Page 21 of Kiwi Sin
It was also how Drew ended up under there a fair amount himself, because nobody seemed to have informed him that he was flash now, and a Sir shouldn’t be spending his time off under disreputable utes. Jack was out there every second he could be as well, handing tools and asking questions, and I’d swear that both of them were as chuffed as I was on the day we got the motor turning over sweetly again and I took them for a ride.
“I own two things now,” I told them when we were home again, standing back and admiring the low, tuned-up growl, since I couldn’t bear to switch the motor off quite yet. “A driving license, and a ute. I know how to fix whatever else goes wrong with it, and if I have to, I can put a mattress down and sleep in the bed. Good as gold.”
“You own more things than that,” Jack said. “You have clothes and everything.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Clothes, a pair of boots, a comb, a toothbrush, and a razor. I am a well-equipped man.” It was silly to say, but I was riding high. Outside was all about independence, and finally, I had some.
After that, I installed some less-bald tires, banged out the worst of the dents with Jack’s help, sanded and treated the patches of rust, spread primer around liberally, and then we were ready for new paint.
“What d’you reckon?” I asked them, once we’d finished with the priming and I was standing back and admiring my ute again. The paint, what there was of it under the patches of gray, was faded gold with an unbeautiful broad stripe of dirty white down the sides. “Paint it white all over, I’m thinking. Better visibility than black.”
“It can’t bewhite,”Jack said. “It’s a classic!”
Drew smiled, and I saw it. “It’s not a classic,” I said. “It’s just old. What color are you thinking, then?”
“Red,” Jack said with decision. “And shiny. Girls like red cars. If you had a shiny red ute, girls would ask you for a ride in it.”
Drew laughed at that one, and I said, “Not sure girls will be falling all over me when I turn up in my 1979 ute, no matter what color I paint it. They’ll see the inside, for one thing, if they ask me for a ride, and that’ll end the romance pretty smartly.”
“Seat covers,” Drew said.
“No,” Jack insisted, “because when you collected me from kapa haka on Saturday, Naomi Urquel said you were hot, and Andrea Norquist said you weresohot, and heaps of the other girls giggled. Naomi Urquel’s the prettiest girl at school, and all the boys like her.”
“We going to be making another jewelry rack, then?” I asked.
“No,” Jack said. “I told you, holding hands is boring. I’m just saying that they think you’re hot.”
“Which would be excellent,” I said, “if I were nine.”
Jack sighed. “Older girls probably think so, too. I just don’tknowthem, so I wouldn’t hear. It was anexample.And if you have a shiny red ute that’s a classic, they’ll really think you’re hot.”
“Unfortunately,” Drew said, “every cop will probably think so, too. You get a car from the sponsor when you become an All Black. Those boys got the same memo, because their cars are always red or black, and they collect speeding tickets at a shocking rate. The cops see them coming and lick their lips. Of course, Gabriel doesn’t speed.”
“Not in this ute, I don’t,” I said. “Since it tops out at about a hundred and twenty, and it isn’t too happy about that.”
“Fair point,” Drew said. “So not red, then?”
“Let’s ask Mum,” Jack said. “Girls are good at colors.”
“I’ll do that,” I said, “then think about it for a few days, and then decide.” On Sunday, we were doing a family lunch. It was at Gray’s, as always, because nobody else had space, and it would be even more crowded than in the past, because two weeks after my parents had moved out of the caravan, my brother Uriel and his pregnant wife, Glory, had left Mount Zion, along with Glory’s sister Patience, and nowtheywere in the caravan. If Gray wanted to get rid of my family, he needed to get much tougher about the housing arrangements.
I’d buy those new seat covers now, I decided, no matter the hit to my bank balance, would clean every nook and cranny of the cab down to toothbrush-scrubbing level, and on Sunday, I’d drive to lunch and … get an opinion. A woman’s opinion, if girls were good at colors. I didn’t know about that. At Mount Zion, everybody wore brown.
I could ask Daisy, for example, who’d be perfectly comfortable talking to me, and Harmony, since she was my sister. I could ask Radiance, too, since she was married to my brother, and that might make her feel safer. I wouldn’t ask Glory or Patience unless they volunteered, since they hadn’t been out very long and would probably have a hard time answering. I could ask Frankie, though, which would show them it was all right.
After all that, it would be perfectly natural to ask Oriana, wouldn’t it?
Harden up,I told myself. If Jack could give a girl a jewelry rack, I could ask one what color I should paint my ute. It was one simple question. Anyway, I had to get over this. Oriana was too young for me, not quite seventeen yet. Well past time for marriage by Mount Zion standards, and normally about the age when the first pregnancy got obvious, but we weren’t in Mount Zion anymore. Daisy would never allow it, and I worked for Gray. Besides, Oriana had left to find a future, and who knew what she wanted that future to be? She’d never said a word, or had she? I tried to remember. She was almost always the one cooking on the rare occasions when I saw her, and even when she was sitting down, she chatted as little as I did. Unless she wanted to be a cook, I had no clue.
Frankie, on the other hand, talked about careers all the time. About computer science and biotechnology and electrical engineering, and other jobs I’d never heard of. Database engineer. Full-stack developer. Biophysicist.
“Not many women in those jobs, are there?” my dad had asked her at last month’s lunch. As usual, we were perched all over the place, anywhere we could find a spot. Yurts weren’t very roomy by Outside standards, though they were cozy. A yurt was a flatanda tent. Huh.
“You’re right,” Frankie said, not lowering her eyes one centimeter. “That’s one reason I’m interested. The pay, which is always better in male-dominated professions, and that employers treat you better in other ways, because you’re valuable. I want to be valuable. Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll be in charge.”
“Fair enough,” Dad said, “if you can take what the boys dish out along the way. Could be rough, eh.”
“What, if they sexually harass me?” Frankie said, her eyes all but flashing, as they’d done so often since she’d got out. “They can try. Once. Because I will hurt them.”
