Lemon Crush

Did I mention I had passengers expecting to reach a destination? Because I loved having witnesses to humiliating and potentially hazardous events in my life. It was the best.

With my pulse pounding in my ears, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my hands started going numb. “I’ll pull over when we get to your terminal.”

“Morgan’s right.” My brother-in-law shifted his large frame in the seat beside me, trying to watch both me and the road while typing furiously on his phone. “You should stop before the engine seizes or you crack the block.”

Was he just making up terms to confuse me now? What the hell was a block and how was I cracking it? “There’s no place to pull over yet, but we’re almost there. Two more minutes, Gene.”

Said every pilot who ever crashed into the ground a half-mile short of the runway.

Not the right time to think about planes crashing!

“This might give us two minutes,” Gene said, cranking on the heater to full blast. When a wave of hot air gushed into the car, I let out an undignified whine and rolled down the windows. Now we were all overheating.

I heard the click of a seatbelt releasing and then Morgan was inserting herself between our seats. “August, you don’t have to prove anything to me. I know you’re—”

“I’m not trying to prove anything,” I gritted out between clenched teeth. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

That was a dirty lie. I had absolutely strong-armed her into letting me take them to the airport this morning to prove I was happy about them going to Italy, followed by a cruise through the Mediterranean, without me. And I really was.

Mostly. I was mostly happy about it. The part of me that wasn’t had obviously alerted the karma police.

“This is what you get.”

Exactly. I should have considered the state my car might be in after barely driving it for well over a year. The state I might be in, when simply taking the airport exit had given me a nerve-jangling case of déjà vu, and promised a full-on panic attack in my very near future if I thought about where they were going without me. And why.

“Pull in there.” Morgan pointed at the United Airlines sign ahead. “Look where I’m pointing, August. There’s a spot opening up right there.”

Putting on my blinker, I craned my neck to see around her and, miracle of miracles, a guy in a Prius let us into the drop-off lane.

“Thank you!” I cried as I pulled to the curb, shifted into park and cut off the overheating engine with a groan that was as much resignation as relief. Now that we’d made it, I could finally admit the obvious to everyone.

“I’m cursed.”

“You’re not cursed,” Morgan said in a voice that suddenly sounded very far away. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I’m a writer. It comes with the territory.” I wrote about curses all the time, and this was what I’d imagined a few of them felt like.

You were a writer, before The Great Block turned you into a human doorstop.

Everyone’s a critic.

Before that doorstop situation, I came to the airport all the time without having a problem. Usually when I was the one flying off to interesting places, like New York, Reno or Atlanta, for promotional events and conferences.

Those were my halcyon days. The good old days of wine, roses and word counts.

The only glitch in that golden-oldies’ rewind was the time I came home early from a signing and found the man I’d wasted the last of my thirties on with a pretty young photographer that I’d introduced him to. I’d bought him headshots to help his stalled acting career as an anniversary present. All he’d gotten for me was a disturbing visual I could never unsee, because cliches existed for a reason.

That was the beginning of my downhill slide. Whenever I was in the mood to punish myself with a doom scroll, I’d look up pics of his photogenic family on social media. He had a wife, twins and one commercial for shingles to add to his resume now. Good for you, dickweasel.

In fairness to the no-drama crowd, leaving my bed at five in the morning to drive my sister and her husband to the airport—an excessive four hours before their flight—wasn’t exactly in the same category as discovering a cheating partner mid-flagrante. Still, there was a direct line from that moment to this.

It might not be a curse, but we could all agree it had been yet another exceedingly bad decision on my part.

Myrtle certainly did.

“August, are you listening to me?” my sister asked sharply, leaning into the open passenger window.

Morgan, her husband and their luggage had somehow left the car without me noticing. When had that happened?

“You need to get out now.” There was a subtle hint of fraying patience in her voice. I only recognized it because I’d heard it so often growing up. “I’ve convinced the officer to give us a few minutes, since the tow truck is already on its way. But he and the nice gentleman he called in to help want to do a quick search of the car for security reasons. They had an incident earlier this week, and they’re taking more precautions.”

Get out of the car? A tow truck? Was she already speaking the Italian she’d been practicing on her Duolingo app?

She couldn’t really be asking me to walk around in public like this. She might look airport-runway ready in her heather-blue cotton lounge set, with its matching boho-style head wrap to contain her tight black-and-silver curls for the flight, but I definitely did not.

My early-morning ensemble included a wrinkled sleep shirt that said Namaste-In Tonight, bleach-stained sweat shorts and floppy old slippers. And don’t get me started on the frizzy, dirty tangle on the top of my head that, at the moment, could only loosely be described as hair.

I wasn’t a morning person on a good day, and this was pre-morning on a bad one.

Not that it mattered. I could have driven here from the spa in a new outfit after ten hours of sleep, and she’d still have the edge in the looks department. She took after her dad, who’d been an Idris Elba-style head-turner in the seventies. It explained why she was born with an eternally sun-kissed tan and could have appeared in the dictionary next to “statuesque.” Meanwhile I, like my very Irish paternal relatives before me, was practically allergic to the sun and had a natural propensity for baked goods and pants with elastic waistbands.

People were always surprised to find out we were sisters.

“Any day now, August.”

She wants you to get out of the car.

I got that. The problem was, I didn’t think I could physically get my hands to unclench from the steering wheel.

“Is that legal? And if so, can’t they search with me in it?” My voice was still raspy from too little sleep and a fresh new flood of anxiety.

“Gene, will you get the bags checked without me?” she asked over her shoulder. “August Retta, I want you to exit this vehicle right now, before they think you’re on drugs and we all end up in airport prison.”

That worked. It was all in the delivery, and hers had that no-nonsense ring to it that could stop all bad-seed adolescents in their tracks. “Yes, Principal Bryant.”

I let go of the wheel, my fingers tingling back to life when I wrapped them around my travel mug full of coffee. Then I opened my door and slipper-shuffled across the pavement to join her beside a dirty concrete column. The planes rumbling through the dark sky overhead, the constant stream of cars and the acrid scent of exhaust were like bony fingers plucking at the over-tight strings of my anxiety.

So was the flashing No Parking sign glaring at me like an accusation.

“I didn’t think it would be busy at this hour.”

“It’s Houston International. It’s always busy,” she said absently. “Give me a second. I need to answer this text from Ann to tell her where Tilly’s morning meds are. I know I wrote it down.”

“Take your time.” She could text her dog sitter, and I’d stand here like the Before picture to her After, drinking my coffee and people watching while my car had her privacy invaded.

Apart from my melodramatic entrance, it seemed like a fairly routine morning. You could use it as the B-roll for any movie with air travel. Most of the early-bird fliers were rushing toward the doors, staring at their phones as they dragged their rolling suitcases behind them. Some hugged each other goodbye, while others waved flippantly at the person who’d dropped them off and driven away without worrying whether or not they’d ever see them again. One mother tried to soothe her sleepy, crying child as a gray-haired couple looked on, sniffling and waving.

I quickly looked away from that emotional moment, my attention latching onto a man who was on his knees, repacking a long black bag that carried an easily visible snowboard. That, I could appreciate. This very intelligent individual was wisely abandoning the oppressive summer heat for cooler pastures.

“Lucky you,” I muttered, tempted to follow him. But even if I wanted to, I wasn’t going anywhere. Not while I was still chained to my money pit of a house and suffering through a record-breaking case of writer’s block. Oh, and potentially a broken car now. Good times.

Stop whining and look on the bright side.

I could try. If I ignored the blistering Texas heat, the bugs, the truck nutz, the giant mall churches, the Lone Stars or bluebonnets stamped on everything and the politics, I supposed this wasn’t the worst place in the world to have a midlife breakdown.

Yeehaw.

That was you trying?

I’d give it another shot after I finished my coffee.

Morgan slid her arm through mine, either in a show of affection or to keep me from bolting back to the safety and anonymity of the CRV that was currently being cavity searched by guys with guns. They wouldn’t find anything in there but dust and pollen. Maybe the piece or six of candy that had dropped between my seats last winter, when I was trying to pass a Jeep while ripping open a bag with my teeth. I knew they were still in there somewhere, since Myrtle’s interior gave off the scent of melted butterscotch on really hot days.

“It smells like antifreeze, so it’s probably your radiator.”

I made a sound of disbelief. “You Googled that on your phone, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have to.” She tapped her temple. “It’s all right here.”

I didn’t doubt it. Her best friend was a mechanic, her husband was obsessed with amateur car racing, and Morgan would have made it her business to know everything about something she used every day. She was all about thorough preparation. She did it for her life, her job, and the vacations she and Gene had been on nearly every summer since he’d gone into remission. Montana, Thailand, Belize…

This trip wasn’t so much a vacation as an emotional journey. One with scenery I’d dreamt of experiencing for so long that I’d actually written about it in one of my books. Lago Maggiore had a magical ring to it.

Your characters would call this trip a quest.

Yes, and I was missing it. Because at this point in my story, I couldn’t manage a quest to the grocery store, or this airport, without it becoming a cautionary tale.

I made my lips curve in the semblance of a smile for Morgan’s sake. “The good news is, I got you here in one piece. And now that a tow truck is on its way and these guys are almost finished violating Myrtle’s freedoms, we can focus on what really matters. Like, do you have everything you need for the flight?”

As soon as the question came out of my mouth, I chuckled. “What am I saying? You’re so organized you could run a small country. Travel tip: Don’t take over any small countries while you’re away.”

“I make no promises,” she said, totally deadpan.

My smile grew more genuine and I held out my arms. “Bring it in, sis. Hug me goodbye and then go and enjoy your fancy breakfast in the first-class lounge until it’s time to board. I’ve got this, and I’ll only cry on the officers and embarrass myself a little bit after you’ve gone. Seriously, I’ll be fine,” I added, slowly lowering my arms when Morgan made no move to embrace me.

Instead, her restrained expression transformed into one of frustrated anger.

“You don’t have this, and nothing is fine, August. You are not fine.” She gestured to what I was guessing was everything about me in general before pointing at Myrtle. “The unnecessary car calamity we almost had? That was not fine. And you’re crazy if you think I could leave my sister standing outside the airport dressed like a homeless person with her life in shambles so I can go have pancakes.”

That was actually…a lot for Morgan.

She must have realized it too, because she took a calming breath and lowered her voice. “This is difficult for both of us and we’re under a lot of stress right now. I don’t think this is what either of us had in mind when I agreed to you dropping us off.”

She might not have imagined this exact scenario, but part of her had to have expected something like it. I mean, this was me we were talking about. Saying I wasn’t at my best was an understatement for the ages, though she’d never put it out there quite so directly before. Then again, we hadn’t had a real conversation in the last sixteen months.

That shambles comment might sting a little, but it sounded right to me.

“At least I’m wearing clean underwear.” My clever attempt at tension-easing levity dropped at the precise moment the officers walked up to join us.

“Car’s clear,” one of them said uncomfortably. The other looked on without expression, though I knew they’d both heard me. “We still need to keep this area moving. We’ve got tow trucks on site if the guy your husband called doesn’t get here in the next five minutes.”

“He will, and thank you again for understanding.” Morgan gave them a smile that said she’d had enough of their bullshit, but she had a flight to catch and no time to throw down. “In fact, I think I see him now.”

Gene called the tow truck?

I had an ominous premonition that gave me chills despite the pre-dawn heat. I didn’t want it to be who I thought it was. There was no way my morning was about to go from worst case embarrassment to apocalyptic humiliation.

A door slammed on the other side of my car and Morgan said, “I’m so sorry, Wade. I told Gene not to bother you at this hour, but he refused to leave her paying an arm and a leg for a stranger that might not get her safely home.”

Gah. Why hadn’t it occurred to me that they’d call their closest friend, the mechanic who owned his own garage, to tow my car?

Too bad I couldn’t melt into the grimy, stained concrete beneath my slippers and magically reappear back in the safety of my living room. That would be a convenient power to have right now.

“Don’t worry about it. It gives me the chance to see you two off. I’ll go ahead and get this hooked up while you say your goodbyes.”

I kept my back to him, but I’d know that deep drawl anywhere. After all these years, it still had a disturbing ability to weaken my knees. It reminded me of sun-drenched melted honey, summers at swimming holes I’d never been to, and impossible Kama Sutra positions I’d always wanted to try.

“Can you give me a hand?” he asked.

I froze, thinking he was talking to me, but then one of the officers said, “Anything to keep the traffic moving.”

“She left the keys inside if you need them,” Morgan volunteered.

My hands tightened on my cup in annoyance. Don’t mind me. Why would I need to be a part of the discussion? I was only the car’s owner.

Could a person be sarcastically grateful? Because I didn’t want to deal with this or him, but I still wanted to complain about not being included.

“Gene looks upset for some reason,” Morgan said, her head angling in his direction, “but there shouldn’t be any problems. I weighed those suitcases twice.”

When I couldn’t unclench my jaw long enough to reply, she swore under her breath and pried one of my hands away from my cup to hold it in hers, compelling me to meet her gaze. She had Mom’s eyes. Sophia Loren eyes, I’d called them, a nod to the Sicilian father our mother had never known. They were distinctive, deep set and wide, only Morgan’s were the color of green sea glass instead of blue skies.

“We’re all good now, August,” she reassured me. “Wade is going to drop you off at home and fix the car, so problem solved.”

If she thought that information would relax me, she was very much mistaken.

“And I’m going to FaceTime you every day I’m in Lesa before the cruise,” she continued, oblivious to my growing unease. “It’ll be like you’re there with me, and you won’t miss out on anything but the bad in-flight movie and the jet lag.”

She was trying to be kind after her brief flash of temper, but it felt like an unintentional knife sliding between my ribs. We both knew I was missing out on so much more than that. All because I hadn’t finished another book since my last release three years ago, and too much of the royalties I’d been living on since then had gone to doctor bills.

It didn’t feel like a good enough excuse to stay behind at the moment. Not for this trip. Not when we were supposed to bring Mom home together.

“Morgan, I—”

“Damn it.” She stared at her husband, who was currently waving at her hard enough to flag down a passing jet. “Hold that thought, I’ll be right back after I sort out our luggage.”

Before I could decide whether to be annoyed or relieved by the interruption, she’d raced away from me and taken Gene’s place at the counter. Meanwhile, Gene made a beeline for the tow truck and the man I was still refusing to acknowledge.

I had to admit, my brother-in-law’s outfit did a good job of distracting me from my mood. In a painfully bright Hawaiian shirt, basketball shorts, socks and sandals—his pale bald head glowing beneath the harsh outdoor lighting—he looked more like an intimidating bull of a bouncer than an accountant.

A bouncer who always dressed like a color-blind eighty-year-old.

“Is there a problem?” Wade asked him.

I took a drink of my coffee without turning around. If they wanted me to move so I couldn’t hear their conversation, they would have to ask me nicely.

“Rick texted.” Gene sounded agitated. “Fucking Dave crashed the Mustang last night. I don’t know the extent of the damage, but we need to get it fixed before the race. Maybe the kid you’re renting out your apartment to can help out as a favor? You said you were thinking about adding him to the pit crew anyway. He may as well start now.”

My family was giving Hudson’s Garage a lot of work today.

And Wade renting out his apartment was news to me. He’d been there forever. When he was eighteen, he’d said it was his dream to live above his own shop. What changed? Had he met someone and things had gotten so serious he needed a bigger place?

Not that I cared.

“Take a breath, Bryant. I’ll find out what’s going on before you get back.”

Gene swore a mini blue streak. “We don’t have the time for this.”

“We have plenty of time, but you have a flight to catch. All you need to focus on now is being with your wife and enjoying yourself.”

Morgan reappeared at my side for a genuine but now slightly harried embrace. “I love you, but they won’t let you stay here much longer. I’ll be back in a few weeks. When I am, you can help with Mom’s last request, okay? Then maybe we can start talking about some next steps for you. You can’t keep going like this forever, August. She wouldn’t want that.”

“A few bumps in the road doesn’t mean you give up.”

The echo of my mother’s voice rocked me so hard, I closed my eyes and felt myself shrinking right there in Morgan’s arms. I was a kid again, helpless and hopeless, and she was the big sister obliged to come save the day.

I hated it.

August Retta. The late bloomer, the directionless dreamer, the lemon in the bunch. As my goddaughter Phoebe—a fan of all things Swift—would’ve said, It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.

Morgan let me go and smiled sadly. “Take care of my sister.”

My heart stumbled as she went to hug Wade while Gene wrapped me in his beefy arms and gave me a warm squeeze, rumbling unintelligible words of comfort.

They’re leaving. She’s leaving.

“As long as you take care of mine,” I said quickly when he let me go, swallowing my panic so she wouldn’t see it. “Be careful, okay? I love you both. And text me as soon as you land, no matter what time it is here.”

With one last meaningful look in my eyes, Morgan nodded. Then Gene took her hand and they both turned, disappearing moments later through the glass doors of the terminal.

Leaving me alone with the two security officers, Myrtle the currently-on-my-shit-list car, and Morgan’s mechanic bff, Wade Hudson.

“This is what you get.”

“Morning, Gus.”

I swiped at an escaping tear and made myself look at him, exceedingly grateful that the crush I’d harbored for this man throughout my youth as well as the first half of my adult life was all but forgotten. Everything about him irritated me now.

His knowing tricolor eyes—the brown and gold flecked with jade were too compelling to be called hazel—annoyed me. The impossibly wide shoulders that seemed ideal for clinging to or carrying weighty problems on were exasperating. And the face that had gone from teen heartthrob to slightly-weathered-but-still-irresistible cowboy over the last few decades? That got on my nerves too.

He was the manly equivalent of a Venus flytrap, as far as I was concerned. Everything about him was one hundred percent lady bait, I always fell for it, and none of it was for me. He wasn’t for me.

Not that I was fit for anyone in my current condition. I used to write about bold, confident women taking down restrictive magical monarchies and finding their soul mates in the process all day long. But even then, at the end of that day I would still be Only August. And Only August had been a flaming dumpster fire for years.

When I didn’t respond to his greeting, he looked concerned—or maybe he was wondering if there was any way he could get out of letting the dirty hobo woman into his nice clean tow truck. He did the enigmatic thing so well I honestly couldn’t tell with him.

Then he tipped his head in the security guards’ direction. “I’ve got the car hooked up, but those two might call for reinforcements if we don’t leave soon.”

He had a point—one had his arms crossed over his chest and the other looked like he might be reaching for his radio.

“Come on.” He opened the passenger door. “Hop in and I’ll take you home.”

After a terse “Thanks,” I ignored his outstretched hand and climbed into the cab of his truck on my own.

Once the door shut, I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes, hoping he’d assume I was tired or trying not to cry because my sister was going to Italy without me.

Both of those things were true. It was also true that I didn’t want to waste my time attempting inane chitchat with someone who would end up ignoring me the way Wade usually did.

I didn’t care how attractive he was or how good he smelled, there was only so much I could take in one pre-morning, and I was now at my limit.

After we pulled onto the freeway, a ringtone echoed through the truck, followed by a voice booming over the sound system. “Wade?”

“Rick. Any reason you inconsiderately fucked with Gene’s head right before he flew overseas?”

“I was considerate.”

There was a scuffle in the background and another male voice I recognized joined the call. “The car wasn’t in a fender bender, Wade,” Gene’s friend Lucy said flatly. “It’s toast.”

How were they all awake at this hour?

“Fucked up beyond all recognition and heading for the junkyard. Dave screwed us last night, and if Rick’s expression is any indication, he’s lucky he’s still spending time in the drunk tank.”

“Shit.”

“That’s about our sentiment on the subject. We were thinking we could get a new car PDQ and you could get started tricking it out before Gene gets home. It might keep him from beating Dave to death with the Mustang’s crumpled bumper.”

“I’d like in on that action,” Rick said darkly.

“He’ll only be gone a few weeks.” Wade sounded exasperated. “Let me make some calls.”

“Tell your contacts we’re not feeling picky. It’s called 24 Hours of Lemons for a reason. Any car can be a racecar, especially with you as our pit crew.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to you two later.”

They hung up without saying goodbye, which was rude, but my mind was too busy reeling with new information to ponder the off-putting phone etiquette of the male species.

A plan was starting to come together in my head. Admittedly, it was kind of out there—bordering on potentially insane—but it was a plan. A year and a half ago, I would have refused to even consider it, but now? It might be exactly what I needed to help me deal with what I was missing out on. It would certainly be more proactive than feeling sorry for myself while accepting all the FaceTiming and wish-you-were-here postcards that were about to come my way.

If I’d learned anything in the last forty-three years—which was debatable after this morning—it was that there was a very fine line between a stroke of genius and a shit sandwich. I might have crossed that line too many times to be entirely confident in my own decision-making skills, but something was telling me this time could be different.

The lemon in the bunch…

It’s called 24 Hours of Lemons for a reason…

Any car can be a racecar…

Stroke of genius? Or shit sandwich? There was really only one way to find out.