“Is there somewhere else we can change?” Dash asked, tamping down her annoyance.
Jim slipped a chummy arm around her waist. “Maybe the head, but it’s pretty small.”
Dash sent a silent thank-you to the Wrens for teaching them navy terms. The “head,” they’d been taught, was the washroom.
“That’ll do,” she replied, circling free of his grasp.
“Would you mind giving us a tour?” Ginny asked.
“A tour. Okay. Those are the bays.” Jim pointed around the garage while his father stood in place, arms crossed. “They got all the tools you need stacked behind them, but you can borrow the other fellas’ if you need. Just be sure to put them back. They get touchy if their things are missing. Monday to Friday, you show up at eight, half-hour lunch break, then you can leave at five. If you’re late, you get docked, or else you stay late. Payday is every two weeks on the Friday.” He indicated two bays halfway back, directly across from one another. “Those are your stations, and you’ll have a vehicle in there every day. The trouble with them is written on the clipboard on your workbench. You finish one, you get another.”
A grumble came from Mr. Eisen. “I told the navy I didn’t want girls working here, but they said you knew what you were doing. I say prove it.”
Fine, Dash thought. “Where’s the head?”
Dash stood guard outside the tiny washroom as Ginny changed into her coveralls. She emerged a few seconds later, her face a mild shade of green.
“What is it?”
“If it smells like that in there every day, we’re changing at home.”
Dash stepped into the washroom, careful to breathe only through her mouth. Just before she closed the door, she scanned the garage, conscious that every man in the place was watching. “We are definitely changing at home after this.”
They’d checked into their assigned “home” the night before and met their roommate, a bubbly Wren named Mary who had already worked the hospital switchboard for a year. The three of them got along right away. Their prim landlady, Mrs. Pidgett, was another story. The woman was probably in her fifties, and she constantly paced, wringing her bony hands and muttering under her breath. Dash caught a few words, likebrazen!andscandalous!, and she understood that Mrs. Pidgett wasuncomfortable with women doing men’s work. It wasn’t the first time she had heard those kinds of adjectives, and while it was annoying, she ignored it as best she could.
At one point, Mary pointed out that Mrs. Pidgett never wore anything but grey and black, and it hadn’t taken much after that for the girls to make the leap to calling her The Pigeon when she wasn’t around. And they started referring to their tiny, shared bedroom as the Pigeon Coop.
At least in the Pigeon Coop, there were fewer eyes on them. When they were dressed, Jim led them through the garage. Between the bays, Dash felt his hand touch the small of her back. She sped up to keep out of his reach.
“I think we can find our places on our own,” she told him.
Heads held high, the girls walked on, painfully aware that everything they did was being observed and judged. At their allotted bays, Ginny turned left and Dash turned right, where she came face-to-face with an ancient Dodge, riddled with rust. All the other bays contained cars and trucks from 1935 and newer. This one was about twenty years older than those. So this was a test. Dash went to the workbench for her orders. The clipboard read, “Bring her back to life.”
It had to be a joke. This old car probably wouldn’t ever make it out of this garage again. She glanced up from the note and saw all the men leaning on their cars, smirking.
“There a problem?” Jim asked innocently, and she knew he was laughing at her.
Nothing made Dash angrier than being laughed at. “No problem at all,” she assured him. She gathered her hair and tucked it under her cap. “Just hoping there’d be more of a challenge, I guess.”
“Oho!” he said, grinning. “I’ll tell you what. You get this car going, and I’ll treat you to dinner.”
So that’s how it was gonna be. “Thanks, but no. I’ll tellyouwhat. I’ll get this car going, then you’ll bring me something else to work on. And you’ll pay me after two weeks. I’m here to do my job, sir.”
His brow twitched. “I see. Well, get to it then.”
Dash worked through lunch. She changed the old filters and checked the spark plugs and battery, but from the start she had a feeling she knew what the trouble was. This ancient car had been left to sit for so long, it had to be the carburetor. She removed that—a Kingston 5 Ball, which most of these old cars used—then she clamped the bowl to the counter with a vice so she could put all her weight into loosening it. Once it released, she used a half-inch wrench and a screwdriver to disassemble the whole part. She was right. The thing was filthy. She started by cleaning the float, which controlled the needle, because with it all gummed up like this, gas couldn’t get in. Then she turned to the main jet, which was caked with fuel residue inside and out. After she removed the gunk, she soaked each piece in Varsol and put her muscles into scrubbing with a hard brush for the rest of the day.
An hour before closing time, she reassembled the carburetor and put everything back where it belonged, then she climbed into the driver’s seat and started the old car up with no trouble at all. She was aware of the men gawking, but she showed no indication that she noticed except to wink at Ginny. Her friend kept a straight face, swallowing a laugh that they could share later. Without a word, Dash shut off the Dodge’s engine and headed down to the office. Jim came out as she arrived, reluctantly impressed.
“Where do you want me to park her?” she asked.
“Sure you don’t want a fancy dinner to celebrate?”
“Celebrate cleaning a carburetor? I don’t think so, Jim. Just tell me where to park her, and I’ll be back tomorrow for something new. Try to find me something a little tougher, would you?”
elevenDOT— Toronto, Ontario —
She’d done it. Dot had taken the hour-long bus ride to the main transit station in Toronto all by herself. Now she sat in a streetcar, pressed solidly against the window, questioning everything about what she was doing. Fortunately, no one sat with her, so she didn’t have to worry about that at least.
