Becoming Chloe by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Author:Catherine Ryan Hyde [Hyde, Catherine Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780375891427
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2008-11-04T05:00:00+00:00

I’m sitting on a tire just outside the service bay, drinking hot coffee. Watching Chloe win over a dog. A skinny little blue-eyed dog with an all-over itch and hardly any hair on its rump and docked tail.

The mechanic, Jim, is leaning into our engine compartment, but he sticks his head out and says, “That dog won’t come near you, miss, don’t take it personal. She’s just shy.”

I give Chloe three minutes to win that dog over.

We’ve had breakfast. I have to admit I feel better. Just getting fed and settled somewhere. Even though I know in my gut that we still have big problems. Unless the problem with the truck is something small and cheap. Thing is, I don’t think so. It didn’t sound small and cheap. It sounded big and expensive.

The mechanic waves me in. I get up and walk halfway into the service bay, then stop dead when I encounter a sign that says, ABSOLUTELY NO CUSTOMERS ALLOWED IN THE SERVICE AREA.

“Pay that no mind,” Jim says.

We lean into the engine together. He’s taken something off or apart. I can see engine parts that I know are normally covered. They shine with blackened oil. I try to look at the engine intelligently. As if I will be clear on what I see.

“I’m bad at this,” Jim says. “I hate to give bad news. I only like to tell people what I know they want to hear.”

“Okay, fine. Tell me what I want to hear.”

“Wish I could, dude. Wish I could.” Long beat. “Know anything about engines?”

“No.”

“Okay. It’s like this. The timing chain keeps the cam and the crank running together. That’s why it’s called a timing chain. Keeps the timing right between the valves and the pistons.”

“I thought it kept the timing right between the crank and the cam.”

“Right. Camshaft runs your valves. Crankshaft runs your pistons.”

“I’m confused.”

“Okay, let’s go at it another way. You got to have the timing right between your compression stroke and your exhaust stroke, and if you don’t . . .” Jim looks at my face and realizes I’m no closer to mastery. “Okay, maybe I’m trying to explain too much. You got serious damage inside this engine. It’ll have to be all torn down. Hard to say what we’ll find till we open her up. Maybe new pistons and valves and valve stems, and then maybe we’ll find out that the cylinder walls are scored and then maybe we can bore and sleeve, or maybe the engine is just trash and you’ll have to start all over again with a new short block.”

I recognized about three English words in all of that, and they all sounded expensive.

“How much money are we talking?”

“I’m not sure you even want to know.”

“What’s the very least it could be?”

“Well, we’re talking labor and machine work. Even with no nasty surprises I can’t see you getting off for less than eleven or twelve hundred.”

“Oh.”

“More than you can handle?”

“Oh, yeah. Truck’s not even worth that. Is it?”

“Hell yeah it is.

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