Fender Bender Blues (33 page)

“Great,” Rach replied, deciding she’d bring up the matter of her purse after her second or third day with the company.

“And here’s your coat. Make sure you wear it at all times.” He handed her an oversized, gray smock that looked heavy and uncomfortable and smelled of onions. Inscribed on the corner above the pocket was “Rings-N-Things.” It reeked of onions. Before today, she never imagined she’d ever be sick of the smell, but it was already getting old. Hopefully she’d get used to it because right now she worried she might yak. Tim held out a pair of thick goggles.

“Goggles?” Rach took them hesitantly.

“Everyone wears them. It’s code. Make sure you do, too, or you’ll have a hell of a time with your eyes. We’re pretty strict about it,” he warned and Rach nodded, though she was positive the HR specialist hadn’t been wearing goggles earlier, nor could she remember a pair of goggles sitting on the woman’s desk.

Maybe the goggles were only necessary in the other sections of the plant. She was about to tell him that a tour of the factory wasn’t necessary, but Tim was already headed out the door and down the hall. She trotted to keep up and skidded to a stop just before running into him when he abruptly stopped in front of a set of large, steel doors with the word “CAUTION” stenciled across in black letters. Tim opened the door and gestured for Rach to step inside.

The overpowering smell of raw onions almost dropped her to her knees. It hit her like a ton of bricks and for a scary moment she feared she might faint. What if she passed out? She gasped and sucked in a breath through her mouth, but coughed when the taste of onion rushed in. She didn’t know how it was possible for something to smell so strong that she could taste it.

Despite the goggles she wore, her eyes burned and she blinked rapidly against the sting. She blinked hard a few more times, hoping to squeeze a few tears out to flush her eyes. The liquid produced only made it worse.
Damn
. She hoped he would cut the tour short because she wasn’t sure her eyes would survive much longer. Her nose had begun to run.

The sound of conveyor machines whined around her and was almost as unbearable as the smell, taste and burn of the onions. Rach rubbed the back of her hand under her nose then wiped the wetness on the coat—she didn’t have any other option. It wasn’t as if Tim was making any move to hand her a tissue. He was already walking across the room and she almost tripped over him when he stopped to tug out a pair of latex gloves and a hairnet from dispenser boxes screwed into one of the large square columns running down the center of the room. He handed her the gloves and a hairnet and she rushed to put them on while he continued across the concrete floor.

There were a total of twenty machines whining throughout the room and standing in front of each of the long belts were five people who looked like they were separating onions that had been cut into rings as they passed on the belt. She’d spent four hours watching the process in the training room and was even less excited to watch it in person.

Now that she was witnessing it done in person, clearly anyone who could stand doing it for any length of time had to have eyes of glass. Her own had stopped watering so she pinched her arm and waited for the tears to come. They didn’t and she worried her tear ducts might have been permanently damaged by the tour.

Tim stopped beside a conveyor where four people were handling the onions. He gestured for Rach to stand beside him and she told herself it was pointless to explain she didn’t want to see or care to see first-hand how onions were separated—he seemed hell bent on showing her himself.

He pointed to the empty spot at the end of the conveyor. Over the whine of the machine he yelled, “You stand here and try to catch the onions that the others miss. I’ll check on you after a bit.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he was quick as lightning as he strode off in the opposite direction. She gazed at his back for a minute through blurry eyes then looked down at the onions passing by quickly on the wide black belt. Without much thought, she began separating the rings as she’d been told to. Despite the fact she was new, she was going to have to tell him this was the most idiotic office training she’d ever had. What the hell was she going to learn separating onions? She should’ve been filing papers or taking phone calls or reading office procedure manuals.

Two hours passed and still Tim had not come to check on her as promised.
Bennett, you are an idiot!
Her great paying salary job had clearly been compensation for the eye torture she was enduring. There was no office job. No wonder the staffing agent had been surprised she didn’t want a description of the position.

She swore and ripped off the face mask, wiping at her nose furiously. It hadn’t stopped running since she’d walked into the room. Her entire face was numb. Her eyes no longer burned and that was a bit of a concern. She worried her eyes might never produce moisture again and the film from the freshly cut onions had somehow traveled through the air and clogged every pore on her face. She could feel the gunk oozing down deep, forming zits, and she shuddered. Her feet were aching, her back was cramped, and her patience had worn thin.

Tim must have noticed her distress from somewhere across the room because he suddenly appeared beside her.

“How’s it going?” He yelled over the hum of the machines. She glared through her goggles, not daring to take them off for fear her eyes might fall out of her head.

“If you must know, it’s going like shit,” Rach snapped, shoving the gloves at him which he caught to his middle in surprise. “Also, you people are crazy for thinking you pay your employees nearly enough to stand here torturing their pores and burning their eyes out of their heads. Do you have any idea how long it will take me to exfoliate my pores? My eyes haven’t watered since you left me here
three hours ago
. So in case you haven’t figured it out already—I quit!”

Rach walked away, back rigid, her legs cutting a determined line toward the steel doors and freedom. The sound of cheering followed in her wake.

“I quit, too!” a man yelled in heavily accented English.

Rach glanced behind her as she passed through the steel doors. Not only one man followed her, but several other workers had left their positions at the conveyor belts. They rushed the door, dropping their smocks and goggles in a pile over hers, hooting, while Tim stood by in bewildered horror as the employees vacated the factory.

“Wait! Your relief doesn’t come in for another three hours!”

But no one was listening. The employees cheered, sharing high fives and pats on the back. A heavyset Hispanic woman reached out and gave Rach an elated hug.

“I’m glad you said something ‘cuz our pay
sucks
!” she exclaimed.

Another man yelled, “We don’t have to put up with this crap!”

“I’m calling my brother and his friends and telling them not to come in. Let’s go on strike, make this company pay us like we deserve!” A gangly man with a thick mustache and bloodshot eyes roared, sending the others into a frenzy.

By the time Rach snagged her purse from the locker room, she was no longer leader of the pack and instead followed the others out a side entrance where people jumped around and chanted for better wages, dental insurance and more vacation days. Stepping out into the sunlight was blinding and her eyes were stinging again. Her tear ducts came back to action in full force and her eyes poured as if she’d just finished watching a tearjerker romance
.

She left the others to celebrate and escaped to her car. She hadn’t meant to start a strike and hoped the turn of events wouldn’t come back to bite her in the ass. Knowing her luck, it would. She absolutely did not want to be anywhere near when the news van showed up and shit really hit the fan. She threw her car into gear and floored the Toronado. As she left the parking lot behind, she could hear the workers chanting, “Better pay or we won’t stay!”

A block from the facility she pulled over and waited for her eyes to stop crying. Fifteen minutes later she arrived at her townhome. Her plan was to hit the shower but was sidetracked when the first envelope in her mailbox caught her attention.

Rach’s heart skipped a beat and she ran her finger over Craig’s name in the upper left-hand corner. Before she could stop herself, she tore at the envelope with shaky hands. Inside was not the letter of apology begging her to come back to him, but a check for seven thousand dollars. On the printed paper enclosed read, “Payment for 1999 red sedan.” The amount was much larger than retail price for her car.

Her first instinct was to rip it into million, tiny pieces. Common sense took over and she shoved the check into her purse. He’d left her front door open and she’d almost hit her dog—if he wanted to pay for her car, she’d let him. Plus, the insurance company had already forked over a large chunk of change to fix it the first time. She doubted they’d be so generous about a second claim so soon after the first.

She wondered if the check was his attempt at an apology, or a way to pay her off so he could walk away without a guilty conscience. A letter with the check telling her he missed her would have been better than nothing.

With a frown, she whistled at Tally and headed back out the door minus the shower she’d been dreaming of since separating her first onion that afternoon. She threw the Toronado into gear and headed to her parents’ house.

Chapter Forty

When she entered the front door of her parents’ house the mouthwatering aroma of fresh baked bread filled her nostrils and she thanked God that her sense of smell hadn’t been affected. She found her mom in the kitchen humming over a chicken, her dark brown hair pulled back in a rigid bun at the nape of her neck, strands of gray intertwined throughout. She wondered when her mom had aged, the gray more prominent in her hair. Rach paused there in the doorway to watch as she worked at the stovetop, throwing in chopped celery, carrot and onion into a large stock pot, then dropping the chicken in. Seasonings followed, then the lid. Her mom always made her stock from scratch. She’d reserve the liquid and use the chicken for the pasta she was making for supper.

She finally sensed Rach’s presence in the doorway and briskly brushed off her hands on the stained, yellow apron tied around her waist. She gave Rach a firm hug and light kiss on the cheek. She pulled away quickly, her nose crinkled at the bridge. “Why do you smell like an onion factory?”

“Because I just left one. Do you mind if I wash my face in your bathroom?” Rach rubbed at her cheeks. They were grimy and oily beneath her fingers.

“Please do. Maybe you should take a shower while you’re at it.” Susan dug a pair of tongs out of a drawer and pointed at the door. “Your dad’s been worried sick about you
and
his car. Why haven’t you been answering your phone? And Craig’s been here looking for you.”

“Sorry, I’ve had a bad couple of days. Everything is fine.” She headed for the door. “Where’s dad? I wanted to see if he’ll go car shopping with me.”

“That might cheer him up. He’s been a lost puppy dog without that car of his and I just don’t think I can take it anymore.”

Rach smiled. “Hopefully, he’ll have it back today.”

After scrubbing her face for ten minutes she emerged feeling twenty pounds lighter. Maybe the strike wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe the company would consider supplying full face masks, not just goggles. While scrubbing her cheeks, the beginnings of at least three zits puckered under her skin.

She found her dad in the living room parked in a recliner watching a Leave It to Beaver rerun. He looked up and gave her the “dad eye” and rocked back in his chair. “Nice to see you’re alive.”

“Would you like to go car shopping?” She dangled the Toronado keys in front of him and he snatched them from her hand.

“Really? When? Now?” His excitement made her smile.

“Yes, right now.”

He sniffed and wrinkled his nose and his forehead became lined with deep wrinkles. Plugging his nose for theatrical display, he asked, “What the hell happened to you?”

“I took a brief tour in an onion factory today. You can drive me to my house so I can change.”

“You definitely need to change.” He hopped out of the chair and headed for the front door. “No one will sell you a car smelling like that, that’s for sure.”

She got into the passenger seat and when her dad slid behind the wheel he looked horrified and yelped. “My car smells like onions! I can’t believe you made my car smell like onions.”

She rolled down her window as soon as he turned the key. “It’s not the car, it’s me.”

Except she wasn’t sure she believed that statement, especially when the smell had clung to her clothes as easily as it had. If her dad took his car home tonight, he’d be spending the evening with a tube of Armor All.

“There are a few conditions to today’s car shopping.” Rach strapped her seat belt over her and sat back.

Her dad gave her a sideways glance and answered, “All right…”

“Number one, no harassing the salesmen.”

“
What?
” He sputtered. “I don’t—I never—I wouldn’t have to if they were honest people. Those used car salesmen can’t be trusted, Tiger. I only want to make sure they don’t jip you like you did buying that last one. And you know why you got a lemon, don’t you?”

How had the conversation turned around on her? Rach shook her head. “That’s beside the point. That was years ago, this is now. And now I’d like to be a grown-up and have the last say on this car, Dad.”