Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 02 - Crash Course (2 page)

But it was the red car she couldn’t take her eyes off of. It shimmered in the glow of all those red and yellow lights strung around the edges of the lot. It was like a bolt of fire, positively ablaze. It was her dream come true. A red Corvette.

God, it was hot. Worse than the Fountain of Youth, and here it was nearly eight o’clock in the evening. The street was hotter than the bus. This part of U.S. 19 was nothing but concrete and asphalt and endless streams of cars and exhaust fumes. She felt like a wet, woolen blanket had been thrown over her—in a steam bath.

Enough. She walked toward the Corvette. Her ‘Vette.

She circled it three times, not daring to look at the price sticker until her third time around. The price was beside the point. It was her car. White leather upholstery. Tinted T-top, gleaming chrome wire wheels. She shivered despite the heat. Somebody had painted on the windshield with yellow paint “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”

Her favorite Rod Stewart song. It was an omen. Fate.

“Want to take her for a ride?” The voice in her ear was lazy, drawling. Wintergreen scented.

She whirled around. He was tall, maybe six feet. Brown, wavy hair lightly moussed, a golden tan, deep cleft in his chin, funny gold-green eyes. He wore black walking shorts, sparkling white Nikes, a red golf shirt with “Bondurant Motors” embroidered over the left breast.

“I’m Jeff,” he said, sticking his hand out to shake. “Jeff Cantrell.”

She shook his hand briefly, trying to take it all in. The red ‘Vette. The price tag. $10,000. Jeff. He looked like the car. Sexy. Dangerous. Fun. The $600 Gremlin was forgotten.

“I’m Jackie. Ten thousand,” she said casually. “That price firm?”

When he smiled, you could see a little chip in his front tooth. And his upper lip pulled up into a bow, like the Kewpie doll her aunt kept on a shelf in her parlor. He winked and pulled a set of car keys out of the pocket of his shorts. He tossed them to her. She reached out and caught them one-handed. She could be as cool as him.

“We can talk while you drive,” Jeff said. “I’m supposed to close up at eight, but what the hell. Think you can handle a five speed?”

“I can handle a lot more than you think,” she said slyly.

Jesus. Where had that come from? It was the car. It had sucked her in, changed her from a hard-working, bus-riding waitress to a two-bit, trash-talking party girl.

He winked again. “Let me just get a copy of your driver’s license. For the insurance. Ronnie’s rules. Ronnie Bondurant. He’s the owner. He’s real particular about letting people drive this ‘Vette.”

“I should hope so,” she said.

He showed her how to crank the ‘Vette. It took a couple of tries, and she nearly died the first time the car stalled out on her. But the radio worked as soon as she turned the key in the ignition. She flipped the dial to her favorite station. Urban classics. Motown.

Jeff was smiling, running his hands over the sparkling white-leather dashboard. “Cherry, huh? Hard to believe it’s an ‘86.”

Jackie flipped some switches on the dash, hoping one of them was the air conditioner. “Cherry. What’s that mean?”

He guided her hand toward a knob and helped her slide it all the way to the right. Air poured out of the vents. Hot at first. But his hand was cool.

“Cherry,” he repeated. “In the wrapper. Like, brand new. Give it some gas now, so it doesn’t stall out again. It’s okay. See, the car hasn’t been driven in a couple of weeks. Ronnie won’t let just anybody drive this particular car. We get kids, teenagers, they see a red sports car, they just have to drive it. Ronnie says, ‘No way. No cash, no flash.’ But you, I can tell, a car like this is definitely in your future.”

“Maybe,” Jackie said. She put the car in reverse and put her foot down firmly on the gas. The ‘Vette leaped backward and stalled again.

“Shit,” she said, so frustrated she could cry. She felt sweat beading down her back, down her neck, on her upper lip. Her legs stuck to the leather upholstery. He’d think she was some sweat hog, probably make her get out of the car so she didn’t stink it up.

Jeff laughed at her. “Don’t be so nervous,” he said. “You’re doing fine.”

Ten minutes later, the sweat had dried and she had goose bumps from the AC. She was maneuvering the ‘Vette gingerly through the thick Saturday night traffic on U.S. 19. And Jeff had explained everything. The car had belonged to a doctor in Clearwater. Actually, his wife. When the doctor found out his wife was screwing her tennis pro, he’d picked up the car at the country club, driven it right over to Bondurant Motors, and sold it on the spot. That’s why the price was so cheap, Jeff explained. Another ten minutes of hearing that sweet drawl and he’d explain her right out of her panties.

“Nine thousand,” Jeff told her as they glided back into the parking lot at Bondurant Motors. He had his arm thrown casually over the back of her seat. “And I’ll have to do some fast talking with old Ronnie. But I can handle him.”

“The bank,” Jackie said, a catch in her throat. “I had some credit-card problems a couple years ago. My old boyfriend took off with my card and was charging things …”

“Buy here, finance here,” Jeff said firmly. “Jackie, do I look like a banker to you?”

She shook her head no.

“Besides,” he said smoothly, “we’re not interested in old history. We’re interested in putting people on the road. Everybody makes mistakes, Jackie. So what happened to that old boyfriend, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Gone,” she said. “Good riddance. What about the payments?” She could feel her resistance flagging. Numbers. She needed to talk numbers. Now he would surely let loose of her, tell her to take her sorry, sagging butt out of this beautiful red Corvette, and get it into that $600 car she’d planned on.

“Girl like you needs a special set of wheels,” he said. He tapped his upper lip with the tip of his tongue. “Six hundred down? How would that be, Jackie? Think you could come up with that much?”

“Six hundred down?” She couldn’t believe he’d said that. It was a sign. Jesus wanted her to have this car. For six hundred dollars down she could kiss that hot, stinking bus good-bye forever. She could picture herself already, driving up to her mother’s house, the T-top open, her hair whipping around her face in the breeze. She’d get a long, fluttery chiffon scarf and a pair of expensive sunglasses, like those girls, Thelma and Louise, in the movie. Only she wouldn’t be driving off no cliff. No, sir.

Jeff was saying something else now, something about weekly payments, and then he wanted to be sure she had been on the same job for a year now, hadn’t she? And could he call her landlord to verify her address?

“No credit check,” he said hastily. “It’s just another of Ronnie’s rules. Come on in the office, Jackie, let’s get this paperwork taken care of, get you on the road in this fine car of yours.”

Jackie got out of the car and the heat swallowed her up. Her knees were all wobbly and the asphalt in the parking lot was soft and sticky, like chewing gum under her work shoes. The pink Caddie wobbled crazily on the roof. She wanted to ask Jeff how they got that car up on the roof. But the heat and exhaust fumes made all the cars a blur of color and vague shapes. All except the red Corvette. She ran her fingers lightly over the hood as she trailed Jeff Cantrell into the office of Bondurant Motors.

Sense and Sensibility
was one of those books Truman had always meant to read. He’d even borrowed the Cliff’s Notes from Cheryl, who was supposed to read it for an English lit class she was taking toward her Master’s degree.

But Jane Austen didn’t have quite the zip he was looking for these days.

He sat in the back of the brightly lit meeting room, drowsily enjoying the air-conditioning and the mixed smells of cologne and baked goods. He only half listened while the ladies chattered away about the predicament of the Misses Dashwood and the conflicting themes of desire and conservative moralism.

That the two sisters in the book were named Elinor and Marianne he had detected from the Cliff’s Notes. And Cheryl, who had earned a B in the lit class, informed him that Jane Austen’s work was critically hailed because of her satirical powers of observation of the mores of eighteenth-century gentry.

But his attention wandered now from English lit to English trifle. There was a large cut-glass bowl of the stuff on the refreshment table, layers of cake and peaches and raspberries and fluffy clouds of whipped cream. Right beside it was a dish heaped high with something like chicken salad. One of his favorites. But didn’t you have to use mayonnaise in chicken salad? Wasn’t there some kind of food poisoning issue if mayonnaise got left out in the heat? Salmonella was nothing to mess with.

“And Truman?”

He jerked his head around. All the ladies were staring at him. Old man Drewry was working a crossword puzzle. Margaret McCutchen seemed especially amused. Had his eyebrows started bleeding again?

“Uh, yes?” Truman said.

Mildred Davis coughed gently. “We were just wondering if a man could truly appreciate Elinor’s predicament in the book. What do you think, Mr. Kicklighter?”

Truman thought it was mayonnaise in the chicken salad, and he was already regretting the chicken salad sandwich he would not be enjoying for Sunday lunch tomorrow.

He coughed, examined the tops of his brown shoes, and pulled his glasses down to the bridge of his nose to give himself time to stall.

“Well,” he started. “Of course, those were different days, weren’t they? Who among us can say they really understand any fictional character’s predicament?”

There. Profound but not prolonged.

“I think the next book we pick ought to have snappier pictures and bigger print,” old man Drewry said, standing up so fast his metal folding chair fell to the linoleum floor with a clatter. “Now let’s eat.”

“But we haven’t voted on next month’s book,” Elvida Hamm protested. “And Margaret hasn’t finished reading her remarks.”

“I’ve finished,” Margaret said, snapping her folder shut.

“I move we read
To Kill a Mockingbird
,” Truman said loudly. Cheryl had just finished writing a paper on
To Kill a Mockingbird,
and the movie with Gregory Peck had always been a favorite of his.

“Excellent,” Margaret said, beaming. “A contemporary Southern female author. Girls?”

Daizye Belle Fletcher waved her hand for recognition. “Is it in paperback?”

“Large print?” Pops Drewry demanded.

“Both,” Margaret said. “You can even listen to it on an audiotape checked out from the library. We’re adjourned.”

Truman picked up his foil-lined book bag and headed for the refreshment table. There was a system to his buffet browsing. The gooey things, like the trifle and some pineapple cheesecake, he wolfed down as quickly as he could, at the same time scooping up the more stable items, such as oatmeal-fudge bars, sausage- cheese balls, and finger sandwiches, to be deftly transferred to his waiting book bag.

The fried chicken was a bonanza he hadn’t anticipated. It was hidden away behind a large tray of cubed purple meat skewered together with canned pineapple chunks and cocktail onions.

“Try one.” Mildred Davis held out the tray to him, her plump little hands fluttering with excitement. “Spam Kabobs. They’re my specialty.”

Truman nearly dropped his drumstick. Damn, these widows were sneaky. He hadn’t even seen her coming.

“Oh no,” he said, waving the kabobs away. “Pineapple and I don’t get along at all. But I’m sure they’re wonderful.”

“Too bad,” she said as she set the platter aside. “But Truman, I hear that you are somewhat of a home-repair expert. Maybe you’d be interested in seeing my lawn irrigation system. It’s very complicated, with all these pipes and dials and gauges. There’s this one sprinkler head that’s not working at all properly. It gurgles, but it won’t spit. And I thought, since you’re an expert—”

“Excuse me,” Margaret McCutchen said, boldly moving between Truman and Mildred, forcing Mildred to take a step backward. “I’m sorry, Mildred,” Margaret said, tugging gently at Truman’s shirtsleeve. “I need to borrow Truman to help unload my cooler of ice cream from the car. We won’t be but a minute. All right?”

“But,” Mildred said, her rouged dewlaps quivering unhappily, “I was just explaining about the pipes.”

“And I’m sure Truman is dying to find out about that,” Margaret said in that refined Southern drawl of hers. Not a rural kind of grits-and-gravy accent; more like bourbon and branch water. Biloxi, maybe, or Charleston.

Truman allowed himself to be steered toward the kitchen door. But he was puzzled. Despite her refined manners, Margaret McCutchen was no weak sister. She was as tall as he, skinny as a whip, with the weather-beaten skin of the lifelong amateur sailor he’d heard she was. Unlike most women her age, Margaret didn’t seem to fuss much about things like casseroles or flowery dresses or pictures of her grandchildren. He didn’t know if he’d ever heard her mention any grandchildren.

“The coast is clear,” she said when the kitchen door swung shut behind them and they were alone. The laugh lines around her intelligent dark eyes deepened. “You can go out the back here. Run like hell, or before you know it, Mildred will have you on a leash for sure.”