“Well, why don’t you tell me what’s going on with her here, and I’ll see if I can’t help you get her back up and running and on your way. Is it a dead battery? Need a jump start? Forget to change your oil? How bad are we talking here?”
Her face pulls into a grimace. “Was I supposed to change the oil?”
“They say every three thousand miles, but it’s a pyramid scheme. You’re probably good for closer to ten, maybe evenmore on this girl right here if you gave her the good stuff. Don’t tell me you’ve been driving her while she’s thirsty?”
Her eyes narrow on me in a way that’s somehow sardonic. “You really think I roam the country, living out of my van, and don’t know to change the oil? Give me some credit.”
I hold my hands up in innocence.
“Then tell me, darlin’. What are we dealing with?”
She opens the sliding door to the side of the van and steps inside, a clear invitation to follow her. I let out a loud whistle when I duck down and climb the couple of steps to get inside. “Damn. Van Gogh ishot.”
She chuckles, nodding. “And she knows it.”
Granted, I haven’t been in many Sprinter vans that have been outfitted for the van life, but this shit is gorgeous. Natural wood finishes. A small living space, even an area I would refer to as a kitchen, lots of cabinets and hidden storage nooks, some sort of closed off tiny closet or room behind a door, and what is clearly her bed at the back of the van. I bet when you open the back doors, she’s got the best view anyone’s ever had from their bed.
“You live out of her?” I ask.
“Yep,” she says, popping thep.
While I was taking in her setup, she climbed into the open space next to the driver’s seat, and is now watching me from there, expectantly. Being what has to be well over a foot taller than her, it’s not quite as comfortable for me to move about within the van as it clearly is for her, but I make it work, getting to the bucket seat she drives from, and plopping down in it.
“So, she, uh, how do I say this?”
The girl taps her chin with one finger thoughtfully, nose wiggling, and it’s inexplicably cute. She’s gotta be mid or late twenties—she’s jaded enough to be older than that—but her features make her look on the lower end of her twenties.
“She shuddered? And then she didn’t want to go forward anymore, and there was this terrible burning smell.”
“Isn’t that what stroke victims report?”
She levels her turquoise gaze at me and implores me wordlessly.
“Yeah, okay, that doesn’t sound good,” I admit. “Let’s see what happens when I try to crank her up.”
I press the power button without depressing the brake pedal to see if the battery is working, and sure enough, the dash lights up and the electronics start up too.
An orange light catches my eye, and I look at the owner of the van pointedly.
“Your check engine light is on.”
“And aren’t you going to check it?” she asks, somewhere between playful and hopeful.
“Let’s try and start her up first and see what happens then.”
I press the brake pedal and the on button once again, and what happens isn’t good. That smell she warned me about hits, and I turn the thing off.
“Well, I hope it isn’t a stroke, because if so, I’m having one too,” I say dryly.
“Oh God,” she moans, dropping her head into her hands. “This isn’t good, is it?”
“Did you think it was?”
“I’m sort of an optimistic pessimist,” she explains. “I knew it probably wasn’tgreat, but I still hoped it wasn’tterrible, if that makes sense.”
The little shoulder shrug/head tilt combo she gives as she explains only further endears her to me. Am I under a spell? Should I be checking the van for crystals and shit? I’m pretty sure this girl’s got me wrapped around her finger and she’s not even trying.
For all I know, she could have a boyfriend bigger than me behind that door back there, and he could be waiting to knock me over the head so they can take my debit card and enjoy all fourteen dollars on it. They should’ve caught me tomorrow, once I’m back to work and have some money again.
