was sure it would be.
But there was work to do in the shop. I hated to leave it behind, honestly—the bustle and noise of the auto shop, the thrill of figuring out what was wrong with a car.
I was driving home when I saw the car in front of me blow a tire. It was a bad blow-out, the tire shredding across the road. The car wobbled across the road as the driver pulled over.
That kind of blowout would leave me shaken, and as I passed, I saw the driver was a woman gripping the steering wheel as if her life depended on it.
I pulled over and got out of the car. Her gaze met mine as I walked back toward her; she was a stranger to me.
But in Silver Springs, even strangers aren’t strangers for long.
I waved and gave her a smile, and she opened the car door as I approached.
“Hi, I’m Lily,” I said, eager to let her know I wasn’t some weirdo. Well, I was weird, but not bad weird. “I help run Hot Wheels, the garage down the street, and I saw your tire blow. Are you okay?”
She nodded, but she still looked tense. She got out of the car slowly, then looked at the blown tire. “I have AAA, I can call them to put on the spare…”
“I can do it,” I promised. “Hey, I’ll show you how.”
I could tell she didn’t want to trouble me from the look on her face, even before she said, “Oh, that’s okay.”
“If you call AAA,” I said, “they’re just going to send us over officially. I’m still going to change your spare.”
She smiled at that. “Well, if you insist…”
Just then, a pig jumped out of her car. It waddled over to me, oinking.
“Hey friend,” I said, squatting to pet the pig. I looked up at her. “What’s her name? And yours, for that matter?”
“Sage,” she said. “And she’s Wilma.”
“Come on, Wilma,” I said. “I’m going to show you how to change a tire, even if your roommate doesn’t want to learn.”
Sage scoffed at that, but both she and Wilma followed me over as I went to Sage’s trunk. The pig seemed to listen intelligently as I got the car up on the jack, then helped switch over to the spare.
“I can order you new tires if you want to come to Hot Wheels,” I said. “Otherwise, there’s a tire depot in Scarborough.”
“Oh,” she said. She looked uncomfortable at the idea of going to Scarborough.
“Or,” I said, “if you want, you could drive your car to Hot Wheels, I can drive you home, and we can deliver your car to you tomorrow.”
“That’s amazing service.”
“That’s Hot Wheels,” I said. “Or maybe I should say, that’s Silver Springs. It’s a magical place.”
“I’m new here,” she said.
“I know.”
I followed her to Hot Wheels, secretly quite proud of my first on-the-road tire change, even though I’d changed tires before in the garage, with a car on the lift. I’d been a little bit nervous…but mostly, I’d believed in myself, far more than I ever had before.
Then I drove her home. The pig rode in the backseat.
Between Wilma and Sage, though, the pig might have been more conversational. She oinked whenever we hit a bump in the road.
I didn’t mind, though. I’d come to Silver Springs with a broken heart, and I hadn’t been my best, easiest-to-get-along with self at the time. I had a feeling maybe Sage had come to Silver Springs for a reason, too.
“If you want to go get drinks or come to karaoke night or try out a book club,” I said, feeling like my invitation was awkward, “I’m happy to show you around Silver Springs.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s nice of you.”
She didn’t say yes.
She picked up the book that I’d left on the center console of the convertible, though. “Is this the kind of book your book club discusses?”
“Oh no,” I said, glancing at the cover of Love Blooms. “That’s a once-in-a-lifetime read. I couldn’t handle more books like it.”
She gave me a quizzical look.
“It’s a really amazing romance novel,” I told her. “You can have it, if you want to read it.”
“Oh, thank you, but I don’t know,” she said. “I couldn’t just take your book.”
“It’s okay, take it,” I said. “I was going to give it away anyway.”
She looked at the cover. “I could use something to read at night. It gets a little lonely in that house.”
The pig squeaked at her, and she said, “Sorry, Wilma.”
“I