The Girl With the Pressure Washer

Telling Rusty

She told him on Tuesday herself. She asked me not to come, and I respected that. I drove her over and parked across the street like before, and I kept the window down.

It was a bright, hot morning. Rusty was out by the self-serve bays with a ladder, changing a bulb in the sign. Kenzie walked over in her sneakers instead of her rubber boots, and he knew right away something was different.

I could not hear all of it. I saw her stand up straight with her hands folded in front of her, the way she stands to sing in church. I heard her say “Thank you for the job, Uncle Rusty,” and “I’m going to work for myself now.”

Rusty came down off the ladder. He laughed. Not mean, exactly. Just sure of himself.

“Work for yourself doing what?”

“Washing cars,” she said. “Saturdays. In Miss Ida’s lot.”

He laughed again, louder, and slapped his leg. “Kenz, honey, nobody’s going to stand in a parking lot to get washed by a kid,” he said. “Folks want a roof. Folks want a place to sit. You’ll be home by ten.”

She said, “Maybe so.” And then she said, “I hope your sign gets fixed,” and she turned around and walked back to my truck.

She got in and buckled her seat belt and looked straight ahead.

“How’d it go?” I said.

“He laughed,” she said. Her chin was shaking a little. “He didn’t ask why.”

“He knows why,” I said. “Men always know why. Sometimes they just can’t stand to say it.”

I pulled out. In the mirror I saw Rusty standing at the bottom of his ladder with the bulb in his hand, watching us go. He did not wave. He did not go back up the ladder either. He just stood there.

Getting Ready

We had four days. Kenzie used every one of them.

She read the back of every soap bottle in Ida’s store and asked Ida about a hundred questions on how to wash a truck without leaving swirl marks. She learned the two-bucket method, one bucket for soap and one for rinse. She made a list in her spiral notebook.

She paid for all of it herself, out of the coffee can. Eighty-two dollars. She would not let me pay for any of it.

“You already bought the washer, Daddy,” she said. “The rest is my business.”

On Thursday evening, before the sun went down, we practiced on Fay’s car in the driveway. Kenzie started the washer on the second pull. I showed her how to keep the tip a good foot and a half back from the paint so it would not lift anything.

She learned fast. She always has. She washed Fay’s car top to bottom in eighteen minutes and dried it with the chamois until Fay could see her own face in the door.

“Ten dollars,” Kenzie said, holding out her hand.

Fay laughed so hard she had to sit down on the porch step. Then she went inside, came back with her purse, and put a ten-dollar bill in Kenzie’s hand.

“First customer,” Fay said. Her eyes were wet. “Don’t you dare give it back.”