The bright mood of this morning, darkens as the main event of the day comes closer, the deposition with Tanner. Harvey is ready to jump out of his skin as Tanner starts his deposition. He knows this is not going to end well and despite what everyone happens to think, Harvey Specter has emotions. At this moment, they are flowing pretty close to the surface. With Tanner, the emotion riding to the surface is anger, unadulterated anger.
For argument's sake, he may have loved Scottie at some point in time. If it wasn't love, it was pretty close to love. He doesn't need Tanner beating down the women in his life to break him. He will do what he does best, he will close Ava. He just has to figure out how and when. First he needs Scottie to remove the Darby shackles from him to get this done and that is going to take some wooing. This is a moment when the only options are bad and worse.
The wooing of Scottie has pulled him away from Tess for the last few days and that is making Harvey uncomfortable. He has exchanged a few texts with Tess during her shifts but that has been the extent of contact since he saw for that brief time on her birthday. Fortunately, Tess has been preoccupied with a bad run of shifts at work and a project at the shop. If she is mad or annoyed, she is not showing any indication of displeasure. The timing is perfect but he is finding that he actually… kind of… misses her active presence in his life.
Donna walks in catching him staring at something on his phone… again. "Harvey." Harvey doesn't answer or acknowledge her. "Harvey." Again, Harvey does not answer or acknowledge her. She pulls his phone from his hands. "What?"
"Stop acting like a 12 year old girl and just go talk to her." Donna's tone is stern. Tess had extended Mike's loan of the car since she was unavailable due to work. Mike had planned to return the car today. Donna offers this as the perfect excuse drag Harvey's guilt ridden behind to see Tess. "Louis has Mike on a case… go return the damn car before it's grand theft auto." Donna was going to drop off the car as a favor but decides to drop the keys and the parking stub on in the middle of Harvey's desk. Harvey gives her the look as he puts the keys and stub in his pocket for later.
Tess is working away at the shop on Travis Tanner's Mustang. She finished the Chevelle and has it tucked in the back of the shop. A delay on the parts for the Mustang allowed Tess to get the Chevelle done in less than five days, five really long days. She had not been on a mission like that in a long time. Paddy could only figure that she must have had time on her hands. If she wasn't at the station, Tess was here. The last time she did work like that was the '69. Paddy is in the front office as Harvey walks in.
"Hi, is Tess here?" Paddy saw the Porsche pull in the lot through the window. He wonders if this is perhaps the new guy in Tess' life since this is definitely not the kid brother looking stand in that she mentioned. The gentleman in view is definitely Tessie's style. Suit... nice hair.. yep, definitely to Tesla's taste.
"Hi, I'm Rick. Tess' partner." Paddy extends his hand towards Harvey as he enters the garage. "Hi, Harvey. Harvey Specter… I brought the car back that Tess had loaned my associate."
Harvey is a little shocked at the appearance of Tess' partner. He has a bit of the Wolfman Jack thing going on complete with sleeve tattoos. It was not what he was expecting. Paddy on the other hand is not surprised at all, Harvey is right up Tess' alley.
"Come on, she's in here." Paddy leads Harvey to the garage area. As soon as the door opens, Paddy can hear the music blaring from the office, Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons is pouring through the speakers. He knows exactly what this means. He puts his finger to his lips and leads Harvey into the garage. Now, Harvey is more than curious as to what is going on. The song changes to "Who Loves You." The men stand back and watch Tess theatrically sing along to the music as she is working on the car. All in all it is quite a show with a torque wrench for a microphone. At the end of the song, Tess sees movement out of the corner of her eye as she lowers the music with the remote in her pocket.
"How long have you two been standing there?" She turns around to look at them. Harvey takes in the coveralls and bandanna in her hair wrapped like Rosie the Riveter. There is a smear of grease on Tess's face.
Paddy answers for the pair with a laugh in his voice. His Tessie is definitely happy. "Long enough." Tess does not look at Harvey directly though she can see the huge smile on Harvey's face.
"You know I'm going to have to make it look like an accident and bury the bodies in Jersey. It's a shame 'cause I was kind of fond of both of you." Tessie finishes with the engine and closes the hood on the Mustang.
"I'll leave you to the pretty baby. Night Tess." Paddy shakes Harvey's hand and walks back into the office. Harvey walks into the bay where Tess is working.
"What happened to the horsey?" Harvey takes in the well restored Boss. Tess leans against it. So far, the restoration is coming along quite nicely. "Lake… big lake." She looks over the car. "Well, since I like you. You know who's car this is?"
Harvey gives her a curious look. "Travis Tanner." Harvey is a a car guy to the bottom of his soul. Despite what he thinks of Travis Tanner, Harvey would never wish ill will on a fine machine like this. "Alcohol or Ex?"
Tess smiles that Harvey's assumption was the same as hers. "Ex-wife." Harvey has a sense of poetic justice as he surveys the former Ford U-Boat.
"What brings you here?" Tess gets Harvey a beer and herself something quite different.
"Are you drinking dirty martini mixer?" Tess holds the bottle. "Hell ya… lot better than the crap in Gatorade. I was in an oven a little too long… dehydrated." She taps the bottle against Harvey's. "It was a busy couple of tours. Seems there are a lot of mice with matches on Halloween."
"You must like olives?" He watches her down the bottle of mixer.
Tess laughs. "No… can't stand them but this stuff really works." She tosses the bottle into the trash and grabs a beer for a chaser.
"Tesla, you are definitely unique." Harvey toasts Tess as she takes a sip of the chaser.
They are leaning on Tess' work bench. As they chat, Harvey looks down to have a picture catch his eye. He picks it up. It is a picture of him and Marcus. They were both very young. "Tess, where did you get this?" He turns towards Tess with the picture between his fingertips.
At this moment Tess knows she is snagged. On impulse more that instinct, she makes a decision. "Come on… I want to show you something." She takes Harvey to the next bay where there is a tarp covered car.
"Close your eyes." Harvey obliges her request out of curiosity. Tess pulls the tarp from the car and walks back to her desk for a second. "Open them."
"Wow, my father had one just like this when I was a kid." Harvey walks up to the car as childhood memories flood his mind. As he runs his hands down the hood, it occurs to him, the picture… where the hell would Tess have gotten the picture. He turns towards her in disbelief.
"This isn't?" Tess nods as she hands him a piece of paper. "Tess, this is." Harvey stops as the names on the title hit him.
"Harvey this is your father's Chevelle." Tess leans against the wall. She was not ready for this and at this point in pretty much all in.
"How the hell did you know my father had a '69 Chevelle?" Harvey is dumbfounded as he leans on the the hood. Tess pulls out her phone and walks over to Harvey. She shows him the picture she took of the picture at his penthouse. The picture of his father, Marcus and him with the car.
"How the hell did you find it." Harvey is in a state of shock he cannot believe that his father's Chevelle beneath his fingertips.
Tess smiles. "That was easy…the plate in the picture. Traced the VIN and title. Kind of into cars, I like cars with a story."
Harvey realizes that Tess already had the car titled over to him. His name is one down from his father's on the title. "Tess, how much do you want for this? I have to have it." Harvey cannot take his hands off of the car. His father loved this car. Some of his happiest moments were in this car.
"Harvey… its yours. She hands him the keys." There is an old ratty baseball bat key chain on them just as his father left them. Tess knows her hunch about the car was right from Harvey's reaction. She could tell from the expressions in the picture that this car had a good story.
"Where was it all this time?" Harvey opens the door and looks inside. "A barn in Lancaster."
"Like Amish country?" Harvey has to laugh. He is actually overwhelmed at this moment.
"Exactly... Actually had to use a horse to get it out of the barn." Tess sits up on the table as she watches Harvey in his bliss. This is something she loves about this business. Every so often, you get the right car with the right guy and it's magic. Plus, she is kind of crazy about this particular guy.
"Where did you get the picture?" He points to the picture that is still in his fingertips.
"It was in the car." Tess walks over and pulls out the box. She shows Harvey everything that was retrieved from the interior. Harvey pokes through the box. So much of it was his father's before he had to sell the car.
"Tess, this is like a time machine." Harvey keeps casting looks between the car and Tess.
"Good thing I installed an after market flux capacitor. Want to take it for a spin?" Tess' eyes light up at the thought of being able to experience the first ride with Harvey.
Harvey looks back at her with the giddy look of a kid at Christmas. "Had Donna insure it this morning." Tess tells him with a smile.
"Donna knew about this?" Harvey does a double take towards Tess as the sentence leaves her lips about Donna.
"I'll deny everything and demand video." Tess heads over to open the bay door to release the car to the great outdoors.
Harvey is truly blown away by the outrageous gesture on Tess' part. She had no motive. She again asked for nothing. Harvey cannot figure her out. The one thing that he does know is that he doesn't want to let this one go…
This did not quite go as Tess had planned but that is the beauty of life. Sometimes, things don't go as planned, they work out even better.