London Harmony: The Pike (8 page)

I think she just believes she'll just get lucky if she makes me blush enough.  Well, fine, it works, and she gets lucky a lot, but that's more a function of her being irresistible and me being an Ashley-holic, and happily so.

After a couple more songs, we were finally rolling down an off ramp to the relative safety of the streets of Seattle, leaving behind all the cars in the world that were streaming past us on the freeway like we were standing still.  Ash gave me an imperious look as she patted the steering wheel and cocking her eyebrow in challenge.  Her face is so expressive, and we could have entire conversations without either of us having to say a thing.

I rolled my eyes at her as she stroked the wheel as it were a favorite cat.  I shrugged and tried not to grin as I said, “We lived...”  Then added, “This time,” Her whispering laugh that I couldn't ever get enough of answered me.  The mirth just sparkled in her eyes.

We navigated some now familiar streets and came up to the old industrial junkyard, Gilbert's, which I have come to see as Ash's personal Disneyland.  We pulled through the gates and between the mountains of discarded machines and scrap metal of all types on narrow paths, it was like a miniature forgotten city where the relics of a time long past stood sentinel in the metal structures around us.

She stopped us at the first of three large single story warehouses with rusted steel siding.  A large, dilapidated wood sign proclaimed in faded red painted letters that we had arrived at “Gilbert's Secondhand Salvage.”  The right side of the sign hung lazily lower than the left, Gilbert's son, Dwayne keeps assuring us it is safe to walk under and that he'll get up there one day to fix it.

The place opened at six in the morning and closed at two in the afternoon, specifically for handymen to pick up parts for their jobs each day.  It was just past nine-thirty, a couple hours after sunrise.

She dug her “go pack” out of her tool bag, and we got out of the car. I watched my girl as she looked around in wonder at all of the new piles of scrap in the “sorting yard” in front of the warehouses.  She started walking toward them with mischief twinkling around in her eyes, and I said and signed, “No you don't missy.  You apparently brought us here for something we're doing at the Pike today.  Best be about that, or we'll be stuck here all day.  My tetanus shot is not up to date.”

She chuffed at me and snorted, then slouched in an exaggerated manner, clearly conveying a young child's, “Yes ma'am.” posture.

I grinned at her, and she winked.  She claimed my hand as her personal property, I signed the deed over to her by lacing our fingers and letting her drag me into the warehouse, through the bright silver door which she says was salvaged off of a Boeing 707 aircraft.

Dwayne looked up from his long workbench he has by the door, he was in the middle of disassembling a... I don't know, it could have been a cyborg sent back from the future to make sure Justin Bieber never sang again, or it could have been a toaster, they all look the same to me.

The wiry man reminded me of the crazy scientist in Back to the Future.  He had a halo of white hair around the bald top of his head.  His coveralls were always covered in grease and grime from messing with the things he shipped in from demolition sites.  He and Ash spoke the same language.  Diodes and capacitors and armature motors, like us normal people would discuss the current weather.

She signed to him, and I spoke what she said, she told me she liked my voice a lot better than her speech synthesizer on her phone.  But I caught onto her devious plan early on.  She is forcing me to interact with people instead of hiding behind her when we are out in the world.

I didn't mind that she trusted me to be her voice, though it felt like I was standing in a vice that was threatening to crush me when I spoke to new people.  I translated, “Hey Lugnut, just need a variable resistance motor and some bits to create a rheostat controller for it.”

Fut the wuck was a rheostat?

He nodded as he paused his work on his current project.  “Hey Cathy, Short Stuff.  I'll send in the search dogs if you don't surface by tomorrow.”  He jokingly called her Chatty Cathy.  He wasn't the first.

I watched Ash as she chuffed and grinned and signed as I translated, “Yeah, yeah.”  Then I said for myself as I gave a tiny, embarrassed wave, “Hi Dwayne.”  The old man winked at me then went back to work disassembling the doomsday machine or whatever it was.

Amber crinkled her nose at me then I almost gleeped as she dragged me into the depths of the endless rows of steel shelving units that were stacked high with thousands of interesting devices and parts.

She was like a laser guided munition, zeroing in on her target when my eyes went wide and I blurted out.  “Microwave!”  She looked over at me and blinked then back toward the front of the building, and realization dawned on her, and she tilted her head back and chuffed out her wheezing laughter, long and hard.  I blushed and grinned.  So what if it took me that long to identify what Dwayne had been working on.

She finally settled, wiping happy tears from her eyes as she gave me a toothy grin and nodded.  She let go of my hand, and I immediately missed it.  She walked backward down the aisle we were in, her hands held wide as she tapped and thumped on the shelves and various pieces of gear as she backed through, daring me with a beat.

I had to smile at the wicked grin on her face as she made music.  I started humming along, crafting a song, giving her music words.  Then she deflated just as we started making something fun and upbeat.  I looked around, there were hundreds of electric motors around us, we had arrived.

I mourned for the fun music that had to die prematurely as she pulled out a multitester.  I actually knew what that was.  She had been teaching me what she deemed as necessary knowledge everyone should have in modern society.  I think that was tinker speak for, “Don't be a Luddite, Leigh.”

She climbed the shelves rather than go to the end of the aisle to pull up a rolling ladder platform.  On an upper shelf, she was connecting the tester to terminals on various motors that were about the size of a basketball.  She slid the tester back into her go pack and patted the motor and tried to lift it, and almost fell.  Then she squinted an eye as she squished her face to one side as she looked at the end of the aisle.

I snorted and started walking away to retrieve a rolling ladder as I called back, “Brilliant planning there Einstein.”  I smiled to myself as I heard her chuffing.  I slid the ladder platform up to her she hopped onto it and then grunted as she lifted the motor and thunked it down on the platform.  It was a lot of fun watching her lug it down the steps to set it on the floor, panting and puffing.

She winked and signed, “Thanks for all the help, Itsy.”

I signed as I just grinned cheesily, “You got two hands, all you had to do was ask.”

She raised her chin imperiously then just leaned down and cutely kissed my nose.  I melted then helped her lift the motor and put it on one of the rolling steel carts that littered the warehouse as I blushed.

Then she brought us to the aisles that had electronic bits and pieces as I tried to get the grime off my hands.  She pulled out her tester again as she selected a few little parts.  She signed, “Look for a bin that says rheostats or potentiometers.”

I nodded and muttered without signing, “Right, real big bats and potential thermometers.”

She wheezed out a laugh and turned to the bins as she signed behind her, “You're too funny.  Another reason to love you.”

I blushed and looked at the smeared labels on all of the bins.  I stopped at one that read rheostats.  I said, “Found it.”

She seriously hopped over to me and grinned at the label I pointed at.  She slid the bin out, and there were tons of electronic dials in it.  She signed, “Look for one that has marked on the body, 240v.  Most will be 24v or less, and a few at 120.  Those will burn out in moments under load on a two hundred and forty volt circuit needed to run the motor.”

I nodded and dug into the bin with her.  After a few minutes, she gave a triumphant wheeze and held up a big dial.  She placed it on our cart and explained, “The rheostat will adjust how much power is supplied to the motor to speed it up or slow it down.  The other bits I got will allow us to reverse the motor.  The one I picked out is reversible without the need of a gearbox transmission.”

I nodded studiously and said in a serious voice, keeping my hands signing steadily and the laugh out of my tone as I teased, “Yes yes, the gonkulator armature connects to the temporal displacement drive.  Got it.”

She crinkled her nose at me.  She knew I actually understood what she was telling me.

Then we turned back toward the front of the warehouse, pushing our booty on the cart.  Dwayne had finished reassembling the industrial microwave and was heating up what looked like hot chocolate in it.

He looked at the cart. “What goodies did you find in the tomb girls?”  He did a quick perusal of the lot and shrugged asking, “One hundred?”

Ash cocked her eyebrow and crossed her arms expectantly.  He chuckled and looked again and asked, “Eighty?”

She signed with a slight smirk on her face and I sighed and repeated, “Getting warmer.”

He chuckled at that and said, “You know you only get the good prices because Short Stuff is nice, unlike you.”

My girl's smile beamed as she nodded.  Then she signed again, and I looked at her like she was nuts.  “I'm not relaying that.  I'm the nice one remember?”  She chuffed out her laugh as Dwayne's boomed out.

He said, “Seventy-five.  Not a penny less.”  She nodded, and the two shook.  She counted out seventy-five in cash to him, and he stuffed it into a pocket on his coveralls, scribbled out a quick receipt,  and grabbed the motor without a word, hefting it like it was a bag of feathers.

We grabbed the other parts and followed him out to Gerty.  When we were loaded up, I spoke again as Ash signed, “Thanks, Lugnut.”

He wiped his hands on an old oily rag and just nodded once with a smile saying, “Cathy, Short Stuff.”

I gave him a tiny wave as I got into the car.

With an inquisitive look on my face, I asked as she coaxed the zombie car back to the living, “Why does he always try to get more from you when he knows you are going to beat him down in price?”

I watched her hands fly as they said, “It's like a required dance, dickering is a sign of mutual respect.  He pays fifty dollars a ton for the scrap so what we picked up there was maybe five dollars to him plus the work of separating it out, cleaning and stocking it.  Of course, he tries to maximize profit.  I acknowledge all of this but by dickering, I'm also letting him know not to milk us.  It shows him that we know what we are buying and its true value.”

Then she added, “So once we both come to terms on what that value is, we both walk away happy.  But even at that, it is a great deal for a motor in good shape.  That particular three horsepower motor sells for just over two hundred new.”

I nodded at that then signed without speaking, “But if the parts cost seventy-five, plus your time today will wind up costing Zoey around three hundred dollars.  Wouldn't just buying a new mixer be a better option?”

She whispered out a laugh and said, “That is an eleven thousand dollar, floor mount mixer.  A relatively inexpensive modern Hobart with the same capacity is much cheaper, but still around six thousand.”

I blanched and blurted out, “For a mixer?!  You could buy a good used car for that!”

She nodded and navigated the junk piles back to the road again, glancing over to coax me with her eyes.  I sighed in understanding. “I guess three hundred to jury rig the old one isn't a bad plan then.”

She rang an imaginary bell as she grinned, and I blushed and looked down as I signed, “Smartass,” to my laughing girl.

After a few minutes, I realized we weren't heading to the city core and then looked at the time. It was well past the Market's opening bell, I hated being out in the crowds.  I grinned when I realized what she was doing.

She saw my realization and mouthed, “Mom,” as we headed into her old neighborhood on Lake Washington just a few minutes outside of downtown.  I smiled.  I really liked her mom.  Her dad never really said much, he was always working on a homemade rowboat in the shed by the lakeside.

I said, “She's been texting me to prod you into visiting.”  Last summer we visited her parents only a handful of times in the three months of summer break.  This summer we had only seen them twice.  I find that odd wince we work less than an hour away as the Gerty flies or about half that if we chance life and limb on the freeway.

I spoke with my mom about it on the phone once, and she sounded sad as she said, “It is a fact of growing up.  As you get more and more self-sufficient, you find you need your parents less and less.  You know it is just a little over a five-hour drive to Chewelah from Issaquah, and we have only seen you once since you started college, Leigh.”  Oh...

That made me feel guilty so we made sure to plan out Christmas breaks at the farm.  It gave me something to think about and realized that she was right.  It was a part of becoming an adult that I suddenly found distasteful.  I loved my parents, and I hadn't realized I had been doing the exact same thing.  So now I'm Mrs. Lance's covert ops girl, to help nudge Ash home every once in a while.  We had had the discussion of her parents just last night.