The Lies About Truth(12)

“Metal Pete,” I called out.

Headlight came instead, tail wagging, and nosed the doughnut bag with interest. “Where’s Metal Pete?” I asked her.

Both ears rose into spikes as she trotted ahead to the office. The door was open, and I sauntered in as if I worked there.

“Hey there, you.” Metal Pete glanced up at me as he worked some sunblock into his weathered face. “I thought you’d forgotten about your favorite salvage yard.”

“Been trying to cut back,” I told him. Although he knew I didn’t mean it.

I placed his breakfast on a table that had once been in the galley of some yacht, and played with seat-belt riggings that held fern planters. Everything around here got repurposed.

Metal Pete peeked inside the bag, rubbed his nonexistent belly, and said, “Me too.”

The man never met a pastry he didn’t like, but he walked this place every day, refusing to ride in the Gator the way I’d suggested. The yard was his gym, and it was pretty damn effective. His old never sagged.

“You look different,” he said, tossing a doughnut hole into his mouth.

“Max is back.”

“And you’re here? Kid, I haven’t been your age in a long time, but that’s not how dating works.”

“He’s busy this morning, and we’re not dating, exactly, we’re just . . .”

“Dating,” Metal Pete concluded. “And . . . like usual . . . I’m your distraction.”

I smiled around my straw.

“Okay”—he drummed his fingers on his cheek—“I’ll give you a dollar if you can find a 1998 red Chevy Impala with an intact bumper.”

From there, I followed the script of a conversation we’d had many times. “You know exactly where it is.”

“Yeah, but you don’t, and you, my dear, are looking peaky. Why don’t you go wander around in the sunshine?”

“For a dollar?”

“You drive a hard bargain. How about two?”

“Make it five, and you’ve got a deal,” I told him.

This was a game we played. He wanted to pay for his breakfast, and I never let him. Scavenger hunts were a different story. I charged him double for those.

“Give me a hint of which direction to look.”

Metal Pete devoured his doughnut in three bites and scratched his chin. “It’s close to where you’ll end up anyway.”

Metal Pete and I understood each other. His wife died of cancer five years ago, and so far, I’d never seen him out of the yard, never seen him in anything but his gray Hanes V-neck, and never seen him interact with anyone who didn’t have grease on his hands. Junked metal was easier to sort out than a broken heart. I was his exception and he was mine.

I filled a cup of water and gave the ferns a drink on my way out. “I’m taking Headlight with me.”

“Thief,” he said.

“Cheapskate.”

“Red. Chevy. Impala. Go.”

He pointed, and I laughed. We were oddball friends.

I liked to imagine he needed me as much as I need him.

As soon as I rounded the first corner of cars and was out of sight, I stripped down to a tank top and hung my long-sleeve shirt off the busted mirror of an old S-10 pickup. I stood there for a moment, exposed, staring at the sky as if it were a show.

“Good morning, sky,” I whispered.

I swear I heard God say, “Bring on the vitamin D.”

Okay, it wasn’t God, but I liked the idea that the sky was listening. Trent and Gray used to say Bring on the vitamin D when I’d warn them about not wearing enough sunscreen. They’d both worked for Relax Rentals, the company that managed chairs and umbrellas for the high-rise condos on the beach. Gray was probably there today. In a different reality, the one without the wreck, I’d be there helping him drill umbrella holes in the sand or carrying chairs. In this reality, I was in the salvage yard, wishing it was already evening so I could see Max.

But still, I thought about Gray as I walked. How he looked both good and bad the other night at the beach. Fit. Too fit. He needed to lay off the protein and weights until his neck matched his head again.

But what did I know? I wore long sleeves and hung out in a salvage yard. There were certainly worse obsessions than excessive fitness. I guess it all came down to this: even on the days I hated Gray Garrison, I wanted him to be okay.

And he didn’t look okay.

I wished I could do something about that, but absolution dangled in front of me like a carrot on a ten-foot pole.

I stopped thinking about Gray and found the Impala. Using some tire grease, I wrote the location on my arm and headed in the direction I’d been going all morning.

Trent’s Toyota Yaris.





CHAPTER EIGHT


No matter how often I visited the Yaris, the first glance sent my stomach to my throat.

The metal beast was quiet and picked over, twisted and sad. The front-end damage was so severe there was never much to salvage. Someone had since purchased the backseat, a rear taillight, and the two rear tires. The first time I came to Metal Pete’s, he walked me through the yard, offering a warning that it wouldn’t be easy to see the car. I wasn’t the first survivor to arrive on his doorstep searching for closure.

In an average week, I spent four or five hours lounging in my makeshift tire seat as if it were a raft and this row of cars my lazy river. I was here more than that, playing Karate Kid to Metal Pete’s Mr. Miyagi, except without the karate. He ran me here, there, and everywhere, pretending it was the price of sitting time at Metal Pete’s Fine Salvage Yard.