cut.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Just a little uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of the word slice next to inches.”
She rolls her eyes. Their shade is lighter now, like a walnut. I need to develop a cheat sheet to read her emotions, but I think this color corresponds to amused. “You have to know I’m not a woman who likes less inches. It pains me, too.”
My jaw nearly comes unhinged, but I resist the urge to tell her that with me, she’d get all the inches she wants and then some. I resist it with another scalding drink of coffee.
She takes a sip of hers. Her nose crinkles, and her lips curl in clear dislike.
“I take it your tastes haven’t changed?”
She shakes her head and sets down the coffee on a workbench. My heart sinks the littlest bit. I wanted her to like the coffee, or at least to have another sip. To give it a chance.
Maybe to give something else a chance. Someone.
I shake off that thought.
She’s all business now. “We should call David and tell him about the discrepancy.”
I flash back to the comments I made to Sam when he went out with Karen at John Smith Rides, then to my own concerns about getting too cozy with someone who works for my main rival. “All business” is how I should behave, too.
“Absolutely. And I’m impressed with your attention to detail,” I say.
After all, lack of attention to detail on the Mustang is what got her into trouble with me years ago.
“I’ve had to learn from my mistake,” she says, an emphasis on mistake.
And it’s unmistakable that she’s referring to my comment during the tub incident.
24
Henley’s To-Do List
* * *
—Give him a piece of my mind.
25
Henley plays cameraperson as I work on the seat adjustments. During a quick call to update David on the inch issue—he apologized profusely for giving us the glamour height—he asked if we’d be willing to shoot a DIY-style video today on our work. “Though, please don’t reveal his real height,” he told us.
And so the girl I got off to a week ago thanks to Bubble-Bath-Nipplegate is capturing me on her cell phone for all posterity.
“Tell us about the seat, Mr. Summers.”
I give an overview of the plans for it, keeping the details straightforward and the height close to the vest, per David’s request. Even though there’s no love lost between car-build reality shows and me, I don’t mind these promos. The work is real, and we’re not asked to crank the metal music or talk like streetwise presenters. As I finish the explanation, I add, “And these cars are made for drivers who are average height and build.”
“But Brick is tall and broad. He’s a big man, right?”
I nod. “That’s why we need to customize the seat.”
“Besides,” Henley quips from next to her cell phone, “you know what they say about big men?”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “What do they say about big men?”
She pauses, wiggles an eyebrow, and then performs a pretend drumroll with one hand. “A big man needs a big seat.”
“That he does.”
She taps her phone, ending the video. She drops the device back into her jeans. “You thought I was going to say something inappropriate?”
“Gee, Queen of Inches, I wonder why I’d think that?”
She winks. “I thought the network would enjoy a little fun banter between us. But we can go back to hating each other now.”
I sigh heavily as we work on the seat, crouching close to each other by the driver’s side. “I don’t hate you, Henley.”
“Could have fooled me.”
She’s mostly quiet the rest of the day, and so am I. We become the living, breathing definition of all business as we tackle this car.