Chapter 11

Bobby had finished his last class of the day, auto shop. He'd really enjoyed it, as he had most of his classes. He was very pleased with all his teachers, and in each class he felt like he'd been able to connect with at least a couple of the students to start to make new friends.

It didn't really register with Bobby that in every case those connections had been with pretty girls. Even with his Mother's instruction and his relationship with Patty, his instincts were still lagging far behind the girls his age regarding the opposite sex.

He wasn't completely clueless, he just didn't have the experience to recognize the significance of subtle things: a girl's smile, the slight lowering of eyelashes, the casual touch of a hand.

He was blithely ignorant of the competition that had broken out amongst several girls to garner the attention of the big handsome new student that had appeared at their school.

One girl in particular, named Julie Sweener, had seemed particularly excited to introduce herself to him. She'd even called a friend on her cell phone as they were chatting to tell them about meeting him!

He did notice when a boy in the area began to get hostile towards him when he was talking to another girl. He quickly defused the situation by mentioning he had a girl friend that was attending high school. But when that information began circulating, for many girls it only made him more interesting.

Unfortunately, one of the consequences of not having Sammy around today was that he'd missed his bus home. He'd assumed it would leave from where he'd been dropped off in the morning. But when he got there, there were no buses in sight. By the time he found out where they were and ran to the area, his had already left.

He resigned himself to walking home. It was only a couple miles anyway. He didn't want to bother his mom at work, and he assumed Raul was home taking care of Sammy. So with a shrug he headed in the direction of his new home, cutting diagonally through a series of parking lots to save a little distance before leaving the school grounds.

As he was passing through the last lot, he heard a car starter grinding away. To his practiced ear, the uneven sound indicated not all the cylinders were engaged in the exercise. He veered towards the car, an old looking Volvo. It was so old it pre-dated the famous boxy look, having the rounded sloping back end and balloon fenders instead.

As he approached the rolled down driver's window, he saw that the person cranking the starter was his Home Economics teacher that he'd met just a few hours ago. She appeared to be young enough to be in her first year on the job, looking more like a college student than a teacher. He thought furiously trying to remember her name — it felt like he'd met a thousand people today. Goodman? Goodwin? He couldn't remember, so he took a guess.

"Hi, uh, Ms. Goodman?"

She let go of the ignition key and looked up at him. "It's Ms. Goodwin."

Bobby grimaced. "Sorry."

"That's okay. You're Bobby - you joined my class today right?"

Bobby smiled, pleased that she remembered. "Yeah, I did." He gestured towards the hood of her car. "Won't start eh?"

"It sure as shit won't," she said in exasperation. She immediately put her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't swear. It's just that I just bought this car, and the main reason I did was because they said it would be reliable. I don't need much from a car except for it to go when it's supposed to, so I paid a little extra for this one. I can't afford to put any more money into it now on my salary." She appeared close to tears.

"Why don't you pop the hood and let me look at it?"

She looked up at him doubtfully. "Do you know much about cars?"

"A little bit," he said modestly.

"It doesn't have a hood release inside — it's old enough I guess that hadn't been invented yet." She got out and walked with him to the front of the car, showing him where to trip the release. "If you could save me from having to call my dad that would be great. He's a real car nut, and this is the first car that I didn't have him look at before I bought it. If it's got real problems, I'll never hear the end of it!"

He stood the hood up and began running through the troubleshooting checklist that Raul had taught him, trying to verify that the elements of fuel, air, and spark were arriving together at the right place at the right time.

He noticed that the spark plug wires looked pretty frayed, and suspected that was why a cylinder or two was playing hard to get. One in particular looked pretty bad where the boot at the end of it connected to the spark plug. He reached down and gave it a downward push onto the plug, and felt the worn rubber stretch back down over it.

"Give it another try now, Ms. Goodwin."

She gave him a surprised look. "Really? Already?"

"Yeah. I don't know if that will do it, but let's try before I keep looking for something else."

She climbed back into the car, and with a hopeful expression gave the key a twist.

The battery was a bit tired from all its fruitless cranking, but nevertheless, after a couple groans the engine caught and began to run with a throaty growl. Bobby immediately started to catalog other potential problem as he listened to it rumble.

Ms. Goodwin leaped out of the car and ran up to Bobby to give him an enthusiastic hug. Bobby became acutely aware that this female had an interesting body. He'd noticed before that she looked like a hard bodied cheerleader, and now he also knew that she felt like one... firm and soft in all the right places.

She was very slim, with short, curly brown hair. Her smallish breasts felt like champagne glass size, and her stomach was gymnast flat. "Thank you thank you! I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come along," she said beaming at him.

"Hey I was glad to do it, Ms. Goodwin."

"Oh call me Sandy outside of class, Bobby. I'm still getting used to this last name thing with being a teacher. Besides, you rescued me!"

"Uh, okay, Sandy." He paused, and then he offered: "I know a really good auto shop that could maybe check the rest of the car out for you. It might be a good idea so something doesn't happen that can't be fixed so easily. You should at least get all the spark plug wires replaced. The one that had popped off happened because it was so old the rubber around the connection was wearing out."

Sandy looked suddenly sad. "I can't afford to, Bobby. Like I said, the dealer said this car was in such good shape, I shouldn't have to put anything into it for a while. I barely make enough money to pay for my apartment as it is. I don't want to rack up a bunch of credit card debt right when I'm just getting out on my own."

Bobby digested all that. "Where did you buy the car?" he asked.

"At Fred Collins Motors, over on 5^th. It's just a little place, but he was very nice."

Bobby snorted. He knew about that place from conversations with Raul. Many people had come into Raul's garage with cars recently bought from Fred Collins. They seemed to specialize in acquiring cars that insurance companies declared totaled after being in accidents, paying local body shops to do cosmetic repairs, then playing games with the car titles to cover their tracks when they resold them.

The people that had bought cars there had been outraged at Raul's estimates for all the work necessary on the cars, driving off in a huff. Most of them returned sheepishly a few hours later, having received even higher estimates from competing shops.

"Tell you what. The guy that runs the place I'm talking about is like my uncle, step dad even. Anyway, he's a friend of my family. I need a ride home anyway since I missed the bus. How about we swing by his place for a quick look for no charge, then you can give me a lift home. Then at least you'll know what you're dealing with."

Sandy looked at him cautiously. "You're sure it'll be no charge?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Alright. Hop in."

Bobby gave her directions to Raul's shop. On arrival, he had her drive directly into one of the open stalls, to the surprise of the mechanics working nearby.

But when they spotted Bobby they erupted in raucous greetings, including questions of his ancestry and sexual orientation, which Bobby cheerfully returned in kind. Sandy was at first taken aback, but then reassured at the unorthodox but friendly greetings for her student.