The Bikini Car Wash (14 page)

And the cars! They were working as fast as they could, but the line didn’t get shorter, it got longer. Long enough that
they were double-parked down Grosvenor. And shiny, perfectly cleaned vehicles were rolling off the lot. Cash was filling up the register. It was everything Andi could have hoped for. Until the police showed up.

PETE WAS RUNNING LATE.
It was after ten o’clock when he pulled his car out of the driveway. He’d not been sleeping well. He was staying up late watching bad late-night comedy that never made him laugh. Then once he finally forced himself to go to bed, he would toss and turn all night. He was worried. And it was the kind of worried that was hard to get a handle on. The kind where a dozen different problems vied for attention, none of which, by themselves could really throw you off. Together, however, they created a seemingly insurmountable hurdle.

The economy was bad. The cost of his employee benefits was through the roof. He was being underbid by the big-box chain stores. He was being undercut by his father.

Most of that was unfixable, but he continued to lie awake and ruminate on it as if a solution could be found. Always, adding to that, was pent-up sexual frustration.

He really should take the time to go out and find himself a girlfriend.

Pete was never going to be a player kind of guy. He was just not going to be able to go out and score a new girl night after night. Even if he wanted to,
who has that kind of time?
he asked himself.

That was why marriage to Minx had been so perfect for him. She was so beautiful, impeccably charming, the ultimate arm candy. She was only so-so in the sack, but quantity had been more important to him than quality. And she was totally involved with her own life, her friends, her shopping, that she was able to give him limitless hours to concentrate on his job.

He was yawning as he drove down Grosvenor Avenue. Perhaps he should get Miss Kepper to put an ad in the paper for him.

Pete chuckled.
Yeah, Peterson,
he thought to himself.
Imagine the line of job seekers Miss Kepper would come up with for you. The only attractive women she ever recommends are over forty and with big angry husbands.

He thought about the two candidates she’d come up with for the advertising job. One was a retired second-grade teacher. The other, claiming newspaper experience, had delivered the
Plainview Public Observer
door-to-door for fifteen years. He didn’t think either of them would know a concept-
driven advertising campaign if they saw one. How on earth could he expect them to plan one?

As he neared the store the traffic slowed to a crawl. This was extremely unusual. In fact, traffic was pretty unusual just on its own. He assumed that it must be a fender-bender up ahead. He hoped it didn’t involve any of his employees or any company vehicles. He finally realized that the cars in the right lane were all lined up for something. It wasn’t until he got to the entrance to the parking lot that he realized that they were lined up for the car wash.

Well, that’s good,
he thought to himself. After the way his dad messed up Wolkowicz’s last business proposal, he really hoped she’d be able to make a go of washing cars on that corner again. And if the line and the crowd of people standing around was any indication, she must be having an excellent opening day.

He was whistling by the time he parked his car. He made his way into the front door of Guthrie Foods. The minute he stepped inside he felt something different. It was nothing negative. Just a strange titter of excitement that would have been imperceptible to those who didn’t work in that building day after day. It was noticeable enough to cause Pete to pause.

He saw Neal, the produce manager, struggling with an unruly mound of cantaloupes. No one else in the department was in sight. Pete rushed over to help. Together they quickly got the stack stable and in no danger of falling to the floor.

“So, what’s up this morning?” Pete asked him.

“Did you see the car wash as you came in?”

“Oh, yeah, I did,” Pete told him. “I think it’s great.”

“You do?”

The man’s response wasn’t so much surprised as skeptical. Pete didn’t like that so much. He was sure that it was because his father had been unwelcoming to Andi’s prospective coffee business on the street. He didn’t want anybody to think that he agreed with that, that it would continue to be the policy of Guthrie Foods to kneecap anyone who had the audacity to try to open up nearby.

“Business is good for the neighborhood,” he told the produce manager. “Any business is good.”

Neal’s eyebrows went up. “Well, it certainly does bring people into the area,” he agreed. “But not everybody is happy about it.”

“They’re not?”

The produce man wiped his hands on his apron. “I’d say the employees here are split about 50/50 on it,” he said. “And it’s not just women vs men. Some folks just think, ‘well good luck and good for her’ and others are shocked or think it’s bad for the neighborhood.”

“Well, I think it’s great,” Pete said. “I want to do everything I can to support the place. So just tell anyone who asks that they can expect to see me driving a much cleaner car in the future.”

Neal gave a strange little chuckle.

“You should do the same,” Pete told him. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of weekend chores without having to wash the car. When you take your break, wander over there and see what they can do for you.”

The produce manager shook his head. “I don’t think my wife would be too crazy about that,” he said. “It’s all right for a single guy like you, but I sure don’t want to get myself into hot water.”

Pete couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.

“Why should your wife even care who washes your car?” he asked.

Neal rubbed his bald spot in lieu of scratching his head and gave Pete an incredulous grin. “Well, she does,” he answered. “And even if she didn’t, Cher-L is working over there. Even a stupid man would know to keep his distance.”

Pete was surprised to hear that his former employee was working there. It seemed like a much more laborious job than Cher-L was really cut out for. But then, jobs were hard to find.

“Good for Cher-L,” he said. Pete was pretty sure that everybody in the store knew she’d been fired, but it was important to keep a positive attitude about anyone who’d once been in his employ. “I hope she does well. And I honestly look forward to seeing her.”

Neal made a strange choking sound.

“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” the man said, laughing. “Several of the fellows are already talking about getting a close-up view without the white coat and plastic cap.”

Pete didn’t quite know what he meant by that. He went on about his business, doing a complete walk-through of the aisles, greeting his employees with a “good morning” before heading up to his office. He glanced in on Miss Kepper as he passed. Her chair was empty as was the room. Although her schedule was officially weekdays, more often than not she put in a few hours on Saturday morning as well. A second later he heard voices down the hallway. She must be in his office, he thought. He continued down to his door and stepped inside.

A trio of young guys guiltily jumped back from the window. He recognized them as a bag boy and two members
of the stock crew. Pete couldn’t imagine any reason why these guys would be in his office. And one of them was trying to hide something palm-size and yellow behind his back.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Darnell, the bag boy, quickly answered, “Nothing!” His voice was at least a half octave higher than usual.

All three looked embarrassed. The two older guys mumbled unintelligibily.

It was then that Pete noticed the opened packaging lying on the floor. He bent over and picked it up as they eyed him warily.

The paperboard and plastic had come from the store’s toy aisle.

“Jungle Jeff Safari,” he read aloud. And then the words underneath. “Real Binoculars.”

“I was going to put those back,” Brian, the eldest of the three told him. Then quickly he restated. “Actually, I was going to buy them.”

Pete held out his hand and Derek, who’d been trying to hide the pilfered product behind his back, placed it in Pete’s hand.

He held the yellow plastic and continued to eye the three questioningly. There was nothing to see out his window but the parking lot and the car wash. Looking at the parking lot would not require binoculars.

“What? Are you spying on Cher-L?”

They all blushed very guiltily. Pete knew the young woman was not particularly well-liked at the store. She’d been lazy and a bit of a troublemaker. But why would anyone want to spy on her at her new job?

“We were just looking,” Brain admitted defensively. “There’s no law against looking.”

“No,” Pete agreed. “There is no law against looking. But you don’t have to do it from my office or with company merchandise. Maybe you should just get back to work.”

“Yes, sir,” all three agreed. They made a hasty exit.

Pete was left holding the binoculars. They definitely couldn’t go back into their packaging. He held them up to his eyes. He saw nothing but brown. When he glanced to see what he was aiming at, he realized that the brown was his desk. He walked over to the window. There was still a crowd over at the car wash. Through the binoculars he saw several guys standing around. As he panned across the line of cars he suddenly saw a naked woman’s backside bent over a bumper. He was so startled that he nearly dropped the binoculars. He quickly put them back in place, not sure that he could believe his eyes.

Yes, it was a nice-size, generously rounded female backside that was virtually naked but for a tiny triangle of red material that disappeared between the cheeks of her bottom.

It was not until she stood up and turned around that he recognized her.

“Wolkowicz?” he whispered aloud.

He wouldn’t have known her, but then he’d never seen her like this. Everything that had happened that morning, everything that had been said suddenly made sense. It was so obvious. As obvious as the excellent curves of Andi Wolkowicz. Who knew that such a woman lurked beneath those baggy coveralls? Pete was stunned, amazed, virtually dumbstruck and he couldn’t stop looking.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Pete startled as Miss Kepper stood in the doorway. He resisted the impulse to hide the binoculars behind his back.

Thankfully, the phone rang, saving him from having to answer.

The policeman, Officer Mayfield, was all business. Andi could appreciate that.

“We’ve had complaints,” he said. “Several calls came into dispatch.”

“There is nothing illegal about washing cars,” Andi said, defensively.

“No, ma’am, there’s not,” he agreed. “However this line of cars double-parked, that’s illegal. And all the gawkers driving by at ten miles an hour, that’s snarling traffic.

“Perhaps if you gir—uh—women put on some cover-ups that might be helpful.”

There was a whine of complaint from those patrons standing about. Someone in the crowd yelled something like “Why don’t you go after some real criminals!”

Andi didn’t want to stir up any trouble. She glared in the direction of the offending comment.

“The policeman is just doing his job,” she said, to anyone listening, but mostly to Officer Mayfield.

“I don’t know what we can do about the fellows driving by,” she said.

“Well, you can tell these guys who are loitering here and those double-parked to come back when there is not a line,” he said.

Andi hoped that time would never come.

“I’ll give them all appointments,” she said. “That way everybody who’s not on the lot can
loiter
elsewhere.”

Officer Mayfield wasn’t so sure that would work, but Andi was convinced, or at least she accepted it as a viable option. It would be better to have the crowd standing around waiting. It hyped up the place, making it a desirable location, but rationing services could also build business. And although there was some concern that, once they left, they might not come back. Andi had faith in her smart-aleck, big-talking, testosterone driven customers. If a woman in a skimpy bikini asked them to meet her at a certain time, only a serious setback could keep them away.

Andi left the car washing to Tiff and Cher-L for several minutes as she walked down the line of waiting cars, explained the situation and gave out return times with no waiting. She quickly discovered that the street was not a good place. Face-to-face, the guys might be leering but they were nice. Just driving in the anonymity of their cars and with buddies to egg them on, they hollered out things to her that weren’t just suggestive, they were suggestions.

Andi feigned total deafness. If they wanted to get a reaction from her, they needed to step up and get their cars washed. Her customers, however, had perfect hearing and to her surprise, they didn’t appreciate hearing her insulted. The verbal altercations were rapid-fire and intense. It was a strange world when a near-naked woman on the street can evoke reactions that probably should have been reserved for mom or sis.

Officer Mayfield was still standing around and watching the proceedings when she got back. He was mostly watching Cher-L who was posing provocatively for him, as she had done for one fellow or another through most of the morning. Andi couldn’t tell if the policeman liked what he saw or was
merely watching for something he could arrest her for. His young, square-jawed face didn’t show so much as a hint of expression. And regulation sunglasses hid whatever secrets might be in his eyes.

“They’re all leaving,” Andi told him with forced cheerfulness. “Sorry about getting things so backed up. It’s…it’s our opening day and it’s all new and lots of people are showing up. By next week we’ll be old news and the crowds will dwindle down.”

“Are you still going to be wearing what you’re wearing?” the policeman asked.

“Uh…yes,” Andi answered.

“Then I expect you’ll draw more than your fair share of attention all summer.”

Andi couldn’t tell if that was a criticism or an encouragement.

The young policeman turned his back on Cher-L. He stood facing the street observing the traffic.

“Just to let you know,” he said to Andi quietly. “There are a lot of people who are calling in wanting to know what’s going on in this place. Wanting to know who let you open this business right in the middle of downtown.”