“Julie, I know that you don’t want to take the money from Mom and Dad, but if that asshole is going to hire a barracuda divorce lawyer, then you should too.” He starts pacing the office. I feel awkward like maybe I should step outside, but then I’m worried about how that would look.
“It doesn’t matter how they treated me. If they’re offering you the money, take it. I love you for thinking about me, but I need you to think about your future and your kids first.”
Just as I’m edging toward the door, his office phone rings. It stops after the fifth ring, then starts up all over again. He looks between his cell and his office phone, frustration mounting. Needing to be useful, I reach over and pick up the office phone. “Galloway Autos. How can I help you?”
His eyes go wide, and I give him a shrug and grimace. He scratches out a writing gesture in the air, and I grab a pen and dog-eared yellow notepad from the desk. The frazzled customer explains that he’s stuck at the Dollar General with a car full of kids and an engine that won’t turn over. He rattles off a few things it might be and asks if we can spare someone to go help him out. I ask a few follow-up questions and write out the details.
Carter hovers behind me, reading over my shoulder. He shakes his head and takes the pen from my hand.20 min. I give him a thumbs-up and return to the guy on the phone.
“Sir, what I’m going to have you do right now is go back into the store because it’s too hot outside. We’ve got a few things going on right now, but I can have someone out there to you in twenty minutes.”
The guy lets out a relieved gust of air. “The store manager isn’t going to like us very much, but I think we can make that work. Thank Carter for me.”
“Will do, sir. We’ll get you squared away,” I say, not at all certain what’s wrong or if Carter can even help him. The guy sounds grateful, regardless.
Carter is still talking on his phone when another call comes in.
“Galloway Autos. How can I help you?”
“Where’s Bev?”
“She’s on maternity leave. How can I help you?”
“Do you know if my car is ready?”
“I can sure find out for you. Can you give me your name and the make and model of your car?” I ask, grabbing the pen back from Carter.
“Yes. This is Mrs. Finnegan, and I drive a Chevy Malibu. It’s just supposed to be a tune-up, nothing more,” she says, acting as though I, personally, am going to charge her for thousands of dollars of unneeded mechanical work.
I write down her information, and Carter hips me out of the way, waking up his computer. He opens an app similar to what I’ve seen at Jiffy Lube. I take over the mouse and find her name pretty easily.
“Mrs. Finnegan, your Malibu is finished, and it looks good. We did note that your front tires don’t have much traction on them.”
“I said I only wanted the tune-up!”
“And that’s all we gave you, ma’am. But your tires are practically bald. You don’t have to get the tires from here. We just wanted to note that you should get new tires from somewhere.”
Still listening to his sister, Carter nudges me out of the way and pulls up another app, a kind of search engine. I type in her vehicle information, and it pulls up both the type of tire she needs and whether or not it’s in stock.
“Ma’am, I’m just letting you know that we do have the tires in stock. Again, you don’t have to get them here, but it wouldn’t take us long to fix that for you.”
She huffs out, sounding awfully disgruntled. “And how expensive will that be?”
I write out the dollar sign and a question mark on the notepad, and he indicates the area of the screen with that information. He also points to the discount. I raise my eyebrow at him, and he shrugs, almost sheepish.
“Ma’am, he’s pretty much going to give those tires to you at cost. Feel free to comparison-shop if you’d like.”
I give her the relevant numbers, and she huffs again, supremely put out. “Fine. Can I still pick up the car this evening?”
I scratch out a quick note, and Carter nods.
“Yes, ma’am.” Noting the sign on the door, I continue. “We’re open till six-thirty. Can you make it by then?”
“I’ll be there by five.”
“We look forward to seeing you, ma’am.”
She lets out a grunt and hangs up.Rude.
