5. Beau
5
BEAU
B eau headed into town a little later. He was too early to pick up Zandy, but he’d felt a burning need to get some space from the farm. A drive through the countryside felt like just the ticket.
And just as he’d hoped, the sight of the rolling fields, pale with snow under a blue-gray sky had eased his heart some, and he was feeling more like himself by the time he made it to town. He’d been a little surprised at the news about the farm. And he hoped he hadn’t let it show too much.
Mom had been so emotional, and Quinn got quiet and reserved again after the big news. Beau hoped they had both been too consumed in their own thoughts to pay much attention to him.
By the time I get back, I’ll be feeling good about this, he resolved. I’m not going to let anyone down.
That thought helped him realize what he actually ought to do with the extra time he had before the preschool pickup time. He turned onto Ambler, past the storefronts and down to the shop on the corner of Harvard Avenue, where he pulled over to park on the street instead of putting his car in the tiny lot out front.
The building was a faded redbrick with crimson trim. Three bays faced the street, and a door on the side led to stairs up to the second-floor office where massive windows overlooked the busy little corner. Just seeing it made him long to duck into one of the bays and poke around to see what they were up to.
“Hey, Beau,” Ryan Jackson called out as he approached. “Heard you’re going to be one of us now.”
Beau winced at confirmation that Max was thinking seriously of hiring him.
“Just here to say hi to Max,” he replied, feeling his stomach twist again with disappointment as he remembered that he was really here to close the door on all that.
“Sure,” Ryan said. “He’s upstairs. He’ll be glad to see you.”
Beau headed over to the door before anyone else could wave him down, and jogged up the steps.
Even up here, the dark, rich scent of the shop was heavy in the air. The heady musk of grease and fuel tugged at the part of his brain that itched to solve the complex puzzles of unhappy engines and fix broken parts. Every step he took felt like he was about to reject a part of himself.
There are plenty of problems to solve on the farm, he reminded himself.
“Beau Wilson,” Max called out when he reached the top of the staircase and stepped into the bright, sunlit office. “Good to see you.”
Beau stepped in and shook hands with Max, who smiled at him broadly.
Beau wasn’t a small man by any means, but Max still towered over him, like Paul Bunyan in a faded coverall.
“Sit, boy, sit,” Max said, indicating the chair on the other side of his desk.
Though the upstairs space was bright and almost elegant, with high ceilings, crown molding, wood flooring, and massive, intricate windows, it was set up like any mechanic’s office, with a simple desk, a couple of plastic chairs, and a thicket of handwritten tickets in untidy stacks on the surface of the work area. It was impossible to tell if those tickets were laid out randomly, if they had been blown out of order by the big ceiling fans, or if they were organized precisely in some order known only to Max himself. Something about the homespun setting tugged at Beau’s heart again, and he took a deep breath to steady himself before sitting down on an orange plastic chair that looked like it had arrived out of a time capsule from 1955.
“You called me because you were looking to see if I needed an extra set of hands after the holiday,” Max said.
“Yes,” Beau began.
“Well, I’m glad you stopped by, because I have a different proposal for you,” Max continued before Beau was able to tell him that he couldn’t help out after all. “Not sure if you’ll want to take advantage, but I wanted to offer you first.”
“Okay,” Beau said, intrigued.
“I can’t work forever,” Max said simply. “My arthritis is killing me these days, and Mrs. Bernhard wants to travel and see the grandkids.”
“That’s great,” Beau said, nodding as he watched Max rub his big hands. He honestly didn’t know how a man with hands that size had cramped and contorted them enough to do delicate work on engines all these years.
“Yep,” Max said, nodding. “We’re gonna take the RV out and see every state, if we can.”
“You got the old girl running,” Beau said, smiling at the idea. Max had been working on a vintage Dodge Frank in his off-hours ever since Beau was a boy. It was great to think of the Bernhards actually heading out on an adventure in it.
“Sure did,” Max said with a proud smile. “Had to retool or replace nearly every inch of that beast, but she’s roadworthy now.”
“That’s great,” Beau told him, meaning it. “I’m happy for you.”
Maybe the idea of not working at the shop wouldn’t be so bittersweet now. After all, part of the draw had been working for Max. Whoever took over while he was gone might be fine, but they wouldn’t be Max.
“Before we head off, I want to sell the shop,” Max continued. “Now, I’ve had private offers here and there over the years, mostly from people wanting a big commercial space close to the village. But I’d like the folks in town to still have a reliable place to take their vehicles. So if you were interested, I’d ask a reasonable price.”
He wants to sell it to me?
“Oh,” Beau said, so surprised that he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Wow.”
“This would be for the building, everything in here, and the business itself,” Max said. “Though you’re free to change the name, of course, or whatever else you want once it’s yours.”
Mine…
Max quoted him a price that Beau figured was probably less than the value of just the tools and equipment, but still more than Beau had managed to save over the years.
Beau only blinked at him, his mind racing. If Max sold to another business, then there would no longer be a repair shop in Trinity Falls for Beau to dream about working in. And if there was someone in town that was willing to keep it as a repair shop—well, there was no point in Beau ever trying to open another one. The small rural community could never really support two shops.
He’d been hoping that maybe in ten years or so he could bring Mom around to the idea of him selling the farm. But if Max’s shop was no longer a fixture in town…
It’s now or never.
“What do you think?” Max asked.
Beau opened his mouth and closed it again. It was the offer of a lifetime—a dream-come-true, and at an impossibly low price.
But it might as well have been a million dollars for all that Beau could actually swing it, financially or personally.
“Give it some thought, son,” Max said gently. “I know you may have commitments up at the farm too. Just figured this is what you love. And they’ve made out okay without you on the farm for years now.”
He wasn’t wrong about that part.
“Thank you,” Beau told him. “I’ll think about it.”
“Atta’ boy,” Max told him, nodding.
They both rose and shook hands again before Beau headed down the stairs in a haze.
I can’t actually do this, he reminded himself, even as his eyes catalogued the perfectly spaced bays and the well-trained guys who were already hard at work. I don’t have the money, and Mom wants me on the farm.
But as he drove toward the preschool, he couldn’t help thinking about what the value of the place would be. For Beau, it had nothing to do with the real estate. If he owned the place, he’d never let it go, so the worth of the land and building didn’t matter. It was the customer base that already relied on Max’s shop to repair and maintain their cars and trucks that meant everything. Even if Beau magically had the means to open up a shop of his own someplace else, it wouldn’t have that built-in customer loyalty that would make it a safe investment. That kind of thing took decades.
Beau wasn’t the jealous type, but he couldn’t help thinking about a couple of the guys he knew who had invested all their pay while they were serving. If he had the kind of funds they did now, he’d find a way to make it all work.
I sent it all home for Zandy , he reminded himself. And I wouldn’t trade her for a hundred shops.
But it was hard work not to think about Max’s offer as he pulled into the car line in the church parking lot.
It wasn’t until he spotted Zandy in the line of children, and saw her face light up when she spotted his truck, that his heart stopped aching for something that wasn’t meant to be.
All my dreams are right there, he thought to himself, smiling as he watched her peel up her coat and sweater, her eyes dancing with delight as she wordlessly revealed to him that she’d been wearing her whole Space Girl costume under her clothes all day.