The Bikini Car Wash (8 page)

“They do,” Andi agreed. “But the car wash business has completely changed. The way we get them washed, the technology of it, that’s all different.”

“As if!” Cher-L disagreed. “There’s not any technology to washing cars.”

“Yes, actually there is,” Andi said. “And it’s been pretty innovative.” She leaned her mop against the wall. “In the 1960s they invented the self-service car wash, where you could get pressurized water for what people used to do with their garden hose. You put coins in, you got water out.”

Cher-L nodded.

“Then for those who were a little more lazy, they came up with the in-bay automatic wash. You drive up into it and a whirl of fiberglass brushes wash and wax, and then it blows you dry and you’re on your way without even getting out of your car.”

“That’s what I do,” Tiff said. “I get a discount on it when I buy gas.”

Andi nodded. “It’s cheap and convenient. But it can be really hard on your clear coat finish. The people who really love their cars avoid it.”

Tiff nodded. “I remember my ex saying something like that.”

“So they came up with the tunnel wash,” Andi said. “It’s mechanized with the car moving through the different wash, rinse and wax stations. But there are no harsh brushes and all the finishing is done by hand. A perfect mix of technology and manpower.”

Andi was quoting her father on that last statement. He had been very taken with tunnel wash technology. It was the reason he decided to close up and retire.

“So what’s this place?” Cher-L asked.

“This is a hand wash,” Andi answered. “High labor, low tech. It’s very hard to compete head-to-head with a mechanized wash. Their price points can just be so much lower. And there are just way too few customers willing to pay a premium to have it done the old-fashioned way.”

“You’d have to come up with some kind of gimmick to overcome the disadvantage,” Tiff said. “The way Connor’s Diner gives unlimited refills on drinks, so that people aren’t thinking they could have eaten cheaper at a fast-food joint.”

“Exactly. That’s what hand washes do. They offer detailing and extra interior cleaning and buffing with pure elbow
grease,” Andi said. “That works for some people in some places. But in this town, with our economy, we’d have to think of something besides personal service to bring them in.”

Tiff nodded glumly. “These days nobody wants to spend extra money on anything.”

There was a thoughtful pause of agreement between Tiff and Andi. It was suddenly interrupted by Cher-L.

“Well, that’s not true,” she said. “Oh, I guess it’s true about women, but it’s not true about men.”

“What do you mean?” Andi asked.

“Yeah, women can be pretty tight with the money, especially for something like washing a car, but men aren’t.”

“They aren’t?”

Both Andi and Tiff were surprised.

Cher-L shook her head. “I go out to bars nearly every night and you wouldn’t believe the number of guys who want to pay for my drinks. It doesn’t matter if I’m alone or with girlfriends. I drink all night and it hardly ever costs me anything.”

Andi sighed. “That’s different,” she said.

“No, it’s not,” Cher-L said. “It’s men with money spending more than they need to for something they want.”

Andi shot a glance at Tiff and saw an almost imperceptible shrug of disbelief.

“That’s just guys in bars,” Tiff said. “With a short skirt like that and a little bit of alcohol haze, men aren’t buying beers just to be polite.”

“It’s not like I’m having sex with them,” Cher-L said. “Trust me, I don’t come so cheap. They pay for the drinks just to sit next to me and look at me and talk to me. They
pay just to imagine that maybe I would do something, even when I never will.”

“That’s kind of a dangerous game, Cher-L,” Tiff said.

The younger woman waved away her concern. “And I can spot the troublemakers ten miles off, so I steer clear,” she assured them. “Most of these guys are just sweethearts.”

Andi had her doubts about that. And if Tiff’s raised eyebrow was evidence, she was skeptical as well.

“But what does any of this have to do with washing cars?” Andi asked.

“If you want to bring men in to get their cars washed, I think it all depends on what you’re wearing when you wash them,” she answered.

“What do you mean?”

Cher-L’s expression was smug and worldly-wise.

“Are you going to wash a guy’s car in baggy old coveralls, or are you going to be wearing just a wet T-shirt and a thong?”

Jelly sat at the dining room table. Across from her, Happy Bear hadn’t even taken a sip of his tea, but then he rarely did. Jelly was looking through the photo album with Sesame Street’s Big Bird on the front. It was one of her favorites. All of the snapshots featured two little girls at play.

“This is Andi and me when we were in our stroller,” Jelly told her stuffed animal companion. “Mom used to take us everywhere and we would ride along, side by side together. People couldn’t tell us apart.”

Jelly gravely noted the
Law & Order
implications. “No positive identification in a lineup. Lieutenant Van Buren would be disappointed.”

After a moment Jelly smiled broadly at the bear. “That was when me and Andi played together all the time. I like this picture book better than our school one. In school it wasn’t me and Andi anymore. I had Special Olympics and Camp Courageous. Andi had…Andi had something else.”

She sighed a bit sadly, but turned the page. Immediately she was smiling once more. “Look at this!” she said. “This is a fun one. See us running through the lawn sprinkler. See how we’re laughing. This person is me. My swimsuit is pink. Andi’s is blue.” She gazed at the photo for a long moment. “I wish we could wear our swimsuits and play in the water again.”

BECAUSE IT WAS
raining in torrents, Walt raced from the bus to the shelter of the ticket booth overhang in the parking lot at Mt. Ridley Park. He wore his cap down low to hide his face and the collar of his jacket high to disguise his profile. The secrecy and subterfuge was getting old. He understood why it had to be that way. He was sure that some men would have enjoyed it. But the rush of excitement from an illicit relationship had never held much allure for him. He’d had too much of it too soon.

The memory of those heady days of first love was clear in his mind. He recalled it all distinctly, holding hands in the bleachers of the cold empty gym. Paul had promised to stand outside as their lookout. Everybody else should have been in or around the cafeteria. But in a busy place like Plainview High School, privacy was always at a premium. Beside him wearing a pleated shirt and pristine white blouse, her dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, was the love of his life.

“We can’t tell anyone,” she’d said. Her desperate whisper somehow drew his attention to her beautiful mouth, the plump lips shimmered with the palest pink lipstick. He wanted to kiss her.

“Nobody knows,” he said.

“Paul and Ella know.”

“We can trust them.”

She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure we can. I just get so scared.” Vulnerability was unusual for her. She had such strength of purpose, such confidence in herself that it almost glowed around her like a phosphorescence. It was in many ways her most attractive feature. And to Walt’s mind, her attractive features were almost too numerous to count.

“If anyone finds out,
anyone,
then the whole town will know,” she said. “My family would be so angry. And so hurt. I couldn’t bear to hurt them.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Please, Walt, don’t let me hurt them.”

“No, no, of course we won’t hurt them,” he’d assured her. “But I love you. I can’t bear to be apart from you.”

“I know. I love you, too. But it’s…it’s impossible.”

“Don’t say that!”

“I just don’t know how to make it possible,” she rephrased.

“We’ll find a way,” he promised.

He leaned forward and kissed her then. He couldn’t help himself. Their stolen moments together were too infrequent. He craved her like a drug. Her body was his nightly fantasy. But he craved her smile, her voice, her laughter, just as much.

His kiss lingered on her lips and he pulled her a bit closer, just enough to feel the graze of her nipples against his chest. He laid a hand upon her knee, inching up the hem of her
pleated skirt. He wanted to grasp her tight against him, but he didn’t trust himself. He was afraid that if they got started, they’d never be able to stop. There were so many people to think of, so many hopes and dreams and aspirations in their way.

As soon as their lips parted, he slid away from her, giving them each a safety zone. Walt deliberately tried to slow his breathing and shifted his legs to disguise his reaction to her nearness. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He noticed, as she regained her self-control, the soft, loving look in her eyes melted into sadness.

How long could a couple be in love and keep it a secret? The two had kept their silence for five months. Secret steadies, pretending in public to be just friends. The days were filled with longing glances and stolen moments. Their nights went on forever, with Walt sneaking downstairs to call her on the telephone. Many nights they talked till daybreak. They didn’t need sleep or food or even air to breathe, they just needed each other.

“Have you read the English assignment?” she asked.

“The English assignment?” Walt was taken aback by the abrupt change in discussion from their undying love to this week’s homework. “Uh…no, I haven’t yet.”

“It’s
Romeo and Juliet,
” she told him. “I didn’t like it at all. It’s…it’s so sad. Both Barb and Karen are crazy for it. They say it’s romantic. Star-crossed lovers with their stupid, old-fashioned parents. The girls think that it’s so cool that they are our age and choose to die for love. For me it’s just…it’s just such…such…I don’t even know a word that’s bad enough. Two people who love each other ought to get to be together, to live happily-ever-after. If they can’t do it in real life, at least they ought to get to do it in stories.”

Walt slowly nodded in agreement. “
We
are going to live happily-ever-after,” he said firmly. “You’ve got to trust me on that.”

“I do trust you. I trust you completely about everything. But I also know that you aren’t in charge of the world. And the people who are, our parents and teachers, even God doesn’t really seem to be on our side.”

No, God had not been on their side. Walt had to agree with that as he waited in the deserted parking lot watching the rain stream.

He caught sight of the blue Mercedes coming up the road. It pulled into a parking space under a tree far across the lot. He zipped up his windbreaker and pulled the hood over his head before stepping out into the relentless downpour.

He ran across the parking lot dodging puddles. He felt exhilarated, full of life, young. Yes, that was it, he felt young.

The passenger door was already ajar, a thin feminine hand held it open. The woman inside was bright-eyed and petite. She was wearing casual slacks, a crisp blue blouse and a summer sweater. Her hair was tidy, her makeup natural but effective. In short, she was an attractive woman. An attractive woman who looked her age.

Walt slid into the seat next to her.

“I’m getting all your fancy leather upholstery wet,” Walt warned her in apology.

“I’m sure you know how much I care about that,” she said. “Here, let’s get this windbreaker off of you and hang it in the backseat and maybe it will dry out a little.”

She tried to help him out of his jacket in the crowded small space. By the time they managed to get the dripping nylon
off Walt’s back and hanging on the backseat window hook, they were both laughing and they were both wet.

“So much for working well together as a team,” she teased. “It’s a good thing we weren’t trying to get naked. Somebody could have gotten injured.”

“It would be worth an injury to get naked with you, Rachel,” he told her.

She grinned at him.

“You talk a good game,” she pointed out. “But I don’t see you hustling me off to the adult video store motel.”

“No scratchy sheets on backstreets affair for me. I’m not that kind of guy,” he informed her. “I mean, why buy the bull when you can get…uh…wait a minute.”

She laughed. It was a sound that oozed across his skin like warm molasses.

Walt reached over and took her hand in his own and brought her fingers to his lips as he looked into her bright brown eyes. “When a man has waited as long as I have, well, he wants it in a bed of roses with all the time left in the world.”

“A bed of roses is not that hard to manage,” she told him. “But all the time left in the world is a bit more difficult to guarantee.” She was still smiling, but her expression was more serious.

“Whatever we’ve got left is enough,” he assured her. “As long as we can get started soon.”

She nodded.

He pulled her as close to him as the steering column would allow. She rested her head on his shoulder. He breathed in the scent of her. It was fresh and lightly floral, but there was nothing cloying about it. He loved the fragrance that was, to him, so familiar and so welcome.

He felt a sudden stab of regret about Ella. Had she worn perfume or just plain soap? He was certain that his late wife had smelled lovely. In truth he couldn’t remember a scent at all. Thirty-five years of marriage and he apparently hadn’t noticed.

But it was unfair to compare the two women, he reminded himself. Ella never compared him. Or if she did, he never knew it. He was determined to do right by his late wife, the mother of his children. It was so easy just to get lost in the woman in his arms.

“Have I told you lately how I love you?” he asked.

He could feel her grin against his shoulder. “You could always sing it,” she replied. “Though you were never that good with the Elvis imitation.”

He chuckled, but kept his serious tone. “I do love you,” he told her.

“I know,” she answered. “And I love you. I always have. It just doesn’t make things any easier.”

“No,” he agreed simply.

“How are your girls?” she asked.

“Fine,” Walt answered. “They’re doing fine. Jelly is the happiest person on earth. I know she misses her mother. And losing touch with the people at her old job, that bothers her, too. But somehow she wakes up every morning just happy and excited and that enthusiasm sticks with her all day long.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said.

Walt nodded. “Yeah, it’s one of those unexpected perks that you can’t imagine springing from disability. She can be so satisfied with so little. And her sense of her own success is unflappable. I wish Andi had some of that.”

Rachel made a sympathetic murmur of agreement.

“When those two were children, I thought Jelly had the hard row to hoe, but it’s Andi, with all her gifts, who struggles to find her way.”

“She misses her mother, too,” Rachel said.

“Yes, she does. And unlike Jelly, I think she has lots of guilt. She and Ella always had their mother-daughter conflicts. Now, without the chance to make it up or say goodbye, all that remains are the ‘what-ifs.’”

“That’s not all,” Rachel assured him. “It just takes some time to sort through that to get to the real memories.”

Walt sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

“I heard about her drive-through coffee place,” Rachel told him. “I thought that was a good idea.”

“It was,” Walt agreed. “I think it was. But the council just didn’t go for it. I told Andi not to take it personally, but she did. She blames Hank Guthrie. She thinks he torpedoed her. I’m sure he never intended that.”

Rachel raised her head off his shoulder and eyed him askance. “I wasn’t there,” she admitted. “But I wouldn’t trust Hank Guthrie farther than I could throw him.”

Walt chuckled. “If you were mad enough, you could probably throw him pretty far.”

“That man is a slimy lowlife,” she insisted. “He’d screw up her plans or work against them behind her back, just for his own entertainment.”

Walt wasn’t so certain. “You just don’t like him because he cheats on his wife.”

As she shook her head, a lock of dark hair, frosted with silver, escaped the confines of her neat matronly updo.

“Why Madeleine Grosvenor gave that man thirty minutes of her life, let alone thirty years, will always be a mystery to me,” she said. “But I’m not talking personal, I’m talking business. There’s not a soul at the Chamber of Commerce that doesn’t keep a wary eye on Guthrie.”

“I’ve never heard anybody say anything,” Walt told her.

“And you won’t,” she answered. “He’s powerful enough that nobody openly speaks against him. But he’s earned his reputation as a snake in the grass.”

“He’s a pretty arrogant type of guy. I’ll give you that,” Walt said. “But he’s been so blessed and he’s so successful. I can’t help but think that a lot of the distrust is based on jealousy.”

She shook her head, but at the same time she smiled broadly.

“That’s one of the things I love about you,” she said. “You’re always determined to see the good in people.”

Walt raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m naive?”

“No, not at all,” she answered. “Naive implies an ignorance of the cruelties of life and an innocence of that experience. The way you think is not based in either of those. It’s more as if you choose to only see us mortals in the best possible light. And that really sort of pushes us to live up to your expectations.”

“I’m no saint, Rachel,” he said. “Just ask Father Blognick.”

She waved away his words. “He may know your every sin. But I know
you
better than anyone else.”

She placed her small hands on either side of his face. “Now kiss me you idiot,” she said. “I’m not willing to wait all day.”

Pete was standing at his corner office window, a cup of coffee in one hand and a Mallomar in the other, as he watched
the rain come down. He tried not to let the gloom of the day weigh down on him.

The big news in the weekly
Plainview Public Observer
was about the huge expansion of Superbuy, Guthrie’s competition out near the interstate. Two adjacent businesses in severe financial trouble had given up their leases to the national chain and they were inexplicably making their store bigger, just as Pete was belt-tightening his operation day by day. It was frustrating. It was disheartening. And it didn’t matter how many times he told himself that it was a global economic crisis, it still felt like a personal failure.

He watched the city bus pause at the Grosvenor Street stop. Someone emerged beneath the cover of a pink flowered umbrella. There was something cheerful about bright florals on a dark gray day. He watched as its bearer moved along the sidewalk. It was only when she turned up the driveway of the former Plainview Wash & Wax that he realized it must be Wolkowicz.

He rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “Great, Peterson, another reason for you to feel guilty.”

Why had his father pulled that reprehensible trick on the woman? First he double-crossed her dad on the sale of the property and then he deep-sixed her coffee store plan.

He took another bite of his Mallomar.

His phone rang, but he let Miss Kepper get it in the other room. He needed to get a little more psyched up before he talked to anyone. The Mallomars helped.

The intercom on his desk beeped.

“Mr. Guthrie, it’s your father on line one.”

Pete groaned aloud. He stuck the last of the Mallomar in
his mouth and walked across the room to sit behind his desk. He finished chewing and swallowed before forcing a smile to his face. He picked up the phone.

“Morning, Dad,” he said. “I can’t talk long. I’m still going over yesterday’s numbers. What’s up with you?”

Hank didn’t bother responding to his pleasantries. “Have you seen the news about Superbuy? Damn it, boy! How could you let us get blindsided by this?”