Nobody's Fool

asked so miserably that Sully sensed melodrama.
    â€œAm I a tow truck? No. Do I look like one?”
    â€œMy fiancée called … a tow truck,” she explained, her voice quavering.
    Rub glared at her as he might have a mythical beast.
    â€œCould you make that horrid man go away?” the woman begged, indicating Rub.
    â€œNope,” Sully admitted. “I’ve never been able to. You’re welcome to try your luck, though.”
    She looked away, up the street, hopelessly, in the direction of the Sans Souci.
    â€œHi, Clive,” Sully grinned when Clive Jr. arrived on the scene.
    â€œSully,” Clive Jr. acknowledged. The woman on the steps had gotten to her feet when she saw Clive Jr., but she stayed where she was by the porch.
    â€œI don’t want to say anything,” Sully told Clive Jr., “but you appear to be up a stump.”
    Clive Jr. looked at the deep tire tracks that began at the curb and stopped where the car perched. He sighed. “It was an accident,” he said.
    â€œI figured you didn’t park there on purpose,” Sully said.
    â€œIt wasn’t me,” Clive Jr. said. “I was giving Joyce a driving lesson.” Something like a sly smile played across Clive Jr.’s mouth. “I bet you were surprised to see her again.”
    â€œWho?” Sully wondered.
    All three men turned to look at the grieving woman.
    â€œJoyce,” Clive Jr. explained.
    â€œJoyce who?” Sully wanted to know.
    The smile, if it had been a smile, was gone now. “My fiancée. You used to date her.”
    Sully took another, closer look at the woman on the porch steps. “I’ve never seen her before in my life,” he assured Clive Jr. “She doesn’t know me, either. She thought I was a tow truck, in fact.”
    â€œYou went out with her in high school,” Clive Jr. said.
    Sully was delighted to see that Clive Jr. was angry. “Never,” he said. “Not a chance.”
    â€œHer name was Joyce Freeman.”
    â€œNever heard of her.”
    â€œHow come she keeps crying?” Rub wondered.
    Clive Jr. glared at Rub homicidally until Rub stared at his shoes and nudged Sully in an attempt at confidentiality. “How come she keeps crying?” he asked Sully.
    â€œShe’s probably thinking about her future,” Sully told him. “She’s marrying Junior here. Lighten up, Clive. That was a joke.”
    Clive Jr. looked grateful to hear it and to Sully’s surprise did lighten up a little, reluctantly explaining how the whole thing had come about. According to Clive Jr., Joyce had never learned to drive. For the last few weeks he had been instructing her. Today, they’d been parallel parking along Upper Main, where there was plenty of room and almost no traffic. Joyce was not a natural. Despite his patient instruction, she kept cutting the wheel too much and hitting the curb when she backed in. When Clive Jr. saw that she was about to do the same thing again, he told her to start over again. She apparently had forgotten she was in reverse and was surprised when she let up on the brake and the car went backwards. She immediately leapt to the wrong conclusion, that she was rolling, and the solution that occurred to her at that moment was more gas. “I told her there was nothing wrong with her logic,” Clive Jr. explained, “but she’s inconsolable.”
    â€œYou want me to try?” Sully offered. “Since she used to be my girlfriend?”
    Clive Jr.’s eyes narrowed. “You were a senior. She was a junior.”
    â€œWhatever you say, Clive. You want us to lift you off that stump?” Sully offered.
    â€œI told you,” Clive Jr. said. “The tow truck’s on its way.”
    â€œI don’t think they’ll be able to just pull you off,” Sully said. “Look where the rear axle is.”
    â€œThey’ll know what to do,” Clive Jr. maintained stubbornly, his face a storm cloud again. Sully’s solemn refusal to recognize his fiancée was the reason, Sully could tell. “Don’t feel you have to hang around.”
    At that moment the tow truck arrived, Harold Proxmire of Harold’s Automotive World at the wheel, his red-haired teenager, Dwayne, seated beside him in the cab. Since Dwayne could not always be trusted to tow the correct vehicle, Harold was apparently along to supervise.
    Harold, dressed in gray and