Page 29 of Strangers She Knows

“We’ll be free to go home.”

“Or stay, if we want.” Max hadn’t changed the way he stood, yet Kellen felt that sweet, enveloping heat of sexual desire.

“We need to dunk you into the icy waters of the Pacific Ocean,” she told him.

“What?” He pretended innocence.

“Come on!” Rae ran back toward them. “Hurry up! We’ve got to go to thebeach.”

“It’s been there for a billion years. It won’t go away,” he assured her.

“Number one hundred and three on the endless list of things parents say to annoy their children,” Kellen said.

“No kidding!” In one of those lightning switches, Rae suddenly sounded mature and exasperated.

“Since I’ve already annoyed you anyway, Rae, let’s check out the old garage.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but headed for the dilapidated structure set in the grass beyond the end of the lawn. This was the building with the solar panels.

“Why? Because we haven’t seen rodent droppings lately?” Kellen grinned at his back.

Rae ran after him. “Daddy! We’re going to thebeach!”

“This won’t take a minute.” Max flipped back the bar on one of the old-fashioned carriage house–style doors. It creaked and sagged as he opened it and walked in.

Kellen showed Rae her wide-spread hands.

Rae looked up at the sky as if seeking guidance.

They followed Max into the shadowy interior.

The smells of a garage hit Kellen first: oil, paint, tires, gasoline. And dust. So much dust Luna sneezed twice.

At first she could see nothing but the two grimy double-hung windows set into the back wall, and two more in each of the side walls. Then her eyes began to adjust to the dim light, and she saw a cluttered wooden workbench that stopped short of the back door. Motor oil spotted the cracked concrete floor. Gray vintage gas cans lined one side wall and a blue plastic kerosene can sat between them. At the end of the line, an Incredible Hulk of a battery charger kept the cans in line.

On the other wall, a slope-shouldered 1930s refrigerator, no longer working, sat surrounded by stacked red-and-yellow wooden boxes marked Coca-Cola, and filled with six-ounce bottles. A wooden ladder leaned against the wall. Brooms, rakes and shovels hung on nails along with…a horse collar?

Ah. At some point in the far distant past, this must have been the stable. That would account for the more-than-double garage size.

In the middle of the wide concrete floor, a large tarp covered a roughly pickup-sized shape. A mattress, a single with all the markings and colors of the sixties, leaned against the bulbous front of the tarp. Max pulled the mattress away, dragged it over to the wall and leaned it between the studs. He returned, reached up and pulled the chain to turn on the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling. Lovingly he rolled back the tarp to reveal…

PICKUP:

FORD F-100, 1955, INLINE 6 AS INDICATED BY THE GRILLE, ORIGINAL PAINT: GOLDENROD YELLOW. DUSTY, WELL-CARED-FOR. ONE LOW TIRE.

“My God. The rumors are true,” he said in awe.

Rae wailed, “Daddy, I don’t want to look at a crummy old pickup. We’re going to thebeach.”

“It’s not a crummy old pickup.” He sounded shocked.

“It’s the holy grail of vehicle fixer-uppers,” Kellen told Rae.

“I don’t care. I don’twantto fix it up.” Rae hesitated, because she loved robotics and anything mechanical. So she added, “Notnow. Let’s go to thebeach.”

Kellen held up one finger, asking Rae to be patient. “Max, you knew this was here?”

Rae sighed loudly.

Luna sat and thumped the floor with her tail.

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