Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
When life gives you Lemons…shut up and drive.
August Retta
I’ve been mourning my mother’s death for over a year, but with an endless case of writer’s block about to slam up against my last deadline extension, something’s got to give. When my sister flies off on The Trip we were supposed to take together, I come up with a brilliant plan (or a mid-life crisis flavored s**t sandwich—jury’s still out) to put Mom’s backyard apartment up for rent. Then I’ll use the money to enter her VW in a wacky amateur car race, 24 Hours of Lemons, so that I can honor her memory and leave town on a high note. Because I am leaving town—again—and this time the fresh start will stick.
Playing landlady to my childhood crush? Not part of the plan.
Wade Hudson
I’ve wanted August Retta for years, but the timing has never been right. Now the apartment is for rent, which means this is my last chance to answer that “What if?” question before August gets away for good. To get close to her, I’ll have to change my slow, methodical way of doing things and take a few more risks. If that means welcoming her to the racing team I’ve been the reluctant mechanic on for the last five years? So be it.
Or maybe I need a better plan. With the Lemons race insanity, our invasive family and friends, and the Retta Rules in play? We might not make it to the finish line with both our hearts intact.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
AUGUST
Lemon: a person or thing, especially an automobile,
regarded as unsatisfactory, disappointing, or defective.
“No, Myrtle. Come on, baby, don’t do this to me,” I begged under my breath when my old Honda—who’d never given me any trouble before—started spewing steam on the other side of my windshield.
Based on the red warning lights on the dashboard and the sickly-sweet fumes wrinkling my nose, there was some major what-the-fuckery going on under the hood that I didn’t have time for. Particularly now, when I was driving into one of the busiest airports in the country at zero-dark-thirty in the morning.
Welcome to my life.
“You need to find a place to pull over,” my sister ordered from the back seat.
Did I mention I had passengers expecting to reach a destination? Because I loved having witnesses to humiliating and potentially hazardous events in my life. It was the best.
With my pulse pounding in my ears, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my hands started going numb. “I’ll pull over when we get to your terminal.”
“Morgan’s right.” My brother-in-law shifted his large frame in the seat beside me, trying to watch both me and the road while typing furiously on his phone. “You should stop before the engine seizes or you crack the block.”
Was he just making up terms to confuse me now? What the hell was a block and how was I cracking it? “There’s no place to pull over yet, but we’re almost there. Two more minutes, Gene.”
Said every pilot who ever crashed into the ground a half-mile short of the runway.
Not the right time to think about planes crashing!
“This might give us two minutes,” Gene said, cranking on the heater to full blast. When a wave of hot air gushed into the car, I let out an undignified whine and rolled down the windows. Now we were all overheating.
I heard the click of a seatbelt releasing and then Morgan was inserting herself between our seats. “August, you don’t have to prove anything to me. I know you’re—”
“I’m not trying to prove anything,” I gritted out between clenched teeth. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
That was a dirty lie. I had absolutely strong-armed her into letting me take them to the airport this morning to prove I was happy about them going to Italy, followed by a cruise through the Mediterranean, without me. And I really was.
Mostly. I was mostly happy about it. The part of me that wasn’t had obviously alerted the karma police.
“This is what you get.”
Exactly. I should have considered the state my car might be in after barely driving it for well over a year. The state I might be in, when simply taking the airport exit had given me a nerve-jangling case of déjà vu, and promised a full-on panic attack in my very near future if I thought about where they were going without me. And why.
“Pull in there.” Morgan pointed at the United Airlines sign ahead. “Look where I’m pointing, August. There’s a spot opening up right there.”
Putting on my blinker, I craned my neck to see around her and, miracle of miracles, a guy in a Prius let us into the drop-off lane.
“Thank you!” I cried as I pulled to the curb, shifted into park and cut off the overheating engine with a groan that was as much resignation as relief. Now that we’d made it, I could finally admit the obvious to everyone.
“I’m cursed.”
“You’re not cursed,” Morgan said in a voice that suddenly sounded very far away. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I’m a writer. It comes with the territory.” I wrote about curses all the time, and this was what I’d imagined a few of them felt like.
You were a writer, before The Great Block turned you into a human doorstop.
Everyone’s a critic.
Before that doorstop situation, I came to the airport all the time without having a problem. Usually when I was the one flying off to interesting places, like New York, Reno or Atlanta, for promotional events and conferences.
Those were my halcyon days. The good old days of wine, roses and word counts.
The only glitch in that golden-oldies’ rewind was the time I came home early from a signing and found the man I’d wasted the last of my thirties on with a pretty young photographer that I’d introduced him to. I’d bought him headshots to help his stalled acting career as an anniversary present. All he’d gotten for me was a disturbing visual I could never unsee, because cliches existed for a reason.
That was the beginning of my downhill slide. Whenever I was in the mood to punish myself with a doom scroll, I’d look up pics of his photogenic family on social media. He had a wife, twins and one commercial for shingles to add to his resume now. Good for you, dickweasel.
In fairness to the no-drama crowd, leaving my bed at five in the morning to drive my sister and her husband to the airport—an excessive four hours before their flight—wasn’t exactly in the same category as discovering a cheating partner mid-flagrante. Still, there was a direct line from that moment to this.