Fast Cars and Intergalactic Speed Dating

3: Electric Pulse

Garth had been in his office for over twenty-four hours. Richard, dressed in his terry cloth dressing gown and still toweling his hair dry, paused briefly outside Garth's closed office door. There was music playing inside; it was classic country from the era when the singers wore rhinestones on their shirts.

With a grimace, Richard turned back down the hall. If Garth was going to lock himself away with classic country as a security measure, Richard would not interfere. Besides, he had plenty to do to prepare for the race this weekend.

Richard got dressed. He paused on his way out of his room just long enough to check his reflection, raking his fingers through his disheveled brown hair. He needed to see a barber soon. Charlise hated his hair to get too long.

The errant thought took him off guard, kicking him right in the gut.

Charlise.

What did he care what she thought any more? She'd left him with little more than the shirt on his back, alone in a country that wasn't home but had become so close that returning to England hadn't made sense.

But her preferences had left fingerprints all over his life, and every once in a while, one of those fingerprints came into focus and demanded attention, like a grimy smudge on a computer screen.

Richard cocked his head at his reflection. Screw Charlise. He looked pretty good with longish hair.

He went out through the front door. He passed the beat-up Ford pickup truck sitting in the driveway—Garth's—and bent down to lift open the door of the detached garage. It rattled up on its track, revealing Richard's pride and joy: a '72 split bumper Camaro, canary yellow with black racing stripes.

Richard had had three loves in his life. One had been his career, the junction between science and space. Another had been his wife. But before either of them, there had been the car. He'd saved up for it since he was a teenager and had had it for almost all his adult life.

The car had been the one thing he'd held onto, the one thing he wouldn't let Charlise take. He'd let her have the house, the dog, the $2,500 dining set she'd begged him to buy. He'd let her have everything of value they'd collected together, and she still had some brittle shards of his heart, too.

But he'd kept the car. It was the one thing Richard wouldn't have even considered giving up.

Richard stood for a moment, still bearing the weight of the garage door in his uplifted hands, and stared at the Camaro. Bathed in the slanting light of the afternoon, it was all sleek lines and promises, and for a moment, he was at peace.

"Richard!"

Sighing, Richard thrust up on the garage door, giving it the momentum required to slide it fully onto its track on the garage ceiling. He turned and looked back toward the house to see Garth leaning half out of his office window.

"Richard!" Garth called, his hands cupped to the sides of his mouth as if Richard weren't standing in plain sight no more than fifteen metres away.

"What?"

"Richard, you gotta come see this. I'm a genius!"

"Garth, I've got some work to do on the Camaro for the race this weekend. I'll be in soon. Besides, you've been working non-stop for over a day. Why don't you go have a shower and get some kip?"

Garth frowned. "Are you trying to force fish on me again?"

"Not kippers. Kip. Noun. Sleep. A nap."

"I do not need a kip, but I am amenable to your other terms. You can have an hour. I'll have a shower. Then!—" and here, Garth waved his arms dramatically— "Then, we'll make history!"