Good Luck, Fatty

voice ordering me into Evan Richter’s Dart, set to a soundtrack of Corey Benson’s popping knuckles. Revenge, I think, makes a bit more sense. Not that I’ll be letting anyone in on this train of thought.
    Orv plops into the chair beside me. “You okay?”
    Why does everyone keep asking me that? “Yeah,” I say. “You?”
    “Ain’t that big a deal,” Orv claims, “’cept for the money it’s gonna take to fix that window.” He shakes his head in defeat. “’Course, the Royale’s a goner.”
    “How’s Denise gonna get to work?”
    He scratches at his chin like a neurotic cat. “Don’t tell her this,” he says just above a whisper, “but I know a guy who buys cars at auctions and fixes ‘em up. I think he’ll sell us one on credit.”
    Gramp must be turning over in his grave. “Credit?” I think Orv either threw it out or buried it somewhere in the garage, but Gramp used to have this plaque he’d carved with the maxim: Neither a borrower nor a lender be. (I’m pretty sure he stole that saying from Ben Franklin or Shakespeare, but that’s another story.) ‘Til the day he died, Gramp would parade visitors around the house to worship that plaque as if they were kneeling at the altar of the Money God.
    Orv squinches his shoulders toward his ears. “What do you want me to do, Bobbi-Jo?” he asks, “make Denise walk? We ain’t got the money.”
    “How much do we need?” I say, wondering what’s taking Denise so long outside. I tip my chair back and steal a peek out the window, where I spot her picking shards of taillight debris out of the driveway cracks.
    “Total?” Orv says, pinching his eyebrows together. “Who knows? I’ve never bought a window before.”
    “What about for the car?”
    “Depends on what kind of car.”
    “Let’s just say the kind of car your friend gets from the auction.”
    Orv stares at the ceiling, thinking. “A thousand, at least,” he tells me. “Fifteen-hundred would be better. We could get a good one for that.”
    “Do you think Denise could hitch a ride for a few weeks, like you and Miss Esther do?”
    “Probably,” he says, eyeballing me with confusion and curiosity. “Why?”
    “Oh, nothin’,” I say, certain he’ll laugh if I tell him what I’m thinking. But still… “I want to help.”
    “Yeah?”
    I nod tentatively. “The Yo-Yo’s in April,” I say, realizing just how dumb my idea sounds. “The grand prize for my division is a thousand dollars.”
    Orv doesn’t laugh, at least not on the outside. Nor does he roll his eyes, a reflex much harder to suppress than an errant chuckle. But he also doesn’t speak. At all.
    “So…” I continue, “…maybe I can, uh, come up with some of the cash, and we won’t have to go on credit or whatever.” Before I catch myself, I flap my hand through the air like Marie. (Oh, God, now I’m adopting her mannerisms!) “Even if I don’t win, there’s runner-up prizes,” I add. “ Hundreds of dollars worth, I think.”
    Orv shoots me one of his rare nice-guy smiles (man, the dude is stingy with affection). “Every little bit helps,” he says with a tinge of optimism.
    Right then, the screen door clanks open and in comes Denise with a shopping bag full of shattered…glass?...plastic? “I’m putting this in the garbage,” she tells Orv and me. “Make sure you don’t cut yourselves.”
     

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    Since Marie and Duncan flitted back into town, I’ve been shortchanging Harvey at The Pit. And he needs me more now than ever, business having roughly quadrupled on the news of Lex Arlington’s support of, and—yes!—participation in, the Yo-Yo.
    I check in a shipment of bicycle helmets and begin displaying them in place of the ones that have recently sold. Harvey likes bold color palettes: lime green, electric blueberry, purple pizzazz, all of which feature prominently in our protective headgear.
    “So, Bobbi,” Harvey says as he tears down a bike in preparation for another rebuild job, “have you managed to locate Buttercup?”
    Just the mention of that scruffy feline has me ready to burst into tears. I gulp before remarking, “Nah. He’s gotten off somewhere good this time.” My thoughts hang up on Tom for a moment, how he selflessly searched for the ragamuffin with me until…
    Harvey slips the wrench he’s been using back into his rolling toolbox and says, “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
    “Me?” I ask like a moron; there’s no one else here.
    He joins me in