Chapter Six
“Me: Ugh, all the comments…
12yo: What comments?
Me: You, disagreeing with everything anybody says.
12yo: Not everything.”
—Dallas, Virginia, United States
Molly
This was not a walk of shame.
It wasn’t.
More like a saunter of shame up Gavin’s cute little sidewalk to his front door.
Molly lifted her hand to the doorbell attached to the stucco exterior, pressing the button.
“I think we can just go in,” Ollie said, reaching for the doorknob.
Molly shook her head. “We can’t just walk into someone else’s house.”
Affronted, Ollie lifted his finger to point to the house. “We were just in there.”
“And now we’re not.” Molly did her best to use her not-the-time-to-argue tone, but it came out weak even to her ears.
The door swung open, and Gavin stood across the threshold. A brief look of shock passed over his face before an odd smirk settled on his mouth. “Back for more?”
Oh, yes, please.
The internal monologue thing? Not helping.
“Mom wants to know what you know about cars,” Ollie said, since Molly’s tongue had stopped working.
Turned out, not a lot. But Gavin had the phone number to a mechanic and tow truck, which was how Evelyn ended up watching the boys a teensy bit longer and Molly ended up being driven to Brothers Automotive by Gavin Frank. Gavin, who skillfully inserted himself in her crisis of the moment.
The initial problem? Just a battery. She needed a new one. That’s why it hadn’t started.
The deep-down issues? Varied and many. Starting with the need for a new radiator, coolant something, some kind of plug thing, and a hose doohickey.
Also, two bottles of wine and a table to curl up under and cry.
She was in a professional garage with tools and lifts and tires, but all she saw was the bottom line on the paper in front of her. It was a big bottom line.
Huge.
A number she only liked to see in the plus column of her bank account. A number that meant either stunt camp would not happen or she’d have to dig into that nest egg and put off house hunting for another six months.
Neither of these things was appealing.
She didn’t kick the wheel well of the vehicle because then she’d have to add any damage she inflicted to the estimate the mechanic presented on the hood. The hood and the tires being pretty much the only things thatdidn’tneed replacing.
Lesson learned—don’t put off maintenance over and over again. Oil changes are actually important to vehicle longevity.
“How about a patch instead?” she asked, eyeing the bottom line of the estimate one more time, then glancing away. At that price, she should buy a new car. But she had just committed to stunt camp.
