talk herself down from a panic attack, and then gather her
portfolio from the back seat. She had planned to take her time with
all of this so if there was the slightest hiccup in her plan she
had more than enough time to fix it.
Her plan was perfect in her mind, but there
were certain things she had failed to take into consideration. Car
troubles had never even come up in her list of potential problems.
This was the first time her car had traveled this far. The faded
red exterior of the mid-90’s style sedan had seen the sun’s harsh
rays for more than a decade. She even nearly lost her virginity in
the back seat of this exact car while in high school. A patrolling
cop car put a stop to the vigorous make-out session just when
things were getting hot and heavy between her and her boyfriend.
And as days and weeks went by it became painfully obvious that she
had been spared from the grief of a messy break-up from the boy she
thought was “the one”.
This old car had never given her problems
ever since her parents had given to her. Six years later, here she
was, still driving the same reliable, ugly car, and she was still a
shining example of innocence. All of her experiences with dating
had been regrettable, at best. It was a mix of her distrust toward
the good ones, and her complete refusal to lower her standards. She
didn’t have a bitter demeanor, but instead just seemed to play the
“hard to get” game a little too well.
Just as the car’s odometer hit the 110,000
mile mark, smoke started to pour from under the hood. Nicole was in
denial at first and still drove on for a few moments. It wasn’t a
lot of smoke. The problem would pass and she’d continue on to her
interview. But the smoke didn’t stop at all. It continued to flow
from the cracks of the hood, starting to make it difficult to see
anything at all.
“Aw, come on! Why now?!” she cried out in
exasperation.
She finally decided that this was a serious
problem and began to pull over. Luckily for her, there was a
service station just as she brought the smoke-billowing car off the
road. The way she had to take to Atlanta was mostly deserted with
hardly any traffic at all. It was times like this that she wondered
why she had ever moved back home after college. Perhaps if she had
stayed in Savannah, or even already made a move to Atlanta this
could have all been avoided.
She hesitantly stepped out of the car a she
surveyed the building that she miraculously stopped at. It didn’t
look like it had been updated since the late 80’s. There were only
two pumps at the front, one for diesel and the other for unleaded.
As she passed by them, she noted that nothing on the pumps looked
like it had been updated since this building had been built. There
were no credit card slots or digital read-outs at all. If it
weren’t for the neon sign hanging from the window of the office
that said “OPEN” she would have guessed this old building was just
an antique from a time long forgotten. The building itself was a
small, well-kept structure that looked like it had been recently
painted with a shade of baby blue that made Nicole cringe!.
Attached to it was a single-car garage with a car already hoisted
up with the hydraulic jack. The sound of the radio blaring
something that vaguely reminded her of music echoed through the
open garage and filled the surrounding area with the noise.
“Hey, anyone here?” She spoke with a bit of
annoyance in her voice. The sound of the loud metal music booming
from the garage should have been her first sign that no one would
hear her faint voice over the growling singer and the thumping
double-bass of the drums.
With a peeved look on her face, she turned
around to see a man in a pair of grey mechanic’s coveralls. Her
expression quickly changed to one of amazement as she looked him
over. He was a bit over six foot tall with long, light brown hair
that was pulled back in a sort of surfer cut. Even with the
coveralls, Nicole could