Read Online Fadeaway Girl by Martha Grimes - Free Book Online

Porte. I’d rather be called You-Boy than Bubby. Imagine, a grown man still letting himself be called Bubby.
    Harsh metallic sounds came from beneath Bubby’s car. I don’t know why Dwayne didn’t just raise the car on the other lift, but then he was the master mechanic, so I guess he had his reasons.
    I hoisted myself up on the stack of new tires to wait for Dwayne to roll himself out. I sat there thinking how I liked the clanging sound of metal against metal and the smell of the new rubber. Then I stopped watching myself, posing as if the photographers were all gathered at Slaw’s today, taking my picture, and slid down onto the floor, then down on my knees. I had to squat even more until I could see under Bubby’s car where Dwayne lay on his rolling board. He was tightening up something under the car. A caged light hung from the car’s undersurface.
    â€œDwayne?”
    He turned his head. He shook it slowly and in a wondering way, lying there on the pallet. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
    My cheek was now down on the cement. Dwayne had picked up his wrench and started tightening something. The underside of a car held no fascination for me, but as he wasn’t rolling himself out, I just lay down on the oil-stained floor and propped my head on my hand.
    â€œDwayne,” I said. “Do you think a little kid”—that was the fourth time for the kid category, and this time with “little” in front of it—“could go crazy, even insane?”
    The noises stopped. He turned his head to look at me again. Even in the half dark of the car, he was handsome. Ree-Jane had a terrific crush on him; he did not have a crush on her, I am happy to say. I thought I would mention to her that there were a lot of handsome men in my life and how many could she say were in hers?
    He surprised me then by pushing himself out from under the car. He said, “Are you talking about that little kid that’s the dishwasher’s son?” Dwayne was getting up now and wiping his hands on the oily rag that he kept in his back pocket. All mechanics had one.
    â€œHim? Paul? No.” Paul was already insane, not going.
    â€œOkay, so who?”
    â€œWell, me, maybe.”
    â€œ You? Christ almighty, you’re too ornery to go insane. Come on.” He nodded for me to follow him.
    â€œOrnery? What’s that got to do with it?” I walked after him.
    â€œWith you, everything.” On the way out he said to You-Boy, “Tell Abel I’m over at Jessie’s when he gets back.”
    â€œSure, Dwayne.” You-Boy smiled and gave him a wrench salute, hitting himself in the forehead coming back.
    Poor You-Boy. It was like something I’d do. “Wait up!” I called to Dwayne, who was now almost at the highway’s edge.
    We crossed the highway, then crossed the railroad tracks. I loved the old station. It was nearly as wonderful as the one in Cold Flat Junction.
    We got to Jessie’s Restaurant and Dwayne actually stepped back and held the screen door for me and I thanked him. I was still amazed that he’d be leaving work and going over here with me.
    The restaurant was bigger than the Windy Run Diner, but it always struck me as having diner intentions. There was a horseshoe counter, and the people now sitting there could have been the same ones who sat there every day. It was clear some at least knew some others. The ones sitting at the counter nodded to Dwayne, and he nodded back and then said hello to Jessie.
    I sat wondering if she had a crush on Dwayne too, the way she kind of came up to the other side of the counter as if in a moment she might be over it. Jessie was a pretty brunette, only she looked kind of worn.
    â€œHello, lover,” she said.
    I might retch. And Dwayne took it without even a tenth of the smackdown he’d have given me if I’d tried saying something so