Beauregard smirked. “One of them girls is gonna cut your thing off and mail it to you,” he said.
“Man, whatever. They gonna dip it in bronze and put that thing on a pedestal,” Kelvin said as he rose from his chair. “Catch you in the morning?”
“Yeah,” Beauregard said. He set the wrench down again. Kelvin gave him a two-finger salute and left through the office door. Beauregard swung around and planted his feet on the floor. 750. That was worse than having a grand. That’s not even considering the gas it took to get out to Shepherd’s Corner. Phil Dormer had told him last month that he wouldn’t be able to give him another extension.
“Beau, I know times are tight right now. I get it. But my boss has told me we can’t extend you any more credit or time on this loan. Look, maybe we can refinance it—”
“I’m only one year away from paying it off,” Beauregard said. Phil frowned.
“Well, that’s true but you’re also technically three months behind. And per your loan agreement once you’re 120 days behind the loan becomes delinquent. I don’t want that to happen, Beau. Refinance and you’ll have more years, but you won’t lose the building,” Phil had said. Beauregard heard what he was saying. He saw the pained look on his face. And in a perfect world, he would have believed that Phil really was concerned about his livelihood. The world was far from perfect. Beauregard knew that Phil was saying all the right words. He also knew that the lot he sat on was right next to a development. They were building Red Hill’s first fast food restaurant. The old Tastee Freez didn’t count. They had closed ten years ago. They were never fast but they had made one hell of a milkshake.
Beauregard got up and put the keys to the Duster on the hook in the corkboard and grabbed the keys to his truck. He locked up the garage and headed home.
The sun was just peeking over the horizon as he backed into the street. Beauregard drove past the municipal offices of Red Hill County out to the wide-open fields. He always thought it was funny a county with “hill” in its name had a terrible paucity of actual hills. He passed Grove Lane. His daughter lived down there. The sky was streaked with gold and red as he turned down Market Drive. Two more turns down two more side roads and he was pulling down the dirt lane to his double-wide.
Beauregard parked next to Kia’s little blue two-door Honda. He never drove the thing, he just kept it running. He was an American Muscle kind of guy. The house was quiet as he stepped up onto the porch. He made his way through the rectangular house, passing the room where his sons slept. The sun spilled through the blinds as rays of light filled the double-wide. His and Kia’s room was at the end of the trailer. Beauregard slipped into the room and sat down on the foot of their bed. Kia was sprawled across it like a piece of origami art. Beauregard touched her soft, exposed thigh. Her caramel-colored leg twitched. She didn’t turn over but spoke to him with her face still buried in her pillow.
“How’d it go?” she mumbled into the pillow.
“I won but the guy didn’t want to pay. It got a little messy.”
She turned over then. “What you mean he ain’t wanna pay? What kind of shit is that?” she asked.
She was propped up on one elbow. The sheet that had barely covered her had fallen away. Her hair was sticking off her head in strange geometric patterns. Beauregard kneaded the flesh on her thigh.
“You didn’t get arrested, did you?” she asked.
Yeah, by some fake-ass cops, he thought.
He took his hand off her leg. “No, but the guy, he didn’t have all the money he said he had. The whole thing was messed up. I’m still 800 short,” he said. He let it sit there between them for a while. Kia pulled the sheet up and drew her knees up to her chest.
“What about that contract to work on them trucks from the construction company?” she asked. Beauregard moved closer to her. His shoulder brushed against hers.
“We didn’t get it. Precision got the contract. And then we had to get those glasses for Darren. And last month I had to give Janice money for Ariel’s cap and gown. It’s been a slow couple of months,” Beauregard said. Actually, it had been a slow year. Kia knew this, but neither one of them liked saying it out loud.
“Can we get an extension?” she asked. Beauregard stretched out beside her. She didn’t lie back but instead wrapped her arms around her knees and squeezed them. Beauregard stared up at the ceiling. The fan spun on a shaky axis. The globe on the light of the ceiling fan had the image of a Rottweiler.
They’d had that damn fan for five years and it never failed to give him the creeps. But Kia loved the damn thing. One thing he’d learned about marriage was that a novelty fan was not the hill you wanted to die on if you could help it.
“I don’t know,” he said. She ran a hand through her tousled hair. A few minutes went by and then she lay back against Beauregard. Her skin was cool to the touch and smelled like roses. She had showered before bed. He snaked one arm around her midsection and laid his hand on her belly.
“What if we can’t get an extension?” Kia asked.
Beauregard stroked her belly. “I might have to sell something. Maybe the hydraulic lift. Or the second tire-changing machine. Which is why I got the damn loan in the first place,” he said. He didn’t mention going to talk to his Uncle Boonie.
Almost as if on cue, Kia turned on her side and touched his face.
“You thinking about it, ain’t you?” she asked.
“Thinking about what?”
“Going to Boonie. Looking for a job. You know that’s not an option, right? You were blessed. We all was. You never got caught and you got out and you opened the garage. That’s a blessing, baby,” she said. Her light eyes searched his dark ones. They’d been together since he was nineteen and she was eighteen. Married since they both were twenty-three. Almost fifteen years together. She knew him about as well as anyone did.
A lot of couples liked to say they couldn’t lie to each other. That their partner could spot their falsehoods from a mile away. That line of thinking was a one-way street between him and Kia. He knew when she had gone out drinking with her girls. He knew when she had eaten the last chocolate chip cookie. Her face was an open book and he had read every page a long time ago. He hated lying to her, but the ease with which he could do it never failed to shock him. Then again, he did have a lot of practice with mendacity.
“No. I’m not thinking of it. Did it cross my mind? Yeah. Just like buying a lottery ticket crossed my mind,” he said. He hugged her close to him and closed his eyes.
“It’s gonna be alright. I’ll figure out something,” he said.
“I got a call from the dentist yesterday. Javon might need braces,” she said. Beauregard squeezed her tight but didn’t say anything.
“What are we gonna do, baby? I can try to pick up some extra shifts at the hotel,” she said.
“That ain’t gonna buy braces,” he said. Silence enveloped them both. Then Kia cleared her throat.
“You know you could sell—” But Beauregard cut her off midsentence.
“The Duster ain’t for sale,” he said. Kia laid her head on his chest. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and watched the blades on the ceiling fan spin until he drifted off to sleep.