The Jack and the Wheel Lock

One. In Which There is a New Employee

I sit in my car, eating a bagel, with cream cheese slathered on it. It's delicious, to the point where I start humming to myself like a small child. I don't remember the first time I ate cream cheese and bagel; my mother used to feed if to me all the time, when I was a child. The sun is out, shining, but I'm okay, because I parked in the shade, air conditioner on blast. The ends of my hair tickle my forearm, a bit annoying but still manageable. I'm dreading the moment when I have to leave the comfort of my air conditioned car to walk to the main building, to go to my office for work. That would mean that I have to walk through the boiling hot sun, frying my skin. I'm dreading it, and when the alarm on my phone, signaling the end of my break time rings, I grumble to myself. I am tempted to just sit here, for another five minutes or so in the cool AC, but I decide against it. My boss is a b***h cunt, and I can't deal with her right now. I cut the engine, and step out of the car, my heels tapping against the pavement as I walk. I hate my boss, but my love for my job, I can say, cancels it out somewhat. I help sell cars at one of the several Porsche dealerships in the island, and I'm damn good at it. I have the highest success rate of any of the other people who work here. I love cars, always have since I was a little girl. My father owned a Porsche at one point, and it was by far my favourite car that he had. I always aspired to get one myself, and now, I do, and I get to work at the place that sells them. I still have the Toyota, I just don't drive it as much, and one the one off day that I did decide to drive it, I got a f*****g flat tyre. I did learn how to change a tyre, though. I had Frank, one of the mechanics here, and my friend, show me. Working here... it's a dream come true for me. I heard that we are getting a new mechanic, but I don't know the name, or anything else. I assume that it's a man, because I feel as if they would have said if it were a woman. I have heard no such thing. I quickly make my way into the show room. It's brightly lit, with five cars, sitting on a bright red floor. I'm more than happy to be in a space with air conditioning once more, and just in time; I see a gentleman in a suit standing there, looking at one of my favourites: the 2020 Porsche Panorama. It's beautiful, red, and somehow manages to look both modern and retro. Well, to me at least. Some of my colleagues disagree.  I go to approach him, but Toby walks forward and gets to him first. I grumble to myself; I would have loved to be the one to make this sale. I step back, waiting for someone else to approach one of the cars. My all time favourite is the 2020 Porsche 911, in silver. It's beautiful, and had I not had a car, I would buy it. With the money that my parents have handed down to me, and the money that I have invested, I could easily afford it, but you don't keep wealth by spending it on unnecessarily s**t. So I've decided against getting it. No one else shows up, and I go to the water cooler to pour myself a much needed cup of water. I'm parched, realising that I've left my water bottle in the car, but there's no f*****g way that I'm going back out into that heat right now. It's while I'm gulping down the water that Bitchy Brenda, my boss, comes up to me.

"Have you met the new mechanic?" she asks me, wrinkling her nose. "Some guy from the ghetto. I don't know why they hired him, probably felt badly for him." Or maybe, unlike you, he's good at his job and didn't have to gargle someone's balls to get here. "At least he can speak English," she says, in reference to the fact that some Jamaicans can only speak creole. "The heads want all the employees to meet him, so you should probably do so today." It's strange for her to talk in such a way about the new mechanic, considering that she is probably one of the main reasons why Greg, one of our past mechanics, left. He started up his own shop, partly out of wanting to do better for himself, but also partly because he couldn't stand Brenda, who repeatedly tried to f**k him, and who he knew he couldn't tell to f**k off, because he knew she'd f**k him over. Perhaps because of all the d**k she's taken to get where she is, she probably thought that everyone would be willing to do that. I'm not against f*****g people to get to where you're going, as long as it's consensual, but Brenda isn't even good at her job, and she treats other people like s**t. If you're going to perform s****l favours so that you can get ahead at the company, the least you can do is f*****g be competent, and not completely full of s**t.

"When does he leave?" I ask her. The worst part is that she's actually pretty. If only her personality matched her face.

"At closing time." She grew up with affluent parents, like myself, but unlike me she's a classist b***h. Actually, she's a b***h in general. My first meeting with her was actually when I was about 12 years old. She went to the same place I did for violin classes, and would tease me repeatedly about my acne. She teased me to the point of tears once, and I went home crying. My older sister, Rebecca, wanted to know what was wrong, but I didn't tell her, because I knew that she'd probably break Brenda's face. My next encounter with her was when I started working here. She remembered me from music class, but said nothing of how she bullied me, didm't apologise. I hoped that she would have changed; after all, kids can be brutal sometimes. But she took to calling my Toyota a "broke b***h car", repeatedly asking me why I drove it when she knew I could afford better. I got it for my eighteenth birthday, and was – am – attached to it. However, I eventually bought a Porshe just so that Brenda would f**k off. "I hear he got a new car just for–"

"I have to take this, Brenda," I say to her as I see a customer, a young girl, walk into the show room with someone I presume to be her father.

"Hello," I say to the both of them, "welcome to the Porshe Centre. My name is Gabriella, how may I assist you both?"

"I'm getting this one," he says, nodding his head towards her, "a birthday present today. She wanted to see the Porsche 911." That is the car that we're standing right in front of.

"Can I have this one?" she asks, sounding hopeful. 

"Yes, you can," I tell her with a smile. "Would you like to know more about this car–"

"This is my dream car," she says, cutting me off, reaching forward to touch it with her index finger. "I know everything I need to know about it already, thanks," she says, before giving me a sweet smile. She reminds me of myself, in a way. I'm glad she's here, glad to have gotten a break fr Bitchy Brenda. After assisting them with the paperwork, I watch her drive it out of the dealership. All together, everything takes about two hours, and after that, I realise that I'm left alone in the room with her. Troy is off somewhere, and she looks as if she's keen to continue gossiping about this poor f**k, whoever he is. I am simply not interested, but I have to tolerate her.

"He is young and sexy, though. That's the only upside to him."

"What's his name?" I ask.

"Romero," she answers. 

"Can you watch the room until I come back?" I ask. "You have me curious." It's a half lie. I just want to get away from her. The sun isn't as high in the sky, and maybe, I can make it through the heat to the garage area to meet this new mechanic.

"Sure," she says. I know that if she gets wind of my true feelings and the fact that I just want to get the f**k away from her, she'll screw me over. I keep my mouth shut. I walk out to the shed where I know the mechanics stay in. They turn to look at me, probably hearing the tap of my shoes against the pavement. 

"Rya!" Frank says when he sees me, raising his hands. It's a nickname that I've had ever since childhood, something that my friends, and some colleagues call me. His shirt is covered in oil, so I won't actually hug him, but we have this thing where we air hug each other. I strech out my arms, smiling as I approach him, only to stop in my tracks when I see who the new guy is.

It's the guy who changed my tyre on the street last week Wednesday.