Page 6 of Shifting Gears

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After restocking her pantry and fridge and taking a little time to calm down from the confrontation, Eleanor sets out on her first preliminary inspection of the area.

The county is even more beautiful than she first thought. The forests are blooming in the late-spring weather, and she even drives with the windows down to breathe in the fresh air until a stray wasp flies through and she spends ten minutes shooing it out of her back seat.

From the aerial maps Eleanor has studied, three old manufacturing buildings remain on the land that CromTech still owns. Two are abandoned but intact while the third and closest to Riverwalk seems to have been damaged at some point and is mostly just the foundation. A sale record shows a huge parcel of land nearby that was bought by a foreign development company ten years ago before it was abandoned. It might end up being a useful purchase to add to CromTech’s portfolio, but the GPS signal is so unreliable out in the woods that even after a full day of searching with the coordinates in hand, Eleanor can’t actually locate it on the ground. Everything is overgrown. Eleanor’s rental house is similarly isolated for such a gorgeous location, with few people taking advantage of the scenery.

Overall the township is underutilized. Rife with potential.

As beautiful as it is, though, it’s also run-down. Many of the back roads connecting the various townships in Bracken County are unpaved and littered with potholes, with some of the streetsigns that might have helped Eleanor find her way either missing or faded. With strategic incentives to the county to fix simple things like that in preparation for construction, Riverwalk’s locals will no doubt welcome the coming improvements, even if CromTech is behind them.

By the time she’s finishing up for the day, Eleanor feels both accomplished and deeply frustrated. She’s starving, her feet are sore from hobbling across gravel in heels to squint up at the road signage, and her contact lenses are drying out. She wants nothing more than to curl up with a book and a glass of wine for dinner.

So, naturally, Eleanor’s car breaks down on the way home.

“Great,” she sighs, turning the key in the ignition repeatedly, only to hear a weak sputtering. “Just fucking fantastic.” Thankful for the complete lack of other vehicles on this back road to witness her embarrassment, Eleanor unbuckles her seatbelt.

“Stupid piece of overpriced junk,” she mutters, kicking the front tire with her Jimmy Choo as she walks by to prop the hood up and do a cursory glance at the engine. Nothing looks immediately out of place, which means that it lies outside of her abilities. If given some time and the right research materials, she could probably figure it out, but right now, looking at a sea of oil-caked and smoking parts, Eleanor needs help.

A slow and begrudging internet search provides her with one mechanic within a fifty-kilometer radius, conveniently located in Riverwalk. Her Porsche is hooked onto a battered tow truck bed soon after by a tall, stocky man with dark-brown skin and a neat goatee whose name tag introduces him asOwen. He looks to be about Eleanor’s age. He’s wearing a cap over his bald head with a sports logo on it, and he removes the hat politely before he shakes her hand and then hitches the car.

“You new around here?” Owen asks when Eleanor has climbed up into the raised truck. His voice is a deep, friendly baritone. He brushes a few empty pop bottles onto the floor and turns the radio down a few notches while Eleanor settles gingerly onto the seat. A country song she doesn’t recognize is playing.

Small talk and country music. Fantastic.

“Yes. I moved in a few weeks ago,” Eleanor says, hoping her short answer will deter further inquiry.

Unfortunately Riverwalk tow truck drivers seem to be tenacious. Owen nods, his large hands resting responsibly at ten and two on the steering wheel. “Where you from? We don’t see a lot of visitors here anymore.”

“Toronto.”

“Big city, eh?” Owen says, flashing a bright smile. His tow truck takes the uneven roads better than Eleanor’s poor car. It’s still bumpy, but the bumps are less uncomfortable than the awkward conversation.

“Mhmm,” Eleanor says, unsure of what else to say in response. Her voice is made uneven by the truck’s movement. Owen resumes speaking almost before she’s finished.

“You here on a vacation? Got a cottage up the road?”

Eleanor drums her fingers on the seat. There’s a hole near the seatbelt clasp that feels like a cigarette burn. It reminds her of the passenger seat of her father’s favourite vintage Cadillac—he’d been partial to cigars, and there had been a similar singed hole in the leather that Eleanor used to dig her finger into when he took her on long drives. That car was his favourite place to remind her that she wasn’t meeting his expectations.

Eleanor digs her fingernail into the burn, twisting it through the aged seat padding. “Something like that.”

It’s nice that Owen is trying, but Eleanor has never felt confident befriending strangers, and especially after herencounter at the grocery store, she’s not feeling comfortable now. She’s been told enough times that she comes off as rude, so she doesn’t see the point in trying to pretend otherwise. She’s not even sure how she ended up with the two friends she does have.

The auto shop is technically on Riverwalk’s main road but tucked away near the town’s edge. Eleanor stares out the window to avoid conversation, and as they drive, she sees details that she hadn’t noticed before: a few of the shops they pass haveFor Leasesigns in the windows. The rest—such as an off-brand pizza place, a single restaurant, and what Eleanor suspects might be the last actual video rental store still in existence—need work done on the exteriors. Not quite shabby, but obviously aging, with old bricks or faded signs.

The building they pull up to is exactly what Eleanor was expecting. It’s old, too, but well-maintained—exposed cinderblocks covered with white paint just on the edge of starting to peel. Two garage doors are thrown open to reveal the mess of cars and parts piled inside. Above the chaos, a faded baby-blue sign readsCooper’s Tire and Auto.

All Eleanor can do is sincerely hope that someone here knows what they’re doing.

“One of the owners is finishing up with another job,” Owen says once he’s parked the truck and guided her into the building. “It’ll be just a minute.”

Eleanor’s first impression of the person Owen points out is one of surprise, as much as she’s ashamed of herself for it.

The mechanic is a woman.

It’s not that Eleanor is surprised that female mechanics exist. She’s dealt with enough skepticism over her own qualifications to last a lifetime. But she’s never met one, let alone one who co-owns her own shop, and she especially didn’t expect something out of the norm in a small, rural town like this. Eleanor can’t seemuch beyond the thick, dark-blonde ponytail visible between the woman’s shoulder blades, but she seems very capable as she finishes putting on a new tire.

When the woman turns around, Eleanor has to smother her second reaction, as shocking as it is.

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