As he tucks them into his pocket, he asks, “Can I get your number? I’ll call you with the damage.”
“I don’t have a cell phone, can you call here?” I lift my thumb and point over my shoulder to the B&B.
His eyebrows pull together like I’ve grown two heads. “Uh, sure. You gonna be here?”
Holding my hands out to my sides, I shrug. “Looks like I’m stuck.”
“Yeah, right. I’ll call you as soon as I know what the problem is.” He quickly walks down the front steps and goes to his truck.
Taking the spot he just vacated, I lean against the post and look up and down the road of the quaint main street. It’s still early, so there aren’t many people out, but it seems quiet, and the overall feeling is one of safety and serenity. I remind myself that safety is a relative term and not to get comfortable.
The screen door squeaks behind me, and I turn to find the pretty woman, Allison, who checked me in last night. She looks like she might be early thirties or late twenties, but her smile and the way she talks remind me of someone who is young at heart.
Her brown curly hair reaches her shoulders, and her bright green eyes seem to sparkle. “Breakfast is almost ready. I hope you’re hungry.”
When the word breakfast leaves her lips, my stomach growls loudly. I didn’t have dinner yesterday, just a bag of sour gummies, and I realize I would push an old woman into the street right now for some protein. Setting my hand on mystomach, I give her the best smile I can under the circumstances. “I guess that’s your answer. How long do I have?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“Let me put on something decent, I’ll be right back.” When she knocked on my door to let me know I had a visitor earlier, I quickly put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that I would never wear out in public.
The two soft knocks on the door almost sent me into a panic, because who would know I was here? I asked her through the door if she knew who the person asking for me was, and my heart stopped rattling in my chest like a rabid animal after she told me it was the tow truck driver.
Without my car, and now having lost the small tether, also known as my keys, that connects me to my car, my situation sits heavy on my shoulders. It’s kind of like when you wear a watch every day and then one day it stops working, so you don’t wear it. It makes you feel naked. That’s how I feel without my keys.
This is my fault, I didn’t even think about car trouble when I set out on my own; I didn’t plan for it. No, shaking my head, I remind myself that car trouble is just bad luck and that it happens to everybody all the time. I can handle this. Iwillhandle this.
Later that afternoon, I’m up in my room, sitting on the bed editing a few chapters of a manuscript, when a light tap on the door interrupts my flow. As usual, my heart beats faster, and I hesitate. Without moving, I call to the door, “Yes?”
Allison’s perky voice travels through the door. “You have a phone call, Ms. Abernathy. It’s Ryder from the garage.”
“Be right there.” I push my laptop away and swing my legs over the edge of the bed to slide my feet into my house shoes before I go downstairs.
“Seventy-five hundred?” I almost yell into the phone.
“Well, that’s if I can get most of the parts second-hand. This issue in that particular model SUV is fairly common, and most people just get a new car instead of paying to have it fixed. But if I have to order new parts, it could go up.”
It must be nice to have the option of just buying a new car. My only option is to get mine fixed. A slight headache is tapping behind my temples, and I slide my finger up the bridge of my nose to my forehead, pressing against the pressure.
Anxiety is creeping up my spine, and the urge to keep moving is making my head itch.
My meager savings are almost that amount, but I need that money. Without it, I won’t have a place to sleep at night or a means to eat. I like to keep a cushion for emergencies. Yes, this is a sort of emergency, but a low-level emergency. If I spend all of my money at once, I won’t have anything for a high-level emergency.
“You there?” His voice breaks through the thoughts crashing over each other in my mind.
“Oh, yes. How long would repairs take?” My nerves are making my stomach sick, and the question comes out just above a whisper.
“Depending on how quick I can get the parts, and I have to work it in with the other cars that were in the shop before yours, maybe a month. Could be a little longer.”
A month!
The nausea in my stomach works its way up my throat, and I swallow down the bile. Taking a deep breath to calm down, all I can say is, “Okay.”
“I’ll keep in touch. Have a nice night.” He hangs up before I can ask any more questions.
A month?
If I look on the bright side, I think of my life as one long vacation. I get to a town and spend a few weeks lookingaround, see another part of the world that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise, and then I’m on my way. But a full month? Or maybe even longer? It makes the hair on my arms stand up.
