“A girl. Blond, a little taller than me— ”
“I did the intake.” I smile at the client and step inside, ignoring Bob’s glare. “Is there a problem?”
She scowls. “You didn’t mention that my car would need an engine . . . whatever. I-I can’t afford this.”
I glance at the cars around the shop, trying to place her. “It’s a 2019 Jetta sedan, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You won’t need an engine flush.” I smile reassuringly. She looks distraught and rattled over money— something I can relate to. “The car’s well under fifty thousand miles.”
“So the engine flush was not necessary.”
“Not at all. I’m sure it’s a mistake, and . . .” I trail off as I realize what she said. Was. “Excuse me, do you mean that the engine flush has already been done?”
She turns to Bob, steely. “I’m not paying for a job that even your own mechanic says wasn’t needed. And I won’t be using this garage again. But nice try.”
It takes her less than a minute to settle the fifty-dollar bill. The tension in the garage is thick and ugly, and I stand by the counter, feeling painfully awkward, until the Jetta has driven off. Then I turn to Bob.
Surprise surprise, he’s fuming.
“I’m sorry,” I say, a mix of contrite, defensive, and gloating. Working with Bob clearly arouses complex, multilayered emotions within me. “I didn’t know you’d already done the flush or I wouldn’t have told her it wasn’t necessary. She seemed like she didn’t have the money for— ”
“You’re fired,” he says without looking at me, still fiddling with the credit card transaction.
I’m not sure I heard him right. “What?”
“You’re fired. I’ll pay you what I owe you, but I don’t want you back.”
I blink at him. “What are you— ”
“I am sick of you,” he yells, turning to me and coming forward. I take two steps back. Bob’s not tall and he’s not large, but he’s mean. “You always do this.”
I shake my head, glancing at the other mechanics, hoping they’ll intervene. They just look at us stone-faced, and I—
I can’t lose this job. I can’t. I have a letter in my purse and a text in my phone, and apparently guinea pigs get depressed if they’re not living in damn pairs. “Listen, I’m sorry. But I’ve been working here for over a year, and my uncle wouldn’t— ”
“Your uncle ain’t here anymore, and I’m done with you. Not only do you never upsell, but you also don’t let me do it? Get your stuff.”
“But that’s not my job! My job is to fix people’s cars, not sell them stuff they don’t need.”
“Ain’t your job anymore.”
“She’s right, you can’t fire her like that.” I turn around. Easton is standing behind me with her best I will now correct your grammar face. “There are regulations in place that protect employees from unjust termination— ”
“Luckily, Blondie here was never on the books to begin with.”
That shuts Easton up. And the realization that Bob can do anything he wants with me— that shuts me up, too.
“Get your stuff and leave,” he says one last time, rude and obnoxious and cruel as always. I can’t do anything about it. I’m completely, utterly powerless, and I have to clench my fists to stop myself from clawing his face. I have to force myself to walk away, or I’ll tear him apart.
“And Mallory?”
I stop, but don’t turn around.
“I’ll be deducting the cost of the engine flush from what I owe you.”
STRICTLY SPEAKING, I HAVE NEVER BEEN ENGULFED BY A MUD-slide and had my seizing body dragged down the jagged, rocky face of a mountain to be summarily deposited at its foothills and fed to the wild boars. However, I can imagine that if I were to find myself in a similar scenario, it would be no more painful than the week that comes after I get fired.
There are several reasons. For one, I don’t want to worry Mom or my sisters, which means not telling them that Bob fired me, which means finding a place to hide during the day while I search for another job. Not easy, considering that it’s still August in New Jersey, and that free places with AC and Wi-Fi are not common enough in the year of our Lord 2023. I find myself rediscovering the Paterson Public Library: it’s changed very little since I was seven, and welcomes me and my battered laptop to its underfunded bosom.
God bless libraries.
“Upon exhaustive investigation,” I tell Easton on the phone on Thursday night, after a day of less-than- fruitful research, “I discovered that you cannot pay bills with Candy Crush gold bars. A travesty. Also, to be hired as an auto mechanic by someone who’s not your crab-enthusiast uncle, you need fancy things like certifications and references.”
“And you don’t have them?”
“No. Though I do have that Mallory the Car Mechaness comic Darcy drew me when she was eight. Think that might count?”
She sighs. “You know you have another option, right?”
I ignore her, and spend the following day looking for something else— anything else. Paterson is the third-biggest city in New Jersey, dammit. There has got to be a job, any job for me, dammit. Though it also happens to have the third-highest density in the United States, meaning lots of competition. Dammit.
Also, dammit: the red numbers that blink at me later that night when I peek at the online bank account Mom gave me access to once Dad wasn’t in the picture anymore. My belly knots over.
“Hey,” I tell Sabrina when I find her alone in the living room. I shove my hands down into my pockets to avoid wringing them. “About those derby fees.”
She looks up from her phone, eyes scared wide open, and blurts out, “You’re going to pay them, right?”
My eyes are scratchy from staring at a screen all day, and for a moment— a horrible, terrifying, disorienting moment—I am angry with her. With my beautiful, intelligent, talented fourteenyear-old sister who doesn’t know, doesn’t understand how hard I’m trying. When I turned fourteen— on the very stupid day of my stupid birthday— everything changed, and I lost Dad, I lost chess, I lost the very me I’d been, and since then all I’ve done is try to—
“Mal, can you please not screw this one thing up for me?”
The “unlike everything else” is unsaid, and the swelling bubble of anger bursts into guilt. Guilt that Sabrina has to ask for what is due to her. If it hadn’t been for my stupid decisions, we’d have had no problem affording her fees.
I clear my throat. “There’s been a mix-up at the credit union. I’ll go check tomorrow, but could you ask for an extension? Just a couple of days.”
She gives me a level stare. “Mal.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll pay as soon as I can.”
“It’s okay.” She rolls her eyes. “Deadline’s next Wednesday.”
“What?”
“I just told you a few days earlier because I know you.”
“You little— ” I gasp, relieved, and flop on the couch to tickle her. In thirty seconds I have maneuvered her into a hug, and she laughs while saying yikes and gross and Seriously, Mal, you’re embarrassing yourself.