I am totally going to get us on TV with one stroke of this pen. Or rather, because of this pen that nearly gave me a stroke.
“It still writes.” The customer service rep is logging this as the strangest call of his life. After he hangs up, he can retire because he’s officially Heard It All.
My own customer, meanwhile, is waiting on the other side of the desk, sliding his car key back onto a key ring already holding what appears to be fifty of its closest friends. If my call works as intended, he might not have to pay for a tire to replace the one this pen single-handedly destroyed.
“Let me get my supervisor.” The customer service rep puts me on hold, I guess to go retire.
I give a thumbs-up to the customer. “We’ve been escalated.”
My boss, Max, comes out from his office. “I’ve got an idea,” he says, pushing me away from the register. “I’ll check him out, and if the pen people decide to pay for it, I’ll issue a refund.”
For some reason my customer accepts this nonsense. I mean, it’s a done deal, right?
The supervisor gets on the line. “How can I help you?”
I guess the first customer service rep was so excited he couldn’t explain coherently. “Okay, so I’m Lee Singer,” I say, “and I’m an auto mechanic at Mack’s Garage.” (Max didn’t want to call it Max’s Garage because people would automatically think he “maxes” out your credit card, so he gave himself a name change. Kind of like he did with me, since no one wants someone named Juliet to service their engine.)
The supervisor on the phone just mm-hmms me to go on, so I do.
“Our customer came to us with a punctured tire, and when we did the repair, we found one of your pens had punched right through the tire tread and penetrated all the way into the middle!” I wait a beat to give it just the right emphasis. We are so going to land a TV commercial with this. “The pen destroyed the tire, but it’s totally undamaged! It even still writes!”
The supervisor says, “...and?”
“And you’re going to want to tell everyone about that!” I laugh. “You should put it on a TV commercial. Your pens really are mightier than swords! You can disable a whole car and then sign the credit card slip to pay for the repair afterward.”
The supervisor says, “Um... I’ll make a note about that and pass it along to our marketing department.”
He’s lacking the requisite enthusiasm to bring the marketing team onboard. “Can I talk to them myself?”
“No,” Max grumbles behind me, “because you’re supposed to be doing your job.”
“They’re all in a meeting,” says the supervisor. “I’ll give them your phone number.”
I give him my cell number and lock the pen in the register for safekeeping.
“That’s the most expensive pen I ever bought.” The customer chuckles. “Don’t I even get to keep it?”
I say, “If they don’t want it, it’ll be here waiting for you.”
But I can’t see that they won’t. TV, here we come!
Oh, wait. My boss is shoving a work order into my hand. What I meant to say is, Oil change, here I come!
While I’m getting the car on the lift, I’m humming Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop,” and when I do stop, I turn to see my guardian angel leaning against the car.
You might think he’s there because he likes me, but sometimes I think it’s only because he likes Fleetwood Mac. Likes it the same way a dolphin likes water.
“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, we’re gonna be on TV!” I bounce on my toes. “Isn’t that the coolest thing?”
Bucky starts to reply, then stops, starts again, pauses, and finally he squares his shoulders and raises his brown and yellow wings. “I’m not going to be on TV.”
I head under the car to drain the oil. “Because no one else can see or hear you?”
He nods. “It’s an impediment to television. I’ll take consolation in the eternal love of God Almighty instead.”
I chuckle. “But you still won’t be on TV.” With the oil cap in my hand, I hesitate. “Does Heaven have TV?”
Bucky doesn’t hesitate. “No.”
I frown. “What do you do?”
“You should rewind our conversation about fifteen seconds.” He tousles my hair and then disappears, but I hear his words in my head anyhow. The eternal love of God Almighty.
As if they’re exclusive. I haven’t been in love with anyone for years, but when it did happen, I totally recall watching television together.
Anyhow, by the time I’m done changing the oil, my phone rings, and I snatch it up because it’s got to be my call to fame and fortune.
Instead it’s my niece. “Aunt Lee?” says Avery. “Um, I was wondering, are you anywhere near Borough Hall?”
Now that’s a loaded question. “Why?”
“It’s kind of a long story, but I’m standing in front of, um, I think it’s a court house.”
Max might...might...give me a payday loan in cash to bail her out, but she’s only twelve, so I don’t think it’s really likely. “You aren’t in handcuffs, are you? With a couple of friends wearing blue uniforms and frowny faces?”
“Aunt Lee! No!”
She’s not giving me much to go on. She should be in school on the other side of Brooklyn, and I’ve got zero idea why she called me and not her parents. “Help me out, then. I’m obviously too old to get your young, hip ways.”
“You’re what, thirty?”
“Twenty-nine,” I say. “On the cusp of dotage. Help my feeble brain: what do you need?”
A pause, and then, “I need you to come get me.”
Okay. Now we have some action.
Bucky, I need some help. Please go check on her and make sure she’s in a safe place.
I feel him wink out, and I hurry to write the sticker for the oil change. “What’s going on, Avery? It’s going to take me about half an hour to get to you.”
Her voice wobbles. “I didn’t... It all got crazy, and then...”
Bucky reappears. “Tell her to go across the street to the Dunkin Donuts, and you’ll get her there.”
“Look across the street. Is there a Dunkin Donuts?” When Avery snivels yes, I say, “Go and buy yourself a donut. Sit by the window. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“I don’t have any money.”
I glance at Bucky. Can you grab five bucks from my wallet and stick it in her backpack?
He smirks at me. “Kind of like an angelic Robin Hood?”
I roll my eyes. “Grab a table. Root through your pockets and your bag and see if you can scrounge up something. I’ll do what I can.”
I back the car out of the garage and into our lot, then head back inside to my Boss Who Is So Tight He Needs A Shoehorn To Cough. Sticking my head into his office, I say, “I’m taking my lunch break now. My niece had an emergency and needs me to go pick her up.”
Max shrugs. I’ve already worked straight through to two-thirty in the afternoon, so what is he going to say?
I leave him to do what he does best and extract money from a customer, and I head into the parking lot where I remember I didn’t drive to work this morning. That stinks.
I glance at the loaner car Max keeps for his customers, a car older than Avery and far more unpredictable. There’s also the Wrecker, which you’ve got to admit would be a pretty awesome way to go pick up your niece from Borough Hall. “Honey, just watch out the window for a tow truck that looks like it participated in World War II, on the losing side.” I’m not sure that thing even has a passenger-side seat belt. There’s also any assortment of vehicles that need a test-drive, which would be awesome except for the way I get tongue-tied when I need to tell my older brother that his daughter witnessed a car fire from the inside of the vehicle.
Ah well. I unchain my bicycle and pedal a mile home to where I parked my car. It’s shaping up to be a great day.
My niece huddles in the front seat as if she’s about to crawl all the way into her jacket and zip herself inside it to hide forever. “Mom’s going to kill me,” she keeps saying. “I hate everything. They’re so dumb. I’m going to get grounded for the rest of my life.”
The first thing I did, by the way, because I’m not entirely stupid, is text my brother to let him know I have Avery with me and that she’s safe. Well, as safe as she can be when I’m driving, but I try not to tell my brother about my driving record. He probably suspects. Anyhow, no matter what else happens, at least he’s not going to worry about her being alone in downtown Brooklyn. He can worry about her being with me instead.
He could also worry about the weird assortment of chemicals she’s cramming into her body right now. I guess Bucky did manage to raid my wallet because she’s got some kind of multiple coffee drink thing with whipped cream and a domed top as well as a donut so bright you could see it from the top of the Statue of Liberty. Food shouldn’t come in that color. Nothing should.
Although I’d eat it, for the record. I’m hungry, and if there’s one thing Brooklyn is not famous for, it’s drive-through fast food. There isn’t any.
While we inch along the city streets from stoplight to stoplight (with the Rumours Album playing as a thank-you to Bucky for delivering a five dollar bill) the caffeine/sugar infusion helps Avery finally launch into the actual story. “So it’s like this class trip we were supposed to be taking, like we do every Friday, and we took the train, and on the way home I’m hanging out by the door with my friends from the volleyball team, and they started going on about how I’m Little Miss Perfect, and they said I’d never gotten in trouble in like my whole life, and then...”
She stops her endless sentence to stuff in the rest of her donut. She looks up. “So when the train stopped at the next station, I wasn’t really thinking, the doors were open, and no one was looking, and I just...I just took a step back out of the train.”
Oh, that’s such a brilliant idea. I said, “And everyone in your class started screaming?” I’ve already got my phone in my hand – I’d better text Avery’s mother too in case the school calls and she has a coronary.
Avery swallows hard. “I don’t think they even noticed. I mean, it was crowded. I was near the door, so I just stepped out. I stood behind a column. And the train pulled away.”
So just like that, my niece found herself free in New York. Free with no money (well, none yet) and no idea how to catch up with her class. She should have just gotten on the next train and headed toward home. By age twelve I’d have been able to navigate the subway system on my own, although I’d probably have asked Bucky.
I say, “So why didn’t you just take the next train?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I got out of the station and ended up on the street, and I walked around for a while, but then I realized how much trouble I’m going to get in.”
I don’t say anything while she makes straw-sucking sounds to inhale the last frothy bits of coffee concoction from the bottom of the disposable cup. Heck yeah she’s going to get in trouble. Getting off the train in the first place is going to land her in hot water with the school. Not to mention her parents.
“You didn’t think this one through,” I say.
Avery’s mouth tightens up in a frown, like she’s trying not to cry.
“We’d better come up with a way to get you out of the frying pan.” Avery picks up her head with a shock as I pull off Atlantic onto 5th Avenue. “There’s got to be one.”