her to be pumped up about her newly adopted country. He felt like such an asshole. He needed to lighten up the conversation. Fast.
“So, ah, judging from your accent,” said Woody, nervously chuckling, “I suspect you’re not from ah, well, you know, Brooklyn.”
Madalina cocked her head and furled her brow. “Excuse of me?”
“What I mean to say is, what country are you from?”
“Ah, from Romania.”
He had this sudden urge to play connect the dots with every one of those freckles on her chest.
“I live on Black Sea. Is called Constanta. Very big city. Almost as big as Bucharest. Many touristic attractions. You must go sometime, I think.”
“Who knows, perhaps I will. Maybe you can, you know, tell me more about your country sometime.”
Woody bit his tongue. How could he have used such an unoriginal come-on line? He thought of himself as reasonably intelligent, but why was he acting like such a moron with this girl?
“It would be my pleasures to do this for you.”
“You would?” he said, his voice cracking. Had she actually taken the bait and not regurgitated it? “I mean, of course, there’s no rush and—”
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “Look at time! I must go now or I will miss bus.”
“I—I can give you a lift.”
Had he been more confident, he would have offered to deliver Madalina right to her doorstep. Or clear across the continent if she asked.
“Thank you, Voody, is very kind for you.”
“No big deal, really.”
But it was, however, major to him. And as they walked along the path toward the parking lot, each strand of his overgrown mop of brown hair stood on end. Lucky he had on his trusty baseball cap.
“So what will you do tonight, Voody? You will go out to make party in South Beach, yes?”
“Oh, no,” he said, tripping over a pebble on the pavement. “Not my thing. I’ll go home. Grab some dinner. And then spend the rest of the evening working on the Sponge. The Sea Sponge. That’s my sailboat. Or what will become my sailboat.”
“How big is Sea Sponge?”
“Thirty-seven feet. Not small, but not a yacht.”
“My papa, he makes ships.”
Sheeps.
It took him a second, but then he realized what she’d meant.
“Many people do this in Constanta. My papa, he is, how you say? He work with fire.”
“You mean a welder? Your dad uses a blow torch to melt the steel together?”
In order to help her understand, Woody tried pantomime. This spasticlike charade tickled Madalina.
“That was pretty lame, huh?”
“Elizabeth, she is right. You are so cute and sweet. I like you, Voody.”
He angled the brim of his hat down another notch and kept walking straight ahead.
“Well, this is me,” he said, patting the hood of a 1984 red pickup truck with numerous burnt-orange rust spots. “Not much to look at. A bit bent up, but the old gal gets me where I’m supposed to go. At least most of the time.”
Woody opened the passenger door for her.
“You keep unlocked?” she asked.
“Of course. I mean, who’d want to steal this truck anyway,” he said, laughing nervously.
Meanwhile, Woody discovered there was no room for Madalina to sit. He gathered a mound of papers, a cereal box, several empty coffee cups, a can of WD–40, a book on celestial navigation and a half-eaten piece of rawhide and in one fell swoop, dumped them all behind the seat.
“This is as good as it’s going to get, I’m afraid,” he said, giving the stained, torn upholstery a quick brush with the side of his hand, before heading to the driver’s side.
“You have dog, yes?” asked Madalina.
“Guess the hair was a dead give-away,” he said, sliding in next to her. “I’ve got this big old mutt who wandered into our yard one day when she was a pup. Name’s Sweetie. Hands down, she’s the love of my life. I mean, well, you know, in a manner of speaking she is,” he said, laughing nervously. “So, ah, do you like dogs?”
“We had back in my country when I was girl. But dog is very dead now.”
Woody offered his condolences, and then turned the key in the ignition only to discover his truck had suffered the same fate.
“What is wrong?”
“It’s the battery.”
“Is bad?”
“Well, it’s not too good.”
“Maybe I should start to make walk now, yes?”
But before Woody had a chance to convince Madalina to do otherwise, the artillery arrived.
A fully loaded H1 Alpha Hummer to be exact.
Bright “cock-blocking” yellow.
The left window of the Hummer opened. A burst of cold air along with the musical offerings of U2 blew out, followed by the appearance of a face with which Woody had been familiar for over ten years.
“Transportation problems, I presume?”
There was only one reason why an obnoxious prick like Hollings would skulk around someplace as “undesirable” as the employee’s parking lot, and Woody knew it had nothing to do with roadside assistance.
“Hey, Madalina! Remember me from this afternoon?”
“You are Todd, yes?”
Madalina pronounced his name so it sounded more like “toad.” A most appropriate choice, thought Woody.
“I came by the café to see if you needed a ride home,” said Todd. “But they said you’d just left. Or at least tried to, that is. Seeing as the Woodmeister here isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, looks like things have changed. Can I give you a lift?”
The girl’s eyes scanned the Hummer and then back across the truck. It was obvious which vehicle she preferred.
“You’re in a rush,” said Woody. “It’s all right. Go ahead with Todd.”
Madalina smiled plaintively and hugged her shoulders. “But I feel so bad…”
“Don’t worry. I’m cool.”
But this was far from the case.
Woody, now plumb out of ammunition, had simply surrendered without a fight.
Chapter 2
Woody revved up his engine one last time.
“You all set, man,” said Ariel, draping the jumper cables over his shoulder.
Ariel Vega, the club’s prized mechanic, was a stocky, middle-aged Afro-Cuban with golden fingers and a heart to match. When he was fifteen, he, along with his mother and ten other Balseros, had struggled onto the Miami shore after spending several weeks on a vessel bearing no resemblance to a Carnival cruise ship. This determined immigrant now owned a piece of his own American Dream—a modest home in Little Havana with money reserved for his kids’ college education; a privilege which he, himself, had been denied.
“What’s the matter with you, man? You look lower than a snake’s asshole.”
“Don’t wanna talk about it.”
“This