A Song for Julia

and repaired.
    We finally found a car being sold by an old widow in Malden. Damn near perfect condition, despite being twenty years old. While I stood there, open mouthed, she negotiated the woman down from twelve hundred to an even thousand, and I drove out of there the happy owner of a much better car than I’d started out with.
    We stopped at a coffee shop on the edge of Somerville, briefly. “Where did you learn so much about cars?” I asked. I was flabbergasted. She was a diplomat’s kid … not the person you’d expect to know about engines.
    “My bodyguard in middle school was a car enthusiast. He used to keep a couple hotrods in the embassy garage in Brussels.”
    Her bodyguard in middle school. Yes, she really said that.
    “So … he taught you about cars?”
    She shrugged, a rare open smile on her face. “His name was Corporal Lewis … he was in the Marines. And I was a very lonely kid, so he let me tag along whenever he was working on the cars.”
    “So, you like, know how to change your own oil?”
    Her mouth quirked up on the left side, the same peculiar little smile she’d used the other day when she called me Dougal. “I could rebuild an engine with the right tools.”
    That was wicked hot.
    We didn’t discuss my declaration of lust last weekend, nor her date. Though I was seriously dying, wanting to know what happened after she left. And not wanting to know. Because if that English prick touched her, I was going to kill him, and that wouldn’t be good at all.
    But she cut the coffee short, saying she had to get back and study for a big exam the next morning. I know that, in theory, you have to take lots of exams and stuff in college, but you want to know the truth? I think she was just dodging me.
    Whatever. I had awesome wheels, and I was full of crazy energy because I hadn’t gotten laid in like … three weeks? That’ll drive you insane. The result being, I was both energetic and crazy as all hell on the way to my dad’s on Saturday. And I’d verified by phone the night before that Julia was going to be there, which was going to make me crazier.
    I needed mental help. It was starting to get cold out, like twenty degrees, so I rolled down my power windows to cool off, lit a cigarette, and cranked up Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” on the stereo and sang along at the top of my lungs.
    Okay. Time to get serious and figure out just what the hell was going on in my head.
    Fact: As a rule, an often stated and confirmed rule, I don’t chase girls. They chase me.
    Fact: I don’t get involved. You want a quick lay, well, I’m your guy. But only for the night.
    Fact: I’ve got a brother to watch out for, a band to drive forward to success, a job flipping burgers, and I don’t have time to get emotionally tied up in some girl.
    Fact: Six nights running, I’d dreamed about Julia, and that hot retro dress she wore Saturday night for her date.
    Her date with some British guy in an expensive suit.
    Oh, shit.
    Next thing you know, I was going to be turning off the punk, listening to frickin’ Barry Manilow and the Carpenters and Aaron Neville. I’d cry my heart out at sob-story movies and send her chocolates and roses and tiny pearl earrings. I was so screwed. Because no matter how much I tried to think about Alicia or Candy or … whatever that girl’s name was with the leopard pumps … all I could think about was Julia.
    This was not healthy, for a number of reasons.
    Number one: refer back to the facts above.
    Number two: she’d made it very clear that she wasn’t interested in me. She was up for me being her tool for one night but only until the sun came up.
    And for some reason, with her, that wasn’t good enough. I wanted more.
    She had, however, left a tiny little door open the other night. Maybe, she said. But not tonight. What the hell did that mean?
    I wasn’t looking forward to her being there for Sean’s birthday party. But other than me, the next youngest person who was coming would be like fifty. So having her there meant a lot to him. And to be honest: I’d do anything for Sean. Even stomach the first girl since middle school that I wanted, but who didn’t want me back.
    Needless to say, I was in just a wonderful mood when I drove up to my dad’s house. Looked like I was the first person there, at least. My mother would be there later, of course. I didn’t see her often, didn’t talk to her often, and that was just as well, because those conversations rarely