My rates were printed in black and taped at the front desk, the same rates every customer saw.
The old man compared the numbers.
‘Your labor rate is lower than ours,’ he said.
I gave a tired smile.
‘I know.’
Something flickered in his expression then.
Not pity.
Recognition.
He looked around the garage, at the oil stains that never fully came out of the floor, at the hand-lettered sign by the door, at the patched compressor hose, at Luis pretending not to listen while listening to every word.
Then his eyes landed on the bulletin board behind my desk.
Tessa’s drawing was pinned there.
A crooked red truck.
A stick-figure man with a wrench.
Big uneven letters: My Dad Fixes Everything.
His gaze stayed on it a second too long.
Victoria noticed and rolled her eyes.
‘Oh, please.
Do not let the child art become evidence.’
The words hit me harder than I expected.
I reached up and took the drawing off the board, not because I was ashamed of it, but because I suddenly wanted it out of her sight.
Her father’s voice dropped.
‘Victoria.’
She stiffened.
‘Enough.’
The word was quiet, but it landed like a door closing.
For the first time since she had walked into my shop, Victoria had no immediate answer.
Then her phone rang.
She looked at the screen, ignored it, then looked at me with a smile that had nothing warm in it.
‘Let us be practical,’ she said.
‘I will pay the invoice.
He can stop performing.
We can all go back to our morning.’
She opened her handbag, removed a black card, and held it between two fingers.
I did not reach for it.
Her father did.
But instead of handing it to me, he placed it flat on the counter.
‘This is not only about payment now,’ he said.
Victoria’s jaw flexed.
‘It should be.
That is what he wants.’
I thought of Tessa asking for apples.
I thought of the electric warning under the clipboard.
I thought of the way every wrench had seemed to stop in midair when Victoria called me a cheat.
‘Yesterday,’ I said, keeping my voice steady, ‘all I wanted was to be paid for work I did honestly.’
Her father nodded once.
‘And today?’
I looked at the signed work order.
‘Today I want the complaint withdrawn before it destroys my shop.’
Victoria’s eyes sharpened.
There it was.
The truth had shown its teeth.
She had not merely refused to pay.
She had prepared to punish me for asking.
Her father reached into his coat again and pulled out a sealed envelope.
My shop’s name was typed across the front: Callaway Auto Repair.
