Page 7 of Second Chance

His pa is on his back, under Mrs. Cooper’s car.

“I’m not late,” Tony announces to the garage.

Pa rolls out from under the car. “Well, I couldn’t have known you’d be on time.”

“Weird, given I’ve never been late.”

There’s a stack of coveralls in the closet by the entrance. Tony doesn’t enjoy wearing them, but he has plans after work today and no time to go home and shower and change in between, so he pulls one out.

“You never know, do you.” Pa shrugs. “I mean, kids these days, so much going on in your lives—”

“Pa,” Tony says. “Stop doing undercarriage work.”

“But—”

“You pay me to do it, so let me do the work you can’t.”

Joe d’Angelo is many things: a great dad, a lenient boss, and a doting grandfather. He isn’t what Tony would call great at admitting his own weaknesses though. He grunts a noncommittal sound, definitely not an agreement, and heads to the storefront to unlock the doors.

Tony shakes his head at Pa’s retreating back and gets to work on Mrs. Cooper’s car. It’s not a big job. She just has an inspection coming up and wants to make sure everything is in order. If it were a job of more than five minutes, they’d have put the car on a hoist yesterday.

Still, it’s the principle of the thing. Since Pa’s slipped disc three years ago, Tony has tried to take on more of the physically strenuous workload, especially the parts involving scrambling around on the floor or bending at weird angles. Pa has not been gracious about it.

“Mornin’,” Kyle calls as he comes in. Kyle is also on time, and Pa could easily have left the check on Mrs. Cooper’s undercarriage for him if he didn’t want to give it to Tony.

“Hey, Kyle.” Tony finishes up what he’s doing and rolls out from under the car. “How’s Susan doing?”

Kyle shrugs. His wife has been struggling with Lyme disease all summer, and it’s taken a toll, not that he would say so in so many words. “She’s getting there.” He’s said the same thing every day this week. He sets about putting on his coveralls and then makes a beeline for the coffee machine.

“Pour me one too?” Tony gets the clipboard his dad left on the roof of the car and fills out the checks for the undercarriage.

“Here ya go.” Kyle sets Tony’s cup on the table. “Your pa around?”

“I’m right here,” Pa calls from the front office. “Still my shop.”

Christ. He already sounds ornery. It’ll be a long day.

Around eleven, a tow truck brings in a carload of Lobell students with a flat and a dented front fender. Apparently, the driver swerved to avoid a deer and hit the guardrail head-on. This doesn’t explain the flat, but the kid looks shaken out of his mind as it is, and his two passengers lingering by the door to the garage aren’t helping.

Kid.

Being a Lobell student means he’s probably Gianna’s age or maybe a little younger since she’s older than most college seniors after taking a leave of absence last year. He has a handlebar mustache Tony’s willing to bet is ironic, which doesn’t make him seem particularly mature, but he’s not a kid; he’s only six or seven years younger than Tony. Of course, Pa disagrees because they’re all kids to him, which Tony guesses is fair.

This guy’s behavior doesn’t make a case for being an adult, anyway. He’s shaking all over, and sweat beads on his forehead as he tells them what happened. The tow truck guy, Carl,scratches his head as the student narrates, which supports Tony’s impression that the story isn’t quite adding up. Carl, who happens to be Tony’s mom’s cousin, often brings them easy fixes knowing that Pa squeezes in all the customers he can manage, keeping the wait times lower than other places. This saves Carl the trouble of putting a bunch of cars in his tow lot, which can barely fit five.

Pa takes the story at face value. “Never try to avoid the deer,” he says. “Hit the brakes and stay on the road.”

“Uh-huh.” The student nods frantically. “Um, do you know what it’s gonna be?”

Even someone with Pa’s experience can’t answer the question until they’ve inspected the damage. The car, an ’07 Toyota Camry, isn’t a luxury model in the first place, but up close, Tony can see they have more to fix than the fender. It looks bad, sure, but a little heat and elbow grease can work wonders. The light above it on the other hand was smashed to bits in the accident. Adding to which, ’07 Camrys are absolute shit, and Tony’s willing to bet there are some other issues hiding under the hood.

Pa shrugs. “I’ll let you know.” He heads into the front office. Tony knows he’s probably looking for parts, but the student doesn’t and looks like he got slapped in the face in addition to being in a car accident.

“We don’t know yet,” he tells the student. “We have to take a look at the damage before we can give you an estimate. I’m Tony, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Sean.” The guy works up a weak smile, which mostly makes his mustache look especially dumb. “Sean McAllister.”

“Okay, Sean.” It’s not every day they get an accident in, but Tony’s learned to keep his voice calm when they do. When itcomes to breaking news to customers about unexpected and potentially expensive damage, half the battle is being kind, especially when they’ve just been through something scary. “You had a pretty rough morning, huh?”

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