Page 45 of The Rules of Dating My One-Night Stand
I shook my head. “His name is Rick. He took off when my mom told him she was pregnant.”
“So you’ve never met him?”
“I did once. I was maybe seven or eight. My mom and I were in the supermarket. Some guy with a long beard walked up to us and said hello. My mom turned to me and said, very matter-of-factly, ‘Devyn, this is your deadbeat father who doesn’t support you.’ I remember they talked for a minute or two, and then he looked at me, shrugged, and said, ‘Have a good life, kid. Try not to grow up and be like your mother.’ And that was that. My mother never talked about it with me, and I never mentioned it again.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“At least he gave me good advice. I spent the next twenty years trying to benothinglike Vera.”
Owen’s navigation system interrupted, telling us to get off at the next exit for our first truck-mechanic shop. We had thirty-eight places plotted on the paper map he’d marked up. Five miles from the highway, we pulled into shop number one. It was a bit off the beaten path, but the big trucks parked all over required a lot of space, and downtown Boston was expensive.
Owen and I went in together. The guy at the front counter had a cigarette hanging between his lips, and the nearby ashtray was overflowing. He didn’t look up when I said hello.
“Is there any chance you have someone working here named Bo?” I asked.
“Nope. No Bo.”
“Is it possible you might know a truck mechanic with that name?”
The guy raised his head and frowned. “What do I look like? A directory? No, I don’t know no Bo, and there ain’t one who works here. Anything else?”
I sighed. “No. Thank you for your time.”
The guy manning the desk at the second shop was a lot friendlier, but he didn’t know Bo either. By lunchtime, we’d hit sixteen shops, and I was starting to feel like this trip was a big waste of time.
“Don’t get discouraged,” Owen said. “We’ll find them.”
I appreciated his positivity, but he didn’t have a lifetime of experience trying to find Vera. The woman disappeared better than a magician.
We spent the next four hours following the map from stop to stop. A few places weren’t in business anymore, and by three o’clock we only had one left to visit.
We went inside, but I felt defeated before we even spoke to anyone. Owen must’ve sensed it, because he spoke to the guy behind the desk this time, instead of me.
“Hey. How’s it going? We’re looking for a mechanic named Bo.”
“What did he do? Did your rig break down?”
Owen shook his head. “No. Nothing like that. We just need to talk to him. It’s personal, actually.”
The guy nodded. “Bo’s off today.”
My eyes widened. “But he works here?”
“Are you looking for Bo Ridge?”
“We’re not sure of his last name,” I said. “Did he start recently?”
“About a week and a half ago. Maybe two?”
“Is there any chance you saw a woman with him? Her name is Vera.”
“Didn’t catch a name, but there’s a blonde that drops him off and picks him up sometimes. Came at lunch the other day. I’m pretty sure they boinked in the car. She was sitting on his lap in the front seat, and that hunk of junk they drive was rocking away.”
That sounds like Vera…
“Was she thin, with too much makeup and a ton of bracelets?”
“Not sure about the bracelets, but skinny with makeup fits the bill.”