That afternoon, I arrived home early.
I walked into the kitchen of my house and opened the refrigerator. I thought it would be a good idea to bring some snacks to the shop as a way to thank Zack for being so nice to me this whole time. I also wanted to feed him, as I assumed he had not eaten much at school. And also wanted to bring him a little something because I knew my visit would be relatively short.
I had been invited, along with Lucy and Lola, to an impromptu birthday party for Camilla, another of my friends, to eat pizza and cake at her house, so I couldn't stay long.
So, as I knew Lucy was coming to pick me up around five, I quickly made a few small sandwiches with some egg, mayo, and ham and ran out the door to pick up my bike. I would have less than thirty minutes to visit Zack, but I wanted to see him anyway and see how things were going at the shop with the old Thunderbird.
Even if its presence was quite intimidating, the changes implemented into the car had begun to fade the dark history behind it. The front had been removed and changed for a new one, and they had replaced the motor with one in way better shape.
I biked my way through the back alleys of Huntington Park, going as fast as I could, and I arrived a few minutes later. As always, I placed the bike on the garage door and hurried up inside.
While two of the men were working on an old El Camino truck, Mr. Vinton and Pedro were working on the inside of the Thunderbird, removing the front two seats, probably with the intention of peeling the old leather and placing a new, fresh layer of foam and fabric on top.
I could see that the windshield and the tires had been replaced, and the fresh rubber shone anew. I waved at the two men, who waved back, and I leaned next to Pedro, who smiled at me.
"Hello, Tammy," he said, moving away from me with the passenger seat in his hands. He then placed it close to the toolbox.
"What's up?" he asked, rubbing his hands.
"Nothing much. I brought some sandwiches for you guys," I told him, offering him a small triangle. He gasped in happy surprise and took the little treat.
"Well, thank you, girlie. I'm going to enjoy this," Pedro said, unwrapping the sandwich and taking a bite. After a few happy chews, he cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand and pointed at the car, asking me what I thought of it.
"It's coming up pretty rad!" I said, scratching my face. Then, I asked him if he knew where my dad was.
"I'm right here," I suddenly heard a voice say from underneath the car. I kneeled and looked down at the Thunderbird, noticing my dad crouching inside the garage pit.
"Oh, hey, Dad!" I exclaimed, "I just wanted to know where you were because I brought some food," I said, passing the sandwich to him.
"Thank you!" He exclaimed, smiling, placing the small sandwich inside one of the pockets of his overalls. "What kind is it?"
"Egg, mayo, and ham. I know you like those things," I told him, then asked. "What are you doing down there?"
"Fixing the chassis of the car," Dad said. "After fixing the old brakes, I realized it needed some repairs."
"Awesome!" I told him. I then felt a hand on my shoulder and stood up.
Mr. Vinton was looking down at me, smiling with his mouth and eyes, which I had started to notice Zack did as well.
"Hello, Tammy," Mr. Vinton said, patting me on the head like you pat a puppy.
"Hello, Mr. Vinton," I said, pointing to the Thunderbird with my head, "I see the Thunderbird coming up nicely. Do you know when you'll be done?"
"Well, thank you. And we are just starting with it. I think we'll need at least two more weeks to have it prepared," he said. "It's a lot, but Mr. Lewis is a patient man."
After he finished saying this, one of the men working on the El Camino walked to him and asked him about some cables for the battery. He turned and indicated one of the many drawers on the workstation. Then I looked down and saw Dad tap the man's foot with his hand. Mr. Vinton looked down.
"Yeah?" Mr. Vinton asked.
"Can you move the car? I can't reach the front," Dad told him.
"Weird, you could reach it a few days ago," Mr. Vinton said, frowning, a tad confused.
Dad shrugged inside the pit.
"I don't know. I guess the car might have slipped a bit forward with all the shaking from taking the seats off," he said.
Mr. Vinton then politely excused himself and proceeded to walk to the other side of the car, to the driver's seat. He then placed a box where the seat went and sat on it. After releasing the handbrake, he asked Pedro to push the car backward. Pedro pushed a bit until we all heard Dad yell it was enough. After they finished the procedure, I walked to the man, who was now taking the box out of the car.
"Mr. Vinton, sir?" I asked politely, "I forgot to ask, but is Zack here?"
Mr. Vinton nodded.
"Yeah, he's inside the office, doing his homework," he said. "Why?"
"I just wanted to say hi, that's all," I told him. "I don't plan to interrupt his homework; it's just going to be a quick hello."
"Oh, it's alright. Take all the time you need," the man said.
Before leaving, I offered him a piece of the sandwich as well, but unlike Pedro and Dad, he refused.
I then walked all the way back to the front of the building and opened the door. As Mr. Vinton had said, Zack was sitting with his back to the door, on one of the barstools, writing something in his notebook while he looked through his cell phone.
I softly called his name to not scare him, and he turned to look at me. He smiled and waved at me to come in. I walked in and sat on the other barstool, looking at his notebook to see what he was working on.
"What subject is that?" I asked.
"English. We are supposed to write a letter to an old President," said Zack, "I chose President Kennedy. I'm asking if all those rumors about his romances were true."
"You silly," I said, chuckling and slapping his shoulder. He rubbed it and pretended to be hurt.
"And what are you checking on your phone?" I asked, noticing he was looking at messages. "I thought it was part of your homework."
"Oh no, I'm just talking with my bud, Andy. We are talking about stuff," he said, turning off the phone screen.
"Cool," I said and opened the bag with the sandwiches, taking the two pieces that were left and putting them over the counter.
"I brought you some food," I said.
"Oh, awesome. I was hungry!" He exclaimed, taking one and unwrapping it.
"I assume you would be," I said, smiling.
"Are you going to help me with my homework?" He then asked, his eyes shining bright with excitement.
I looked at him sadly.
"Oh, I can't. I gotta go soon."
I saw his gaze slowly change from excitement to disappointment.
"Oh, why?" He asked as he chewed.
"I got invited to a birthday party. It was all very sudden," I said. "Camilla wanted to have it on Saturday, but something came up, and her family might have to go see her grandparents this weekend."
Zack looked down for a few seconds and then looked back at me, placing the snack on the counter, two bites on its side.
"Is it about the disease?" He asked, concerned.
"Yeah, I think it is," I said. "So she invited us for pizza and cake around six."
Zack then smiled and shrugged.
"Oh, alright," he said. "It's fine if you can't stay long."
His words and face looked so sincere, I felt terrible knowing I couldn't hang out for more than thirty minutes, so I promised him that on Saturday, I would come back early, and we could have a chance to talk much more. I even said I could bring him a piece of cake, but he laughed and said it wasn't really necessary. I still wanted to bring him some to cheer him up.
"So...," he then said, closing his notebook, "if you don't have much time, what do you wanna talk about?"
"I see the Thunderbird is doing okay," I said, "and it looks way less creepy now."
"Yeah, it's shaping up to be a really awesome car. Although it still gives me the heebie-jeebies from time to time. I mean, I can't shake up the fact that someone died because of it," Zack said, shaking his body as a cold chill ran through it.
"Yeah, it's upsetting," I said, understanding the feeling.
Zack suddenly opened his eyes in shock and held my arm, scaring me a bit, but he was just realizing something.
"Oh, my god. I'm sorry, I forgot," he said. "I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable again."
"What? Why?" I asked.
"Because...you know," He said, moving his eyes intently, trying to bring up our whole conversation that afternoon. I opened my mouth, thinking of saying something, but I just wanted to forget about it.
"It's fine. I need to get over it. I don't even know those people who died," I said a few moments later. "I mean, it was kinda creepy seeing it in person."
"Yeah, I bet," Zack said. "Have you heard more about it?"
"No," I said, shaking my head.
"Well, I was reading some posts my friends at school were exchanging, but there's not much," he said, shrugging and turning his phone again.
"What kind of posts?"
"Oh, theories on what happened. Nobody knows much. They think it might be a drunk driver."
"My friend Lola said the same."
"The only new thing is that one of my buddies, Oscar? His dad works as a security guard at Torgom Wholesale, you know, one of the companies on Fruitland? And the feed captured something."
"Really?" I asked, my dread beginning to turn into curiosity.
I knew I didn't have the desire to see any carnage, bodies, or blood. Still, I thought a security feed would be grainy and short enough to show the accident from a more clinical perspective.
"Can we see it?" I then added, and Zack nodded, thumbing through his phone to show me the video his friend had sent all of them in their group chat.
"It doesn't show much, though," he said.
I was fine with that. I just needed to know at least a hint of what had happened.
The video then began to play, and I noticed it was a recording of a recording. The father of Zack's friend had recorded part of the security feed on his phone. The feed showed the outside of the building over an almost empty parking lot. It was probably the side parking lot of the building, where the warehouse garage doors were. I had seen it on my way to school many times.
The camera then moved slightly to the right and showed part of the corner of Fruitland and South Soto. I say part, as the other part of the camera was covered by a large tree in front of it.
The tree leaves then began to shake quickly, showing that the footage was being reproduced at high speed. The video then abruptly stopped and started to play again at a normal speed, around three in the morning, according to the timer of the security feed.
What happened then was rather quick but still shocking.
As the video had no sound, I couldn't hear it coming, but I saw the subtle movement of light on the road, and all of a sudden, I saw the small car appear on screen. In a quick movement, it swerved and flipped to a side, smashing right into the utility pole, shaking the wires so violently that sparks flew, almost bringing the whole thing down.
Thankfully, the car was not big enough to pull the pole down; if not, the recording would have been cut off.
Then, out of the car wreck, small flames emerged. The video moved fast again, showing the process of the fire consuming the car in a matter of minutes.
Then, the video ended.
I stood there, looking at the cell phone screen for a few seconds, then my eyes shifted to Zack, who was looking at me with intrigue.
"What do you think?" He asked me.
"The way the car flipped made it look like it was probably going at high speed," I said. "But why?"
Zack shrugged.
"No idea. Nobody knows."
Curiosity began to suppress any apprehension regarding knowing more about the accident. I suddenly asked Zack if we could see the video again, but slower, as maybe we could catch something on the feed. Zack played the video again, and we leaned way closer to the phone this time, our faces almost touching.
Then I saw it.
"Stop," I whispered.
"What?" Zack asked, pausing the video.
"Go back a bit," I said.
As Zack moved the video backward, I pointed to the moment I had caught on the feed. Zack frowned.
"It's just a black thing. It could be a bug or a leaf," Zack told me.
"I don't think so," I said, pointing to the tree. "The leaves on the tree look clearer, while the thing looks darker and has a different shape. Besides, it shows up for a few seconds and disappears from sight. That's not a leaf."
"Okay, so what do you think it could be?" Zack asked me, genuinely curious.
I bit my lip and winced, hoping I didn't sound crazy.
"What if it's the edge of another car?"
"Another car?" Zack asked me, his eyes narrowing as he began thinking of the possibilities.
Another car.
I could see it.
Even after returning home that day and preparing for Camilla's birthday, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I mean, it made sense. But the idea of a drunk driver also made sense. Many ideas made sense.
I sighed as I brushed my hair in front of the mirror, my gaze lost on the horizon. Why would a car be going so fast on an empty street? Could it be showing off? To whom? The passenger on the other side? ... or to another car.
Maybe the driver had been playing around with some friends. Vernon was quite empty at that hour, so perhaps they took advantage of the hour and tried to perform some impressive maneuvers, and ended up crashing into the pole.
"But what about the other car? Wouldn't they have stopped to see if their friends were alright?" I thought.
"What if they weren't friends?" I then thought, opening the drawer of my side desk to take out some hairpins and placing them to secure my curls in place. My hair was not as wild as it usually was, but I still had no patience for it.
I kept thinking about the clues in a mystery that I knew I had no business caring about. But what the hell, it was something to think about besides homework. Also, Zack was interested in it as well. It could be something to discuss besides the cars being fixed at the shop.
Out of the blue, I heard a voice calling me from outside the house.
As I walked to the front door, I saw that Lucy had come to pick me up. She was dressed in a light blue dress and was carrying a small cake with flowers on top.
I opened the gate for her and let her come inside.
After leaving the cake outside in the kitchen, we walked to my room, and she sat on my bed, where she began talking about Lola and her boyfriend. She had seen them making out after school, and she sounded upset.
"Why does she do that?" She asked me, "Making out in front of everybody?"
"You know her dad doesn't know she has a boyfriend," I told her as I moved to the closet to take out a cute light sweater to combine with my skirt. "She can't just take him home."
"Of course, she can't, he's eighteen! He's an adult, and it's gross!"
"He's two years older than her. Calm down," I laughed, turning to her.
I then put on the sweater and walked to the mirror to look at it.
"Besides, he works at Wendy's. He's not some drug dealer. He's a pimply teen just like us," I said.
"Well, at least she should have the decency of making out somewhere else," Lucy said, plopping onto the bed mattress.
"You are just bitter because you don't have a boyfriend anymore," I chuckled.
Lucy looked at me angrily, and I apologized. She had broken up with a boy at her church and had fallen into a bit of depression recently. That was one of the reasons I accepted the sudden invitation to Camilla's party, as a way to cheer Lucy up with food and the company of friends.
"I'm not bitter. I don't really care if a boy goes gaga for me like with you and Lola," she said.
"Me?" I turned to look at her, and she darted at me with a funny look.
"Zack?" She asked, raising her eyebrows, "Don't tell me you don't see how he looks at you."
"He is cute," I said, "and I really like him, although he's younger, and it's kinda awkward sometimes."
"How old is he?" Lucy asked, a bit curious.
The truth is that Zack was just two months younger than me, and it didn't really bother me. I was just trying to deflect from the subject as Lucy seemed a bit upset.
"About two months. I'll get my driver's license before him. Isn't that weird?" I said, but Lucy didn't seem to take the bait and looked away.
I sat beside her on the bed, asking her to help me put on a bracelet my father had gifted me for my birthday. It was a pretty silver bracelet with little wheels, cogs, and gears.
"You could drive him around," Lucy said. "Anyway, did you go to visit him at the shop?"
"Yeah, but just for a few minutes," I said.
I thought about what she would think if I told her about the video I had recently seen, so I did.
"Really?" she asked me, but didn't seem interested. She appeared to be distracted more by her own reflection in the mirror.
"I think I caught something in it," I said anyway, wondering if I mentioned it, she would become more interested.
But she clearly wasn't, as she told me that was nice without even looking at me. So I just changed the subject and asked where she had gotten that small cake she had bought for Camilla's birthday.
"Oh, I got it at the Mexican Market. It was pretty cheap, and it looked nice. I bet Camilla will like it," She said, smiling. I smiled back and finally put on my pair of party shoes.
Before we walked out, Lucy asked if she could use my bathroom, and I agreed. While waiting for her, I turned on my cell phone and scrolled through my emails and messages. Suddenly, I realized Zack had sent me a private message, so I opened it, happy to hear from him.
At first, it was just a greeting, and he asked me if I had left for the birthday already. He even placed a GIF of a person eating a giant pizza.
But as I scrolled down, the conversation changed. Zack told me he had talked with his friends about what I had seen in the video, and after looking at it and discussing it, Oscar said he thought he could see another vehicle as well.
I looked up from my phone and down the hall to the bathroom, as I could hear the toilet flush. Before Lucy came out of the bathroom, I wrote to Zack that I hadn't left the house yet and asked him if he could send me any news that showed up about the accident so I could see them later.
"Sure," he texted back.
I thanked him and smiled to myself. I then sent him a GIF of a detective with a giant magnifying glass, which he seemed to like as he responded with a laughing emoji.
We would soon discover that what we thought was a simple local tragedy would develop into a bigger mystery and big trouble for Vernon.