Read Online The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo - Free Book Online

scratch my sunburned legs, feeling the heat from my mother’s body as she sits next to me. And I can smell her perfume and her gin, and I can see the look on her face, and not once does she glance at me as I cradle the glass orb in my little hands. Her interest lies only in the snow globe and in the birds. Those trapped, circling birds.

CHAPTER 9
    T he wind has picked up. On the way to the parking lot, a gust lifts my hair off my shoulders and swirls it into my eyes. I’ve got a key to my grandmother’s house in my hand; amazingly I managed to talk Luke into letting me stay there until my car is fixed. Obviously nobody around here has run a background check on me.
    A man crouches at the front of my car, attaching a winch to the frame. The other end of the cable stretches over to a tow truck so dented and rusty that it makes my Malibu look good. The words JJ’s Auto Works are painted in a faded looping script on the door, and the flat twang of country music is pouring from the truck’s open windows.
    I walk up behind the man and say, “Thanks for coming out. I’m Mattie Wallace. You must be JJ.”
    He straightens and turns toward me. He’s tall, thin, and middle-aged, I think, but it looks like years of hard living have done a number on his face. His nose is crooked from a poorly set break and deep wrinkles run from eye to chin and across hisforehead. He reminds me of someone—Clint Eastwood? Bruce Willis? I’m not sure which action hero he resembles, but as he stares at my outstretched arm without lifting his own, I am pretty sure we’re not going to shake hands.
    â€œWhat’s your problem?” he says, in a surprisingly soft voice.
    â€œNo problem. That’s my car and I thought I ought to introduce myself. I’m Mattie.”
    â€œWith the car. What’s the problem with the car?”
    â€œOh.” I lower my unshaken hand. “The transmission, I think.”
    He nods then climbs in his truck and starts up the winch motor. We both watch as my car assumes the position.
    â€œNice restoration job,” he says.
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œYou do the upholstery?” He’s talking to me, but he’s looking at the car.
    â€œMy mom did it.”
    â€œNot bad. But the paint looks like shit.” He double-checks the connection and then, wiping his hands on his coveralls, he turns to me and says, “Am I giving you a ride to the garage?”
    â€œYes, thanks.” I hurry to the far side of the truck and clamber in. A banjo has taken over the melody of whatever song is playing on the radio. I can practically hear gap-toothed hillbillies seducing their nieces. And nephews. Hey, I’ve seen Deliverance .
    â€œYee haw,” I mutter, not quite under my breath.
    He gives me a hard look and then turns off the radio.
    â€œSorry. Turn it back on. I was just kidding around. I like music.”
    He responds with only a grunt and then we pull out of the parking lot. The music stays off. He looks straight ahead, the truck picking up speed even as we approach the stop sign at the bottom of the hill.
    â€œStop sign! Stop Sign! Stop Sign!” I press my foot to the floorboards and frantically glance both ways while we blast through the stop. “Holy Shit! Didn’t you see that?”
    â€œI saw it.”
    â€œAre you trying to kill somebody?” Like me, I think but don’t say. “Aren’t you even worried about getting a ticket?”
    He reaches over with an arm covered in gnarly gray hair and switches the radio back on. “I work on the sheriff’s car for free.”
    I notice but don’t comment on his lack of response to my other concern—the sudden, tragic, gone-before-her-time concern. Faster and faster we go, engine roaring through a yellow light and three more stop signs. We hit a dip and I catch a few inches of air before slamming back down on the seat. Just as I snap the seat-belt buckle, we