The Girl With the Pressure Washer

The Sign

I did not wait for supper. That same afternoon Kenzie came home from Rusty’s at four, because the bay was slow.

I had the pressure washer set up in the driveway, still in the box, with the hose reel next to it. I was sitting on the porch steps with a glass of tea.

She stopped at the end of the driveway and looked at it. Then she looked at me.

“What’s that, Daddy?”

“That’s a twenty-eight-hundred psi gas pressure washer with a fifty-foot hose,” I said. “And a hose reel. And a gallon of soap Miss Ida threw in for free.”

“For what?”

“For you. Miss Ida says you can have the corner of her lot every Saturday. Water’s on her.”

She stood there a long time in her rubber boots, with her ponytail coming loose. Then she sat down on the step next to me and put her head on my shoulder, the way she used to when she was little and tired.

“I’d have to quit Uncle Rusty,” she said.

“You would.”

“Mama’s going to be sad.”

“Mama already knows,” I said. “Mama’s the one who said do it without shaming him. So that’s how we’re going to do it.”

“I need a sign,” she said.

There was a piece of plywood in the garage from when I fixed the chicken coop. I cut it down to about two feet by three. Fay found a quart of black paint left from when we redid the mailbox post.

Kenzie painted that sign on the porch that same afternoon, in the shade, with her tongue between her teeth. She sanded the bare board smooth and waited for the dust to settle. Then she penciled her letters in before she painted them black.

Car Wash $10.

She made her letters careful, like a church bulletin board. When she was done she stood it against the porch rail and stepped back down onto the grass to look at it.

“Ten dollars,” she said. “Same as Uncle Rusty charges for the hand wash. I don’t want to undercut him.”

I want you to understand how proud I was right then. Sixteen years old and thinking about not hurting the man who had been taking her money all summer.

“That’s fair,” I said. “That’s real fair, Bug.”