10. Van
Van
A ll cars come with an owner’s manual. A guide to every feature and how to fix the simple problems. For years, I had thought that the guide to women was as simple as a car.
Yes, every car is different. Some require more upkeep, some a different touch when handling their undercarriage. But there is a guide, a plan.
Before everything fell apart with my father, I used to help him in the garage. He and my mom bought me a ’76 Datsun 280Z for my fifteenth birthday. It didn’t run, but they promised me that if I could fix it up, I could have it.
For months, I was under that car, scraping my knuckles and pinching fingers. I cleaned the grease off old parts and reassembled them. I would look up videos online of how to replace the timing chain.
All the while, my father was there, monitoring when he could and encouraging me. It was the closest we had ever been as father and son. That lasted only long enough for me to graduate high school until he dropped the bomb on me and my mother.
It took me years before I could as much as check my tire pressure without thinking of my father.
It had been over five days since I dropped Summer off at her place. Five days of meeting friends at the local dive bar for a drink. Of work and home and dinners alone. Of visiting my mom and stocking her fridge with groceries. Five days where I tried to forget the sense of holding Summer’s body close to mine. Five days of catching the hint of flowers and soap, only to find nothing there. Of wishing I had done things differently.
Devin let me know Summer was fine—feeling a little rough after her night but, otherwise, back to her old self. Not that I knew what her old self was.
Summer was a mystery to me. Normally, I liked it when things fit together. When the step-by-step instruction tells me exactly which part goes where and how best to optimize productivity.
In the past ten years, my romantic relationships could only be described as simple. I liked nice girls looking for a fun time. Girls who laugh easily and came even easier. Sure, they would come with expectations, and while I didn’t like letting them down, I was also never deceptive. I can’t do monogamy, so don’t expect it from me—take it or leave it, and almost all took it. No strings, no complicated expectations or emotions involved.
There was none of that with Summer. She was complex, a puzzle I could assemble. And despite always telling myself I didn’t need complicated in my life, I wanted to know more about her.
At night, when I would go to bed, I would wonder what got her so upset at the party. Who was this ex she had mentioned? What was it about her that entranced me so fully?
Was she thinking about me?
Then, just like months before, she was on my porch—this time on the proper side of the front door—with a bakery box in her hand.
Swathed in the late afternoon light, sun filtered through the fir tree in my yard to cast shadows over her light hair. She wore a light-pink silk strappy top and jeans, her toes painted a bubblegum pink in gold sandals.
“Hey, Hot Rod.” She gave me an uneasy smile.
It was the first time since we had met that she looked shy. No, not shy exactly but uncertain. As if she wasn’t sure about coming over. As if I wouldn’t want to have seen her.
She held up the telltale white box with its blue letter of the local bakery. “I come bearing gifts.”
I leaned against the doorframe, taking her in.
Her cheeks were flushed a beautiful pink, and her lips were painted with something shiny. Was she always this beautiful?
I stepped aside, allowing her to come into the hallway.
The first time she was here, I was so shocked I hadn’t thought of how the place must’ve looked to her. But as she walked in, I was all too aware of the decor.
As we moved to the kitchen, her eyes darted around the floral wallpaper and the gilt-framed mirrors.
As she sat on the green-and-white ivy print upholstered stool at the kitchen bar, she set the bakery box on the counter.
“What did you bring?” I grabbed the box and slid it closer to me.
Again, her cheeks stained pink. My fingers twitched to touch her skin to see if she was as warm as she looked.
“A peace offering. I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am. Normally, I stick to a few drinks, but I had just got some bad news. And, unfortunately, you’re the one who had to suffer for it. It took me all week to build up the courage to come over here.”
“But you did. Most people wouldn’t. Almost anyone else would avoid the other person, but you’re here, apologizing, with a”—I popped the box open and surveyed the contents—“cake?”
She flicked her pinky nail with her thumbnail, making a small tapping sound. “Lemon rose. It’s my favorite, and I thought maybe . . . Do you like lemon? I should have asked. An apple or chocolate cream pie would have been smarter, but I wanted to—”
“I fucking love lemons,” I blurted.
As if her body had been tense for my response, she suddenly sagged, a grin blooming over her face. “Oh, good. What a relief. It was bad enough that I likely barfed on your shoes—but to bring a dessert you wouldn’t eat, that would be unforgivable.”
“You’re officially forgiven.” I grabbed two forks from the drawer and handed her one. “And you never barfed on me. All vomit was strictly where it belonged.”
“Praise be for minor miracles.” She crooked a brow. “I really am sorry, Van. I told you I’d come with you and act like your perfect girlfriend, and instead, I made a mess of myself.”
“I didn’t need a perfect girlfriend, or else I wouldn’t have asked you in the first place.”
She stuck out her tongue as she scooped out a small bite of the cake.
“Besides, Mr. Haruki told me he was glad I was able to see you home safely. I think being the doting boyfriend made a good impression.”
Since she had already taken a bite directly from the cake, I followed suit, forgoing plates to cut off a piece with my own fork.
The airy, tart flavors exploded in my mouth as I chewed.
Her brow furrowed, and she drew her lower lip between her teeth as I swallowed. “Do you like it?”
“It’s incredible.” I scooped a bigger bite, my mouth full of cake.
She set her fork down and tucked her hands under her legs. “You probably want an explanation for why I was acting the way I was.” She sighed as if it was hard to offer.
“Only if you want to give it. Or we can just say that you had a very, very bad night. Devin said it was a fluke.”
“You talked to Devin?”
Concern creased her face.
“I promised I’d let her know you were home safe. Nothing more.”
I wasn’t sure why I added that last part. While I wasn’t planning on talking to Devin again, I wanted Summer to know there was nothing between us.
“You don’t strike me as someone who loses control easily.”
She chuckled. “Well, I have been known for my temper. But, mostly, yeah, I have standards for myself, and that night was not it.”
“We all have bad days. If I’m getting cake out of every mistake made, screw up more often.”
“You really don’t want me to tell you?” she asked, her eyes hopeful.
“Not unless you feel like it.”
Something about my answer seemed to pass a test because her smile grew wider and brighter.
At The Cabin that day, I interrupted her dinner and told her she wasn’t a sunny person. But the expanding sensation in my chest felt like the warmth of an August day. Radiant on your skin as you savored the heat.
“Redo?” she offered. “If you need me for any other work functions, I’m your gal. I’ll stick to mineral water the whole night, be your DD, whatever you need.”
I didn’t have any mandatory work functions coming up, but the offer was intriguing. A part of me ached to spend more time with Summer and get to know her better. What I wanted from her, I didn’t know.
Still, the yearning to have her with me had me saying, “I’d love that. This weekend, I was—”
A knock sounded down the hall.
Cursing whoever was on my front step, I excused myself. At the door was my neighbor, Harvey Hubert, who was standing on the porch with a scowl.
“Donovan. I’ve told you and your mom a hundred times, no street parking on my side of the road. Get your guest to move the car, or I’ll have it towed.”
While this wasn’t an enforceable rule, I wasn’t in the mood to have Mr. Hubert calling the police. He was trigger happy with his landline and had called on many of my neighbors before. Most of the time, it ended with a shouting match in the street and shaking his cane at the parking enforcement officer. There was room beside my truck in the driveway, which was easier to deal with than arguing with an octogenarian.
“I’ll get it moved, Mr. Hubert.”
He grumbled as he bumbled down my walkway with angry little stomps.
When I returned to the kitchen, a big portion of the cake was missing, and Summer set her fork down, eyes averting, tucking her hands under her legs.
“Sorry, I went overboard. I’m not used to sharing it. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, my neighbor is the parking police today and doesn’t like where your car is on the street.”
She jumped off the stool, opening her purse to find her keys. “Oh, geez, sorry. I’ll go. I don’t want to get you in trouble with your neighbors.”
Taking the keys from her hand, I shook my head. “He’s a crotchety old man who had nothing better to do than stare out his window and suspiciously look for kids skateboarding. You’re not going anywhere. I’ll move it, but we have more talking to do.”
Her keys in my hand, I left her and the half-eaten cake.
Inside her older red sedan, I had to pull the seat all the way back. A clear plastic cup with what looked like melted ice and dregs of coffee was in the middle cupholder. A sticker on the left top corner of the windshield said she was due for an oil change at the one-hundred-fourteen-thousand-mile mark. On the passenger side was a book with a bare-chested man baring pointed teeth at a woman in a red silk dress. Sitting beside the book was a large clear bag filled with small keys. I usually wouldn’t have snooped, but I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing a key at the top.
Silver, with a plastic name tag attached in precise print, it read Please return to Cory Thompson 360-555-0128 .
I grabbed another key.
They all had this Cory Thompson and the same number written on them.
It was an odd thing to find in her car, but something told me to reserve the questions for later. It wasn’t my business, and how could I ask it, anyway?— Hey, I was snooping around your car and found five hundred identical keys with some dude’s number on them?
No, I’d file that under the none-of-my-concern category.
I turned on her car, and the odometer read one hundred twenty-three thousand miles beside a myriad of other warning lights. Pulling the car into my driveway, I parked alongside my truck. I climbed out of the driver’s seat of her car, popped the hood, and grabbed a rag from my glove box. It took me less than a minute to check her oil level to find it low but not dry.
After putting everything back, I made my way inside.
Summer was standing in the living room, inspecting my mom’s collection of vintage teacups on a shelf.
Grabbing my fork, I slid the cake toward me from her side of the counter as she traced a finger over the edge of a teacup.
Since moving back in, I hadn’t invited anyone over to the house, opting to meet my few friends in town for a beer. Between starting my new job, tending to my mom, and working on the Datsun, interior decorating had fallen to last on the list.
“They were my grandmother’s. She passed them down to my mom. I think Mom wished she had a daughter or a niece or something to give them to, but it’s just me. It’s my mom’s house. I’ve only lived here for a few months and haven’t had time to redecorate.”
“Oh, is your mom—around—or . . .” She glanced around in horror. “Oh, God, please say she’s still around.”
I hesitated. “She lives at Glenwood Assisted Living.”
“She has MS. About a year ago, she had a nasty fall. I tried moving in with her to help, but she insisted on moving. She still has her independence, a little apartment with no stairs to navigate, and they have medical personnel there who can help when she needs it.”
It wasn’t a shameful secret or anything, but to dump my personal issue on her when we barely knew each other felt wrong. In the end, I figured a little information would be okay.
Summer opened her mouth, glancing around the house and then, as if she thought better of it, closed it.
“Are your parents divorced or . . .” She shook her head. “Sorry, that was too nosy of me.”
“No. My parents are still married—technically. But my father lives in Illahee with his girlfriend. Has for the past ten years. But they refuse to get divorced. Keeping her on his health insurance is the least he could do.” I sighed. “When my mom had her fall, I sold my place in Seattle and moved back here.”
“You left a condo and a job you loved in Seattle to help your mom?”
I nodded.
While I wanted nothing more than to bash my asshole of a sperm donor, I couldn’t unleash that on Summer. She must have sensed that there was more to be said but didn’t pressure me.
She turned to look at the teacups, her finger still trailing over the glass. “When I was little, my cousin Autumn had this beautiful tea set. It had little pink roses on it. I would go over to her house every day after school, and my Aunt Lorelle would make us sweetened tea and toast with apple butter. Once, I snuck one of the teacups home, hiding it under my bed, but my dad found it and made me give it back.” She looked back at me, a sad smile playing on her lips. “My dad did the best he could, but there weren’t pretty teacups at our house.”
“Is your mom not in the picture?”
“She’s in loads of pictures.” She laughed, shaking her head. “My mother is what I’d like to call a wanderer. I’m sure the same things that made my father fall in love with her are exactly why she was never suited for life in Ridgewood. She left when I was two. The last postcard I got from her, she was living out of one of those converted buses somewhere in New Mexico. Her pictures have been published in magazines. She’s a wonderful photographer but kind of a shitty mom.”
She blinked at me a few times, her cheeks tinting pink. “Sorry, trauma dump. I swear I don’t normally blab about myself like that. Boring, right? Wah, wah—crappy parents are a dime a dozen.”
“Doesn’t make them less crappy.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Her blue eyes held mine, an awareness passing between us. The urge to stand beside her was overwhelming me until she looked away.
“Ugh, emotions, right? So gross.”
“Disgusting. Who needs them?”
“Exactly.” She tapped one on the glass with her nail. “Someday, I’ll get some pretty teacup just like this. Something to pass onto my children.”
“You want to use one? I can wash the dust off one and make, um.” I pictured my sparse pantry. Any tea I had was my mother’s and likely expired. “I have coffee?”
She shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t dare. Even if they are beautiful. Maybe some other time.” Taking a seat on the stool, she grabbed hold of the bakery box and tried to pull it toward her, but I held tight.
“Is that oil change sticker on your windshield from the last time you took your car in?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I keep topping it off, but I haven’t had time to go into the shop and get hosed by the mechanics there. Normally, my dad would do it for me, but he hurt his knee at work a few years ago, and I don’t want to ask him.”
“You need to at least get your oil changed.”
“Are you lecturing me on car maintenance right now? I’ve owned that beater for years. She’s got plenty of good miles on her.”
“Not if the engine blows up. I’ll look at it.”
“What? My oil? Why would you do that?”
Why indeed? Never in all my years of flings and short-term girlfriends had I offered to change their oil. Of course I knew how. It was one of the first things my father taught me.
“Do you want me to look or not?” I took a big bite of the cake and waited. Between the two of us, over half of it was gone.
As she crossed her arms, her boobs bulged over them.
I tried not to look but focused on her narrowed blue eyes.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“I’m an engineer, Summer.” I scoffed, my mouth still half full.
“And I’ve known enough mechanics to know that engineers are the ones they complain about the most.”
Touché.
I swallowed and set my fork on the counter. “It’s an oil change, not a transmission rebuild. Your car will be fine.”
She nodded, waving in acceptance. “Sure, fine. I guess this means I owe you a second cake.”
Crossing my arms, I stared her down. “Tell you what, I have a few work events in the coming week. I’ll expect you to join me and play the part of my girlfriend.”
“For how long?” She narrowed her eyes.
Before this, I wasn’t sure of the calculation on how long I would have to date someone to ward off being set up again. But with her in front of me, I blurted the number I felt was right. I didn’t need her to come with me any longer—not really, but I still wanted it.
“Until the end of summer. Nothing big, a few dinners and stuff. After that, you’re single.”
Her chin rested delicately on her hand as she surveyed me. “So, I’m supposed to be your girlfriend for the next nine weeks? The best time to have a fling with a hot fuck boy, and I’m supposed to give it up for you?”
At the mention of her finding some random guy to hook up with, my skin became too tight. Another man dancing with her, flirting, even kissing her. Someone else who got to pull her to his side and hold her close. Red heat licked my chest.
“Was that really your plan for the summer? Hooking up with assholes?”
“Not really your business how I spend my nights, is it? I won’t be shamed for it. You think I can’t tell exactly what kind of guy you’d be at a bar? I bet you haven’t had a long-term girlfriend in years.”
She was right, of course. And as much as it killed me to think of her with other men, it would never be my concern about who she spent her nights with. I had no rights to her.
“Almost a decade. And I’m not shaming you. I like a woman who knows what she wants. But that’s not what this is about.”
“Are you saying if we met at a bar, you wouldn’t try to take me home?” She scoffed.
“No, of course I would. Look at you. But if you can put aside your rabid lust for me for a few dates, I’m sure we can work something out.”
“Noted, Hot Rod.”
“Just don’t get any ideas or anything. I need to be clear right now. I don’t do relationships or commitment or monogamy. Don’t fall in love with me.”
Summer rolled her eyes. “Are you always this dramatic? That won’t be a problem, buddy.”
I frowned.
She could have been a little more hesitant about agreeing to that. But would my ego survive her?
“Considering I just got free of my last asshole boyfriend, you won’t have anything to worry about. I have my own rules.” She pursed her full pink lips in consideration. “No funny business. Don’t be a sleazeball and think that I owe you sex or something.”
“Sunshine, you don’t owe me an inch of your body.”
But damn if I didn’t want it all.
She stuck out a hand for me to shake.
With her palm against mine, a knowing spark traveled up my arm.
I fought the urge to kiss the back of her hand. Still holding onto her, I pulled her closer until we were both leaning against the counter. “First things first, though, let’s get your car in better order.”
She followed me out to the garage, where I instructed her to sit in a camping chair while I worked.
From my angle under the car, her legs looked damn near perfect.