Chapter 19 – Trial by Fire
I wondered what they were up to at home as I walked up to the garage from Brian's boat. Were they backed up at home because I wasn't there? Was Dom bitching at everyone because of the extra work? Or because he was still mad at me for racing without his permission? Because I wasn't there to design for people who asked for me. Because he was being forced to admit to people I'd left him?
Or were things just fine? Did they never need me that much? Had it all been in my head that things depended on me? Were things smoother without me and Dom having our explosive fights, without Dom taking it out on the rest of the team that I'd fought with him?
He'd done a lot of that before. We'd have a fight then he'd take it out on the rest of the team. It didn't bother me that much when he did it to V because Vince would just tell him to fuck off and then get on with his life. Vince and Dom have that kind of relationship. Leon mostly just stood there with a pissed off look on his face and then shrugged it off when Dom was done yelling, sometimes then he'd shoot me a nasty look for making every fight worse then it had to be by bitching back at Dom. But most times after he did that he'd tell me he was sorry because he knew I shouldn't have to put up with the way Dom talked to me.
But we all mostly had an understanding that Dom didn't really mean what he was 'oh so calmly' yelling about and it was just his way of getting the anger out without really blowing up. It didn't make it ok, but it was better then us always walking on eggshells around him.
We all knew that if he didn't walk away from me and go take it out on someone else he and I would get into a fight that one of us wasn't walking away from. And considering the size difference it would likely be me. He never hit me, hit me. He almost did a whole bunch of times and he did slap me once when I said something really mean to him. We'd been locked in his room fighting for an hour and when I reached the end of my tether for it.
I told him it was all his fault the thing with the trucks went bad.
He called me a cynical bitch.
I told him I wished that he hadn't made me that way by being such a rude, egotistical, self-important asqueroso (asshole).
He had some other smart comment he came back with and I flew off the handle at him. I think I might have gone temporarily insane. But I said it all in Spanish, thinking he wouldn't get it. It went something like this.
"Ocho ochenta! Jodete y aprieta el culo! Vete al carajo! Me vale madre usted pedazo de pelotudo! Chinga tu madre usted hijo de puta!"
Now that literally means "I don't care what you say! Go fuck yourself! Go to the devil! I don't give a fuck you fucking idiot! Fuck your mother you son of a bitch!"
I assumed Dom would know it was bad, but have no idea how bad or what I'd said. It seems that he picked up enough Spanish in high school to get some of it and enough Spanish slang from sitting with Hector in math to fill in some of the blanks. So he slapped me.
You know the scene in Pretty Woman where Vivian wonders if they pull guys aside in high school and teach them just how to slap a woman to make it hurt as much as possible? I really wonder if they do that.
Dom's blow knocked my head sideways and rattled my teeth. It stung like a son of a bitch and started to swell right away. I took off out of his room with my eyes swimming with unshed tears and a look that Dom later described to Mia as a wounded doe, and down to Vince. I always ran to Vince. He always knew what to say to make things seem better. He could always calm me down, and that helped to keep me safe from running back to Dom and fighting more. Making things even worse.
That night his face just got all ruddy as he held me while I cried and made me keep the ice pack on my cheek even though the cold made it hurt worse, hoping it wouldn't bruise my 'pretty face'. I love Vince so much by times. I could see the little muscle in his cheek just ticking while he tried to calm himself down and stay with me instead of taking off to hunt for Dom's head. Vince couldn't stand men who hit women and I don't think he ever thought he'd see the day when it'd be Dom's head he wanted to bash in for it. But he'd also never seen me cry before that night, and he never has again to this day and I think that let him know I needed him more then he needed to go wail on Dominic.
I didn't want them to come to blows over what Dom had done to me because I was worried one of them wouldn't walk away from that fight either. They're both strong as bulls and equally bull headed. Vince has a liking for firearms that Dom doesn't but I don't think he ever would have shot Dom over it. But a good old fashioned street fight would not have been out of his reach, angry as he was.
Instead he stayed with me and I spent the night in his bed because I couldn't go back to Dom's room in the state I was in. It reminds me just how much alike Vince and Brian are in some ways. Vince never tried to take advantage of me; he just held me while I cried myself to sleep and watched over me all night.
Dom and I were frosty to each other at breakfast then we all went to work.
Jesse was doing a front brake job to some Nissan and he broke off the slider bolt. Dom was in a terrible mood so Jesse came to me about what to do. They always came to me about what to do about problems when Dom was in a bad mood.
I phoned Harry and there was no way we were getting a replacement till the next day. It's a specialized item, not just any bolt will work so we had to wait. Dom had promised the car would be ready by the end of the day and we all knew he was going to flip.
Dom came out to find out why the car was still in the air and not finished. Normally it wouldn't have been a big deal. Shit like that happens. Wasn't like it was Jesse's fault after all. It could have been anyone working on that car. The bold was weak, no one could have known. It's really better it broke off where we can know it's bad and fix it then have it break off some day when the owner is in an emergency braking situation.
Jesse told him what had happened and that the replacement would be in first thing in the morning at Harry's. Dom went ballistic and went to take it out on Jess because he was still mad at me. He went to take it out on Jess once and that was the first and only time that ever happened.
As soon as I saw him start to go in at the kid I literally dragged him into his office to 'talk'. I fought with him so bad about that that I almost made Dom cry. Jesse's like a kid, he's so eager to please. I wasn't having Dom yelling at Jesse because he just didn't know how to deal with his anger at me. It wasn't right for him to yell at anyone over it but least of all Jesse.
Then Leon did his thing and got Jesse calmed down, then Dom. And life went on. It always did.
I wonder how the dynamic works in the garage up here at Tej's? Do they have a baby to protect? A peacemaker to quiet their fights? A tough guy to protect them all? A leader to keep things running on time? A woman behind him who's really the one making it all work out?
And of course the question of the hour, the most important one of all is how will I fit in? What will my role become? I won't be the woman behind the man anymore. I won't be the woman the boss loves, or at least sleeps with. I'll be a nobody and the newest person around.
I see a lot of tires and oil changes in my near future. I know that's how it is for every new mechanic at every garage around but I don't have to like it.
The best feeling in the world is taking a car that runs like shit and with your own skills and TLC turning it into a purring kitten that runs like a wild mustang in the plains, all thundering hooves and flying manes and rippling muscles.
You don't get that same sense of accomplishment out of changing the oil and tires on grandma's Accord. And there was no guarantee that the work that came into Tej's is the same as what we got at DT. No one says Tej is as well known as Dom. Just because everyone brings their performance cars to Dom because he really is that damn good doesn't mean Miami feels the same about Tej.
I walked into the shop and things were running along great, or so it seemed. There were shiny cars all around and Jimmy, Tej, Brian and some other guy I'd never been introduced to were all under cars. Tej had a hoist for every bay which sure was nice. Dom's shop only has two so some of us are always working on creepers under a car that's up on stands. It works but it's a lot nicer to be on your feet then on your back on a board with wheels.
I walked up to Tej first thing.
"Sorry I slept in. I had a late night."
"Yeah Brian told me. You ready to work?"
"Yeah. Sure am. What should I do?"
"I'm going to have you work on this." Tej trailed off and walked me over to the farthest back bay where something was under a car cover.
"What is it?" I asked.
"My car."
"Ok, what's wrong with it?" I asked, worried. Working on the bosses car on my first day. Could that be a good thing?
"Oh, it'd be easier to tell you what isn't wrong with it." Tej answered me.
I got butterflies in my stomach at that comment. That couldn't be good. He was really going to test me. He snapped the cover off the car.
If you could call it a car. It was a twisted mess of angry metal from the angle I was looking at it from. The front bumper was gone. The bumper supports were pushed into what would be the engine if the car wasn't a mid engine setup. The whole right fender was crumpled back and the right tire and all the associated parts were messed up beyond repair. The control arm was bent, the strut was no longer mounted to the pillar, and the axel was broken in half. The frame was bent, or at least it looked bent from where I was standing. The windshield was smashed in because the hood was through it.
"What happened to it?" I breathed out softly as I started to walk around the wreck. I didn't even know what kind of car it was from the front it was so messed up. It looked sort of like Dom's RX-7 but not really. It had a roof scoop and the hood was longer. Or at least I thought it had been before it got all crumpled up into the windshield. The rear was definitely longer. The engine was in there after all.
"I hit a wall at 120 in it. I never fixed it up since and now I don't race. But it's a nice car and it should be fixed." Tej looked sad.
"'99 Acura NSX, yeah, I guess it is too nice to just sit around wrecked. But I mean, man, this might just be a write off. The frame's bent. You'll never be able to sell it without telling people it's been in an accident and I don't know if that frame'll pull out straight." I just wanted to be honest.
"I don't want to sell it. I might not race but there was a time when this car was more important to me then anything else. I can't work on it myself. It'll just be..." He looked off into the lake out the back window for a minute. "It'll be too hard for me to work on it." I could tell what he meant from the look on his face. It'd be too scary for him and it would bring back too many bad memories. I couldn't have worked on the Civic that almost killed me not matter who asked me to or why.
And the accident Tej was involved in had been a bad wreck. It must have a lot of bad memories for him. He seemed to shake it off mentally and then he looked back at me.
"Plus it's fucked beyond repair. If you can get her back on the road then you'll be the best mechanic I ever met and you'll have a job here for as long as you want one."
"Ok, but I don't do body work. You get me the panels I can put 'em on but I can't straighten the frame."
"You'll have to gut the engine bay and remove the suspension in the front totally then we'll send it out to this body shop I know. They'll pull the frame, fix the body panels then send it back here and you can finish it up mechanically. While it's gone you'll be rebuilding the engine because it threw a rod and some other stuff in my wreck."
"Shit, gut a mid engine. You know what they say, there's a first time for everything." I answered and blew a few wispy bangs off my forehead.
"You never worked on one before?" Tej asked with a smile.
"Worked on one, yes. Only a few times though. Pulled the engine out of one, no. You got the service manuals for this bad boy?"
"Yeah. You think you can handle it?" Tej smirked. I knew in that second that he was sure I was going to say no and he wasn't upset about it. He wasn't sure about having me on as a mechanic.
"Oh, I can handle it. How long you given me?"
"Have the engine out by Thursday. The car'll be at the body shop for a week. I'd like the engine ready to go back in by the time it comes back. So the whole project in the two weeks I said I'd give you."
"Aiight. But I get to design the paintjob if I have it done on time."
"If you have it done on time then you can paint it pink if you want to."
"Lucky for you I hate pink." I told him with a smug smile and started pulling wrecked parts off the car. I was gonna have the car ready in the two weeks. I wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction of failing.
Suki had watched the whole conversation Tej and I had with interest. She thought I'd fail. She heard me make my ultimatum and she apparently was pissed about it because she stopped Tej on his way past her and I think I heard them fighting about it. She did the designing around here, or so she said to Tej in her little high pitched voice.
Tej got her calmed down some how. Likely by telling her there was no way I was going to meet his deadline.
I got it all jacked up and pulled the tires off. I started to remove the brakes in preparation for removing the suspension. Tej came back over to me. I must have been at it for an hour by that time and I was making good progress.
"How's it goin?" He asked.
"Good. One thing I was thinking about though."
"What's that?"
"Who's gonna order parts I need. Do I just make a list or do you know already?"
"What do you think?"
"I'd like to have creative control over it to be honest but I know that's likely asking too much."
"You want to design the whole car? Like pick the new suspension and all that stuff?"
"That's what I like but like I said, I'll understand if you don't trust that kind of stuff to someone you hardly know."
"Naw, go nuts girl. Money's no object. Just have it ready in two weeks."
"No problem." I answered, sounding very confident. It was confidence I didn't totally feel but in typical Letty fashion I bluffed it out. No one could know I was scared. I didn't know if I could get all the work the Acura needed done in two weeks or not. But I'd sure as hell give it my best.
After all it was better then the oil and tires I thought I'd be doing. I mean, I was working on one of the hottest cars ever. Sure it was scary that it belonged to the boss, but it was still a hot car that I had just been given total control over building. I just wished that I wouldn't be doing it with Tej staring me down.
I also saw a lot of long days in my future too. I wasn't going to have a lot of time for anything but work and sleep if I wanted to get it all done in two weeks. And I wanted that so bad.
You know, I know I'm a good mechanic. And I know some people see it too. Brian for example. He always said I was good as it got, and better then him. But Dom never saw it that way. A lot of people didn't.
Why?
Cause I'm a woman doing a man's job. And in a lot of minds, men and women alike, I'll never be as good at it as a man would be. But I know in my heart that I'm just as good as those men and better then a lot of them. But I always have to work twice as hard as a man does to get the same amount of respect.
Even Dom was always trying to give me 'easy' jobs to do because he doubted I could handle the hard stuff. I'd shown him time after time that I was just as good as Leon and Vince but it was never enough. No one was as good as Jesse but I was just as good as all the other guys but Dom didn't see it that way. I mean, I learned from his dad, just like he did. So why did he think he was a better mechanic then me other then he was a guy who'd learned from his dad and I was a girl who had. We had the same teacher; the only difference was our genders.
Maybe he was just trying to make my life easier like Vince was always telling me when I'd get upset about it. But I never asked him to make my life easier.
I guess I just thought that if I could take the Acura the way it was, and build it the way I knew it could be, and do it all myself that I could show Dom, Tej, Brian, Vince, and most importantly myself that I could do it and I could do it just as well as any guy could. Better. I don't even know if Dom could get the NSX done in two weeks.
But it was going to take up my free time for the whole two weeks. I'd be pulling 16 hour days under an Acura.
It was worth it.
I decided to take pictures of it before I got any farther. I wanted to document the journey. No one would be able to take my accomplishment away from me then. I propped the tires back under it to pretend I hadn't done anything to it yet. Then I took pictures of it with the struts propped in place like they were still attached. Then I tossed them again and took pics of it with empty gaps in the fenders where the tires should be.
And at that point it was time to try and figure how that 3.2L V6 was crammed into what should have been the back seat on any other 'normal' car and how the fuck it came out of there. The engine was essentially in the hatchback. And it looked like it was going to be hard as hell to get it out.
I walked into the back room and got on the computerized service manual system.
I pulled up the car and started to read.
I must have spaced out for about two hours while I just read all the info in the system on the NSX engine. It was a lot to cover but I was going to need to know it all to get the engine out of the car.
Brian came up behind me and tapped my shoulder.
"Hey Letty, its 6 o'clock. Time to knock off for the night."
"Not for me Bri, not yet. I'll be along in another hour or two. I need to finish reading this."
"Reading what?"
So Brian didn't know about Tej's little try out for me I guess.
"How to get the engine out of an Acura NSX."
"Why do you need to know that?" Brian asked and I could almost hear him thinking about what that meant.
"So I can take the engine out of Tej's and rebuild it for him."
"But that car is wrecked."
"Yeah, and my audition for working here is to have it back on the road perfect in two weeks."
"Letty, it'll never happen."
"Yeah it will. I'll have to pull some long days but it'll be done."
"It's not worth it Let. Let me talk to him. I can make him be more reasonable."
"No Brian. I want to do it. I can do it and I think I need to do it too."
"Two weeks of that kind of workload and you'll need a vacation already."
"Maybe, but I'll deserve one too." I smiled up at him.
Brian laughed.
"That you will girl. That you will. Not that you don't already."
"Thanks Bri. I'll see you soon." I turned back to the computer screen and listened as Brian left me alone with nothing but the computer screen for company.
I wondered what they were up to at home as I walked up to the garage from Brian's boat. Were they backed up at home because I wasn't there? Was Dom bitching at everyone because of the extra work? Or because he was still mad at me for racing without his permission? Because I wasn't there to design for people who asked for me. Because he was being forced to admit to people I'd left him?
Or were things just fine? Did they never need me that much? Had it all been in my head that things depended on me? Were things smoother without me and Dom having our explosive fights, without Dom taking it out on the rest of the team that I'd fought with him?
He'd done a lot of that before. We'd have a fight then he'd take it out on the rest of the team. It didn't bother me that much when he did it to V because Vince would just tell him to fuck off and then get on with his life. Vince and Dom have that kind of relationship. Leon mostly just stood there with a pissed off look on his face and then shrugged it off when Dom was done yelling, sometimes then he'd shoot me a nasty look for making every fight worse then it had to be by bitching back at Dom. But most times after he did that he'd tell me he was sorry because he knew I shouldn't have to put up with the way Dom talked to me.
But we all mostly had an understanding that Dom didn't really mean what he was 'oh so calmly' yelling about and it was just his way of getting the anger out without really blowing up. It didn't make it ok, but it was better then us always walking on eggshells around him.
We all knew that if he didn't walk away from me and go take it out on someone else he and I would get into a fight that one of us wasn't walking away from. And considering the size difference it would likely be me. He never hit me, hit me. He almost did a whole bunch of times and he did slap me once when I said something really mean to him. We'd been locked in his room fighting for an hour and when I reached the end of my tether for it.
I told him it was all his fault the thing with the trucks went bad.
He called me a cynical bitch.
I told him I wished that he hadn't made me that way by being such a rude, egotistical, self-important asqueroso (asshole).
He had some other smart comment he came back with and I flew off the handle at him. I think I might have gone temporarily insane. But I said it all in Spanish, thinking he wouldn't get it. It went something like this.
"Ocho ochenta! Jodete y aprieta el culo! Vete al carajo! Me vale madre usted pedazo de pelotudo! Chinga tu madre usted hijo de puta!"
Now that literally means "I don't care what you say! Go fuck yourself! Go to the devil! I don't give a fuck you fucking idiot! Fuck your mother you son of a bitch!"
I assumed Dom would know it was bad, but have no idea how bad or what I'd said. It seems that he picked up enough Spanish in high school to get some of it and enough Spanish slang from sitting with Hector in math to fill in some of the blanks. So he slapped me.
You know the scene in Pretty Woman where Vivian wonders if they pull guys aside in high school and teach them just how to slap a woman to make it hurt as much as possible? I really wonder if they do that.
Dom's blow knocked my head sideways and rattled my teeth. It stung like a son of a bitch and started to swell right away. I took off out of his room with my eyes swimming with unshed tears and a look that Dom later described to Mia as a wounded doe, and down to Vince. I always ran to Vince. He always knew what to say to make things seem better. He could always calm me down, and that helped to keep me safe from running back to Dom and fighting more. Making things even worse.
That night his face just got all ruddy as he held me while I cried and made me keep the ice pack on my cheek even though the cold made it hurt worse, hoping it wouldn't bruise my 'pretty face'. I love Vince so much by times. I could see the little muscle in his cheek just ticking while he tried to calm himself down and stay with me instead of taking off to hunt for Dom's head. Vince couldn't stand men who hit women and I don't think he ever thought he'd see the day when it'd be Dom's head he wanted to bash in for it. But he'd also never seen me cry before that night, and he never has again to this day and I think that let him know I needed him more then he needed to go wail on Dominic.
I didn't want them to come to blows over what Dom had done to me because I was worried one of them wouldn't walk away from that fight either. They're both strong as bulls and equally bull headed. Vince has a liking for firearms that Dom doesn't but I don't think he ever would have shot Dom over it. But a good old fashioned street fight would not have been out of his reach, angry as he was.
Instead he stayed with me and I spent the night in his bed because I couldn't go back to Dom's room in the state I was in. It reminds me just how much alike Vince and Brian are in some ways. Vince never tried to take advantage of me; he just held me while I cried myself to sleep and watched over me all night.
Dom and I were frosty to each other at breakfast then we all went to work.
Jesse was doing a front brake job to some Nissan and he broke off the slider bolt. Dom was in a terrible mood so Jesse came to me about what to do. They always came to me about what to do about problems when Dom was in a bad mood.
I phoned Harry and there was no way we were getting a replacement till the next day. It's a specialized item, not just any bolt will work so we had to wait. Dom had promised the car would be ready by the end of the day and we all knew he was going to flip.
Dom came out to find out why the car was still in the air and not finished. Normally it wouldn't have been a big deal. Shit like that happens. Wasn't like it was Jesse's fault after all. It could have been anyone working on that car. The bold was weak, no one could have known. It's really better it broke off where we can know it's bad and fix it then have it break off some day when the owner is in an emergency braking situation.
Jesse told him what had happened and that the replacement would be in first thing in the morning at Harry's. Dom went ballistic and went to take it out on Jess because he was still mad at me. He went to take it out on Jess once and that was the first and only time that ever happened.
As soon as I saw him start to go in at the kid I literally dragged him into his office to 'talk'. I fought with him so bad about that that I almost made Dom cry. Jesse's like a kid, he's so eager to please. I wasn't having Dom yelling at Jesse because he just didn't know how to deal with his anger at me. It wasn't right for him to yell at anyone over it but least of all Jesse.
Then Leon did his thing and got Jesse calmed down, then Dom. And life went on. It always did.
I wonder how the dynamic works in the garage up here at Tej's? Do they have a baby to protect? A peacemaker to quiet their fights? A tough guy to protect them all? A leader to keep things running on time? A woman behind him who's really the one making it all work out?
And of course the question of the hour, the most important one of all is how will I fit in? What will my role become? I won't be the woman behind the man anymore. I won't be the woman the boss loves, or at least sleeps with. I'll be a nobody and the newest person around.
I see a lot of tires and oil changes in my near future. I know that's how it is for every new mechanic at every garage around but I don't have to like it.
The best feeling in the world is taking a car that runs like shit and with your own skills and TLC turning it into a purring kitten that runs like a wild mustang in the plains, all thundering hooves and flying manes and rippling muscles.
You don't get that same sense of accomplishment out of changing the oil and tires on grandma's Accord. And there was no guarantee that the work that came into Tej's is the same as what we got at DT. No one says Tej is as well known as Dom. Just because everyone brings their performance cars to Dom because he really is that damn good doesn't mean Miami feels the same about Tej.
I walked into the shop and things were running along great, or so it seemed. There were shiny cars all around and Jimmy, Tej, Brian and some other guy I'd never been introduced to were all under cars. Tej had a hoist for every bay which sure was nice. Dom's shop only has two so some of us are always working on creepers under a car that's up on stands. It works but it's a lot nicer to be on your feet then on your back on a board with wheels.
I walked up to Tej first thing.
"Sorry I slept in. I had a late night."
"Yeah Brian told me. You ready to work?"
"Yeah. Sure am. What should I do?"
"I'm going to have you work on this." Tej trailed off and walked me over to the farthest back bay where something was under a car cover.
"What is it?" I asked.
"My car."
"Ok, what's wrong with it?" I asked, worried. Working on the bosses car on my first day. Could that be a good thing?
"Oh, it'd be easier to tell you what isn't wrong with it." Tej answered me.
I got butterflies in my stomach at that comment. That couldn't be good. He was really going to test me. He snapped the cover off the car.
If you could call it a car. It was a twisted mess of angry metal from the angle I was looking at it from. The front bumper was gone. The bumper supports were pushed into what would be the engine if the car wasn't a mid engine setup. The whole right fender was crumpled back and the right tire and all the associated parts were messed up beyond repair. The control arm was bent, the strut was no longer mounted to the pillar, and the axel was broken in half. The frame was bent, or at least it looked bent from where I was standing. The windshield was smashed in because the hood was through it.
"What happened to it?" I breathed out softly as I started to walk around the wreck. I didn't even know what kind of car it was from the front it was so messed up. It looked sort of like Dom's RX-7 but not really. It had a roof scoop and the hood was longer. Or at least I thought it had been before it got all crumpled up into the windshield. The rear was definitely longer. The engine was in there after all.
"I hit a wall at 120 in it. I never fixed it up since and now I don't race. But it's a nice car and it should be fixed." Tej looked sad.
"'99 Acura NSX, yeah, I guess it is too nice to just sit around wrecked. But I mean, man, this might just be a write off. The frame's bent. You'll never be able to sell it without telling people it's been in an accident and I don't know if that frame'll pull out straight." I just wanted to be honest.
"I don't want to sell it. I might not race but there was a time when this car was more important to me then anything else. I can't work on it myself. It'll just be..." He looked off into the lake out the back window for a minute. "It'll be too hard for me to work on it." I could tell what he meant from the look on his face. It'd be too scary for him and it would bring back too many bad memories. I couldn't have worked on the Civic that almost killed me not matter who asked me to or why.
And the accident Tej was involved in had been a bad wreck. It must have a lot of bad memories for him. He seemed to shake it off mentally and then he looked back at me.
"Plus it's fucked beyond repair. If you can get her back on the road then you'll be the best mechanic I ever met and you'll have a job here for as long as you want one."
"Ok, but I don't do body work. You get me the panels I can put 'em on but I can't straighten the frame."
"You'll have to gut the engine bay and remove the suspension in the front totally then we'll send it out to this body shop I know. They'll pull the frame, fix the body panels then send it back here and you can finish it up mechanically. While it's gone you'll be rebuilding the engine because it threw a rod and some other stuff in my wreck."
"Shit, gut a mid engine. You know what they say, there's a first time for everything." I answered and blew a few wispy bangs off my forehead.
"You never worked on one before?" Tej asked with a smile.
"Worked on one, yes. Only a few times though. Pulled the engine out of one, no. You got the service manuals for this bad boy?"
"Yeah. You think you can handle it?" Tej smirked. I knew in that second that he was sure I was going to say no and he wasn't upset about it. He wasn't sure about having me on as a mechanic.
"Oh, I can handle it. How long you given me?"
"Have the engine out by Thursday. The car'll be at the body shop for a week. I'd like the engine ready to go back in by the time it comes back. So the whole project in the two weeks I said I'd give you."
"Aiight. But I get to design the paintjob if I have it done on time."
"If you have it done on time then you can paint it pink if you want to."
"Lucky for you I hate pink." I told him with a smug smile and started pulling wrecked parts off the car. I was gonna have the car ready in the two weeks. I wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction of failing.
Suki had watched the whole conversation Tej and I had with interest. She thought I'd fail. She heard me make my ultimatum and she apparently was pissed about it because she stopped Tej on his way past her and I think I heard them fighting about it. She did the designing around here, or so she said to Tej in her little high pitched voice.
Tej got her calmed down some how. Likely by telling her there was no way I was going to meet his deadline.
I got it all jacked up and pulled the tires off. I started to remove the brakes in preparation for removing the suspension. Tej came back over to me. I must have been at it for an hour by that time and I was making good progress.
"How's it goin?" He asked.
"Good. One thing I was thinking about though."
"What's that?"
"Who's gonna order parts I need. Do I just make a list or do you know already?"
"What do you think?"
"I'd like to have creative control over it to be honest but I know that's likely asking too much."
"You want to design the whole car? Like pick the new suspension and all that stuff?"
"That's what I like but like I said, I'll understand if you don't trust that kind of stuff to someone you hardly know."
"Naw, go nuts girl. Money's no object. Just have it ready in two weeks."
"No problem." I answered, sounding very confident. It was confidence I didn't totally feel but in typical Letty fashion I bluffed it out. No one could know I was scared. I didn't know if I could get all the work the Acura needed done in two weeks or not. But I'd sure as hell give it my best.
After all it was better then the oil and tires I thought I'd be doing. I mean, I was working on one of the hottest cars ever. Sure it was scary that it belonged to the boss, but it was still a hot car that I had just been given total control over building. I just wished that I wouldn't be doing it with Tej staring me down.
I also saw a lot of long days in my future too. I wasn't going to have a lot of time for anything but work and sleep if I wanted to get it all done in two weeks. And I wanted that so bad.
You know, I know I'm a good mechanic. And I know some people see it too. Brian for example. He always said I was good as it got, and better then him. But Dom never saw it that way. A lot of people didn't.
Why?
Cause I'm a woman doing a man's job. And in a lot of minds, men and women alike, I'll never be as good at it as a man would be. But I know in my heart that I'm just as good as those men and better then a lot of them. But I always have to work twice as hard as a man does to get the same amount of respect.
Even Dom was always trying to give me 'easy' jobs to do because he doubted I could handle the hard stuff. I'd shown him time after time that I was just as good as Leon and Vince but it was never enough. No one was as good as Jesse but I was just as good as all the other guys but Dom didn't see it that way. I mean, I learned from his dad, just like he did. So why did he think he was a better mechanic then me other then he was a guy who'd learned from his dad and I was a girl who had. We had the same teacher; the only difference was our genders.
Maybe he was just trying to make my life easier like Vince was always telling me when I'd get upset about it. But I never asked him to make my life easier.
I guess I just thought that if I could take the Acura the way it was, and build it the way I knew it could be, and do it all myself that I could show Dom, Tej, Brian, Vince, and most importantly myself that I could do it and I could do it just as well as any guy could. Better. I don't even know if Dom could get the NSX done in two weeks.
But it was going to take up my free time for the whole two weeks. I'd be pulling 16 hour days under an Acura.
It was worth it.
I decided to take pictures of it before I got any farther. I wanted to document the journey. No one would be able to take my accomplishment away from me then. I propped the tires back under it to pretend I hadn't done anything to it yet. Then I took pictures of it with the struts propped in place like they were still attached. Then I tossed them again and took pics of it with empty gaps in the fenders where the tires should be.
And at that point it was time to try and figure how that 3.2L V6 was crammed into what should have been the back seat on any other 'normal' car and how the fuck it came out of there. The engine was essentially in the hatchback. And it looked like it was going to be hard as hell to get it out.
I walked into the back room and got on the computerized service manual system.
I pulled up the car and started to read.
I must have spaced out for about two hours while I just read all the info in the system on the NSX engine. It was a lot to cover but I was going to need to know it all to get the engine out of the car.
Brian came up behind me and tapped my shoulder.
"Hey Letty, its 6 o'clock. Time to knock off for the night."
"Not for me Bri, not yet. I'll be along in another hour or two. I need to finish reading this."
"Reading what?"
So Brian didn't know about Tej's little try out for me I guess.
"How to get the engine out of an Acura NSX."
"Why do you need to know that?" Brian asked and I could almost hear him thinking about what that meant.
"So I can take the engine out of Tej's and rebuild it for him."
"But that car is wrecked."
"Yeah, and my audition for working here is to have it back on the road perfect in two weeks."
"Letty, it'll never happen."
"Yeah it will. I'll have to pull some long days but it'll be done."
"It's not worth it Let. Let me talk to him. I can make him be more reasonable."
"No Brian. I want to do it. I can do it and I think I need to do it too."
"Two weeks of that kind of workload and you'll need a vacation already."
"Maybe, but I'll deserve one too." I smiled up at him.
Brian laughed.
"That you will girl. That you will. Not that you don't already."
"Thanks Bri. I'll see you soon." I turned back to the computer screen and listened as Brian left me alone with nothing but the computer screen for company.