Page 21 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Blake tried to see the words, but she couldn’t. Instead, she placed the receipt neatly back atop the stack on her metal desk. “Got it. Did he pay with cash or card? I can’t tell that either.”

She’d gotten better at understanding his shorthand, but some days, it felt like an exercise in futility. Especially now, when they were so busy that there were only seconds between a car driving out of the bay and a new one taking its place.

Even with the garage’s popularity, it was a wonder that the business had survived as long as it had. Between the complete lack of an inventory system, handwritten receipts, and, well, creative accounting, there was no shortage of work for her to do.

Gumby scratched his forehead, drawling, “We settled on a trade.”

Blake pursed her lips. “What kind of trade?”

At the end of the day, she didn’t actually care, but she needed to know how to account for the work. If she had to guess, it would be a donation write-off.

He squinted, like he was trying to remember, but Blake knew very well that he knew exactly what he’d accepted for the two-hundred-dollar battery. And that wasn’t even factoring in the labor. “I suppose it was one—no, two”—he held up his right hand, making a peace sign—“apple pies. His wife, Marlene, makes the best apple pies.”

Blake cocked her head to the side. “For a hundred bucks a pie, I’d have to imagine they’re pretty damn good,” she teased, no real heat behind her words.

Gumby held up his hands in mock surrender, flashing surprisingly white, straight teeth. “I keep trying to get her to give me the recipe, but she won’t do it. What’s a man to do?”

“I guess take his pie where he can get it,” Blake conceded, finding herself smiling, too.

Sure, she had dreams of bringing Gumby’s into the twenty-first century, but there was a reason the local mechanic was beloved in this town by men, women, and children alike. He looked out for people, and in turn, they looked out for him.

Blake was constantly finding little gifts or wares left on the checkout desk for him. Sometimes in lieu of payment, but sometimes, it was just because he’d helped them at a time when they’d needed it, and they were paying back his kindness when they were in a better position.

He’d done the same for her, even when, to the outside world, it looked like she had it all.

But she didn’t have time to dwell on his kindness right now. She had to get moving, or she’d have a pack of irate moms on her hands.

The dance studio was only a five-minute drive from Gumby’s, situated on a tree-lined street two blocks back from the main drag. It was a square, flat-topped building with white, paint-covered brick and a parking lot that could easily hold a dozen or more cars.

There was nothing parents loved more than watching their daughters grow into princesses before their eyes, thinking that, maybe one day, they could become the next Little Miss Cypress Falls, then hit the larger pageant circuit if they showed promise.

Which was to say, even during the more relaxed summer sessions, she’d be lucky to find a spot in tonight’s parking lot.

Every parent desperately wanted to believe that their child had what it took, but very few dancers would actually go on to any meaningful, talent-based career or compete for the major state and national titles.

Still, excelling in the fundamentals of dance was literally one the first steps.

Blake tried not to think of her own pageant past—fairly short-lived overall, considering her unshakable fear of public speaking. Instead, she focused on easing her groaning pickup truck into the last empty spot, taking care not to scratch one of the luxury SUVs on either side.

The first Thursday session that she taught was an intro to movement class for “late-in-life dancers,” which, believe it or not, meant students who hadn’t already taken a structured dance class between the ages of two and four.

Insane, but that was the reality of youth sports these days.

The studio offered more of these classes in the summer, when parents were looking for activities to keep their rambunctious kids occupied.

Instead of entering through the front doors, Blake walked around the building and used her key to enter through a side door. The building was set up with two dance studios in the front—where classes could run concurrently—a smaller studio for private lessons, a changing room, a small staff room that doubled as a changing room for the adults, a costume room, and two small offices, one of which mostly held overflow costumes.

She had to give Holland Hayes credit. A lot, in fact. She’d taken this rundown building and turned it into a place that was bustling with activity. Some folks drove from over an hour away for their kids to be at her studio.

It didn’t hurt that she’d been crowned Miss Texas Teen, not to mention that she’d finished as the runner-up in the Miss US Teen pageant.

As though Blake had made her materialize just by thinking about her, Holland appeared in the hallway, ethereal as ever. She was dressed in her normal dance wear: a pair of black leggings over a leotard, with an oversized shirt falling off her shoulder. She was in her early thirties, but Blake thought that she could pass for someone in their mid-twenties, with her lithe dancer’s body and glowing skin.

Blake would have sort of hated Holland (privately, of course) if she wasn’t such a nice person on top of her celebrity-good looks. Another one of those things that just made sense was that Holland had spent most of her twenties out in Hollywood, trying to make it in acting.

She’d been gaining traction, too, when she’d suddenly shown up back in town one day, a flurry of rumors in her wake.

To this day, Blake had never gotten a straight answer about what had happened. Not that she’d pressed.