Page 41 of My Life with the Walter Boys
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For the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Alex had told me. Colestolehis girlfriend. How could he be so callous? As I mulled it all over, I sorted through all the material from all my classes. Since starting at my new school, I hadn’t had a chance to organize anything because life with the Walters meant there was always some unexpected event that kept me from the task. Each class received its own file in my accordion folder, ordered by period with the syllabus always at the front.
A history assignment slipped from my hands and fluttered to the floor. When I bent down to pick it up, I caught a glimpse through my window of Cole heading toward the second garage. Over the course of the week, I’d noticed that he frequented it every night. Curious, I left the homework on my desk and pulled on a pair of shoes. By the time I made my way across the driveway, Cole had already shut the doors, but I could hear a stream of music from within.
“Cole?” I knocked, but he didn’t answer. “Hello?” I called out. I rested my hand on the handle, not sure if I should intrude. I knew he was still inside because I could hear him moving around, but I didn’t want to be rude. When I heard the clang of metal on concrete, followed by a stream of swearing, I yanked open the door to make sure he was okay.
The small space was closer to the size of a shed than an actual garage. Along one wall ran a workbench, covered with different wrenches, ratchets, screwdrivers, and other strange-looking instruments. Above the bench were rows of shelves piled high with car parts, making it look like a Transformer had exploded across the length of wood ledges. A huge black car took up the rest of the space, and its hood was propped open, revealing its guts. Cole was crouched on the floor, picking up the gear that had spilled across the floor when a red toolbox fell to the ground.
“Everything okay?” I asked, making him jump.
“God, Jackie!” he exclaimed, glancing up at me and putting both hands on his knees. “Were you trying to scare me?”
“I knocked,” I said with a shrug before slipping inside the cramped space. “What are you doing?”
He stood up. “Working.” Cole was wearing a plain white shirt and an old pair of jeans, both of which were covered in grease. There was a red rag hanging from his pocket, and he plucked it out to dab across his brow. “Did my mom send you out here to get me?”
“No,” I told him as I picked my way around the car. I didn’t want grease on my good silk blouse. “You never showed me this place during my tour.”
“That’s because nobody is allowed in here,” he said, his face flat. “It’s my space.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback by how curt he was being. “Sorry, I didn’t know. I guess I’ll leave now.”
Cole sighed. “No, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to snap, but Alex has been a dick to me today and I took it out on you.”
“What happened?” I asked, trying to sound mildly interested. In reality, my ears were perked. When I made the decision to come down to the garage, it was partly because I wanted to find out if Alex’s accusations were true. I knew that the topic would be hard to slip into a conversation, and I hadn’t thought it would actually come up, but now that it had, a spark of excitement shot up my spine.
“I don’t know,” he said, leaning back against the car. “He’s been a prick for the last few weeks.”
“I see.” I couldn’t tell if Cole seriously didn’t understand why his brother was mad, or if something else was going on. “So are you going to talk to him?”
“I already did, but he never listens,” he said as he wrung the dirty cloth in his hands. “Whatever. If he wants to be ignorant, that’s his choice.” Cole crumpled the rag into a ball and tossed it on the workbench. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure,” I said, even though I was dying to know more.
“All right. Well, now that you’re out here, I might as well show you my baby.”
“Huh?”
Cole pulled back the passenger side door for me. “Get in.”
“Is it clean?” I asked, squinting inside. There wasn’t much light in the garage to begin with, and the lights in the car didn’t turn on when Cole opened the door.
“I vacuumed the seats,” he said, making his way around the front of the car. “Just get in.”
Ducking down, I carefully settled in. Cole yanked his door shut, and I followed suit, sealing us in the musty cabin.
“So this is your baby?”
“It’s a 1987 Buick Grand National,” he said, running both hands over the steering wheel. “Used to be my grandpa’s.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” I wasn’t trying to be rude, but the car was a bit of a clunker.
“This is aclassiccar.”
“It doesn’t look like much.”
“Well, it is. And when I finish restoring it, it’s going to run like a dream,” he said, sweeping his hand out in front of him as he imagined his car.
