Gloria

Maybe it was because of the mountain path, or all of the driving she did over the last month while she was moving back and forth between her apartment and her cabin, but Gloria had to admit her car had been acting a little wonky for a while now. At least since Halloween, when she jerked her steering wheel to avoid plowing into Ethan and her engine made that horrible grinding noise.

Deep down, she knew that she must have done something to her car back then. She let out a huff, her breath causing her blonde bangs to flutter.

Stupid October.

“If you want someone to take a peek at it,” offered Deputy Walsh, “we have a great mechanic in town. Franklin. He owns a garage not too far from here. If you want, I’ll take the lead and show you how to get there. It’s mountainside, so it’s not far.”

“No phones, no Walmart, but there’s a garage here?” she marveled.

Deputy Walsh shrugged. “Welcome to Hamlet.”

5

Gloria thought that, after staying in town for close to a month now, she’d have grown used to how different things were here.

Take Jefferson’s, for example.

The nice couple who owned the place considered it one part grocery store and one part convenience store; basically, if you couldn’t find what you wanted at Jefferson’s, odds were you’d have to leave Hamlet to get it. But it didn’t exactly look like a mega-mart or anything like that.

It was a big building, wide and squat, standing alone on an empty patch of gravel. Its entrance was a narrow door—painted red—that was sandwiched between two massive glass windows advertising some of the wares inside. A faded red plastic sign rose above its sloped roof, announcing to all of Hamlet that this was Jefferson’s. There wasn’t any room for parking up front, and a small lot tucked in back as if they weren’t actually expecting customers.

Franklin’s Garage took a page out of Jefferson’s book. If it wasn’t for the dinged up, faded tin sign attached to the bottom half of a white screen door announcing that the dwelling was Franklin’s Garage, she wasn’t sure she’d ever have guessed that. It was a house. Sure, it had an attached garage, but that wasn’t what she’d been expecting when she followed the deputy there.

It was, um, an interesting choice for a car repair shop. Then again, maybe this Franklin worked out of his home. She did. Until she could get the finances together to start her ice cream parlor, all of her creating took place in her kitchen. Who said Hamlet’s mechanic couldn’t fix cars in his own garage?

Just like at Jefferson’s, there wasn’t anywhere for her to park except for the driveway. She wasn’t so sure if she was allowed to take that spot and settled on pulling up to the curb. Deputy Walsh waited until she’d turned off her car to honk his horn, then wave out of his window before continuing on his way.

The garage door was closed, but the front door wasn’t. A “come in, we’re open” sign hung crookedly on the top half of the screen door.

With a shrug, Gloria walked inside.

Her first impression was that the inside of the building was a lot bigger than it looked like on the outside. Probably because the wall that would have separated the garage part from the rest of the shop was missing; the whole floor was wide open, with a compact corner office near the front door serving as the business part.

On the garage side, Gloria could see the inside of the door that would open to the empty drive, plus all of the tools she expected to find in any mechanic’s workspace in the city. A lift, a jack, stacks of tires, an air pressure gauge… all that and more. She was sure there was a whole other station on the far side, too, except the spot for a vehicle was taken up by a massive blue truck.

Hmm...

That truck looked exactly like the big, blue pick-up truck that usually sat outside of her neighbor’s cabin at night.

Interesting.

In front of her, there stood a battered, wooden desk, with a high, wide counter behind it; a pointy cactus perched on one end, a mini pumpkin on the other. A computer that seemed like it belonged firmly in the 1990s took up half of the desk. A stack of textbooks was tossed haphazardly next to the keyboard, with a radio that looked exactly like the deputy’s perched upright in the far corner.

The “phone”, mused Gloria.

A girl sat behind the desk, her black boots propped on the desktop, a notebook against her knees as she scribbled away. Her head was bowed, a long sheet of pin-straight, jet black hair falling in front of her face. She shoved it back when she heard the front door open, revealing a tanned face with big, dark brown eyes. They widened when she saw Gloria hovering in the doorway.

After tossing her notebook and pen onto the desk in front of her, she shoved her seat back, letting the soles of her boots fall to the linoleum floor with a slap.

She stood up. The girl was maybe all of seventeen years old but, as soon as she was on her feet, Gloria saw that the teen was a couple of inches taller than she was.

She smiled. “Hi. I’m Bailey. Can I help you with something?”

“Actually, yeah. My car’s been acting up. I was wondering if there was someone here who could help me.”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely. Just gimme a second, alright?”

When Gloria nodded, Bailey cupped her mouth with her hands before calling out, “Hey, Frank. We got a customer.”