I’m still figuring out how to breathe normally.
“Can we pop by my house so I can change?” I ask. That’s when I realize there’s no Tonka.
“Change for what? You look perfect.”
“Uhh—”
“This is us today,” he says as we approach an old two-door Honda. He opens the door for me, and the seat belt automatically slides forward on a track to let me inside. Once the door is shut, the thing moves back to its starting point, strapping me in without my consent.
I peek around. Thing’s even got a cassette tape deck—I would’ve sworn Mama’s truck was the last working vehicle on earth with one of those.
Once Zan is held in place by his own demon seat belt, he fastens the one that goes across the lap (which prompts me to do it too), then shoves the key in the ignition and tries to start the car. There a whrrrrr-whrrrrr-whrrrr sound, but no crank.
“Dammit,” he says.
Something beneath the steering column gets pulled and there’s a pop sound. Then he hops out and the hood goes up. After about twenty seconds, hood drops, he hops back in, turns the key again, and boom. Put-put-putter, but the engine’s running.
I am so confused.
“Soooooo…”
“Took the Jeep in for regular maintenance—oil change, tires balanced and rotated, that type of thing, right?”
“Sure.”
“They found two 50D nails in the sidewall of my front passenger tire. TWO!”
No clue what any of that means. Which doesn’t help my Poor Girl Visiting Rich World jitters. “Okay…”
“The things are five and a half inches long and six millimeters in diameter!”
“Dang.” Still clueless.
“Our mechanic thinks somebody did it on purpose. Anyway, those tires are special order, so it’ll be Wednesday before a new one is in.”
“What about the spare?” You know, the one protruding from the back door?
He shakes his head. “That’s what I said, but my mom doesn’t want me driving around without a spare, so even if we were to use that one, I’d have to wait until the new one comes in.”
Ah. I see. “So this is your spare car.” Because of course he would have a spare car—
“This is my dad’s car.”
“Ah, so it’s his spare car, not yours. My bad.”
“Try the one he drives every day. He doesn’t have a spare.”
I take it all in…the crank windows, the manual locks, the torn upholstery with the padding sticking out of it. “Nope. You’re full of it.”
He laughs. “Cross my heart. He’s actually pretty proud of it. He’s never spent more than two thousand dollars on a car, yet every car he’s had has lasted at least a decade. He’s on year eleven with this baby fella, and it was already sixteen years old when he bought it.” He pats the dashboard. “Parts can be hard to find, and Dad’ll have to replace the spark plugs soon if he doesn’t want to get rid of him, but Timothy Macklin will definitely rock this car till the wheels fall off. Literally.”
Wow.
“Something very few know about my father: the guy does not like spending money.”
Hope this isn’t outta line….“Your sister’s wedding seemed pretty extravagant.”
“That was all Mom and Lita. Dad had bloodshot eyes for two days after finding the bill for the flowers. Never in my life heard him yell Mami so loud.”
I chuckle. “So what’s your mom like?”
“She drives a fully loaded Maserati SUV.”
Now I’m really laughing.
He shakes his head. “It’s ridiculous. She’s the company attorney, but she’d spend everything if he let her.”
Wonder what that’s like…the limit being a friggin’ Maserati. “I still can’t believe I’m going to your house.”
Whoops. That wasn’t supposed to leave my head.
“Why not?”
“Oh come on, Macklin. Before a couple months ago, would you have expected the weirdo brown girl from history to wind up beside you in your dad’s bucket?”
He laughs. “Gorgeous weirdo brown girl from history. Get it right.”
“I’m serious!” And flustered now. Hate when he catches me off guard like that.
“Okay, touché.” His head turns toward me in my peripheral. “Loving every minute, though—”
“Eyes on the road, fool.”
More laughing from him—and smiling from me—but when we get to the next red light, he turns to me with a kind of serious look. “I’ve got a question for you, Danger.”
Gulp. “Okay…”
“What if it were you?”
“Huh?”
“We’ve been looking for Ethel Streeter because you’re convinced she has a winning lotto ticket, right? What if you had it? What would you do with the cash?”
Well, this is out of left field. “That’s…random.”
“Well, the longer we go without finding her, the more I think about it,” he says. “I did the math: if the winner took the annuity option, after taxes they’d get roughly two-point-four million a year for thirty years. That’s over two hundred grand a month, Rico. Only like three percent of American households see that annually.”
“Okay…”
“Just interested to hear what you’d do with that kinda dough.”
Why is he asking me this?
Actually, better question: Why does the thought of answering make me uncomfortable? It’s not like I don’t know….My mind runs through a list every time Jax or Mama gets sick. Even wrote it down once. I’d obviously start by getting us some good health insurance….
But I certainly can’t tell him that.
“I’d probably buy us a new car and a decent house.”
He nods. “Go on.”
“I’ve never really thought beyond that,” I say. “I guess I’d start a college fund for Jax. Maybe send him to Space Camp.”
“Oh, is he into space? I had no idea.”
I swallow again. I honestly don’t know either, but every kid would jump at the chance to go to Space Camp, right? I didn’t get to, so why not Jax? “Yeah.”