The Nine Wrecks on a Rented Rack

Gwen

Thursday afternoon Gwen came to pick up her minivan. Wes had finished the bodywork and the paint Wednesday evening, two days after we got it off the rack, and it was sitting out front looking like nothing had ever happened to it.

She came into the office in her scrubs, straight from a shift, with her purse and her checkbook and her youngest on her hip.

The little boy had a sucker from the bank and a sticky face.

She looked at the van through the window and then she looked at me, and her face just folded.

She sat down in the plastic chair by the door and cried, quiet, with her hand over her mouth.

“I heard what happened,” she said. “Everybody’s heard. I thought for sure I’d lose another week. I was going to have to call off, and I’ve already called off twice.”

“Your van’s done,” I said. “It’s straight. I measured it three times myself.”

She stood up and hugged me with the little boy squashed between us. He did not mind.

He put his sticky hand on my cheek and patted it, the way you would pat a dog, very solemn.

“Are you all right?” Gwen asked. “Honestly? You look tired, Mallory.”

“I’m fine,” I told her. I was not sure that was true. But I had one more car to go, and there was nothing to be done about tired until it was finished.

Friday

Friday was the red pickup. The deer had come through the windshield on the passenger side and the ditch had done the rest, pushing the frame rail in near the cab.

It was a full frame truck, so we chained it at the rails instead of the pinch welds.

All the other cars were straight by then. Wes had been painting and assembling around the clock, and they were lined up out front, washed, with their keys in envelopes on the counter. Every customer had been called.

I had told them all to come at three. I wanted them to come at once.

I did not tell anybody why, and I am not sure I knew why myself, except I wanted to see all nine of them drive off together.

We started on the pickup at ten. Lu was not on the phone that morning.

He said he would call around noon, and he did not. I figured he was resting. I figured he trusted me.

By two o’clock I had pulled it twice and measured it twice, and it was still out by about four millimeters at the rear cab mount.

The afternoon light was coming straight through the roll-up door, warm, and the bay smelled like hot metal and paint.

I set the chain one more time. I leaned back on it, with both feet planted and my gloves gripping the links, and I felt the frame give just a little and settle where it belonged.

You feel it in your hands before you see it. Lu always said that.

I measured three times. Right on the book. Every point.