Who: Gus and Lucy. When: Saturday around 11 am-ish. What: Fixing Lou’s truck. Where: Gus’ house. Rating: PG Status: complete.
Lou felt like beating her head against the steering wheel, but that would have been just asking for disaster. With her luck, it’d fall right off mid drive. Her head or the wheel. Either one. Her luck was that bad.
At least she’d gotten through the morning shift ok, she told herself. The wreck hadn’t been happy about making the trip from her apartment that morning, but with constant promises to get it some help, the poor thing had made it to work. What it wasn’t happy about now was the trip to the Sheriff’s place. It protested in fits and starts and had her promising any kind of bribe imaginable if it’d only get there in one piece. The weather wasn’t her friend on days like this; and for the eight hundred millionth, nine hundred seventy-second thousandth, three hundred forty-first time that year she wished she lived some place warmer. Some place where mother nature didn’t enjoy gobbling up perfectly fine motor vehicles with her corrosive being. Lou appreciated the earth as part of her spiritual outlook, but she did wish it’d give her poor truck a break. The thing was more rust than paint at this point, its only saving grace being that it’d started out red to begin with too.
With hopes that Gus wouldn’t regret inviting her over, she’d packed a ton of baked goods including the latest incarnation of the week’s project into a large wicker basket that looked more fit for a picnic than her old jeans and layers of flannel tops. The clothes she wore were worn and comfortable and warm. It wasn’t like she felt the need to impress anyone or make any statement at all really. She wore what was practical because it’d only be Gus who saw her, not anyone who she felt needed to be shocked into reconsidering their notions of propriety. It was pretty much as close to the real her as she got, which might have made her nervous if she hadn’t been using her full concentration to try and will her car to keep going.
At what felt like long last, she pulled the car up to his place. She drove really slowly, wondering if she could get the wreck started again if she parked it in front of his place to go and ring the doorbell. Her poor baby. The wreck had seen better days – most of them before it had ever crossed her path.
She prayed to whatever goddess might be listening that the fix for her car wouldn’t set her back to much. Lou wasn’t even willing to consider that there may not be a fix this time. There always had been one in the past. There would be now too. She had a lot of faith in Gus to work some magic. Besides, there were gaps in her knowledge. Maybe she’d screwed something up when changing the oil last time. It was possible. Maybe.