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“I will,” he says. “If there’s something wrong with it, I’ll fix it myself.”
The thought of Rhett dirty to the elbows, wrench in hand, on his back under a sports car flashes through my mind. He’s lying on one of those wheelie board things that mechanics in movies are always on, and, when he pushes himself out to look up at me, a sweaty piece of dark hair stuck to his forehead, he grins with all those white teeth, eyes as shining and blue as the lake in front of us.
Rhett snaps his fingers in front of my face and I’m jerked out of my fantasy.
“What?” I ask quickly.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Uh…”
“Do you want to come with me? Or head back now?”
I go with him. Rhett knocks on the front door and it’s answered by a stiff old man with a toothpick dangling lazily in the corner of his mouth.
“She’s out back,” he intones. “Parked o’er by the water. Here’r the keys. You can test ‘er on the driveway but take ‘er off this property and I’ll have the cops on ya before you hit the highway.”
Rhett accepts the keys with an easy smile and no comment at the man’s unfriendliness.
“God, he was an asshole,” I say as we head back down the front path and cut around the house.
“An asshole or to the point?” Rhett asks. He chuckles at my face. “Okay, you’re right. He’s an asshole. But an asshole I need to do business with.”
I watch Rhett as we walk. Where was this amenability back at the ‘hotel’ in Ohio? Something’s changed, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Or, at least, I don’t until I see what we’ve come for.
I scan the grounds, looking for a barn or even a parking space that might house Rhett’s latest — and possibly last — toy. But there’s nothing here except for an ancient kid’s playscape and swings, a fire pit surrounded by chairs half buried in snow, and the husk of an decrepit work van covered in powder. At the end of a long beach the icy waves of Lake Michigan crash against the frozen sand.
“Where is it?” I ask with a slight shiver. It’s only a bit warmer today with the sun out, and really all that it’s doing is making the snow slushy and hard to walk through.
“Right there,” he says.
“Where?” I ask, completely lost.
“The van.” He points at the tragedy on wheels directly under my nose.
I stop in my tracks; he shuffles on. It takes him a few difficult paces to realize that I’m not keeping up with him.
“What’s the matter?” he asks, turning.
“I thought this was going to be another sports car,” I say. “You’re not seriously thinking of wasting money on that, are you?”
Rhett’s eyes flash. A lesser man would shrink, Rhett remains proud. “And why wouldn’t I?”
When I can’t answer, he turns around and continues toward it.
I hesitate a moment and then rush after. By the time I catch up, he’s already brushing snow off the windshield and peering through the window.
“He said he’d charged the battery. I guess we’ll get a good idea about the tires trying to get it out of here.” He looks back the way we came. “Might have to dig it out,” he admits.
“Are you really serious?” I ask.
Rhett doesn’t look at me. He’s busy hauling the side door open, looking into the meat refrigerator interior that’s empty other than a stack of old blankets. He tests the running board with his weight. It bends under him and he quickly steps off.
“I can fix that,” he says, more to himself than to me.
“Rhett,” I say.
