From the doorway, Rip gave me a nod before walking off. I didn’t need to watch him leave to know what his butt looked like in those coveralls. It was perfectly proportionate in comparison to the rest of his six-foot-four built-like-a-tank body. Big and thick.
Beside me, Mr. Cooper let out a sigh that I’d heard a hundred or two times before. I couldn’t blame him. The less they communicated, the better everyone’s day was.
Especially his.
But at that moment, I couldn’t focus on Rip’s butt, or relish in the fact that I’d gotten to see his face not completely scowling in my direction, even if it was only for a second. Sometimes he’d come up for lunch at the same time I did. Sometimes he’d sit next to me and eat. His elbow would brush mine. Maybe his forearm would touch mine. If it was a good day, he’d give me an eyebrow raise that I would take like it was a smile. If it was a really good day, I could talk to him about the car he was restoring, and we might talk about it for a few minutes.
I had given up trying to ask him personal questions about two months into him arriving at CCC.
But on days when Mr. Cooper and I happened to eat at the same time, none of that ever happened. I’d watched Rip turn around and walk out, noticing how Mr. Cooper sat there and tried not to let it bother him.
On this day, it was impossible not to notice that getting ignored was eating up the kindest man I had ever met.
So I turned my head to my favorite boss and gave him a smile he probably saw right through. “Have I told you that color shirt looks really nice on you? You don’t look a day over sixty-five in it, Mr. C.”
* * *
It was hours later when I realized how bad I’d screwed up.
I wasn’t sure what exactly had snapped together for me at the last second just as I had started to crouch down to keep moving the gun across the surface of the quarter panel I was in the middle of painting. But something had just clicked as I stood in front of the section of the car between the rear door and the trunk. That click had said Luna, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
“Shit.” I pulled the hood of my coveralls down, raised my goggles to rest at the top of my head, and tugged my respirator to my chin, trying to think as I stared at the panel in front of me.
But the color on the car didn’t change without the goggles.
It was still a silvery blue.
It was still Silver Mink.
I left the work order for you at the top of your desk, Rip had said during lunch.
I had picked up the work order on the desk. I knew it. Silver Mink, it had said. I knew it. I wouldn’t have screwed up reading it.
But… Silver Mink…. Something about the color, about the name, didn’t sit well.
Silver Mink, Silver Mink, Silver Mink….
Wasn’t Silver Mink the original color he had requested?
Had I read the wrong order?
Heart freaking instantly pounding, I swallowed and tried to think about what I’d done. I had picked up the invoice, read through it three times, and gone to get the paint. I knew that for sure. I knew it.
But…
I ran back to my desk and went through the invoices sitting on it. About a minute into looking, I found it—them more like it. I freaking found them.
It only took a second to look up the work order on my computer to confirm my suspicions.
I had started painting the car a different freaking color.
Holy crap.
Not Brittany Blue.
Not Brittany Blue like one of the invoices requested. The right invoice.
Why hadn’t I double-checked? I always did. Always.
“Shit.” I blinked down at the sheet, the urge to throw up getting strong and stronger. “Shit, shit, shit!”
I wanted to punch the wall. Punch myself more like it. But the fact was, I remembered that I’d been thinking about the phone call Mr. Cooper had mentioned and my sister bailing on me, and being frustrated with my coworker for screwing me over. I’d gone back downstairs after lunch, still thinking about things that I couldn’t change even if I wanted to, gone to my room, spent another four hours sanding down the car then priming it. I let it bake while I picked up the first file I found for the Thunderbird, read it, and finally pulled the paint from the locker where we kept all the extra unused supplies.
The rest was history. I grabbed the paint, prepared everything, Miguel helped me move the cars around. Then I got in the booth and started spraying, my head going back to the text and the phone call despite the headphones I had on blasting the Wicked soundtrack into my ears. Then, then, it had clicked.
Holy freaking shit, I had read the wrong work order.
Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
“Fucking shit,” I whispered to myself, panic filling up my stomach, making me nauseous instantly. Instantly.
For one microsecond, I asked myself how I could fix this without involving anyone. But just as quickly as I wondered that, I reminded myself that there was no way. What was I going to do? Hide the car and do everything all over again? The primer alone needed a day to dry.
I wasn’t sure I believed in miracles, and I wasn’t about to start now.
My hands went up to my hair on their own, smoothing over the chin-length hair I had bobby-pinned back behind my ears to keep it out of my face. I tugged on the ends, hard. But the color didn’t change and the words on the work order didn’t magically disappear, and I was still in deep shit.
There was only one thing I could do.
Suck it up, sugar tits, my sister would say.
What if you get fired? My brain tried to ask the rest of me.
I had messed up once before, but it had been wheels I had screwed up, and only two of them.
I rarely called out. I was never late. I couldn’t remember ever complaining. Sure, Mr. Cooper was the closest thing I’d ever had to what a real dad was supposed to be like. But this was going to be hundreds of dollars’ worth of work that was going to need to be redone because of me. That money being mostly what they paid me hourly for labor and the paint I’d just wasted. All because I hadn’t taken the time to find both orders and look at the stupid freaking dates.
I was going to be sick.
What if I got fired? It could happen. It was a white day for Rip.
And he’d fired people for less on white days.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
There’s only one thing to do, Luna, the voice of reason in my head told me.
Letting go of my hair, I took a deep breath that wasn’t deep at all and sounded more like I had asthma. I wasn’t going to be even more of an asshole and pretend like nothing had happened.
I had messed up.
I took ownership of my actions.
I didn’t run away from my problems, even if I sometimes ignored them.
I was better than that. I was better than that. I wouldn’t be that person.
I might have prayed a couple of Hail Marys I had learned from the Coopers under my breath as I headed toward the main floor. I considered calling Mr. Cooper to tell him because I didn’t think he was capable of yelling at me.
I couldn’t though.
It was a white day, and Rip had already blatantly ignored him. He’d be at home by now, and Mr. Cooper didn’t deserve to get chewed out for something I did, because that would be what inevitably happened if I used him as a buffer between me and the person who had actually given me the orders for the project I had screwed up.
I tried to tell myself that there was nothing to be worried about. What was Rip going to do? Yell at me? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had done it. I’d mastered getting yelled at as a kid. It wasn’t like he would hit me or call me stupid or hint that my entire existence was a mistake. He would make a face, use that condescending tone he used on everyone regularly, maybe he’d be grumpy for a few days, and then…
He’d decide to fire me.
No big deal.
I could find another job. I had job offers pop up every few months. Sure, none of them were in Houston, and sure I didn’t want to change jobs and start over again around people who didn’t know me and didn’t care about me, but….
Don’t you dare get upset, Luna, my brain warned me. Don’t you even think about it.
I took another deep breath, but it went in jagged and crooked. I’d own up to my mistakes, I had sworn to myself a long time ago. I’d take responsibility for my actions.