Page 88 of In The Weeds
“Alright, well.” Maybe it’ll come back to me in muscle memory. I certainly have nothing better to do at the moment.
I lug the heavy jack out of the trunk of the car and set it by my bum tire and get to work. This, at least, I remember. I pour all of my frustration into turning the stubborn bolts, a groaning sound coming from each one as I hold the metal steady in my palm and crank.
Despite my string of bad luck since leaving their offices, my interview with the Small Business Coalition went well. Really well. Theo had been warm and welcoming—a little bit awkward—offering me coffee and a tray full of small danishes as soon as I arrived, the covered plate balanced precariously on the edge of an overcrowded desk.
“A lot of your content features food,” he had said, adjusting his glasses with his knuckles. “I was hoping to woo you to our side with sugar.”
He didn’t need to woo me with sugar or coffee or anything else. He had launched into his pitch immediately, his quiet voice coming to life with excitement at the list of small businesses on their roster. His office had been cluttered, stuffy, a small window above his desk that overlooked a narrow alley and a brick wall. There was hardly any natural light or extra space, only one chair across from his desk, a dated phone with a tangled cord wedged next to the danish tray.
I loved it immediately. All of it. The half-empty mug on the bookshelf by the door and the stack of papers that ruffled every time he moved in his squeaky desk chair. His space looked like hard work and enthusiasm, ideas spilling out of every corner. I found myself examining the pictures hanging in clusters along the wall as he talked, a mismatched timeline of people and places in technicolor. A food stand at a small park. A storefront with a red and blue awning, large looping letters on the window.A smaller picture, right beneath, of him and a handsome man, their hands clasped together and a little girl clinging to their knees.
“You’ll get fancier offers, I’m sure,” he told me. I couldn’t help but think of Sway—the fruit art in the water and all the fancy odds and ends that don’t matter at all. “But I don’t think you’ll find work that makes you happier than this.”
Happier. Of all the words he could have chosen.
He hadn’t needed to say more than that.
The details on the position had been like icing on my fulfillment cake. Working with small businesses, helping them establish their digital channels—this new position is exactly what I’ve been doing, but better. More time building relationships. Stronger resources to support initiatives. And an entire Rolodex of small business owners across the country just trying to figure it all out.
Countless stories to tell.
And support for me. Rest, when I want it.
I had been humming with excitement when I left the interview, bursting at the seams with a feeling I thought was gone forever. I walked to my car and dialed Beckett’s number, picturing him sitting on the back porch, one of the cats on his knee and his hand curled around a beer, socked feet crossed at the ankles and his long legs stretched out. I imagined what his face might look like when I told him the news, the way his eyebrows would lift. That quiet smile in the lines by his eyes and the divot in his cheek.
But he didn’t answer.
I turn the wrench with a grunt and loosen the last bolt, a bead of sweat sliding down between my shoulder blades. I drop the wrench to the cement and one of the crows launches itself off the top of the gas station in a flurry of ruffled feathers. I frown at his friends and then down at my flat tire.
“So far so good,” I mutter.
It comes back to me in pieces as I work. My mom’s voice in my ear, instructing me how to crank the jack, how to hold myself away from the car, how to pull the tire off and gently push the new one on. A thrill of satisfaction runs through me as I move through each step, secure the new wheel, and tighten the last of the bolts. I roll the popped tire to the trunk and lower the jack again, and the car releases a groaning, heaving sigh.
Maybe I should have changed a tire sooner. The pride burning in my chest has me short of breath, a fierce burst of energy that zips through my entire body. I stand there with my hands covered in grease and my arms burning from the effort.
I feel fantastic.
I almost laugh when I hear the growl of a car engine behind me, a bright red truck tearing down the backroad. It slows to a stop by my side and an old man with a faded baseball cap pokes his head out the window, his tanned arm hanging over the door. He looks at all the tools scattered across the ground and gives me a quizzical look.
“You need any help?”
I shake my head. I don’t. For the first time in a long time, I’m not left wanting for a single thing. I am firmly here, in this moment. Not planning for what’s next, not thinking about all the things I’m missing out on by standing still. Everything is exactly where it should be.
I give him a grin that he mirrors with a bewildered twitch of his lips. A strange lady standing outside of a boarded up gas station with grease on her face, smiling at nothing.
“I’m good, thanks.”
I callJosie from a rental shop exactly halfway between Durham and Inglewild, a styrofoam cup of coffee in my hand and a stale donut cradled in my arm.
“He offered you the job?”
I glance through the glass window at the service center, my little blue car receiving a proper tire replacement. I’m impatient to get back on the road, another couple of hours left of driving before I’m back at Lovelight. Beckett still hasn’t answered his phone, and I don’t know what to do with that.
I left a note on the kitchen table when I left, my own attempt of a doodle at the bottom.I had to leave on short notice,I wrote.An interview,three exclamation points after.We can celebrate with burgers when I get back.
I hesitated beneath that, my hand hovering over the scrap of paper.Talk soonfelt incomplete.Miss youfelt silly. I stared at that piece of scrap paper and chewed on my bottom lip, clueless as to how to sign the damn thing.
In the end I settled for a tiny heart with lopsided edges, a circle of tulips curling at the bottom.
