Page 109 of Ice Mechanic

“Twelve?” I squawk and the banana rolls right out of my mouth and plops into my lap. I fish around my overalls for it. “You’re joking. Our garage only has the capacity for six cars, and that’s if we park three on the street.”

“I know! I managed to get three in the bay but the rest of the vehicles are still waiting outside. It’s like a parade in the road. I’ve been praying for tons of customers since the day we opened, but notall at the same time.”

“Is this really all because I wore a stupid dress last night?” I grumble.

“ThatandI think May forgot that we don’t actually have twenty-four hours in a day. On the form, our business hours started from twelve am to twelve pm rather than from eight o’clock to five. People started showing up at five this morning.”

“They’ve been waiting since five a.m?” I parrot.

“That’s what the one-star review on our business page says. And another customer who decided to wait until I came to open the shop said the same.”

“Excuse me, when is it my turn?” avoice booms in the background.

Rebel answers distractedly. “Just a minute, sir!” Then with a more frantic tone, she whispers, “April, are you on your way over here?”

The truck roars as I push it even harder. “I’ll be there in ten.”

“Oh goodness. Ten minutes to forever.”

I hang up with Rebel and tear it down Main Street, glad that it’s too early for the sheriff to be about or I’d surely get a ticket.

When I arrive at the garage, I notice several cars already parked on the grass and a few out on the street. There’s also a short line of vehicles idling on the road. I count five of them before squeezing into a parking spot between two trucks.

Rebel runs out with a clipboard. She’s still wearing pink shorts and a white tank top. She must have been too busy to even change into her jumpsuit.

“What should we do?” Rebel grabs my shoulder. “We’re at capacity here. We simplycan’taccept any more jobs right now.” She checks her pink-gemstone wrist watch. “It’ll be time for another few customers in the next hour. I’m drowning, April.”

“First, take a deep breath.” I inhale and exhale.

Rebel follows me. “Now what?”

“Let’s shut it down.” I twirl my hand in a circle. “We can only do what we can do.”

Her eyes double in size. “We can’t send them away!”

“Why not?”

“We’re already getting bad press because we weren’t here at five.” Rebel fumbles with her phone as if she wants to show me and then gives up halfway. “April, we don’t have a choice but to make this work. If we accepted people’s money and didn’t deliver, this will turn into a nightmare. All the effort you put in to get clients?—”

“It’s fine. We can recover.”

“Reputations don’t ‘recover’. The bad reviews will ruin us.”

I scrub my forehead and turn in a slow circle.So many cars.

Rebel studies me with her bottom lip tucked between her teeth.

I push out a breath. “Okay, let’s...” I massage the bridge of my nose and then an idea hits. “The lifts! Let’s put a car on the twolifts and then raise them high enough that two more cars can fit underneath.”

“That means we can fit four cars in the bays.” Rebel’s eyes brighten. “April, yougenius!” Her smile dims. “But that leaves seven more.”

“I’ll drive another three cars around back.” The backyard is where we usually park cars that won’t move for a while because the parts they need are being shipped in from a warehouse. “It’ll be tight, but I think I can make it work.”

Rebel bobs her head, the color returning to her pale cheeks. “Three can stay outside, so that leaves…”

“One.” I smile. “And if you can point out which car has the easiest problem to fix, I can get it out of the shop in about thirty minutes.”

“That sounds—” Rebel’s words are cut off by the sound of a car honking. Two more cars have joined the lineup of waiting vehicles in front of our garage.

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