Page 1 of Mechanic Next Door
1
Peach
“This is me,”I say. Ray pulls over, shifts his truck into park and sits back with his keys in the ignition. His jeans are splattered with grime and his truck smells like the garage where he works. I don’t know what combination of chemicals are in the scent, but I like them. I always feel small when I get a nose-full of the garage. Small, andsafe.
“I know your house,” Ray says, peering past me to the little two-story Victorian with the banister I’m always working on and the shutters that need a fresh coat of paint. I like to keep some projects for later. I always push some of the work to next weekend. Then the weekend afterthat.
I like that my house is a work-in-progress. I don’t want it to ever be finished. It feels more like mine when there are projects strewn around: some rolls of shelf-lining sitting on a dining room chair. The water bill not paid until the last minute, which is a little irresponsible, but I always make sure it gets paid, even if I cut it close. A stack of letters unopened, though I always make sure I have few enough for me to cycle through so I’m never too late in responding toanyone.
There are two things I’ve learned about myself since my grandfather passed away: first, that I like working with my hands. Second, that I always like things to be a little unfinished. If I can do ninety percent of a job I’m happy. Any more and I’ll be trying to get my hands on things and rough them up alittle.
“I know you know my house, Ray,” I reply. “Everybody knows myhouse.”
Some of the boys down at the garage invited me out tonight. I told them I would tag along so long as I could cash in a few dollar bills for quarters, feed them into the jukebox, and pick out the songs we would listen to. I think they were all happy to indulge me in this little request. I don’t go out much, much preferring to stay inside and cook, or kneel in my garden out back, or sit on my porch and pretend I’m not waiting for my next-door neighbor, Thomas, to come home from the garage. And it’s suited me justfine.
It’s suited me just fine until very, very recently. Now, my relationship with my next-door neighbor feels too complete. Too sturdy. He’s my rock. That’s the problem. I have an immovable, responsible man living next door, and all I want is to step between us, push us apart to undo some of the bond, and then fill that space back up again with somethingnew.
Get my hands on things and rough them up alittle.
“You should come out with us next time, too,” Ray says with asmile.
“Does Thomas ever go out with the boys from the garage?” I ask to test the waters. I’d counted on him being there tonight. When I walked into the bar with the boys on my heels, I tried to not make it too obvious that I was searching the place for him. My eyes scanned the row of older men sitting at the bar with their eyes on the small TV in the corner. When my gaze landed on that row, a few of the eyes found me over their shoulders. That’s when I knew my search was complete. If Thomas were there, none of those eyes would have foundme.
“Nah, not really,” Ray says, putting his hand on the back of my seat. His response is casual, off-hand. If he knew I’d counted on Thomas being there tonight, I don’t think he would be so casual. I guess I was unwise to consider Thomas one of the boys from thegarage.
He is anything but one of the boys from the garage. The boys from the garage, they’re all my age or a few years older. The boys I’ve known my whole life, riding bicycles until the summer sun set and hitting baseballs into the path of moonlight spilling across the front lawn. A wide, big swath of people I’ve always known and who have always known me. A group of people who I devoted my summers to with desperation to hold onto those nights and wishing they would neverend.
Thomas is not like them now, and was not like them back then, either. Thomas was too old to hang with those kids I spent my summers with. He was in his twenties. I remember him as a mysterious figure who was kind but distant, sweet and a little closedoff.
Now, Thomas wears faded denim and white shirts that are stained, but clean. They have the tattered appearance of an old dog’s chew toy, but when I press my nose to his chest he smells as clean and fresh as a warm summer morning, as bright as a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, as perfect as that first quenching sip of water, and makes my belly flip and my heart flutter with his undeniable rough and dirtyedge.
His face is marked by subtle signs of age but his kindness doesn’t show them. But lately his spirit has shifted in him, and it’s only towards me, and it makes me feel like I’ve lost something I never had to begin with. Nostalgia for something I’ve only read in a book. Something that isn’tmine.
He doesn’t look at me how he used to. He isn’t as nice to me as he used tobe.
But he is mine. He swore to my grandfather that he would take care of me for as long as he could. And I know in Thomas’ mind, that means forever. And that makes him mine, and me his, and I know there’s nothing that could change that. I fear his change toward me may be the result of the change I’ve shown him, though I can’t help it. I’ve tried to suppress it for as long as I could, but I think my skin might just peel off if I can’t do the things I want. The things my body wants me to do, as though I’m just a witness to somethingelse.
I must be living this same life over and over, reincarnated a million and one times, because I feel like I’ve pressed these feelings down forever. And when I get it right, maybe then I can findpeace.
That’s another thing I’ve learned - that forever isn’t a measure of time. It’s a condition. It feels like a sickness I’m about to overcome. I never thought I’d want forever to take human form and find a different place tolive.
There’s no reason for the way he makes me feel or the things he makes me feel. All I know is that I want my mouth on his lips and I want his dirty fingers to dig into my skin, anywhere he wants to put them. I know I’m a bad girl for wanting these things. I know it’s wrong. And if he doesn’t want to be nice to me, that’s fine too. I’d take him in whatever condition he wants to comein.
When I go to the garage and talk to the boys, he barely talks to me. When I see him come home from work I call him on his landline, and that’s when he talks to me. I tell him I can’t talk long, and he always pretends he won’t keep me. And I listen to his deep, rich voice, and when we hang up, I don’t know what we’ve talked about. I’ll look through my kitchen window and hang up, and I’ll watch him do the same, and then I’ll go to bed, keeping the window open to let the warm, soft breeze tickle my skin. I’ll bite my lip when I touch myself to keep quiet and when I’m done and the night is stealing the day, I’ll feel it slip out from under my feet and lay medown.
“I’ll be sure to come out with you all the next time,” I tell Ray, wrapping him in ahug.
“You’re twenty-one now,” Ray says. “You have no excuseanymore.”
I know it’s wrong, but I hope Thomas iswatching.
I step out of the truck into the warm spring night and turn to give Ray a silent wave goodbye. I sense some movement from across my lawn, and when I step onto my porch, a light inside Thomas’ house flips on. I can’t see him through the curtains, though. I want to know where he’s looking. Is he watching Ray’s truck as he drives to the corner, the crunch of gravel mixing with the sound of chirping crickets? Does he care that Ray surely knows he’swatching?
Is he looking at the hem of my shorts, the ones he tells me I can’t wear? Does he know that I took my favorite pair of jeans and held my breath while I cut the legs off, frayed the edges with my keys, and felt my panties dampen when I tried them on again and looked at myself in the tall mirror in the corner of myroom?
When I’m inside I toss my keys on the table and pour myself a glass of lemonade. The freezer rattles as I pull the ice tray out and plunk a few cubes into a tall glass. I douse my thirst with a long sip and grab my landline to hitredial.
“Hey,” Thomas breathes through the phone. His tone has an edge to it. An edge that’s new. An edge that’s starting tobleed.
“I’m home,” I say. I turn so I’m not facing his house, leaning back against the kitchen counterinstead.
“I know. Goodnight,Peach.”
“Goodnight, Thomas. See youtomorrow.”
I put the phone back in its cradle and go upstairs to do what I do everynight.
I just don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. I think I might just go crazy if I can’t have Thomas. I don’t even know what it really means to want him. I don’t know how it would play out. My small solace is knowing that I’ll never have to find out what heartbreak is, because I know he would never cross thatline.
