6. Tilly
SIX
Tilly
Minimal Intervention: The governing principle of the trade is the least action that will actually do the job. It asks a great deal of restraint from people whose whole instinct is to fix things.
The water runs cold over my fingers while the bottle fills. I pin the phone between my ear and shoulder.
"So?" Jo's voice comes through tinny. "You've had almost a week. I need an update. Any better?"
I twist the cap on and set the bottle by the door, next to the spare key on his key hook in the shape of a dirt bike. He took off all of the other spare keys except one hook, making room for mine.
"That’s the problem." I lean against the counter. “He’s being weirdly nice.”
"So does that mean he's better than living at the brothel with Ericka?"
"Oh, my God. Living in a box in the Quarter would be better than living there. I love Ericka, as you know. But I couldn't get out of there quick enough. I swear she had at least ten different bros sleeping over in the six months I lived there."
“Still can’t believe you got somebody to take your half of that lease. That girl has no idea what she’s in for.”
“Neither can I.”
“Ericka probably scared her into signing before she could change her mind.”
“Don’t ruin this for me.”
Jo laughs. “Whatever. Fall is going to be so much better.”
"Wish we could have made this spring work, but I know, I know."
"Same. But back to your current sitch. He's practically your brother, so this works, right? Easy, peasy.”
"Yeah, it's good. We're getting into our grooves and staying out of each other's way."
Across the room, the coffee table's actually clear. His greasy dirt-bike parts that were all over the room are neatly in a bin that sits under it now. "He's kind of awkward around me now. He used to give me shit the same way Cooper does.”
“Is that a bad thing that he doesn’t constantly give you shit?”
I pull my hair back and loop it up. “I don’t know. It’s just off, like he’s walking on eggshells. I don’t know. It’s just off, like he’s walking on eggshells. He leaves the kitchen when I come in and knocks before he comes down the hall. I mean, this is his house.”
Jo laughs. "The horror. It might just be because y’all are ten and twelve. I think that’s normal, adult behavior when you’re living with someone.”
“I don’t like it. I think I’d rather he be a dick so I can hate him. I don’t like nice Rhodes.”
"Tilly." She draws my name out slow. "Do you hear yourself?"
"What?"
“You walked into his house swinging, ready for a fight.”
“I came in swinging because he needs to know I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Okay, but Rhodes didn’t make you live there.”
I go quiet.
“Cooper did. You’re pissed at Cooper and taking it out on the guy who’s bending over backwards to make sure you’re comfortable.”
I look at the dirt-bike bin under the coffee table again.
“Yeah, I see what you’re saying.”
“Exactly. Now the poor guy announces himself before entering his own hallway because you came in like a feral cat.”
“He is not afraid of me.”
“I didn’t say afraid.”
“You absolutely implied afraid.”
“Fine. He’s respectfully terrified. You just did six months with Ericka. Do you really want another four months hiding in your bedroom because you hate the person you live with?”
“No.” I hate that she has a point. My neck goes hot, and I roll my shoulders like I can throw off an annoyance I can't aim at anything.
"Oh, before I forget, I got us a smaller boat for Friday. My uncle's letting us take his center console, so we can get in tight on the beds without the dinghy."
"Perfect. Thank him for me."
"Anyway." Her voice softens, circling right back before I can get off the phone. "I know I need to let you go."
"You're right, I need to leave, or I'll be late." I grab the bottle and take the key off the wall. "Tuesday meeting."
"Love you, mean it," she says before ending the call.
I put the phone in my pocket and step out into the chilly afternoon.
Climbing into the driver's seat, I put my water bottle in the cup holder first, then check the clock on my phone. I've got about twenty minutes. It's a fifteen-minute drive, and I hate walking into those meetings late, so I like the buffer.
I turn the key.
Click.
The engine doesn't turn over. Just one flat click, sharp as a knuckle on a table, and then nothing. I turn it back to off and forward again, listening this time. Same single click, and then nothing.
"Come on."
I flip the headlights on and check the dash. The lights come up bright, and the radio crackles alive when I push the knob, so the battery's got juice. That rules out the easy answer, the one I was hoping for.
I kill the accessories, pop the hood, and climb out into the driveway.
The engine bay gives up a wave of cold metal and old oil when I lift the hood. I prop the rod and look around like I know what in the hell I'm doing.
My fingers go to the terminals first anyway, even though the lights already told me the battery's not dead. I find the negative post, and there it is, a crust of white-green corrosion built up around the clamp like dried salt.
I pull my sleeve down over my palm, work the clamp loose, and scrape at the buildup with my thumbnail and the edge of my key until I'm down to bare metal.
Grit packs under my nails. I wiggle the clamp back on and lean my weight into it until it's snug, then check the positive side, which is cleaner, but I check it anyway.
Back in the seat. I wipe my hand on my shorts and turn the key.
The same flat click. No change at all.
Fuck me.
I sit back against the headrest and let out a breath. So it's not the terminals. The battery's live, connections are tight, and I'm still getting that one hard click instead of a crank.
It's got to be the starter. The solenoid pulls in and the motor behind it won't turn, and I know that sound because I've heard my dad swear at it in the boat shed a dozen times.
Figuring out how to diagnose that exactly, not to mention fixing it, is above my pay grade.
The clock on my phone says fourteen minutes. I could get under there, find the starter, rap the housing with something heavy, and see if that does it. Sometimes that shakes the brushes loose for one more start.
What am I thinking? I have no business being anywhere near that.
"Piece of junk." I slam the hood hard enough to rattle it.
I jog back and push through the front door, still working the problem, picking at the crud from the battery terminal that's wedged under my fingernail now.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and scroll for anyone close enough to grab me and get me there in record time. I round the corner into the kitchen and nearly slam straight into Rhodes.
We stop a hand's width apart. There's no contact, just heat and the smell of soap rolling off him.
He's in nothing but a towel.
My eyes go before I can stop them. Wet chest, water still tracking down over his defined abs, a droplet hanging off the point of his shoulder.
For a second he isn't the kid I grew up around or the name I keep filed next to Coop's.
He's a man, and an annoyingly good one to look at, wet, those hipbones cutting down into the white terrycloth towel.
A line of dark hair runs down under the towel, and I’ve never in my life wanted more than now to see where that trail leads. My mouth goes dry.
My eyes catch and hold for a second too long before I get them up to his face where they belong. My face goes hot, which I decide to blame on the battery acid that surely seeped into my skin and made me lose my mind for a second.
"Sorry." He shifts back half a step, one hand going to the towel where it folds in on itself. "I don't usually walk around like this. Let me go put something on."
"It's your house, Rhodes. Stop. I'm sorry I barged back in." It comes out clipped, faster than I mean it. "I'm not supposed to be here."
"What are you doing back? Is everything okay?"
"Car won't start. I cleaned the terminals. They were corroded, but it didn't do anything. It's the starter, I'm pretty sure. Or the solenoid, something in there."
"Okay." He says it easily, like a dead starter is nothing. "Give me a second to put on clothes. I'll drive you."
"You don't have to." I'm already back on my phone. "I can go to another meeting later in the week."
"Tallulah." Still calm, not pushing, saying my full name, of course. "I've got professor markups to read anyway. I can do that in the truck while you go to your meeting. It's no problem at all."
"Are you sure? I don't want to put you out."
"Of course. Don't move," he says as he rushes back to his room, his hand still holding his towel closed.
That's it. I stand there waiting for the leash to close around my wrist, and it doesn't. He asked if I was okay. He never asked the rest.
The truck smells like him, cedar and clean cotton, and under it the faint diesel-and-oil ghost of the garage. Rhodes backs out of the drive with one hand hooked over the wheel, the other resting easy on his knee. The engine settles into a low, steady hum that fills the quiet between us.
"You still put ketchup on eggs?" He asks out of nowhere.
I turn my head and laugh. "Okay, that's random as hell. And that was one time when I was nine."
"That image lived in my head for years. And I know for a fact it was not one time." He checks the mirror and pulls onto the street. "You did it at the fish camp every single morning. Coop used to gag."
"Coop gags at everything. He's dramatic."
"He is dramatic, I will give you that." A streetlight comes on overhead as we pass under it, washing pale gold across the dash. "You still do it, though. Tell the truth."
"Take a left up here," I say. "And no. I have a refined palate now."
He snorts, signals, and turns. Doesn't ask where the left is taking us. Just does it.
The sky's gone that thick blue you only get in New Orleans right before dark, and the oaks throw long shadows across the windshield.
"Turn right here, at the Iglesia de Dios sign."
The printout slides off the console where he tossed it when he got in, a fat stapled thing gone red with a professor's ink, and lands on my foot. I pick it up.
He eases to the curb and puts it in park. The engine drops to a patient idle.
"You don't have to wait," I tell him, hand already on the latch. I hand him the papers as I open the door. "I can catch a ride back with someone. Don't sit out here for an hour."
He takes the stack from me, his two pens in his other hand. "Got to get through this either way. Might as well do it with the AC on."
"Rhodes."
"It's more comfortable than the library." He settles back, uncaps the pen with his teeth, and spits the cap into the cup holder. "Go on. You don't want to be late."
I climb down and close the door behind me without another word. The side door glows, and Ms. Dot's already there in her cardigan, her whole face opening up when she sees me.
"Tilly, baby." She catches my arm and squeezes. "We saved you a chair."
Something in my chest eases under her hand.
I glance back at the truck once. Rhodes is already bent over the paper, pen moving, not watching me go at all.
The truck's right where he left it, not idling at the curb watching the door for me, just parked with the interior light off, him leaning back against the headrest.
I pull the door open and climb up. The AC's cold on my arms. Goodbye Earl, by The Chicks, is blaring on the radio.
"Hey." I get the seatbelt across.
"Hey," he says, clearly startled for a moment. He turns the radio down all the way.
"Nice choice of song. Turn it back up," I tell him.
He smiles. "You a Chicks fan?"
"Obviously." I don't give him my whole ranking, but they are definitely top ten for me.
He turns it back up, drops the truck into drive, and pulls off the curb.
That's it. No how'd it go, no good crowd tonight, no nudge to find out who was inside or what got said in that room. He just drives, one wrist over the wheel, eyes on the road.
The streets slide by dark and wet-looking under the lamps. Behind my seat, the marked-up paper shifts when we take a corner, a soft slide against the vinyl.
My shoulders come down off my ears, even though I don't tell them to.
When the song ends, I tuck a foot up under me, reach over, and click the right arrow to the next song.
He doesn't look over or say a word about me taking over the radio. The Chicks' cover of "Landslide" fills the speakers. I pull my hand back into my lap.
"That's a good one," he says, and nothing else.
We ride the rest of the way like that, quiet, but not the braced kind. The kind where nobody's holding on to anything.
He pulls into the driveway as the last chord fades, and neither of us says a thing about the timing. We don't have to.
"Night," I say, and get down.
Inside, the porch bulb throws a yellow square across the door. My key slides the deadbolt back smoothly, and I'm through before I catch myself reaching for the light switch as if I already know exactly where it lives.