A note from the Author:
It may well appear this story is a little slow getting out of the blocks. That's intentional.
Please... be patient... keep reading... your steadfastness and commitment to the story will be rewarded...
Seven years ago. Late September. I'm walking out of the bookstore, just like I do every Friday afternoon.
If she hadn't said something, if she hadn't grabbed my arm, I'd have walked right by her, probably without even looking.
But she did; she grabbed my arm and spoke to me to get my attention.
"Excuse me, sir, but can you help me? Please?"
I stopped walking and turned to look at her. And I stopped breathing. Literally.
Standing next to me, still holding my arm was a young girl, maybe eighteen years old; nineteen tops; honey blonde hair pulled back in a pony-tail, and soft blue eyes. I glanced down and up quickly; a t-shirt tailored for a girl's body suggesting she might be a student at the local college and snug denim shorts; she was a sight to behold, delicately defined features, trim and slender, yet shapely.
I thought I'd stepped more than twenty years into the past, because she looked exactly like my ex-wife Beth. At least, this was how Beth had looked when we first met.
Two decades and change later, I was looking at a vision I was at a loss to describe.
"I'm sorry, what?" Maybe if she repeated the question.
"Can you help me? Please?"
I looked around, for what I did not know.
"I... uh... what kind of help do you need?"
"My car's dead. It won't start at all."
"Ummm, well..."
"I'm a student at the university," she said. "I tried calling my roommate, and she's not answering her phone."
"Uh, okay..."
"And I don't really know a lot of people here. I'm a long way from home."
"Okay. Ummm... where are you parked?"
"Over here." She spun on her heels and led the way to her car.
It wasn't new, but it wasn't an old car, either. A small, two-door coupe, dark blue, a sticker advertising a radio station that played the best of the oldies, and out-of-state plates.
"What's your name?"
"Kasey. With a 'K'."
"Well, Kasey with a 'K', you are a long way from home," I said. "My name is Bruce. Pop the hood and let me take a look."
"Nearly four hundred miles one way," she said, unlocking her door.
I watched as she bent over and pulled the hood latch. Her shirt slid up over the back of her shorts, baring her lower back; the shorts hugged her ass like a second skin.
The hood lurched upward, retained after a couple of inches by a secondary latch. I moved around the front of the car and raised it.
Finding the problem should be easy enough, I thought to myself. This was one of the cleanest engines I'd ever seen outside a showroom.
"Who usually works on this for you? It looks to be very well maintained."
"My step-dad," she said.
"Well..." Clean was good, made it easier to inspect. I'm no mechanic, but I couldn't see anything loose. I tugged on the battery cables. Snug. Battery... almost new, showing a green light in its status window. Good. Belts. Snug. I couldn't see any reason why the engine shouldn't turn over.
"Try and crank it," I said.
She slid behind the wheel. A clatter of metal as she lined her keys up with the ignition switch.
A click. Nothing more.
Clearly, a professional opinion was in order.
"See? Nothing." She closed her car door and walked to the front bumper. "What now?"
I had my cell phone out.
"Steve? Yeah, it's Bruce. Listen, I know you guys are closed for the night, but I've got a problem here... No, not my car. There's a young lady here from the university; her car won't start... I've looked under the hood, and everything looks good and tight, but it won't even turn over... how about we get it towed and you look at it in the morning? Great... let me give you the address here."
I hung up a minute later. The young lady standing next to me looked suddenly uncomfortable.
"I don't have the money to pay for a tow or a mechanic," she said, folding her arms across her chest.
I shook my head. "Don't worry about it. Steve's a good friend of mine. I've known him for years. I'll take care of the tow and we'll worry about the repair fee after we find out what's wrong. Okay?"
"Okay."
I told her I'd wait with her for the tow truck. We'd leave the key in it, Steve would look at it tomorrow, Saturday, and with any luck, she'd be back behind the wheel by the late Saturday afternoon, if not sooner. Fifteen minutes later, we watched her car disappear, front wheels raised off the ground as it headed to the repair shop.
"So, since your roommate hasn't called you back, I take it you need a ride back to your apartment?"
