Bamboo circles atop the hood of an electric blue Mustang, her brown-grey fur puffed out like the bristles of a fresh pipe brush. She yells over and over in her shrill, whiny meow. Elia watches on, holding a socket wrench to her side and waiting. Intermittently amid the circling, Bamboo's protests soften. The translucent cone around her neck muffles the sound anytime she isn't facing Elia.

Elia plants both hands on the hood and looms over Bamboo; she glares into the cat's eyes. "If I take that off, you'll just run back out and get in another fight."

Bamboo keeps circling and yelling, louder and louder.

Elia shoves her wrench into an empty pocket of her toolbelt and reaches toward Bamboo. "Fine. Come here you little shit."

A moment later, the cone falls away and Bamboo is a brown-grey blur: she slips under cars, teleports into the rafters with the usual crack, then back down to slither across Elia's shoulders and neck. Elia lets the undone cone dangle at her side and scratches under Bamboo's chin. "It'll be a good day for one of us, at least."

Clouds outside shift and early morning sun pours into the shop. Rays of light glint off tools, cans of oil, and the body of the convertible that Elia parked in Duffie's workstation earlier. She tosses the — now useless — cone at her tool cabinet. Another hour of peace and quiet.

Bamboo brushes against her ear and purrs and meows. With a deep breath, Elia pops the Mustang's hood and pulls her socket wrench back out. "Maybe not."

The repair passes in a blink and the next moment keys jingle outside of the shop's door. A whistling Otto swings it open and strides in, but he jumps at the sight of Elia. "Ah, oh ho ho. Hey boss. You're up early."

It's almost like a moment ago she was taking off Bamboo's cone. She wills herself to be here and now. To be present. That'll slow things down, right? Take all the detail in each instant and store it away. She searches over Otto: his blue jumpsuit, his head glinting in the sunlight just like the tools —

He creeps toward his workstation. "Ha... you okay, boss?"

Of course it wouldn't work. She sighs and picks up a clipboard with the repair ticket. "Yeah. Morning."

Crack. The weight on Elia's shoulder disappears. Bamboo pops into existence near the slowly closing shop door and dashes through with a flick of her tail.

Elia scrawls her signature on the ticket and doesn't spare a glance. "God damned cat."

Time flashes forward again. A flurry of workspace cleanup, phone calls, and Otto flipping through radio stations in the background.

Without thinking, Elia's grinds her teeth. She leans over her tool cabinet and tightens her grip around the phone against her ear. "We've got no more room for you all to park your cases here. You've got to have deals with other mechanics in the city, clear out the ones we've already got and then we'll talk." She slams the phone face down on the cabinet and jerks open a drawer. The tools inside clatter around, crashing against the front of the drawer. She rustles around for a phillips-head, muttering under her breath. "Oh, you've only got ten of our cases. Assholes. Got a semi with a trailer for gods sake."

The shop door creaks open. Duffie's puffy brown pillar of hair peeks through before the rest of them, curly as ever. They cast a nod at Otto with a weak smile and scramble toward their workstation, where they get to work without fanfare: not even the hint of a reaction to the car already being there.

Or even a spare glance for Elia.

Her stomach curdles: an odd shift like she might need to rush to the bathroom, but that's not it. It's pain, regret. She watches Duffie run through some standard checks, then she slams the tool drawer shut. Harder than she means to. I tried, I suppose.

Duffie jumps at the clatter of tools. Their eyes dart between Elia's workstation and Otto. The two employees stare for a moment, but Duffie shifts away and picks up their repair ticket.

The only thing Elia wants to think about is her next task: a catalytic converter replacement. She forces down a gulp of water and moves on. Time disappears amid sweat, oil, and an ache where a missing bit of cushion causes the mechanic's creeper to dig into her back. Face covered in oil, she wipes away sweat with an already damp cloth and rolls out from under a 2264 Toyota Camry.

The sun made it halfway into the sky somewhere in the middle of that. No rays drift through the awning windows, only a soft glow that makes her shop feel like it's drifting in the middle of a dream. Exhaustion weighs down her arms, her legs. She can't force herself up so she stares at the ceiling.

Steel I-beams hold up more steel and even more concrete. There's probably a ton of shit up there. Cat toys, weird snacks, actual shit. Bamboo spends too much time up there and Elia certainly doesn't drag out a ladder to clean it.

The sun creeps into the frame of an awning window, filtering through the pane and filling the workshop with an ambient, dry heat. Elia squints it away and guards her eyes with an upturned palm. Been laying here that long, then?

She wrestles her own body into an upright position and scans over the shop. Otto eats some kind of sandwich: gross, nasty tuna probably. Duffie is gone, off to lunch somewhere nearby. Their last lunch. Half of a day and they're gone. Forever absent from Elia's life from that point forward. She pulls herself to her feet.

Otto flashes a brief smile, his eyes full of pain and near watering. She doesn't even have the energy to acknowledge him, but she keeps her head upright somehow and shuffles toward her office. A soda might help.

Someone knocks on Elia's door just out of sight of her office's window. A heavy sigh forces its way out of Elia's lungs. There they are then. She slips a glass-scratched picture into her desk and wipes away tears that bubble in the corners of her eyes. "Come in."

Duffie inches the door open. They shuffle forward. Keys jingle from a dangling hand. "I'm off." They say. They ease the keys onto her desk like any sudden movement might set off a bomb. "There are the keys. It was nice working with you, g-good luck with the shop."

She should apologize. Say something meaningful that'll fix things and make them want to stay. Something to at least make them not hate her. Nothing appears in her mind though, so she just nods and pulls her lips into a flat smile. "Yeah, good luck."

Duffie stands there, eyebrows peaked and waiting. Unknown words stick in Elia's throat. A choking dryness that swallows everything that she might want to say. She stares at Duffie and pushes. Anything. Say anything.

The young mechanic turns and her chance disappears. Again. Duffie hurries out to their workstation, picking at their hands the whole way.

Elia climbs to her feet and rests against her office's door frame. Duffie sifts through their tool cabinet to take the last of their personal belongings. They stow a couple wrenches in a messenger back and sling the strap over their shoulder.

Warmth builds behind Elia's eyes.

Duffie waves at Otto and starts toward the door. Otto catches her attention and that same warmth spills across his face in salty streaks. The two of them share the gaze for an instant. The next moment, Duffie passes the threshold and the door latches behind them.

For the last time.