Page 32 of A Real Goode Time
“Well, you do good work. The place looks great, and I get to turn over the keys a day early.” He glanced at me, then. “You too, Torie. Not sure a place has ever sparkled this nice. You ever need work, you call me, I’ll have something for you.”
He handed me his card, and shook my hand. Withdrawing a white envelope from his back pocket, he glanced at Rhys. “You guys got here at, what, one, and it’s just about seven thirty?” He glanced at the ceiling, counting, then pulled out a battered cell phone from a hip pocket and did some quick math—counted out two piles of cash with the rapid, practiced movements of someone who counts out cash regularly, and handed one stack to me, and one to Rhys.
I was just as quick with cash, being a server, and noted that he paid Rhys an even hundred and fifty—which came out to just under twenty-five an hour. I got an even hundred, which meant he’d actually overpaid me by three dollars.
The nights I made a hundred as a server were golden days, and it was far more stressful work than this had been. I was definitely in the wrong business.
Rhys and Jeremy discussed the next job and shot the shit as guys do, and then Jeremy’s phone rang and he waved at us as he vanished to do whatever guys like him do.
Rhys stretched, yawned, and glanced at me. “Well. That was a day’s work, huh?”
“You do this every day? Work on cars and then build houses?”
He nodded. “And usually I go home and work on my realtor classes while I eat dinner, and then do some work on my restoration project.”
“You work yourself to the bone.”
He shrugged. “Used to it. It’s how life has always been. I’d be up by six and at school by seven to do homework, go to school till three, work till at least nine most nights, sometimes even ten. Been my schedule since I was twelve years old.”
I flapped my stack of twenties. “Thank you for this.”
He snorted. “You did the work, you earned it.”
“I mean the opportunity.”
“Nah.” Another wave of his hand, and then he eyed me with a grin. “You hungry?” My stomach growled in response, and he waved for me to follow. “Come on. I know a place that makes killer burgers. And I know the owner, so he may even accidentally give me an extra beer and then have work to do in the back, if you know what I mean.”
And so we ended up in a tiny little dive bar, a hole-in-the-wall with unironic decor from the seventies. The owner, a short, stooped, gruff old guy with a voice that pegged him as being Jewish and from Brooklyn, greeted Rhys with a hug and a clap on the back.
“Rhys my boy, good to see you, son, good to see you. Been too long you’re away, I miss you. Sit down, sit down already. You work your fingers to the nub, I tell you. I’ll make you a burger, a big one, the juiciest I got, extra fries too, of course. Gotta put some meat on those skinny ribs of yours, son.” He looked over at me and addressed me with brown eyes sparkling with humor and zest for life. “And you bring a friend, too! Such a pretty friend, at that. Look at the eyes on this one, would you? I’m Marty, and you are?”
I shook his warm, strong, wrinkled hand. “Torie. Nice to meet you, Marty.”
“Well, I don’t have a menu because I only make one thing, but I make it better than anyone in four states, and that’s a fact. So you’re getting the biggest, juiciest cheeseburger you’ve ever had, you’ll call me Pops like my good friends do. You’re with Rhys, and that makes you good friend indeed. Rhys is a good man, I’ll have you know. Not that I have to tell you, if you’re here with him. But he’s the finest, the best. Got my Fairlane working again and that old car is a piece of my heart. Wouldn’t take a penny over cost, this boy, even though I know he spent hours of hard work figuring it out. But he’s just that kind of person, and I hope you know it.”
Rhys laughed, playfully socked Marty on the shoulder. “Ah shut up, Pops, you’re embarrassing me.”
Marty just waved him off and ambled off with a bad hip behind the bar, pulled two foamy dark beers and slid them over with a practiced flourish. “I only got two kinds’a beer, too, light and dark, local stuff a friend of mine brews. Rhys drinks it dark, and you look like you do, too. You’re old enough, I take it? Of course you are. Now, you drink those and I’ll have you kids fed in a jiffy.”
I laughed as he vanished behind two double doors into the kitchen, and I heard the familiar rattle and clang of a spatula on a grill. “Wow, he’s…a lot.”
Rhys nodded, a grin on his face. “Yeah, he’s even more high strung than me. He’s gotta be at least eighty, but he’s here at ten every morning and closes at two, and he does brisk business. All the local folks know him. We all call him Pops, and he treats us all like family. His car quit a while back, just quit working. It was…what, a ’67 Fairlane? He couldn’t afford to fix it, and he was riding the bus partway here and then walking a handful of miles. I saw him on the bus one day, followed him here, and asked why he wasn’t driving. So, I fixed his car. Had to replace half the engine, but it was worth it to see how happy he was to have the car back. And now he only lets me pay half the time.”
A comically short amount of time later, Marty brought out two plates, and he hadn’t been lying—the burgers were colossal, dripping juice and cheese, and shoestring fries were piled high on the side. We thanked him, and he just waved and went to serve another local who came in at that moment—and he too was greeted with an effusive, familiar, mile-a-minute welcome.
Rhys finished half his burger in, like, three bites, and then leaned back and munched a few fries, his gaze speculative. “I had an idea.”
I paused in the act of taking a bite. “Okay?”
“Now that the Nova is done and the Setters Road place is done, I actually have a little time. Usually, my jobs don’t line up like that, so if I’m done with a rebuild, I’m only halfway through a house, or vice versa. So, this is a rare time for me, with both of them done. That being said, I can take some time off salvaging, and the realtor license classes are on my own time frame, no rush.”
My heart leapt, and I tried to not hope he was saying what it seemed like he was saying. “Okay?”
“I was thinking, if you wanted, I could drive you part of the way. We could take turns driving, I mean. I haven’t taken any time off in…shit, like, forever. So, yeah, it’d be fun, I think. I don’t know that I’ll be able to go all the way to Alaska, but I could get you started.” He shrugged, glanced at his fries and played nonchalant. “Just thinking, you know. We get along pretty well, and…a road trip would be fun. If you wanted.” He was nervous.
It was cute, and it made my heart pitter-patter. And made other parts do…less familiar leaps and twists.
I tried to rein in my excitement. “Yeah. That’d be cool.” Too reined in. “I mean, I…that sounds amazing, actually.”