The Book of Broken Hearts

For Zoe Strickland,
my favorite bookworm ever

The law of probability dictates that with three older sisters, a girl shall inherit at least one pair of cute shorts that actually fit. Agreed?

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If these things could talk, they’d be all,
Hi! We’re Araceli’s old cutoffs!
And I’d go,
Congrats on fulfilling your destiny, because you totally cut off circulation to the vital female organs! High fives!

Actually, they were so tight up in there that if they could talk, it would sound more like,
Umph mphh mphh hrmm.

What?

Exactly.

“Ready to do this?” I killed the engine and smiled at Papi across the front seat. He didn’t say one way or the other, just squinted as I leaned over to do my lip gloss in the rearview.

“You look old,
mi querida.
”

“Says the guy who microwaves his socks?”

“They were cold.” He shrugged. Seriously. Like
I
was the crazy one in this operation.

“Lucky you didn’t start a fire.” I hopped out of the truck and hooked the leash on Pancake, our golden retriever, who was suddenly doing this shake-rattle-and-roll dance with his dog booty—pretty adorable.

I de-wedged my sister’s ex-denim and turned back to Papi. “Ever hear of dressing the part? If they take us seriously, maybe we won’t get screwed.”

He appraised Araceli’s shorts and the strategically ripped Van Halen tee I’d pilfered from Lourdes’s castaways. “Jude Catherine Hernandez. I’d like to see
anyone
ride a motorcycle in that outfit.”

I stifled an eye roll.
Viejito
hadn’t ridden a bike in thirty years. I, on the other hand, was totally up on this stuff. I’d bookmarked practically every Sturgis video diary ever posted, and thanks to a few Red Bull–and-Oreo-fueled YouTube all-nighters, I was approaching expert status in the vast and shadowy realm of motorcycle culture.

Leather, chains, and flagrant bralessness? Bring it.

Papi squinted at me again. “You look like—”

“Your favorite daughter? Tell me about it.” I slipped an arm around his waist. Aside from my unequivocally pro-undergarment stance, I felt at least 87 percent biker-babe legit as I navigated Fifth Street, shoulders tucked neatly under the arm of a man old enough to be my father.

Okay, in all fairness, he
was
my father, but still. Manufactured authenticity? Phrase of the day, people!

“Duchess Custom Cycles.” Papi read the sign just as I caught our mismatched reflection in the glass. He’d insisted on wearing an insulated flannel shirt and his complimentary
THANKS FOR SUBSCRIBING TO THE WESTERN CHANNEL, PARDNER
cowboy hat, despite the fact that it was five hundred degrees outside, and I would’ve gotten more coverage from a skein of yarn and some duct tape.

Sweet Jeremiah Johnson, what a pair!

Papi opened the door, and I hobbled in with Pancake, still trying to coax out those unforgiving shorts. People probably thought I had some kind of medical issue, which was ironic considering the whole reason I’d gotten myself into this rollicking high-plains adventure in the first place.

Despite its royal moniker, Duchess met my research-supported expectations. Dusty. Grimy. Wallpapered with scantily clad women draped over motorcycles. I
so
blended in, but once the door shut behind us, my nose was assaulted by the tang of motor oil and sweat, and my mind flashed through all the things I
should’ve
been doing the summer after graduation: dorm-supply shopping. Summer theater at Upstart Crow. Sipping frozen Java Potions at Witch’s Brew and flirting with the East Coast kayakers who flooded Blackfeather, Colorado, every June.

Papi’s warm hand on my shoulder tugged me back to reality. We’d reached the service counter. A glass door behind it offered a view of the garage, a wide concrete space scattered with bike parts and rags and grease-smudged mechanics.

The guy who emerged through the door had a small mouth hidden behind a dried blond shrub of a goatee that made me think of the tumbleweeds that cruised Old Town all summer. He wiped his hands on a dingy cloth as he greeted us, eyes lingering judgmentally on my shirt.

Jeez.
I guess Pancake was just being nice when he gave my outfit the patented three-bark approval this morning.

“We need some info on restoring a vintage panhead,” I said. “And a mechanic who can work at our place. Blackfeather Harley thought you could give my dad a better deal.”

The guy’s smile warmed when I said “dad,” and I relaxed. But only a little, since my shorts were still trying to ride off into the sunset via Butt Cheek Pass and it was a challenge to stand still.

“We can sure try, darlin’.” He spoke around a gnawed-up toothpick that had probably been in his mouth since the seventies. “Name’s Duke. Whatcha got?”

“Sixty-one Duo-Glide. Bought her in Buenos Aires from the original owner in seventy-eight.” Papi rattled off the specs, right down to the odometer reading and the customizations he’d done before he biked through the homeland when he was seventeen.

The story was a sock rocker for sure—I hadn’t even heard it all yet—and Duke’s face lit up at the telling.

Adventurous.

Daring.

Totally badass.

This
was the Bear Hernandez everyone knew and loved. Not the guy cooking his socks or forgetting the way home from work. Papi’s eyes shone as he spoke, and my heart thumped hard behind Eddie Van Halen’s face.

The old man was still in there somewhere—I knew it.

The bike would bring him back. We just had to get her running again. A few replacement parts, paint job, good as new.

I handed over my cell to show Duke the picture.

“Wow,” Duke said. “You had her in storage all this time?”

“
Sí.
She’s been idle since . . .” Papi squinted at Pancake as if the answer were written in those big brown dog eyes. “Pretty sure Reagan was in office last time I rode. She won’t turn over. Brake lines were going too, if I remember right.”

“The tires are all soggy,” I said helpfully, “and some of the pipe things on the side are loose.” I tugged my shirt down over the strip of belly that showed whenever I took a deep breath.
Pipe things. Soggy tires.
Apparently my extensive research didn’t cover the technical terms.

Duke inspected the photo. The paint was fading, she was caked in rust and dirt, but it wasn’t hard to imagine her glory days. Baby blue and cream, chrome that must’ve gleamed like white light. She was probably strong once, really tore up those Argentine mountain roads.

And then my parents got married. Moved to the States. Had Lourdes. Araceli. Mariposa. And eight years after that, me.

Surprise!

Out in the garage, an engine growled and the mechanics cheered. Pancake whimpered and curled up at my feet.

Harleys.
It was hard to picture Papi riding one of those things, but I guess he was pretty hard core back in the day. He had a posse and everything: Las Arañas Blancas. The White Spiders.

“Queridita.”
Papi grinned when the rumbling stopped. “That’s the sound of happiness, yeah?”

Actually my idea of happiness involved less machinery and testosterone than your average Harley offered up, but I returned his smile. Despite my wardrobe malfunction and the general dangers of hanging out with Papi in public these days, we’d already enjoyed a fine breakfast at Ruby’s Mountainside Café and managed to walk all the way from the truck to Duchess without Papi trying to steal a car or kiss another man’s wife.

Real bang-up day so far.

“Good news and bad news.” Duke returned my phone. “Good? She’s a real beauty, and we can definitely fix ’er up.”

Papi was suddenly looking out the front door like he needed to know the exits, needed a quick way out, and I held my breath, hoping that whatever came out of Duke’s mouth next didn’t spark one of Papi’s meltdowns and send him running into the street.

Mom would kill me if I lost him again. She’d seriously crush up my bones and throw me down the side of a
mountain, and the Holy Trinity of my all-knowing sisters would stand there shaking my ashes from their hair and rolling their eyes about how even postmortem I couldn’t follow directions.

Keep him close to home, Jude. Keep him calm and focused.

But they weren’t there when I found the bike in the storage barn last week, when I cast off boxes of Christmas decorations and old report cards and peeled back the dusty blue tarps and asked Papi to tell me all about it.

They didn’t see the light in his eyes, flickering on after months of darkness.

And other than a little dignity and the ability to walk normally for a few hours on account of these shorts, I wasn’t planning to lose anything today.

“The bad news?” I asked.

“Time and money, honey.” Duke swished the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Repairs, paint, accessories . . . that’s a helluva restore. I’m not sure we can beat the big boys much on price. Hate to say this, but you’d probably get a better deal tradin’ up, gettin’ the old man something newer.”

Heat flooded my face. “He’s not old.”

“It’s she. And a sixty-one’s goin’ on more than fifty years, darlin’. Not a lot of miles left, if you catch my drift.”

I catch your drift, all right.

I looped my arm through Papi’s and leaned on his shoulder. Pancake let out a soft whine.

“We aren’t trading up.” I’d already been through all that with Blackfeather Harley. “Look, I’ll be honest with you here, Mr. Duchess—”

“Duke.”

“Duke. We don’t have a ton of cash. What if we use rebuilt parts?” I met his gaze and held it, hoping this wouldn’t require any waterworks. Calling up a few tears was an option, but the biker-babe mascara made the prospect less appealing.

He stroked his goatee, hopefully considering our predicament. At least, how our predicament looked from the outside: Sticker shock. A girl trying to help her daddy with just enough babysitting money to cover the basics.

“Problem isn’t just parts.” He was still going to town on that toothpick, which seemed like some kind of motorcycle guy code; I’d seen it in the videos. “It’s labor. Only got one guy experienced on vintage bikes, and he ain’t that cheap. Ain’t that available, either—he’s booked till fall. When you lookin’ to get ’er done?”

“I’m going on a road trip in August,” I said. Fingers crossed Zoe and Christina hadn’t finalized plans without me. “So, before then?”

Duke sucked in a breath. “Gonna be tight. For an off-site gig, at my lowest rates, I could only spare my junior mechanic. He’s not completely certified yet.”