Austin leaned against the truck for nearly twenty minutes, but Jynx didn’t come out like she normally did. He texted her and waited another few minutes, but she didn’t reply, so he texted her again. After nearly a half hour leaning against his fender, he was getting mildly irritated, but not enough to drive off without her if she was coming along. Kelly wasn’t home, so Jynx probably wasn’t in the house anyway. After just a few more minutes he finally made his way along the fence and side yard, crossing to the open hatch. “Knock knock,” he called from the top of the ladder.
“What?” she replied, a few moments later.
Austin stared at the open hatch, feeling slightly stupid. He didn’t remember doing anything to upset her any more than usual. She had been a little surly ever since they’d found the scrap and he began to worry that she might be disappointed when she finally found out that the big hunk of metal wasn’t a real flying saucer. He doubted that aliens would have left their flashlight after they crash-landed. If those guys at Sancho’s were looking for the scrap, it was probably because it was some Cold War technology from way back in the 1980s and they didn’t want it getting into the hands of the Russians or the Chinese. It was just like Jeremiah said, she still had a thing for unicorns. He knelt down next to the hatch. “You coming with me, or what?”
Jynx didn’t answer right away so he laid down on the grass and poked his head down into the hatch. She was curled up in the nested blankets of her bed, still pretending to scroll through the metal scrap from the wash. Her hair was wet, but she hadn’t combed it yet, and fresh from the shower her cheeks were still rosy. Something about her seemed unnaturally clean. “I’m not going,” she said, not bothering to look up.
Something in her voice sounded wrong. The long pause between his question and her answer made it seem like he was sending messages to the moon and waiting for them to return. “Everything alright?”
Jynx scowled intently at the tablet and winced slightly as if it had sparked. She kept swiping at the panel, scrolling through her imaginary alien social media page. “Yeah,” she said, still not looking at him. “I’m just not going. Ashley and I are going to hang out today. She wants to play dress up or something.”
He watched her double-tap the corner of the shingle again and he wanted to take it away from her. They were both getting a little old for playing pretend. “Besides that, it’s probably best for me to lay low for a while, just in case.”
Pretending that those men with Dr. Vickers had been government agents or so might be a fun game for a while, but she could get them both in real trouble if she kept acting shifty. “Just have Ash pick you up from the Sands.”
Jynx had a sort of hypnotized middle-distance gaze, not really looking at the scrap, but sort of past it into the middle of the room. After a few moments, she nodded dully. “Go on, you’re already late,” she said, entirely ambivalent.
Pulling out of the cul-de-sac Austin decided that it wasn’t the fact that she didn’t want to go down to the shop with him because that happened sometimes. But, he didn’t like the way she said it. The more she played with that thing, the further she slipped away from him, and she was starting to look a little crazy. Austin saw the inside of the scrap. It was just a big hollow thing, probably a spare fuel tank like Jeremiah said. He had touched that shingle thingy that she was always playing with, and it was just that; a weird-looking hunk of scrap metal that they dug out of the dust. It looked strange, but that wasn’t enough to make it a real alien operator’s manual to him, no matter what Jynx said.
Pulling onto the front lot and walking into the office twenty minutes late there were already a few customers waiting. Austin didn’t bother to check in with Jeremiah, assuming that he was busy with another customer. He got straight to work, selling some random fuel additives and a set of wiper blades, and suckered into writing up an estimate and invoice for a starter replacement on a Ranger because there was nobody around to call in for help. Once he had the truck keys tagged and hooked in the lockbox he started a fresh pot of coffee for the customers and a pot of their own behind the service counter. He might joke that he was only hired for beverage service, but most days, that’s what it was. Tourists drank a lot of coffee.
“Where’s your partner in crime?” Jeremiah asked, finally coming into the front office.
“She said something about a play date with Ashley.” Austin took the vending machine keys off the hook under the counter and grabbed a little pad of paper to take stock. “She’s supposed to go get all girly.”
“Sucks.”
Austin shrugged, still unsettled by her mood. He almost preferred it when she was angry because then, at least, she would send snide texts all day.
“Well, what about you? Shouldn’t you be getting all boyed up or something?”
“For what?”
“Well, who the hell do you think she’s getting all dressed up for?”
It had never occurred to Austin that Jynx’s makeover had anything to do with him. Jynx hated him right now. “It’s not for me. Ashley just doesn’t want her hanging around us all the time. She says we’re grimy.”
Jeremiah snorted laughter. “Nobody ever dates a grease monkey for their bathing habits. Chicks just dig bad boys and motorcycles. It's practically evolutionary.”
“Whatever, dude.” He didn't want to be taking dating advice from a recent parolee living in a trailer on an impound lot, even if he was currently sleeping with a hot redhead. “Jynx is just messing around with Ash. It's got nothing to do with me.”
Jeremiah shrugged smugly. “Cool. If you're still single, I got a girl I wanted to hook you up with.”
Austin stopped counting soda pop cases and stared at him. He expected Ashley to play matchmaker and mess around with other people's personal lives, but it wasn't Jeremiah's style.
“Some chick up in Arroyo Heights locked her keys in her Jetta. You want to go pop a rich girl’s lock?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “You don't even have to comb your hair.”
Austin only took a moment to figure out exactly which chick in Arroyo Heights might have locked her keys in her Jetta. As he began to get his hopes up, he wished he wore something cleaner. He wondered if it might be too obvious if he stepped into the bathroom and smoothed himself a little.
Jeremiah set the wrecker keys on the clipboard at the edge of the service counter. “Hey, while you’re out, I thought I might take a crack at that patch.”
“Just don’t touch it, Jeremiah.” Torn between his excuse to finally talk with Becca or protecting the saucer from Jeremiah's misguided grease monkey aesthetic, he secretly worried that Jeremiah might mess it up by welding tailfins onto it or something. The only argument that he could think of against the patch was one he didn't really believe himself; that it might be a real flying saucer and it should be left alone, the way it was when they found it.
“What?” Jeremiah asked, with the exact sort of feigned innocence that made Austin nervous in the first place.
“Just don't mess with it until we know what it is,” Austin said, picking up the clipboard and wrecker keys.
“You look good, güey,” Jeremiah snickered. “¡Andale!”
* * *
“You aren’t getting your nails painted to impress boys,” Ashley said. “It has nothing to do with boys at all; it’s about being a girl.” Ashley sat nearest to the salon window, reclined with two women working at either side, chatting away in Vietnamese as they buffed and polished. “Don’t you want to feel sexy? Like, put on a slinky little dress and do your hair? It just feels good.”
Sir Pugsley seemed to agree. Accustomed to being pampered and fawned on by the manicurists, they swaddled him in warm, perfumed towels as he patiently allowed his claws to be painted a steely chrome blue. His tongue hung limply to one side, and his head lolled slightly with a contented smile.
But Jynx felt perfectly content in shorts and a t-shirt, dirty-skinned knees and all. Which is why the manicurist clucked disapprovingly at Jynx’s chipped and grimy fingernails. “No squirm,” the manicurist said, “I don’t want cut you finger off.” She held a tiny chisel tool like she might just stab it through the back of Jynx’s hand to pin it down to the armrest.
“Just because you can do anything that the boys do, doesn’t mean you should do what the boys do,” Ashley advised. She held her hand out at arm’s length, inspecting the nails that had been freshly cleaned and now needed a new coat of lacquer. “By all means, know how to change your own tire, but why bother when you can just get Austin to do it?”
Jynx didn’t have a tire to change, let alone a vehicle to change it on. Austin drove everywhere, and that was a fine arrangement in her opinion. Ashley seemed to know a different type of boy than Jynx did. All of the boys that Jynx knew were just boys. They didn’t even talk about girls, really, they just talked about engines and cars and carburetors and things. That was why she liked them.
“Look,” Ashley continued, “I remember the crushes and how cute and innocent it all was back in high school, but that changes pretty fast, and I just want you to be ready for it. Embrace your femininity like armor, not as a weakness, but as your strength. Wanting or wanted, sex is power, and you should have it all.”
Jynx had no crushes to speak of, on boys around school, or even movie stars and musicians, regarding them all as distant abstractions, like theoretical physics or particularly complex mathematical equations.
The manicurist clipped a hangnail, indelicately pinning Jynx’s hand to the armrest to prevent her from yanking it away.
“Ow.” Jynx mouthed and glared, but the woman just shook her head, silently judging Jynx’s cuticles. “What do you mean?” Jynx asked.
“It happens after high school, honey. It just does. People go their separate directions and grow up. You won’t always have Austin to follow around. He’ll meet a girl, she’ll start yanking his chain, and then where will you be?”
“Eeeew.” Jynx shook her head. “Austin’s not, he’s just—” She tried to come up with a way to describe him, but there really wasn’t one. “He’s just Austin.”
“You’ll stop hanging around each other for a while and then maybe a few years from now you’ll meet up at a bar and try on a nostalgic one-night fling. You’re still in love, but he’s going back to his fiancée for whatever fucking reason. And he’ll be the one that got away, and you’ll be sitting around your apartment in his old, dirty hoodie getting day drunk on malt seltzers.” She inspected her clean, glossy acrylic extensions, still blank. “It’s not pretty, but that’s the truth of the matter. I just want you to be ready for it.”
“Uh, Ash?” Jynx wasn’t sure if Ashley thought they were a couple. “It’s not like that. Austin and I aren’t like that.”
Ashley dismissed her protests. “Not yet of course, but for how long? You say he’s just a friend right now, but what happens when things start to get a little serious?”
“What color you want?” the manicurist asked Jynx, gesturing toward a wall of tiny lacquer bottles on tiny racks.
Jynx felt a sudden sense of vertigo looking at all the tiny bottles. “Pink, I guess?” Jynx shrugged.
“Too girly.” Ashley shook her head. “Let’s try something a little more neutral, a pastel yellow or a lime green.” She waved towards the wall. The manicurist chose a particularly bright fluorescent green that reminded Jynx of the forestry service’s fire trucks.
* * *
Austin didn't mind driving the wrecker back up into the neighborhood. It was smaller than the flatbed and easier to maneuver in the narrow side streets. Even so, he nearly traded paint with a little sedan when he craned up to check his hair in the mirror. Jynx was off getting all dolled up with Ashley and he looked like he just rolled out of bed and bathed with a shop rag.
Turning into Arroyo Heights he hit the curb where the sidewalks started again and cringed at the sound of rim crunching against the concrete. If he was anxious before, each street he passed on his way up to the Heights made his palms sweat. Imagining Jeremiah back at the Sands, possibly attaching tailpipes to the saucer didn't help. It was still too early for him to start drinking enough to do something drastic, but Austin didn’t want to test that theory.
He hadn't spent a lot of time in the heights since he was young enough to trick or treat. People in the nicer houses gave away better Halloween candy as a point of pride but otherwise preferred the locals to stay out of their clean little gated community. All the homes were well-maintained. Neatly trimmed, slow-growing crabgrass lawns were well-watered and boundary lines were clearly defined. Seemingly immune to the dust bowl valley below, the low stucco walls surrounding the development kept the occupants clean. He followed the onboard nav prompts, driving conspicuously slowly in the big, ugly wrecker.
A few moments after he pulled up to the curb in front of Becca’s house, the oversized entryway door opened, and a big brown Labrador bounded out onto the porch. Spotting the tow truck, the dog barked a few times and glanced back into the house. Becca stepped out onto the porch shielding her eyes from the sun. She raised a hand at Austin, not in a familiar way, but like she was hailing a cab. Even if she did remember him, there was no way that she could know it was him if he never got out of the truck. He shuffled paperwork on his clipboard, pretending to be busy as his heart did flips and twists in his chest. If he checked his hair in the mirror again, she would see it. He grabbed the rubber wedge and the slim Jim they used for the easy jobs, wishing he needed something that looked complicated or skilled, some sort of computer code hacker for the automatic door locks. For most lockout calls he just had to ease the door out far enough to get the wedge in there and slide in just about anything to hit the unlock button. As excited as he was to see her again, he reluctantly climbed out of the truck cab wishing he had a cooler job, and walked up the driveway to where the Jetta was parked. “Hey,” she called politely, and then recognizing him, warmed unexpectedly. “Oh, hey there, Austin!”
Stunned to hear her call his name, Austin went all gooey inside and nearly dropped his clipboard and lockout kit. The dog bounded down the stairs overly enthusiastically. Understanding her greeting to the stranger as being a friendly one, the dog bounced down the walkway and instantly buried its snout in Austin's crotch.
“Chunk!” Becca called after him, but it was too late. Backed up against the fender with his hands full of clipboard and lockout kit, he couldn't deflect the dog's friendly greeting. “That's just how he says hello,” she apologized as she politely lunged for Austin's crotch to grab Chunk's collar.
Barefoot in blue jeans and a little tank top, she looked a little more casual than she did at school. Even so, she wore big false eyelashes that perfectly adorned her blue eyes and Austin couldn't look directly at her, afraid that she would catch him staring. Clinging to the clipboard to keep his hands steady, he made a point of checking her name and the Jetta's license plate.
“You remember me? We had a shop class together. You helped me make a jewelry box for my mom.” She playfully squeezed his arm and gave him a little jostle. His knees nearly buckled.
“Oh, yeah.” Of course, he remembered. He spent as much time working on her box as she had; they took turns polishing it for a smooth-as-glass finish that made her mother proud. It was the most time he'd ever spent near her, and he remembered it fondly, even if it didn't spark up a fling. “It was a nice box. Nice, smooth finish.” He nodded.
“My mom loves it.”
If he was already warm in the cheek standing under the midday sun, discussing the smooth finish on her box wasn't helping. He tried to look very serious as he peered into the tinted windows, looking for the keys and checking the door as if it might be a mistake. “May I?” He showed her the tools.
“Can I watch?”
“If you want.”
Prying the door frame away from the roof just slightly, he inserted the rubber wedge into the gap and carefully slid in the slim Jim, avoiding the interior as much as possible. Customers could be fussy about scraping their hardwood or even lightly brushing the leather trim.
After just a few moments of poking around, he managed to press the button hard enough to pop the lock. Becca reacted with a surprised “oh!” as Austin withdrew the slim Jim. “That's it?” she asked.
He nodded, slightly disappointed as well. “It's pretty easy with the right tools.” He showed her the rubber wedge and the slim Jim and then, not really sure what else to say, glanced around at the front yard. “This is a really nice place,” he observed, regretting ever agreeing to pop the lock in the first place. “The hedges are really nicely trimmed.” He felt entirely stupid standing there, in the sun, sweating through his grease-stained t-shirt as he tried to impress her with his deep appreciation of the topiary arts.
“Uh, yeah,” she agreed, looking around her own front yard. “So, I guess not much has changed around here,” she said, as casually as if they just hadn’t spoken in a few months.
He shrugged and rubbed the back of his head. “I guess not.” Nothing whatsoever had changed for him until just recently, and he was pretty sure that even that would blow over fairly soon. “Well, I guess we just bill Triple-A or something, so,” he shrugged, thinking he should probably go before things got entirely awkward. He started backing away. “So, I guess I'll see you around?”
She waved awkwardly as he turned. Only a few steps from the rig he noticed that it seemed to list slightly towards the curb. Maybe all of fifteen minutes since he arrived, and the front right tire had gone completely flat. He must have done it when he clipped the curb cutting the corner into Arroyo Heights.
“Oh,” he heard Becca say when she noticed it. “Oh, no.”
Momentarily too embarrassed to turn around, he slouched sympathetically with the truck. Any plans he had to flee were abruptly put on hold for at least an hour while he swapped out the wrecker's flat tire.
* * *
Straight out the front door, Ashley was already planning the remainder of their afternoon while Jynx followed along, feeling fragile. The new safety green paint job on her fingernails felt suffocating somehow. Her normally short-cropped claws suffered for lack of air. Afraid that they were still wet, she held them rigidly to her sides, fingers spread slightly to avoid any accidental contact. She wore a thin pair of disposable pink foam flip flops to keep her pedicure safe for at least a few hours. It was difficult to walk with her toes spread out. Sir Pugsley wasn’t making it any easier, prancing back and forth across the sidewalk, threatening to step on her freshly painted toes.
Following along the sidewalk that ran the length of the strip mall, Jynx listened halfheartedly to Ashley plan for what sounded like an entirely boring evening. Before they reached the far end of the lot, Ashley abruptly spun to face Jynx. “Aw, shit!” she said, freshly painted fingernails poised before her perfectly painted face as if she were hiding.
Jynx stopped short. “What?” She glanced down at her fingertips and toes as if she might have done something wrong.
Ashley swept her arm around Jynx, turning her around and leading her down the sidewalk without looking back. Sir Pugsley let slip a low growl at the man getting out of his car at the end of the parking lot, but yanked backwards by the leash, followed the girls back up the sidewalk. “It’s not you, honey.” She glanced nervously over her shoulder. “It’s me,” she rolled her eyes. “I just…” she glanced around, looking through the shop window beside them at a three-foot-tall fiberglass alien wearing a child’s cowboy hat. “I’ve just always wanted to check this place out!” she exclaimed excitedly in a hoarse whisper. She swung the front door wide to the sound of a weak electronic chime and pushed Jynx into the little alien museum.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Dr. Vickers, the high school science and math teacher sat up straight as they entered, disturbed from reading an old-fashioned newspaper spread out before him on the counter. Folding the paper up to set it aside, he inspected his new visitors. He smiled wanly at Jynx and watched Ashley in the corner near the door, his unnaturally dark push broom mustache twitching slightly. “Well, good afternoon Ms. Nash.”
Jynx stood in the middle of the room, fingers and toes spread uncomfortably to prevent smudging, surrounded by collections of alien memorabilia. She got the feeling that they were disturbing him and that he might have preferred the empty museum. “Hey Dr. Vickers.”
“And you’ve brought a friend. How nice for you.” He seemed to sneer at Ashley, who was entirely ignoring him. “What brings you young ladies by today?”
Whatever the source of Ashley’s sudden urge to pop in, she wasn’t paying any attention to Dr. Vickers. She had her sunglasses on, standing near the front window, lurking behind a rack of postcards and tourist maps of alleged alien crash sites. When Dr. Vickers cleared his throat, Ashley suddenly became interested in the rack of printed materials, thumbing through them without a word. Dr. Vickers shifted his gaze squarely on Jynx, regarding her sternly.
Jynx glanced around the shop, looking for an excuse hidden somewhere in the souvenir keychains and assorted extraterrestrial books. Embarrassed by her new fingernails, she hid them behind her back, careful not to touch anything. “Well, I was talking to Mr. Englehorn the other day, and he explained how airplanes and helicopters fly.” She glanced at the grainy photographs displayed in the glass covered countertop, a few showing saucers in flight or hovering just above the ground, but they looked like military vehicles, not as sleek as the hunk of metal they had pulled out of the side of the hill. For a moment, she quietly considered the possibility that Austin and Jeremiah might be right. She might have found the tear drop shaped spare fuel tank off an old aircraft, and not a flying saucer at all.
“Did you have a specific question, Ms. Nash?” Dr. Vickers loomed behind the counter, clearly perturbed.
She got the feeling that she wasn’t supposed to be in there; like the repair shop, the alien museum was a place for boys. She and Ashley had wandered into their space again, and this made Dr. Vickers uncomfortable for some reason. But there was no one better to ask in Arroyo Grande. “What makes a flying saucer fly?” she asked.
Dr. Vickers frowned. He might be more accustomed to tourists passing through for a keychain or a postcard. Most of the locals tended to treat the museum as a curiosity or novelty, jeering and taking selfies of themselves beside the life-sized fiberglass “gray” alien. “Well,” His eyes flitted towards Ashley’s silhouette beside the front door, but composing himself, he settled into a comfortable pedagogical posture. “There are many theories. My favorite happens to be the idea that a flying saucer is manipulating zero-point energy fields, actually bending the fabric of space time in order to create a discrete gravitational field, allowing the rapid acceleration, as well as vertical takeoff and landing.” He pulled a few books from a reference shelf behind him, flipping open to dog-eared pages full of parabolic diagrams that made little sense to Jynx. Out of context, they looked like funneled spiderwebs.
“Up until a few years back, a reliable source had claimed that the use of a compound known as ununpentium, or element 115, was the fuel source utilized by the visitors. At the time, the compound was merely theoretical and therefore impossible to sample or test in any way.” He flipped through the old book until he found a diagram of a flying saucer. Placing it open on the counter before her, he had a librarian’s reverence for the book, cradling it gently as he set it down. “Recently, however, scientists in the former Soviet Union were able to fabricate the theorized compound in a laboratory, proving its existence. The possibilities are endless. Not just for the potential spacefaring extraterrestrial vehicles, but for humanity in general, of course.”
Jynx nodded seriously, although she hadn’t yet suffered through a chemistry class. “But how does it work?” Jynx asked. “Like, does it need batteries, or more Plutonium or something to charge it up?”
“Well,” Dr. Vickers removed his glasses, inspecting the lenses for a bit of dust. “The theory states that bombarding element 115 with photons produces a chain reaction which generates massive amounts of energy which, when efficiently harnessed, are able to generate a discrete envelope of gravitational autonomy.” He wiped his lenses clean and inspected them again before replacing them. He glanced over at Ashley again and frowned. His mustache bristled.
Jynx traced the saucer engine diagram with a garishly incongruous lime green fingernail. “So, this Element 115 stuff, is it radioactive?”
“It would be, yes.”
“So, it would be radioactive for a long time, right? Like it should still have power for hundreds of years?”
“In a stabilized form it would.” His mustache twitched unconsciously. “Of course, there are those who believe that samples of element 115 are unstable primarily due to the weak gravity of our planet, and that increasing the atmospheric pressure might increase the stability of the compound, but this would require a specially designed facility or a rather large hyperbaric chamber.”
Jynx leaned forward to get a closer look at the diagram, recognizing nothing of the insides of her own craft. There had been a box inside, but a small one, and none of the other stuff. She understood how jumping a car battery worked, though. She had watched Austin jump his own truck thousands of times. “So, if hitting it with a photon beam starts the generator, and then it just sort of makes its own power,” she considered the coil towers running around the outer edge of the disk diagram, wondering if those might have been the sort of support struts she had seen inside her own saucer, “then you just have to jumpstart it to get it going again?”
“I suppose.” He chuckled dismissively. “Perhaps the saucers in Area 51 just need a quick jumpstart.” He must think she sounded silly asking if a flying saucer just needed an intergalactic tow truck.
Ashley giggled, peering through the window. “Alright, Jynx. Coast is clear, let’s roll.” Seeing her old high school science teacher for the first time, she giggled. “Oh, hey Mr. Vickers!”
His face flushed at being addressed directly and he seemed to stiffen slightly. “It is Doctor Vickers,” he corrected.
She giggled dismissively and sauntered over to the counter with a hair flip. “So, you’re still sticking with the old element 115 theory?”
Enveloped in her feminine atmosphere, Dr. Vickers winced, slightly taken aback. “The ‘old element 115 theory?’” He repeated, as if it were a foreign concept to him. She was obviously making him a little uncomfortable.
“That Lazarus guy that worked out at Area 51 said that element 115 was the ticket.” She leaned over the counter and plucked at a rubber alien head pencil selection in a cup beside the register. Her freshly painted nails were a little busier, elaborately decorated with rhinestones and tiny striping details.
“He worked in the S-4 section, reverse engineering the spacecraft,” Vickers corrected, adjusting his waistcoat.
Ashley smiled at Jynx. “Yeah, so the government sees him strap a homemade rocket to his crappy little car and they just invite him over to play with their super top-secret spaceships because, hey, this guy has a cool car?” She picked at the alien face on the pencil topper. “So then, he and his buddy, that radio guy do some stuff on TV and it gets out of hand and the next thing you know he’s famous and he’s running around in his little red Corvette getting more ass than a toilet seat. I mean, he got arrested for opening a whore house, right?” She prattled on as if describing the plot of her favorite sitcom.
“He studied rocketry at—”
“Oh, Doc, come on.” She twiddled her nails before her, inspecting the paint job with a feigned ennui. “He claimed to have studied rocketry, but none of those colleges had ever heard of him. and then the Russians actually made a hunk of the Pentium stuff and it just melted away to inert goo every time.”
Dr. Vickers stood frozen in place, stunned to hear her describe a complex bit of theoretical physics with the casual tone of a valley girl.
“So, what’s to say that the guy didn’t just make it all up just to get laid?” She slid the alien headed pencil back into the cup on the counter, stroking it up and down a few times suggestively.
Dr. Vickers trembled, his face slowly turning a bright red.
Inspecting her freshly painted nails she shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know much about top-secret spaceships or anything, but I know a thing or two about nerdy guys.” She smiled smugly at Dr. Vickers. “Anyway, nice place you got here, Doc.” She smoothed out her little sundress as if it had been rumpled in the discussion. “Come along, Jynx honey. I’m starving and I am in desperate need of Boba tea.” She twiddled her freshly manicured fingernails at Dr. Vickers as she swung the front door wide and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
* * *
Austin knew that the wrecker had the tools, he just didn’t know exactly where they were in the various lock boxes. He managed to find the jack but couldn’t find the sections of steel pipe that worked as a handle. There were a few different tire irons, but no spare and nowhere to carry it anyway. He tried texting Jeremiah a few times, to let him know what was going on, but finally just gave up and tossed his phone into the cab. He seemed to remember one of the guys, either Manny or César, using one of the rear dual tires as a spare, and he figured it was as good as waiting for Jeremiah to finally call back, at least.
“He’s not answering, huh?” Becca asked.
Austin shook his head and wiped his brow.
“I guess if you’re already the tow truck driver, there’s nobody else to call, right?”
Austin really didn’t want to be having this conversation. “It’s not—” he realized that he must look entirely incompetent to her, “I just don’t drive this truck very often.”
She considered this briefly before she turned and walked back into the house without a word, dragging Chunk by his collar. He was glad to lose the audience. The situation was embarrassing enough without her standing at the end of the driveway, watching him. She was only gone a few minutes before he managed to find everything he needed. He was under the truck setting the jack when Becca came out of the house again. She strolled down the driveway in an added pair of sunglasses and some sandals, carrying a lawn chair and a couple of soda cans.
Catching her eye as she unfolded her chair, she smiled down at him. “Do you mind?” A light breeze carried the scent of her lotion and cocoa butter, cutting the smell of hot oil and engine.
“Nah, I guess not,” he said, even though he felt his hand shake a little as he said it.
She took a moment to arrange herself in the folding chair. “My dad wants me to learn how to change a tire.” She sat forward in the chair, seemingly eager to learn. “He says if I can drive, I should be able to change my own oil, but I don't see why I would. There are professionals for that, right?”
As one of the “professionals” he couldn't imagine her under the hood of a car, or crawling underneath to pull an oil filter. Seated beside him, basking in the sun, she seemed better suited to beach living. He caught a glimpse of her sandaled feet; tiny toenails painted a pale blue that was probably named seafoam or periwinkle or something like that. Realizing that he was staring at her feet, he hand cranked the jack a few turns to wedge it under the frame. “Well, it's probably a good idea.”
Scooting out from under the front of the truck he dusted the gravel off his hands and smiled politely. “Kind of a dirty job.” He shrugged.
“I don't mind,” she said.
He assembled the jack handle and slid it into the crank, giving it a few quick pumps to make certain that it was engaged and settled properly. “Oh, you mean right now?”
“I won't get in the way,” she smiled. “I can tell my dad we did it. He'll probably give you a big tip.”
He did want an excuse to hang out, and she might as well learn from a professional. “Yeah, alright.”
He started pointing at things and explaining how he set the jack and why he set it right there instead of the suspension strut. She wanted to help, and he let her. She pumped the jack handle a few times and laughed to watch the rig rise, then a few more pumps accompanied with little grunts, just to let him know how hard she was working. He slapped the fender to let her know it was good. She stood up straight and wiped the sweat from her brow with her clean, Coppertone tan wrist. When Austin caught her checking her palms like they might be dirty, he offered her a rag that definitely would have left her delicate hands just a little bit dirtier. She scowled at him, and hands on hips, listened very intently as he described how a wheel attached to the hub, lug nuts, drum brakes and just about anything else he knew about, just to sound smart.
“I hope you won’t be testing me on all of this,” she giggled and gave his shoulder a playful push.
His knees nearly buckled at her touch. “Well, how else are you going to learn?” Austin smiled, distracted by her long eyelash extensions and the way they made her eyes seem a little bluer for some reason.
If she noticed him admiring them, she didn’t look away. “Isn’t this so weird? We didn’t hang out all the way through school, but then I locked my keys in the car.” She shrugged. “We probably never would have had a reason to hang out otherwise.” She leaned forward, brushing shoulders with him and being more than just friendly, he thought.
Kneeling beside the front wheel well, leaning on a tire iron, the scent of her suntan lotion made him dizzy. The fine sheen of sweat that veiled her brow and cheek was somehow charming to him and her fine blonde hair seemed luminous in the sun. “Well, at least you’re learning how to change a tire,” he said, focusing on the wheel and hoping that she didn’t see him blushing.
After watching him loosen a few lug nuts Becca tried it herself. The nuts were all but rusted into place, and eventually, the both of them struggled against the tire iron, grunting together. Ordinarily, he would use a length of steel pipe that they kept on the truck for leverage, but he liked bumping shoulders as they both worked the tire iron together; any reason to be closer to her. When it finally gave, and the nut came loose they collapsed back to the curb chuckling. Austin offered her the rag again and she wiped her forehead and hands before reaching back to grab the soda cans, both wet with cool condensation. He admired her fingernails, painted to match her toes. They made her look elegant, even squatting down beside the rusty, dusty fender of the wrecker.
Becca took a few gulps and sighed her satisfaction. She set the cool can against her cheek and then forehead, finally resting it at her neck. “So, are you still seeing that girl?” she asked.
Austin thought she must have him confused with someone else. “What girl?” he asked, finishing half his soda in a few gulps.
“That girl you were always with.” Becca pushed on the tire iron, rotating it just a half turn effortlessly.
Austin tried to think of anybody at school that she might have seen him with. “Who, Jynx?”
“Was that her name?” Becca asked. “You guys looked so cute together.”
He began to wonder how long this had been going on. Maybe girls didn’t talk to him in school because they assumed he was already dating Jynx. “We aren't dating,” he muttered and gave the tire iron a spin, releasing the next nut. His heart climbed upwards as the silence set in.
“Oh,” she shrugged. “Well,” she fidgeted with the nut, setting it aside and lining the others up on the curb, “I just got back to town, and I haven’t seen anybody around yet.” She glanced up from her arrangement. “Do you maybe want to go to coffee sometime?”
Austin couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat. Frozen with terror and excitement, his response seemed exceptionally cool. He looked her straight in the eye, waiting to see if she was joking, but she didn’t seem to be. “Okay,” he shrugged, hoping not to look too eager.
She smiled and blushed, even. “Okay,” she agreed, still looking right at him.
Austin felt like he might explode and implode at the same time. He was afraid to take his hands off the tool for fear she’d see him trembling.
She pushed the iron out of the way so she could pull the nut and place it in line with the others. “My dad keeps talking about this new coffee shop that just opened up. I’ve been looking for an excuse to check it out.”
Austin swallowed hard, hoping it wasn’t the same new coffee shop that he had only recently discovered.
* * *
For a brief time, Ashley and Jynx had their own club called the Tough Girls Club, which met in the tool shed adjacent to the bomb shelter. While the Tough Guys were busy blowing up GI Joe action figures with M80s, the girls sang along to pop songs and Ashley tried to teach Jynx how to be more girly. At some point Ashley started teaching Jynx how to do cartwheels, and practicing in the backyard, Ashley started doing cartwheels in a loose-fitting sweater and discovered that she was developing the sort of assets that could get her as many Tough Guys as she wanted. Jeff and Justin stopped shooting things with airsoft pistols and started fawning on Ashley. When she got annoyed with them, she quit hanging out with the younger kids and started hanging out with high school boys.
Ashley’s new clubhouse was a clean two-bedroom apartment in the center of town, tucked in behind the Lucky Mart strip mall. It was a newer development, well maintained, with a bright wall of east-facing windows that looked out over the desert valley below. There wasn’t a better view for the price. Jynx liked Ashley’s old apartment better. It was on the ground floor, tucked into the back of the building with a view of a small, fenced yard. It felt enclosed and safe. The new place felt, well, new. Most of her apartment was remarkably clean and looked professionally furnished, with clean modern lines and upholstery so white that it made Jynx nervous to sit on it. The bedrooms, however, seemed a separate piece of property.
The master bedroom was entirely dark, with thick black curtains pulled to block the desert sunlight. It housed a giant four-post bed complete with chiffon curtains, hanging scarves, and veils draped about it. The floor was carpeted in pastel sweatpants, tiny t-shirts, bras and panties and socks, and all manner of casual wear, abandoned where it had been removed.
The spare bedroom had a large vanity stacked with tackle-box kits of make-up in an array of color palettes and small backlit mirrors in a variety of sizes and magnification. The walls were cluttered with mirrors and a few tapestries for backdrops. The contents of the closet spilled out into several racks hung with tiny slip dresses, bits of fishnet, and sequins that sparkled from the corners and between lacy underthings. The place smelled of potpourri, lotions, and perfume. It was as different from the Desert Sands Towing and Automotive as Jynx could imagine.
Standing awkwardly in the hall, fingers still spread wide to avoid damaging her manicure, and toes cramping with the effort to keep her pedicure safe, Jynx felt too dirty for the apartment. She wanted to check her butt, to make sure that it wasn’t dusty or oily, but she didn’t want to risk her manicure brushing off her backside. Instead, she stood stiff and frozen, like a fainting goat in a YouTube video, just waiting to fall over.
Ashley kicked the various piles, clearing a walkway to the vanity. She pulled a bra from the back of the chair, contemplated it for a moment, and tossed it over a clothing rack. “You have a seat; I’ll clear a runway for you.”
Ashley made her way through the dressing room, clearing out walkways from the vanity to the closet and to the costume racks, overloaded with sequined lingerie that Jynx quietly hoped she would not be forced to try on. Ashley obviously had more curves, bigger boobs and actual hips. Jynx caught her own reflection in the mirror, still skinny and dressed in her little pastel cutoff shorts and an old grumpy cat t-shirt. Though she had grown taller in the past year, she hadn’t developed quite as much as Ashley, and she felt a little awkward in a room full of slinky lace and translucent chiffon. She was secretly terrified that Ashley might try to dress her up too sexy. She didn't like the nail polish much, but at least she could just put her hands in her pockets to hide them.
Finishing up her tidying efforts, or just abandoning the mission once she had cleared a space at the vanity, Ashley patted the padded seat with a chipper grin. “You have a seat, I will get us some refreshments, darling.” She plucked a long, light, flowing floral scarf from a wardrobe rack and draping it over her shoulders she exited the room with an overly dramatic flair. Jynx and Sir Pugsley both watched her go and exchanged glances in her absence. Sir Pugsley snorted once, decisively, then began digging into a laundry pile, fluffing himself a bed.
In a few minutes music played softly from the living room. Ashley returned with a paper plate laden with pepperoni slices, Kraft cheese slices, and saltines. “A selection of charcuterie,” she giggled. “We so rarely have an opportunity to entertain, right Sir Pugsley?” She set a pair of seltzer cans on the vanity.
Sir Pugsley just snorted without raising his head.
Jynx began to suspect that the reunion of the Tough Girls Club was really more for Ashley to fluff her busy social schedule than it was a legitimate makeover. “Now, let's see about getting you some contact lenses and some hair product, shall we?” She cracked the tab on her green can with the handle of a make-up brush while Jynx tried to figure out how to open a drink with bright green acrylic claws.
“I don't need contact lenses, do I?” Jynx asked. She didn't wear glasses.
“It's the idea, hon. In the ugly duckling movies, the homely girls are always just a trip to the mall away from winning some sucker's eye for the happily ever after win, because it really doesn't matter if you've got a great personality. Boys just want a smoke show.” Ashley sounded a little sarcastic, but she spent an awful lot of her time playing dumb, dressing up to get the boys' attention. “Don't be fooled, Jynx. Deep down, men are frail creatures. They like to act big and tough and smart, but there’s not a single one of them that’s immune to subtle flattery and a well-timed giggle.”
That Ashley was telling her all of this right after that strange conversation with Dr. Vickers made no sense to Jynx. The manicures and makeovers and unopenable cans aside, Ashley knew more about saucers than she should have, as she went on picking a color palette to paint Jynx's face. Ashley was one person she had not thought to ask about the flying saucer, certain that she would undoubtedly bring up the refrigerator incident. It had never occurred to Jynx that Ashley might know something about flying saucers. She wasn’t exactly book smart, but then, flying saucers probably weren’t in a lot of textbooks anyway. “Hey, Ash. How do you know all of that stuff about element 115?” Jynx asked, hoping to sound casual.
“I used to know a guy,” Ashley shrugged. “He ran the laser flow cytometer down at the Salk Institute. Really smart guy, but he was lousy at pillow talk.”
“Hrmm,” Jynx grumbled and rolled her eyes, pretending to know what pillow talk was.
“He once explained that it was possible to build a real working lightsaber, if we only had a stronger portable power supply.”
Jynx was familiar with the movies and the laser sword, but she didn’t understand the physics behind it. Lights, photon particles, supposedly fired in a specific direction for an unlimited distance. “Like, a laser that only shot out part way, or something?”
Ashley shrugged as she organized a few wispy scarves on the edge of one of her wardrobe racks. “He said that with a large enough power supply you could bend light back on itself. Then he talked about gravitons and quantums and stuff and I didn't understand a word of that, but he just needed someone to listen.” She smiled to herself, drifting away from the playdate momentarily. “He was a little awkward in social situations, but he tried to be romantic.”
Although Jynx recognized a few of the scientific terms that Ashley had mentioned, she couldn’t imagine anything romantic or sexy about particle physics. “Like what?” she asked, taking one of the scarves from the rack to inspect the soft fabric.
Ashley took the scarf from her and gave her another, just as light and soft, but with pale green accents that almost matched her nail polish. Ash draped it around her neck and played with it, settling it on her shoulder or allowing it to drape down her chest. “Well, once he described how the neural net could be a form of chemical electro-magnetism, holding the human soul in place like an organic forcefield.” Ashley slipped into a wistful fit of exaggerated nostalgia as if the young grad student actually occupied an important place for her but slipped when she inspected a rhinestone on her tiny pinky fingernail. “Shoot, he was sweet. I’d probably still see him if he had a stronger portable power supply, but lab technicians are financially underappreciated.”
“If you know all this sort of stuff, why don’t you go to school and become a scientist?” Jynx asked. She’d always just assumed that Ashley was actually kind of ditzy and just didn’t want to go to school.
Ashley chuckled quietly and rolled her eyes at the idea. “Honestly, hon, I make more money rattling my can at desperate truckers than I ever could curing cancer. Let’s face it, there’s just no money in saving the world these days, but a nice set of tits can sell just about anything.” She checked her freshly manicured nails, inspecting them as if she might have bumped them at all. Satisfied that they still looked glossy and perfect, she giggled and bobbed her head around, inspecting the seltzer can label with a feigned look of complete ignorance. “La Croix.” She giggled. “I think it means 'liquid'. Isn't that such a delightfully simple name for a refreshing beverage?” She cracked the top and took a little sip, mugging and showing the label to an invisible audience. “I think it would make a lovely nom du plume.” Finally noticing that Jynx didn’t know how to open hers, she grabbed a comb off the vanity and cracked the cap. “That takes a little getting used to, but you’ll figure it out.” She handed her back the delightfully simply named beverage and giggled. “Alright, enough talking about boys and science and stuff. The whole point of dragging you out of that grease trap was to remind you that a great set of tits means never having to change a tire.”
Jynx glanced down at her own chest, confident that she would still need to know how to work on her own car if she ever got one.
Ashley tilted her chin back up. “Relax, hon. There are runway models in Milan starving themselves on Lean Cuisines and colonics just to get what you got.” She inspected Jynx with a strange gravity, looking through her. “You've got good bones, that's for sure,” she brushed the hair from Jynx's forehead and held it back. She had become yet another of Ashley's battered Barbie dolls, ready to be coiffed and displayed. “Now, let's dress you up in something slinky and take some pictures you'll probably regret!” Ashley hopped to her feet and glided across to the closet to choose a dress from her collection.