You Deserve Each Other(3)

Not that Leon has ever given me any reason to be particularly wary of him. I should be making polite inquiries about where he lives or something like that, but I’ve got one eye on the emerald numbers of his digital clock and I’m wondering if Nicholas is home yet, because I’m hoping desperately that he isn’t. The Junk Yard opens at ten and closes at six every day except for Saturdays, when it’s open from eleven to seven.

Nicholas is a dentist at Rise and Smile Dentistry on the main road we’re on now, Langley, and he gets off at six. Usually I beat him home because he stops at his parents’ house to give his mother a coffee or to read over some confusing letter she got in the mail or whatever it is she’s squawking at him about on any given day. If she goes more than twenty-four hours without seeing him her operating system fails.

This morning I found one of my tires completely flat. Standing there staring at it, I was transported to a year ago when Nicholas remarked that he ought to teach me how to change a tire. Offended by his assumption that I didn’t already know how to change a tire, I set him straight and informed him that I’ve known for years how to do that. I’m a modern, responsible, self-sufficient woman. I don’t need a man to help me with vehicular maintenance.

The thing is, I do not actually know how to change a tire. The weather this morning was pleasant and I had no clue it was going to rain, so I decided to walk—which is what brings me to my current predicament in Leon’s car, because no way was I going to walk home. This sweater is cashmere.

My small lie about tires got a bit out of hand when Nicholas’s dad, who has deplorably antiquated beliefs, commented that women don’t know how to change their oil. In return I said, “Excuse you! I change my oil all the time.” I said it for feminism. No one can blame me. Then I may have boasted that I once put my own shocks and brake pads on and have never needed assistance from a car mechanic, ever. I know Nicholas is suspicious and has been trying to catch me at it whenever my car needs work done. Conveniently, I am an expert mechanic only when he is at work, so he never sees me in action. I sneak into Morris Auto like a criminal and pay Dave in cash. Dave is good people. He’s promised never to rat me out and lets me take credit for his labor.

Every building on Langley is a cold, bluish smear in all this rain. We pass a Claude Monet version of Rise and Smile, and I pray Nicholas doesn’t have the vision of a hawk and can miraculously see me in the passenger seat of a strange car. If he gets wind that I didn’t drive today, he’s going to ask why. I have no legitimate excuse. He’s going to find out I was lying about my car know-how, and his smug I-knew-it face is going to piss me off so bad that I’ll get an acne breakout. He has no business being suspicious of my repairwoman prowess, anyway. It’s sexist to assume I wouldn’t know how to fix leaky hoses and sanding belts and whatever else makes a car go vroom. He should assume that all of my lies are true.

I want Leon to hurry up, even though it’s slippery and I would very much prefer not to die in this car that smells like it’s huffed an entire forest up its grille. I wonder how I can phrase the request to put his life in mortal peril so that I’ll have time to look up YouTube tutorials before Nicholas gets home. Is it worth the possibility of skidding off the road in order to maintain this con? Yes. Yes, it is. I haven’t been cultivating it for this long to have it blow up in my face over some rain.

I pick up a to-go cup off the floor and turn it over. “Dunkin’ Donuts, huh? Don’t let Brandy find out.”

Brandy’s sister owns a coffee shop, Blue Tulip Café, and Brandy is her Junk Yard ambassador. She doesn’t let anyone at work get away with patronizing big coffee chains.

Leon chuckles. “Oh, I know. I have to hide it like it’s a dirty secret. But the coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts tastes better, and then you’ve got to consider my allegiance to the name. When you share a last name with Dunkin’ Donuts, that’s where your loyalty goes.”

“Your last name is Donuts?” I reply like a complete idiot, a split second before I realize my obvious mistake.

“My last name is Duncan, Naomi.” Leon slides me a glance, and his expression wants to be Are you serious because this is a detail I should probably know by now, having worked with him since February at the Junk Yard, which is not literally a junkyard. It’s a mom-and-pop store. But his manners are infinitely superior to mine, so instead his expression is Oh, that’s a perfectly understandable thing to say, I suppose.

I want to open the door and roll out, but I resist. It’s a monsoon out there and I’ll have copper shimmer streaking down my cheeks. With this visibility, I’ll wander into traffic and get run down. My black-and-white engagement photo will appear in the newspaper, with a notice that in lieu of flowers, my fiancé’s family requests donations be made to their for-profit charity, Rows of Books, which sends dental hygiene textbooks to underprivileged schools.

I seethe for a moment because that is exactly what would happen, and I’m spiteful enough that I think I’d rather take the flowers.

Finally, finally we pull onto my street. I’m already unbuckling the seat belt when I point at the little white house with my dependable old Saturn and a gold Maserati out front, mismatched as can be.

Nicholas is home, goddamn it.

Standing on the porch with today’s mail and a leather satchel tucked under his arm, unlocking the front door. The one time I need him to dote on his mother after work, and he comes straight home instead like a jackass. I check out my car and wheeze; the tire is so flat, the whole thing is lopsided. It’ll be a miracle if Nicholas hasn’t noticed. The Saturn looks pitiful next to Nicholas’s flashy car, so out of place in Morris that everyone knows who it belongs to whenever it whizzes through the stoplight just as it turns red.