Body Shop

When I come in, my mechanic is eating lunch. He doesn't look over the top of his newspaper. I glance around, hoping that Miss July with her sassy fife will distract me, but his calendars feature only a vernal wrench, saucy timing belt, naked carburetor: things that might make a robot humid. Sitting across from his headlines, I feel like the mechanic's wife: virtues ignored, faults magnified, taken for granted . . . It's all I can do to not clutch the lapels of my robe and run into the bathroom weeping. Finally he listens. Intently. Leaning closer, one hand on my trembling manifold.