Unravelled (16 page)

My wayward thoughts are interrupted when the men decide to settle the dispute with honour and toss a coin. I call it and land up on Charles’ team who sees this as a sign that we have to get married. Earl has to remind him that he is already married which brings forth more laughter and another toast.

“You sure surprised them, Little Alex.” Earl has taken to calling me ‘Little Alex’, which I find amusing and sweet at the same time. “Where did you learn to play like that?”

“They taught me!” I take a long sip of my diet cola and sigh contentedly. “I suppose I’m a quick learner or just had beginner’s luck. Earl, to be honest,” I lean closer over the counter, “even I was surprised. The other night was more my style of playing.”

This has Earl laughing loudly and he hands me another diet cola. I realised early on in the evening that if I was going to get anything out of these men, I had to stay sober. My last experience with alcohol led to a flooded cottage and I’m driving, so I asked Earl to keep the diet colas flowing. Most of the patrons have left and as I help Earl polish the glasses we talk about the evening.

“So they all agreed?”

“Yes, Charles did a really good job getting the other guys to commit.”

“How did you think of this, Little Alex?”

“Well, Big Earl,” we both smile at my wit, “when we played pool last time, Charles was the one who told me that a lot of the guys work on contracts only and that most of these contracts are finished and the guys need work and money. I spent a lot of time listening to them complain about it that night.”

“As only they can.”

“Indeed.” I smile. “Yesterday afternoon, after the zillionth phone call, I realised that I wasn’t going to get a cleaning crew organised in time. Jamie had put me in contact with a cleaning company -”

“- Jamie? Jeremy’s nephew?”

“The same. Anyway, one of the girls in his department knows somebody who knows somebody with a cleaning company -”

“- Careful Cleaners?”

“Yes.” Instead of being annoyed at constantly being interrupted, I find this funny and laugh. “You really know this town well, Big Earl.”

“I do.” He takes my share of polished glasses and inspects them. This earns me a small nod of approval and another dozen glasses to shine.

“Anyway, Careful Cleaners will be able to co-ordinate and oversee the cleaning of the dairy, but they don’t have the work force. That is when I thought of these guys. There is a lot of big cleaning up that needs to be done before the painters and floor guys can even come close to the place.”

“How many of these guys agreed?”

“With Charles, there will be seven of them. Some are bringing their sons. It is great, because this means that it will be cleared for the painters, carpenters and electricians much sooner than I thought. We have Careful Cleaners coordinating the whole thing and we have a workforce. Hopefully the next time we set foot on the premises, it will sparkle.”

“Just like your glasses, Little Alex.” This earns Earl a brilliant smile from me. “So, I see you are still driving Adam’s car.”

“Oh,” I groan at the quick change of topic, “Don’t start with that! What a drama.”

“Why? Surely it’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad?! That man is a hairsplitter par exelance! He thinks I don’t know, but I see him check his precious car every night for damage.” It outraged me so much the first night that I nearly spilled my red nail polish on his white carpet, but the nail polish was too expensive to waste and I only had one foot’s nails done. “And then he accuses me of using his car as a moving, giant handbag. He tuts around the car every night when he thinks I’m not looking.”

Earl is now chuckling too much for my liking. I mean, I’ve been driving that blasted car for almost three weeks and I think it is only pure stubbornness that keeps Adam from taking his car back. He didn’t even want to take the car to the funeral, because he said there was too much ‘stuff’ in it. Really! I just had three pairs of shoes, a few files, a blanket for Blossom and an extra handbag in the back.

“When will Al be finished with your car?”

“He keeps saying another few days. I’m beginning to get worried, but Adam tells me that there’s nothing to worry about, not for me. He, on the other hand, is very worried about his precious car.”

“Slow down a bit on the polishing there, Love. It looks like you’re going to shine a hole through that glass.”

“Earl, it’s just that he annoys me so.” Another chuckle from Earl. “I drive carefully and yet he thinks I’m going to crash his car.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t think that, Little Alex. Could it be that you are just a mite too sensitive?”

“I suppose so, but it is a horrible feeling to have when I’m driving. As I’m driving, I constantly see accidents happening in my mind and then my stomach goes into a knot when I think of having to tell Adam that I crashed his car.”

“Love, you are driving around in Villsburg, not the big city. Your chances of hitting a chicken is bigger than being in a crash.” He chuckles at his own joke and I refrain from telling him about all the horror stories I’ve read about local accidents. Maybe I am too tense about this.

“I suppose I should relax about this.” I put the last glass I polished down and lean back. “You’re right about living and driving in Villsburg. What is the worst that could happen?”

I think the gods took a contract out on my sanity. No sooner have I uttered my last question than an unfortunate sickening crunch of metal reaches us from the outside. I freeze in abject horror and look at Earl for guidance. He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head to one side while his mind computes what just happened before he looks at me almost apologetically and asks, “Where did you park?”

“Out front.” It is a very high pitched sound that comes out of my mouth. The way things are in my life, I don’t need to go outside to see if it is Adam’s precious sedan that just got damaged. I know it is. It is in moments like these that I wish my life had an escape or delete button.

“Ok, we all agree on what to say, right?”

“Alex, I can’t let you do this,” Jamie says in a small voice.

“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you what happened here and we will stick to this story.” I use my grandmother’s tone of voice and my mother’s non-negotiable facial expression to bring my point home

“But...”

“But nothing. Are you sure no one saw you guys?” I look at Jamie and Tariska, and my heart bleeds for them.

“There’s been no one for the last thirty minutes. That is why we chose this spot.” His admission to his plan brings high colour to his cheeks and Tariska gives a high pitched giggle.

“Here you are.” Earl places two glasses of hot, sweet tea for the shock in front of them and sits down at the table with us. Earl and I got outside to find Jamie and Tariska in different states of undress standing outside Jeremy’s Land Rover which crashed into Adam’s car. What came out from the two of them in stutters and frightened voices is that they got hot and heavy in their car and must’ve accidentally hit the car into gear and it rolled straight into Adam’s car. Talk about embarrassing. At least my life is not the only playground for the gods.

The Land Rover has no damage, but the towing-pulley-thingie that Jeremy fixed to the front of the Land Rover did substantial damage to the left side of Adam’s car. It tore into the body work from the middle of the back panel and came to a stop only after it nearly cut the back door in half.

“I’ll pay for the damage.” Jamie looks so defeated. “Oh Alex, I’m so sorry.”

“Stop saying it, Jamie. I know you are. It happened and now we’re going to fix this. Nobody needs to know except for us. Right Earl?”

“Um… I suppose so.” Earl has not been so keen on my plan, but at least agreed that it made sense. Apparently Jeremy was not keen on lending Jamie his prized Land Rover, but Jamie insisted because he was trying to impress Tariska. After they watched a movie in the cinema, they looked for a quiet place to explore each other’s mouths and well...the rest is history.

To tell Jeremy what happened and then get him and Adam involved in this embarrassing situation is simply not necessary. Since there’s no damage to the Land Rover, Jeremy does not need to know anything and Adam... well... Adam is going to combust in a nuclear sense of the meaning.

“Mr Montgomery already expects me to crash his car, so he won’t be surprised and that way everyone is spared a lot of grief.” Except me.

“Only if you’re a hundred percent sure about this.” Tariska is a well mannered and very sweet girl. I’m glad Jamie got his courage together to ask her out. It is just a pity that their date turned out to be this memorable and that it is under these circumstances that we meet each other.

“I’m very sure.” No, I’m not. “Take Tariska home and then go home and sleep this off. You two can meet up again tomorrow and maybe then this might even be a little bit funny.”

I’m trying to get them to go on a second date. I hope it takes.

“Um... ok.”

They still look shaken when they leave, but I think there is hope for them when I see Jamie put his arm protectively around Tariska and she leans into him. Ah, young love.

“Little Alex.” Earl says it as if I’m a saint.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Adam expects me to crash his car. Why should I disappoint him?” I sigh and look longingly at the rows of bottles with strong alcohol. If I didn’t know it was a bad idea to break the news to Adam with alcohol on my breath, I would’ve ordered the biggest brandy ever. “I suppose I should go home.”

“This is a good thing you’re doing.”

“I hope so.”

I’ve never driven so slow in my life. I thought, for a full silly three seconds, of hitting the road and going into permanent hiding. Does the government have protection for a thing like this – similar to a witness protection programme? Maybe it’s called the Car Crash Protection Programme. My daft thoughts entertain me all the way home and I slowly make my way up the driveway, wondering how I’m going to handle this. As much as Adam has annoyed me about the car, he’s really been amazing about everything else and I’ve grown to kind of like him. This good deed of mine has the power to totally destroy any good rapport between us.

I slowly park the car and am not surprised when Adam appears in the front door – all this slow driving is not characteristic and knowing him, he feels compelled to investigate.

“Hi. Did you have a good meeting?” He’s on the healthy side of the car, that’s why he’s asking about me and not the car. And also why he’s not shouting yet.

“Hi.” I slowly get out and close the door with more care than needed – there is nothing wrong with the driver’s door. “It was a very good meeting with an unexpected ending.”

“Yes?” He comes closer. “What happened, Alex.”

“I...um...I crashed your car.”

“Hmm-mm.” He’s making sounds again. Oh dear.

“I was pulling out of the parking lot and there was this huge black barrel for something and...” my mouth is running away with me and I go in-depth into an explanation that has even me confused. Is there no one that can edit me while I’m speaking? I ramble so much that I forget half of what I say which is never good if you want to tell a good lie.

“What about the other car?”

“There wasn’t another car. I told you, it was a barrel.”

“Hmm. So you said.” He doesn’t believe me! “You’re very sure there wasn’t another car, Alex?”

“I told you!” I infuse as much exasperation into my voice as possible. “It was a barrel.”

“Because if there was another car and the insurance finds out, there could be a lot of complications.” Bottom! I haven’t thought of that. But... the Land Rover is fine, so there will be no complications.

“A barrel, Adam. It was a barrel.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

He cross examines me for another extremely long ten minutes while he examines the damage to his car. Every time he touches the body work, I cringe as if I can feel his pain. The light in front of the house is enough for him to see the worst of it, but at least it softens it a little.

“Well, you obviously can still drive it, so it’ll have to do until you get your car back.” He stands up straight and looks at his damaged car with sadness.

I should’ve packed my bags to be on this guilt trip because it is going to take me far and long. And I didn’t even do this.

“Al is getting a lot of business from me this month.”

“Adam, I am really sorry.”

“Hmm.”

“No, really. I was going to prove to you that I could keep your car in pristine condition and then this happened.”

“Hmm.”

“Hey, don’t “hmm” me. I am apologising to you!” I’m getting pissed off.

“Hmm.”

“Argh!” I throw my arms in the air in sheer frustration and stomp off into the house. Let him stand outside and look at his beloved car with its little scratch. I’m going to bed. The only caveat is that it is Friday night, which means that I’ll have to look into his grumpy face for the rest of the weekend, so maybe I should try to make peace. After a quick bath, I go downstairs to the kitchen to see how angry Adam is with me.