talk herself down from a panic attack, and then gather her portfolio from the back seat. She had planned to take her time with all of this so if there was the slightest hiccup in her plan she had more than enough time to fix it. Her plan was perfect in her mind, but there were certain things she had failed to take into consideration. Car troubles had never even come up in her list of potential problems. This was the first time her car had traveled this far. The faded red exterior of the mid-90’s style sedan had seen the sun’s harsh rays for more than a decade. She even nearly lost her virginity in the back seat of this exact car while in high school. A patrolling cop car put a stop to the vigorous make-out session just when things were getting hot and heavy between her and her boyfriend. And as days and weeks went by it became painfully obvious that she had been spared from the grief of a messy break-up from the boy she thought was “the one”. This old car had never given her problems ever since her parents had given to her. Six years later, here she was, still driving the same reliable, ugly car, and she was still a shining example of innocence. All of her experiences with dating had been regrettable, at best. It was a mix of her distrust toward the good ones, and her complete refusal to lower her standards. She didn’t have a bitter demeanor, but instead just seemed to play the “hard to get” game a little too well. Just as the car’s odometer hit the 110,000 mile mark, smoke started to pour from under the hood. Nicole was in denial at first and still drove on for a few moments. It wasn’t a lot of smoke. The problem would pass and she’d continue on to her interview. But the smoke didn’t stop at all. It continued to flow from the cracks of the hood, starting to make it difficult to see anything at all. “Aw, come on! Why now?!” she cried out in exasperation. She finally decided that this was a serious problem and began to pull over. Luckily for her, there was a service station just as she brought the smoke-billowing car off the road. The way she had to take to Atlanta was mostly deserted with hardly any traffic at all. It was times like this that she wondered why she had ever moved back home after college. Perhaps if she had stayed in Savannah, or even already made a move to Atlanta this could have all been avoided. She hesitantly stepped out of the car a she surveyed the building that she miraculously stopped at. It didn’t look like it had been updated since the late 80’s. There were only two pumps at the front, one for diesel and the other for unleaded. As she passed by them, she noted that nothing on the pumps looked like it had been updated since this building had been built. There were no credit card slots or digital read-outs at all. If it weren’t for the neon sign hanging from the window of the office that said “OPEN” she would have guessed this old building was just an antique from a time long forgotten. The building itself was a small, well-kept structure that looked like it had been recently painted with a shade of baby blue that made Nicole cringe!. Attached to it was a single-car garage with a car already hoisted up with the hydraulic jack. The sound of the radio blaring something that vaguely reminded her of music echoed through the open garage and filled the surrounding area with the noise. “Hey, anyone here?” She spoke with a bit of annoyance in her voice. The sound of the loud metal music booming from the garage should have been her first sign that no one would hear her faint voice over the growling singer and the thumping double-bass of the drums. With a peeved look on her face, she turned around to see a man in a pair of grey mechanic’s coveralls. Her expression quickly changed to one of amazement as she looked him over. He was a bit over six foot tall with long, light brown hair that was pulled back in a sort of surfer cut. Even with the coveralls, Nicole could