CABERNET ZIN (Cabernet Zin Wine Country) (26 page)

Lydia said, “What are you giving them cotton candy for? That’s pure sugar.”

Zack opened the bags for the children and they scampered to the living room to watch a cartoon on television. Zack saw that Lydia had ordered regular cable television, something he kept out of the house. He asked, “What’s with the bruises on the kids?”

“They fell while playing.”

“But most kids get those bruises on the fronts of their legs. I didn’t get bruises like that until I was twelve and started making ramps to see how high I could jump my bike.”

“They played baseball in the back yard with Nick. Grace turned to catch the ball, running backward, and tripped over the flowerbed rock boarder knocking Noah over in the process.”

“That’s quite a story.”

“It’s what happened. I saw it or I wouldn’t have believed it either.”

“Well I’ll see you later, Lydia. Make sure you keep the kids safe.”

Zack drove down the road toward Jay’s house and called Amanda, “Can you confirm any of Lydia’s stories? I’m concerned.”

“I’m not sure about bruises like that but I saw Nick hit the kids roughly when they played in the living room. And of course Lydia strikes them all the time and adds verbal attacks, but that goes without saying.”

“Thanks, Amanda,” Zack hung up the phone. He continued to drive and contemplate what he could do. A toxic environment. Maybe he could find a good lawyer. His phone rang and Zack answered.

“It’s Claire. Zack, my car engine seized and stranded me.”

“Are you home now?”

“No. I’m at my car. The tow truck driver is hooking up to it. I wondered if you had any suggestions for what I should do with it.”

“How do you know the engine seized?”

“All the dash lights went on after a big clunk. I coasted over to the side of the road. The tow guy tried starting it and looked at it and said “It’s kaput!” and that I’ll need a new engine.”

Claire turned her phone away from the noise. The driver pulled on the hydraulic levers and the cables and chains clanked and growled, dragging the car up the ramp. “I barely have money to pay the tow truck bill when my credit card statement comes through. I can’t afford a new engine nor a new car. I wondered if you had any advice.”

“Can you get a ride from your friends to get you to around for a little while?”

“That’s pretty easy,” Claire said.

“Then have the driver take the car to my place. I’ll pay the extra mileage. I’ll take a look at it.”

“You will?” Claire’s voice seemed to smile with relief.

“Yes. I’ll be back there in two or three days. Put the car keys in my house and lock up.”

October

Zack slept late. He awoke to the sun streaming through his curtain-less living room windows. He tried back calculating how many hours he had been driving, catching short naps at truck stops, driving across the plains and over the mountains into the desert. A long trip. He tried to think what day it might be but he just flopped on the couch and fell asleep. He stuffed his car with the things Lydia demanded he remove from the driveway where she tipped it off, before it rained. He shoved it all in his car and he just drove. He replaced his wipers in Omaha due to all the dreary rain that he traveled through from Chicago until he started into the Rocky Mountains beyond Denver. His windshield scrubbed clear by all that rain made the lights of Las Vegas sparkle more brilliantly and enticingly as he drove through. He did not stop. Twenty-five-hundred odd miles rolled up on his odometer by the time his wheels stopped turning at his rental. Exhaustion overtook him.

He turned on the coffee pot and went outside to Claire’s car with the keys she had left on his kitchen counter. She had drawn a curly flourishing heart on a piece of paper wedged under her keys that caused him to smile and remember his last visit with her in the vineyard.

He pulled out the box of tools he purchased at the hardware store while taking the break from all the monotonous rain-soaked driving. A truck stop sold him a nice oil pan that he kicked under the car. He dropped the case with a jack and hoisted the vehicle up in the air on jack stands that still smelled of new paint and anti-rust oil. He drained the engine oil and metal plopped out in clumps of shavings and chunky slivers. He used a screwdriver to move debris dams aside for the oil flow. He knew his best option for fixing the car was scribbling notes about the car model and its vehicle identification number and the engine details on a handy piece of cardboard that he took in the house. He turned on his refurbished computer and started a search. Eventually he located the on-line classified car parts list. He found the same engine he needed from a person that yanked it out of a wrecked pickup.

“Hey, I’m calling on that engine you listed. You still have it?” and so the conversation and negotiation began. Zack emptied his car while he waited for the engine’s owner to deliver the engine. Within a few hours, the engine sat on the driveway next to the broken car, leaning with its pipes and wires waving in the air like the snakes of Medusa. Zack drove to the local supply store and bought fence posts and lag screws and a small hand winch sufficient to lift the engine and transmission. He assembled the posts into a sturdy frame, removed the hood of the car and started disconnecting the old engine. He was glad his rental had a carport roof as he worked through the hot day. He sorted parts between the new engine and Claire’s engine and chose the best performing parts with his meters and tools. He flipped on the spotlights he clamped to the sides of the car that peered like vultures at his work, waiting for tasty morsels he might toss out, but they waited until late into the night. Zack sat in the wood captain’s chair with a beer after he got the engine started. He had about half the contents of his beer before he fell asleep.

His phone rang and woke him up.

“Did you get in town yet? It’s been five days. You told me probably three. I hadn’t heard from you yet. Are you ok?”

Zack rubbed his face. His hands still smelled of grease cleaner. “Can you get a ride over here today?”

“Let me ask … Yeah, Leiko says she can take me out now.”

“Good. See you soon.”

Zack leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and thinking about what he needed to do yet. The hood needed to be bolted back on and squared up with the body, he needed to pick up the tools and parts strewn about the carport, and he needed a shower, badly. He was sure he had grease all over his face and his clothes. That was why he hadn’t crashed on his cloth couch.

Banging on his porch post startled Zack awake. He looked at his watch and saw he’d fallen asleep for an hour and a half. He saw Claire and Leiko standing on the steps.

“Whoa, you’re dirty!” Claire said, looking him over.

“Not having a mirror in the house yet, I could guess so.” He dug in his jean’s pocket, “Hi Leiko.”

“Oh hello, Zack,” she looked at Claire’s car parked under the carport. “What happened with the car? I see parts all over the ground.”

“I replaced the engine.”

Claire walked toward her car, “You replaced the whole engine?”

“Yeah. I have to get the hood back on but otherwise it’s fixed.”

“What was wrong with the old engine?”

“A lot of bad things. I’ll look at it more later, maybe, but broken piston connecting rods, likely a bad crank due to all the metal shavings. Gouged pistons and the block.” He lifted the oil pan still filled with broken chunks of gray aluminum and steel, soggy with black oil. “You did a number on it.” He gave Claire her keys, “Start it up and take a maiden voyage around the block.”

“Really?” she smiled, excitement replacing her dread.

“Back it out along the grass and I’ll see you in five minutes.”

Claire got in and started the engine. It revved up and she took it out onto the street.

Leiko said to Zack sitting on the porch steps feeling his sore muscles, “You know I didn’t like you before –”

Zack said, “I know.”

“– But this is amazing.” She turned from the road back to Zack, “How do you know she won’t get stranded? Were all the wires and bolts put on? I see a big pile of extra parts.”

“I started it up last night and drove it up and down the street to make sure everything worked – I’m not putting her in peril.”

Leiko said, “It’s good to be handy.”

“I heard some wisdom once: If you can’t be handsome at least be handy – I suspected I needed to be handy.” Zack rubbed his hands with a rag and scrubbed at his face and arms. The cloth went from beige to zebra grease streaks. “Claire is gorgeous, as are you, and … I’m at least handy.”

“You’re more than just handy, Zack.”

Claire pulled up in her car and turned it off. She raced out of it in joy and threw her arms around Zack. She kissed him hard and long. When she pulled away, she had to straighten her shirt and both their lips burned with desire. Claire said, “Thank you for saving my car.”

Zack fumbled and dropped his grease rag, “I was glad I could find a way to help.”

Claire breathed, “How much were the parts?”

“I got them from a guy parting out his truck, relatively cheap. Don’t worry about it.”

Claire wrapped her arms around him again and kissed him deep, ignoring Leiko sitting on the porch.

Zack felt odd standing on the front porch of the Detroit house he used to live at; knocking to see if his kids could come out to play. The trim work he added along the front of the house two years before still looked good.

Nicholas pushed the screen out, “Yeah, the kids will be out soon. Lydia is getting their shoes.”

Zack could smell a mix of mouthwash and alcohol seeping through the space between them. The minute hand of Zack’s watch clicked just beyond ten in the morning. He still had an urge to reach through the screen and choke Nicholas. Then he would fling the creep to the lawn where he could beat him to oblivion, slowly. Zack held back. “I’ll wait in the car.”

“Sure.”

Zack stood by the rental car with the rear door open for his children. The huge key fob from the rental company knocked hollow in his fingers as he waited. Then the children rushed out of the house and hugged him. “I’ve missed you two.”

“Where are we going today Dad?” Grace asked.

“Off to the zoo, the park, or –”

Noah interrupted, “Which park?”

“I thought we could go out to the big state park and do some hiking.”

“Walking in the woods?”

“We might see fun animals, if we’re really quiet.”

“Bears?” Grace leaned forward in her seatbelt with excitement on her face.

“I don’t think we have any bears. But we could see deer or muskrats, maybe an otter or –”

“The zoo has bears, Grace.”

“So you want to go to the zoo then?”

“YES! I want to see the bears and the tigers and the lizards,” Grace hopped in her seat.

Zack backed the car out of the driveway, pointing it down the road toward the zoo. “Then it looks like we are going to the zoo.”

They walked to the monkey pit following the painted elephant feet on the path. Zack remembered them being freshly painted when he was young, now the tracks were nearly faded, a neglected icon. Zack asked the children, “So how has school been?”

“Fine.”

“Busy.”

“In what way?”

“A
lot
of homework.”

“That’s what school is about. You’ve been doing your homework on time and well?”

Noah shrugged.

“What’s wrong about it?”

Noah shrugged again, “I was working on it last night at the kitchen table and Nick had this fight with Lydia. He had a bunch of that brownish drink.”

Zack reached into his pocket and took out his cell phone as if he was going to check his email or the time, “Go on Noah.” Zack hit record and dropped it in his shirt pocket with the microphone pointing out. “What is this brownish drink that Nick had?”

Grace said, “It’s nasty tasting.” She made a face as if someone forced spinach on her, shivering, “Then Nick can’t stand up.”

Zack asked, “Does Nick drink that once in a while? Or more often?”

Noah said, “Often. Grace and I go down in the basement and play our video games when we see the bottle come out of the cabinet.”

“What does your mother do?”

“Oh, she has some too but not that much. She leaves it on the table by the couch. That’s how Grace knows what it tastes like. I don’t like the smell of it.”

“Yuck.” Grace wrinkled her nose and shook her shoulders. “I tasted it yesterday and it’s still bad. As you told me, I might like Brussels sprouts the second time. Yuck still.”

“You kids shouldn’t even be trying that.”

“Does smelling it make you go down into the basement?”

“No. Nick gets mean when he has that stuff,” Noah pulled his pants belt loop down so his stretchy topped jeans exposed his hip and a large green-black patch, “See? I got it from Nick last week. I wanted to watch that funny video show on television and he didn’t want to even though I was there first. I had turned the television on.”