His Frozen Heart (30 page)

“
That’s pretty awesome of
you.” I looked around the place and remembered Dave had told me Mr.
Kravitz was his silent partner. “You helped him open this place,
too?”

“
Only out of necessity. He
was fixing cars so fast that my classroom was starting to feel like
Jiffy Lube. I had people calling from Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri
trying to schedule Dave for a restore. A couple here and there
would have been fine, but even the principal noticed we had a
significant turnover.”

“
Really? While he was still
in school?”

“
Yep. There aren’t many
people who have the kind of attention to detail he has. Word gets
out fast in the custom world. He needed a place of his
own.”

“
You rented this place for
him?”

“
I negotiated the lease,
and introduced him to an accountant.” His voice morphed into a
proud parental brag when he said, “You know that kid pocketed every
penny he earned on every job he worked? Students aren’t supposed to
make money on the school’s shop, but several of his restores netted
him some healthy tips from appreciative car owners. He never spent
a dime on anything that wasn’t an absolute necessity. He had the
money for the lease on his own; he just needed the encouragement to
do it.”

“
But he told me you were
his partner?”

Shaking his head. “Yeah, he tells
everybody that. Every month his accountant sends me a check, too.
Initially I tried to give them back, but it always turned into a
full-blown argument.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah. Rather than bicker
with him, I started a separate account. Every penny he’s ever given
me is in there.” He looked around the little garage and commented,
“He’s outgrown this place. When he decides he wants something
bigger, that cash will be ready for him.”

“
You’re not much of a
partner then.”

“
I help whenever he needs
it. I’m more of a skilled cheerleader.” His gaze focused squarely
on mine. “I’ve seen students come and go. There have been the
over-privileged, the undernourished, the troublemakers and
everything in between, but there has only been one Dave
Brewer.”

“
You sound like a proud
father.”

“
Dave’s a part of my
family. He doesn’t see it that way, but I do.”

“
I know he appreciates
everything you’ve done.”

“
Yeah, I know. You asked me
what happened to him? The answer is a little bit of my wife and a
whole lot of Emily.”

“
Your wife? I’ve never met
her.”

Kravitz nodded, “You should see his
eyes light up when she pays him a compliment. It’s something to
see. Like the sun rises and sets on her shoulders.”
Conspiratorially, he added, “It’s the same way he’s looked at you
for years.”

My cheeks heated up again, “There was
never anything between us back in high school. We were just
friends.”

“
You two were just friends
because he didn’t know how to tell you how he felt about you. He
was too intimidated to let you into his world back
then.”

I didn’t agree with his conclusion,
and it felt strange talking about it to Mr. Kravitz. Instead of
carrying on a seriously embarrassing subject, I pried him for
information on the changes that had happened with Dave. “Is Mrs.
Kravitz like a clean freak or something?”

A sad look shone on his face. “Don’t
let that scare you away from him. He doesn’t do it on purpose.” He
must have read my confusion because he explained, “He said when he
was little he tried like hell to get back to the home where Mark
was at. He became compulsive – everything having to be in its place
to prove he was a good boy. I’m sure the foster family who kept
Mark were good people, but they really did a number on Dave by
asking the state to take him back.”

Dave’s emotions were so raw, I didn’t
feel right prying the other night. Kravitz seemed to know
everything about Dave, and one question had been eating at me since
he told me what had happened. “I thought they didn’t do that? I
thought the state kept siblings together?”

“
I don’t know, Candy. Two
states in the mix, several different case workers assigned, an
adoption that fell through – none of it makes sense to me, either.
That kid may be built like a Mack Truck, but he’s got a model
airplane for a heart. It’s been snapped together, glued, and
painted so that it’s a thing of beauty, but it’s fragile.” He
pressed his lips together, as if arguing with himself before he
added, “If you aren’t sure you can love him back, you need to cut
bait soon.”

His word choice sent shivers through
me. Loving him back was absurd: we hardly knew each other. “Mr.
Kravitz, we’ve just spent a couple days together.”

“
You’ve just spent a couple
days with
him
. I
can guarantee you, a day hasn’t gone by in the last four years
where
you
weren’t
the last thought he had before his eyes closed for the
night.”

Disbelief colored my words, “He didn’t
even like me when he first met me.”

He waved a hand in front of my face.
“Are you blind? You remember the day you came into my classroom
trying to sweet talk me into letting you into the class? Who do you
suppose was rubber-necking and trying to get a better look at you
when he thought I couldn’t see?”

“
That doesn’t mean
anything.”

“
You’re right. Back it up a
little. When you had detention with me your freshman
year?”

I rolled my eyes, “Yes.”

“
Dave showed up for
detention, without a detention slip.”

“
So?”

“
When I asked him for it,
he didn’t have one. He said he just wanted to get some extra
studying done.”

I didn’t remember Dave even being in
the room anytime during the two weeks. Defensively, I shot back,
“That didn’t have anything to do with me.”

Kravitz furrowed his brow at me, “How
many times do you think Dave studied the whole four years he was in
school? Still not convinced? You had a small part in the school
play your senior year, right?”

I nodded. “Small” was a kind
description. I got to say two sentences. Kravitz’s voice dropped
lower, “He didn’t miss one performance.”

Dave’s simple admission, “I’ve had a
crush on you,” took on a whole new meaning when put in Mr.
Kravitz’s context. Dave wasn’t being kind or flattering: he really
had thought of me that way for much longer than I knew. I still
felt the embarrassment showing brightly on my cheeks.

Not wanting to continue this trip down
my oblivious memory lane, I asked, “You said Emily and your wife
helped him come out of his shell? What was their secret? How’d they
do it?”

He rubbed his chin, considering my
question. “It wasn’t one single thing either of them did. Emily
used to play I-Spy with him for hours, which made him ask
questions. She told him about her day, and wanted to hear about
his. I guess it was a lot of little things.” He let out a hearty
laugh, “You should have seen my wife’s face the first time he put
groceries away in our kitchen pantry. When he was finished, all the
cans were stacked neatly and grouped according to the contents. All
the labels were facing front. I swear she went in and would
purposely move cans around only to find them back the way he had
arranged them hours later. It used to drive her nuts. She tried to
teach him that life is supposed to be messy.”

“
But he’s that way about
everything. Have you seen his cabinets upstairs?”

“
Oh, yeah. Lots of times.”
Kravitz pointed over his shoulder toward the garage, “His tool box,
too. It’s his way of coping. For most of his life it was the only
part of his life he could control. When he was younger, he thought
it was the key to getting back to Mark.”

“
And now?”

“
I think it just makes him
feel good to live an orderly life.”

I had always liked Mr. Kravitz, but I
never knew how insightful he could be. “So someone with a chaotic
life is probably a big turn off for someone like Dave?”

“
Dave’s had a thing for you
for as long as I’ve known you. A little chaos might do him some
good.”

Sheepishly I countered, “Do you know
everything that’s been going on with me?”

“
I know some of what’s
going on. Dave’s worried about you, enough that he’s let you
interrupt his routine.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
His routine. He’s
established this schedule he never varies from. What time the
garage opens, when he works out, when he eats, everything is
planned meticulously. Two days ago when you came here – he closed
his shop down for the day. That kid works through blizzards, power
outages, floods; he is here when no other place in town is open.”
He waited to let it sink in then added, “He closed the place down
when he went looking for you.”

I wasn’t all that impressed: he lives
upstairs – it’s not like he has to drive through snow. Likely
sensing that I wasn’t getting the gravity of his statement, Kravitz
continued, “He works out every day of the week from 5 AM to 6 AM.
He didn’t want to bother you while you were sleeping, so he drove
across town to hit a gym this morning, rather than using the one
he’s got upstairs after you woke up. He called me last night to ask
if I’d come over here to make sure you were okay while he ran
errands.”

Defensively, I said, “I never asked
him to do either of those things.”

“
Don’t you see? You are the
first person he has let into his life that he has allowed to vary
his routine. It’s a huge step.”

“
Or a colossal
inconvenience.”

“
You asked about the
changes in Dave. You want to know how that happened?”

“
Yes.”

“
It happened because he
wanted something more. He wanted to fit in. It was my daughter who
first showed him how to use a washing machine. She was
six.”

“
I don’t
understand.”

“
Dave wants to be like
everyone else, but when he was growing up, no one took the time to
show him how to be like everyone else.”

“
He’s changed a lot from
the guy I remember. He seems a lot more confident when he
talks.”

Kravitz was excited, “I know. That was
all Emily. He had only been at our house a couple days when the two
of them were at the table in the kitchen, and she was telling him
about a project she had for school. A couple minutes into the
conversation she reached over and pinched his arm, then told him,
‘It’s rude and disrespectful not to look at someone when they’re
talking to you. Are you disrespecting me?’ My mouth about hit the
table when I heard her say it, but Dave looked her square in the
eye and told her, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’”

I didn’t know what to say. Mr. Kravitz
relayed several stories of how Emily corrected Dave on things that
most people do naturally. “Call her Little Miss Manners when you
meet her.”

I drained what was left of my coffee.
After setting the mug in the sink, I turned back to Mr. Kravitz. “I
like him.” He didn’t respond. Everything he told me made me want to
be around Dave more. Dave was complicated, but I felt like I knew
him a little better. I wanted him to know I wasn’t planning to cut
bait. “I care about him. I don’t want him to get hurt any more than
you do.”

He nodded. He returned to the Chrysler
without another word, when I asked, “Hey, when’s he coming
back?”

Kravitz grinned, “Within the hour. You
better get showered. He’s taking today off to spend with you.” A
smile formed on my lips. After everything Mr. Kravitz had said
about routines and the fact that Dave had never not worked, I
didn’t know what to say. He must have picked up on my surprise
because he answered anyway when I hadn’t posed a question, “So
you’ll want to use positive reinforcement with him. If you want him
to be more spontaneous, you’ve got to be ready to react when he
tries. Go!”

I took the steps two at a time,
leaving Mr. Kravitz to his own devices in the garage. I had learned
far more than I expected to this morning. I was glad Dave and I had
the history we did, but that was only a small element of who he was
now. He may be compulsive about some things, but he wanted to spend
the day with me. I wondered what we might do. If he left it to me,
I’d vote for a quick trip to Mt Crescent Ski area. It was in Honey
Creek, Iowa, but that was close and would be fun. If Dave didn’t
know how to ski, they had a great tube run that would be great for
laughs, too. All of my ski gear was in my garage. I was sure I
would be able to get into that even if my house was still off
limits.

I thought of other activities as I
bounded into the shower in case Dave didn’t want to spend the day
in the snow. When the steamy water washed over me, I thought of
finding Mark last night and the fact that I had kept it from Dave.
Not intentionally, but I made up my mind to tell him about it as
soon as he got back today.

Chapter 22

Dave stood in the kitchenette as I
emerged from the bathroom. He wore a mischievous grin. Unable not
to smile back at the silly look on his face, I asked, “What’s so
funny?”