Mara parallel parked her Subaru Outback in front of the Mason Fix-It Shop on Woodstock Boulevard in southeast Portland. She normally hated Monday mornings, hustling to the shop on time, but today she looked forward to getting back into a routine. She stepped out of the car and smiled up at the simulated wood-grain sign with fake burned-in letters, thinking as she always did that the Gadget Repair and Bicycle Maintenance subtitle was not big enough.
Not that it mattered. The sign only competed for attention with a barber pole next door and the white backlit plastic letters spelling out Tattoos another door down. The other half of the block featured only Mr. Ping’s anonymous Ceramics in what looked like old 1970s lettering from Broadway. It all looked frozen in time, as if the world had kep
