Doing nothing. In itself, that sounds like a nice thing. Being free to kick back and do nothing at any time of the day was great. But as with most anything, there's a great big 'however' to that notion. Because there is also the matter of having nothing to do.
There's a sizeable difference between the two. Having the time and opportunity to do nothing is very pleasant and can be well enjoyed. But when circumstances force one to do nothing all the time because there is nothing to do, that's very unpleasant. In cases like that, eventually, the mind starts to rebel and boredom will start to drive one crazy. Because when doing nothing by choice, one is not ever truly doing nothing. Sitting back in a chair or in the garden, listening to some nice music, reading a book or a magazine, taking a relaxing nap, playing a game, watching a video, even just puttering about randomly, or, as Otis Redding once sang; "sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time". All very pleasant. But having nothing to do all day, every day, that was the other side of the pendulum. While giving all the time to do any or all of the pleasant things to waste time, being forced into having nothing to do all day made all those things lose allure eventually. Sometimes, one just had to do something.
Cue the screen going black, and lettering appearing in the manner of a sentence being typed out. Birch Brook, Minnaluna. Late April, 2026.
The weather had settled down for a few days. The most urgent rush of the season had passed as farmers in the surroundings had been working around the clock to get their fields prepared and their spring crops planted. With all, or at least most, of that being done, life slowly settled back down into a more regular rhythm again. In Fox Body Garage, just outside the town's west border, the bright orange and white vixen with the contrasting blue hair and skin Monique Winters could return to her regular daily tasks, no longer having to urgently rush to any of the farms to do emergency repairs on any of the equipment that was so badly needed for the spring planting. She had already given her 1966 Bedford CA service truck another maintenance service, as the vehicle had gotten several hundred miles put on its odometer in the past couple of weeks.
Regular customer service returned. The folk of Birch Brook and surroundings could make appointments again to have their car repaired or serviced. It could still take a little while, as it was just Monique doing all the work on her own, but people knew that, understood it, and were willing to wait for non-essential work. And of course, sometimes, a simple problem that should be quick and easy to fix, turned into quite a struggle that could burn away the whole day. Or a call came in that brought about something quite unexpected.
What was not unexpected was the sand-colored serval woman Doto van der Vyver coming into the garage. Still without a job, the feline woman hung out at the garage of her best friend Monique almost daily, because as much as she enjoyed doing nothing, she was also plagued by the boredom of having nothing to do. The manner in which she came into the garage that day, however, was a little bit unexpected. Slamming the door, putting her paws over her face, and crying out.
"AaaaaaaAAAAAGHHH!"
Monique, up to her elbows in the engine compartment of a 1987 Opel Kadett Caravan sitting high up above her on the car lift, did not even look around but merely flicked one of her pointy ears.
"And good morning to you too, Doto honey. Any specific reason why you're screaming through my garage?"
Doto flopped down in the chair she usually sat in with her paws still over her face.
"I'm going crazy, Momo!"
Still Monique did not even look away from the station wagon above her she was reaching into from below.
"So what else is new?"
"Not funny, Momo!" Doto grunted, jerking down her paws. "I'm so goddam bored out of my skull, I can't take it anymore!"
"Again, nothing new then," Monique said calmly, without looking around.
"I'm serious, Momo!" Doto grumbled. "This having nothing to do all day stopped being funny a long time ago! And you're not even looking at me!"
There was the slightest of flicks of Monique's bottlebrush tail.
"I'm kinda stuck at the moment because I'm working, sweetheart, and I have an arm trapped between the exhaust downpipe and the steering shaft in order to try and replace the manifold gasket here. You want me to look at least in your direction, you'll have to get up and stand in front of me, okay?"
Doto huffed, but she did get up from the chair and strolled over to the car lift, standing to the side of it so she was not under the long car but could still look at Monique's face, even though the vixen still did not take her look away from the underside of the engine compartment she was reaching up into.
"There you go," she said calmly. "So if getting bored from having nothing to do is getting to you so bad, honey, then why aren't you looking for a job?"
"I am looking," Doto said with another huff. "But no-one wants me! You'd think someone with a degree in biology would be swimming in job offers in an agricultural area like this, but I'm too goddam overqualified for anything around here!"
"So why not look a step below your qualifications, or perhaps even two steps?" Monique offered.
"I did! There's still nothing!" Doto grumbled. "I know I said I love not even needing to get a job, but I have been looking, Momo! There's just nothing around! I've looked at stuff way below my qualifications, but then you get into farming work that I know nothing about! And I'm not gonna be a shelf-stocker in the supermarket, Momo! They don't even wanna pay the minimum wage for someone in my age bracket because it's too expensive, and I do still wanna do something I at least have a shred of interest in."
"So what are you interested in?" Monique said with slight huffs as she twisted her shoulders while reaching upwards into the station wagon's engine compartment, accompanied by light clanking sounds of a spanner hitting against the exhaust pipe.
"Not stocking shelves or mopping floors, I'll tell you that much!" Doto huffed.
There were several clinks and clatters as the spanner Monique was using toppled down between the exhaust pipe and the steering shaft of the car and fell on the floor.
"Grab that and hand it back to me, would you please?" Monique wiggled free her left arm to take the spanner Doto picked up for her, and pointed it at the serval woman's nose. "Thanks. Now tell me this, sweetheart; do you want to work?"
"Yes," Doto huffed. "I'm done with being bored out of my mind because I have nothing to do all damn day."
Monique lightly wiggled the spanner up and down between her fingers.
"And are you willing to take on things below your level and put in the effort?"
"To a point," Doto smirked. "I wanna have something to do, Momo, but I don't wanna dislike what I have to do. That won't last, I'd be right back to staying home all day."
"But are you willing to put in the effort to stick it out even if the work is not always pleasant or fun, sweetheart?" Monique said with an almost unusually serious tone to her voice, still twiddling the spanner up and down at Doto's nose.
"I'm willing to give it a shot, so long as it's something I can do and have at least a sliver of interest in," Doto said, deflating a bit.
A small smile started forming on Monique's muzzle.
"You can work here. Part-time, five afternoons a week, twelve-thirty to five."
Doto blinked for a couple of moments.
"But... I'm not a mechanic, Momo."
"You don't have to be." Monique turned her attention back to the car above her, wiggling her left arm back up into the engine compartment. "There's plenty of work here you could do that you don't need automotive knowledge for, sweetheart. Handing me tools or parts, answering the phone, dealing with customers while I'm working on a car, cleaning and detailing cars, cleaning up around the place a bit, the list goes on. So..?"
Doto blinked again and lowered her head, nibbling on a finger.
"It's... well... It would be... kinda like hanging out with you like I already do all the time, wouldn't it? Would you seriously put me on your payroll for that?"
"It would be sort of like that in a way, sweetheart, yes," Monique nodded while twisting herself into a somewhat strange position so she could stretch out her left leg and pull near a rolling tool chest with her foot, letting a bolt drop down on it from the engine compartment of the car above her. "But it would be serious, I do expect you to show up on time and do actual work. You gonna sit on your butt all day and watch me, I'm not paying you for that, sweetheart. And I'm also not gonna baby you and hold your hand, you're intelligent enough to find things around the place that need doing, and do them without me telling you what to do all the time."
"Like this? That's fair I guess," Doto said, stepping a bit closer and catching another bolt Monique let drop down to put it in a magnetic dish on the tool chest.
"There you go," Monique nodded again. "So what do you say, sweetheart? Like I said, I do expect you to be on time every day and do actual work on your own, and the work can be hard or dirty sometimes, as you well know because you've observed it so often." A light playful grin curled the ends of the vixen's lips. "And you know what the dress code is most of the time."
Doto smirked but slowly turned the smirk into a light smile as well.
"I can do that. It'll be so much nicer having a bit of a steady routine and a purpose, it'll still leave me plenty of time to lounge because I won't have to get up early, and if I'm gonna be hanging out with you daily, I guess I might as well get paid for it."
"Then welcome aboard, sweetheart," Monique smiled with a light chortle, dropping another bolt.
Doto caught it and put it in the magnetic dish on the tool chest with a smile.
"Thanks so much, Momo. It's really super generous of you, I do understand it's not a usual..."
The landline phone in the office started ringing. Both women looked around for a moment, then looked at each other. Eventually, Monique's lips curled into another light grin while she nodded her head in the direction of the office, her arms still reaching up into the engine compartment of the car above her.
"So are you gonna answer that or what, sweetheart? I did mention I'm a bit stuck here, didn't I, and I did mention answering the phone would be among the things you could do around here, right?"
"Oh! Duh! Of course, I work here now!" Doto said, letting go a light chortle. "Sorry, still a bit new for me."
Monique called after her with a chortle as the serval woman started walking to the office.
"Bring the handset here and put it on speaker, sweetheart!"
Doto gave a thumbs-up as she stepped into the office and took the handset from the station to answer it.
"Fox Body Garage, how can I help you?"
"Ah, yes, hello. Is this miss Monique Winters?"
Doto activated the speaker function and started walking out of the office with the phone.
"No, this is Doto speaking. Monique has her arms up inside an engine so she can't come to the phone right now, but I'm bringing the phone over to her. You're on speaker so she can hear you, but you'll have to speak up a bit."
"That's right, I'm here but I'm a bit stuck right now," Monique said out loud, turning her head a bit while Doto held the phone up to her. "What can I do for you?"
"Oh, okay, I'm sorry for disturbing you. But thank you for speaking with me anyway. My name is Dieter Janson, I have recently purchased a property just outside the east border of the town of Birch Brook. It's a few acres of land with a house on it, and a fairly sizeable shed. The shed needs to come down, it's old and damaged and I need to build a barn for the Eritrean gazelles I breed for the IUCN, however it's full of stuff and there is at least one car in it, with what appears might be a second one way in the back behind and under a lot of boxes and such. I need all that stuff gone, including the car, but because it looks to be in decent shape, I was informed to get in contact with you because you might be interested in saving the car?"
"The Frankovic place! That's been sitting empty for a while now."
"Yes it has, and I know Joseph Frankovic took good care of his car, I did the services on it. But I thought his car and everything else had been sold in an estate sale after he died? Sounds like they may have forgotten to check the building. Can you tell me what kind of car it is, mister Janson?"
"The shed was locked and padlocked, I had to use bolt cutters and a hatchet to get the door open. And I'm sorry, I don't know much about cars, so all I can tell you is that it's apparently a Ford because there's a badge on the front of the hood that says Ford. And it must be pretty old because it has very old styling. You know, round headlights in the front parts of the fenders, wipers pointing at each other, that sort of things."
"Sounds pretty nineteen fifties, alright. And I'm certainly willing to save the car, mister Janson. How much would you want for it?"
"To be honest, I was hoping you could remove it from the premises free of cost, so I'll take whatever your towing charge would be. I'm going to be financially stretched with getting all the rest of what's in that shed removed and recycled, having the shed torn down and the barn and fences built."
"That's fair, I'm willing to waive my towing charge as payment for the car. And if there is indeed another car in the back of the building, I'll also be willing to at least help relocate some of the items in the building in order to reach that second car."
"I certainly appreciate that, miss Winters. How soon can you be here? It's not exactly very urgent, but I have a contractor coming next week to assess the work for demolishing the shed."
"Ah, hmmm, well. Let's see. As I mentioned, at this moment I'm kind of stuck as I'm in the middle of an exhaust gasket job and I have an arm twisted up between the exhaust pipe and the steering shaft. It might take a bit too, because it's so tricky to reach. Would tomorrow afternoon work for you? Between one and one-thirty?"
"That'll be fine, miss Winters, thank you very much. I'll make sure to be out front to meet you, as I will be surveying the property lines so I can assess where the fences will need to be built."
"In that case, let's make it one-thirty sharp, so you know exactly at what time we will be arriving. Doto will take you back into the office and take down your details, mister Janson, and we'll see you tomorrow at one-thirty in the afternoon."
"Thank you very much, miss Winters, I do appreciate that a lot. I'll see you tomorrow then."
"You will, mister Janson." Monique turned her head again to send Doto a smile. "Write the details down on that pad on the desk, sweetheart, I haven't booted the computer up yet."
"You got it," Doto nodded.
The serval woman walked back to the office, returning a few moments later to stand near Monique again, helping the vixen woman by catching a couple more bolts and putting them in the magnetic dish, handing her a scraper, and she didn't even object to getting herself dirty when Monique asked her to prepare the new exhaust manifold gasket by rubbing a thin layer of gray room-temperature vulcanization cream on both sides of it with her fingers. With the help, Monique could actually finish the job a bit quicker despite the difficult reach up into the engine compartment from below the station wagon. She also let Doto lower the arms of the car lift to set the car back on its wheels again while she herself disposed of the remnants of the old gasket and the old bolts and put her tools back.
Next, she taught Doto how to safely operate the car lift by letting her lift up another customer car and do an oil change on it. As that was the last job of that day, once it was done Monique could take some time to go around the garage with Doto and show her where everything was and should be, and even draw up a simple employment contract. The feline woman found herself being more excited over it than she thought she would have been, and she even good-naturedly answered Monique's teasing about the 'dress code' by taking off her shirt and sitting on the bench against the office wall for a drink completely topless with the vixen who had also peeled down the upper part of her coveralls to let out her breasts.
The next day, Doto even arrived at the garage early. She was already there a bit before noon, bringing a small box of donuts for lunch as a thank-you for Monique offering her a job. She even sat naked in the office with the vixen as Monique showed her how the scheduling program on the computer worked so Doto could plan in appointments herself. They took some time after lunch as well to get the serval woman even more familiarized with the garage and some of the tools and equipment, and as the time crept towards one o'clock, Monique gave Doto a pair of full-body coveralls to put on in place of her regular clothes and showed her what items and tools should all be in the storage boxes on the rollback truck before they both got into the truck and Monique drove them through town and out the other side of it to get to their appointment for the day.
A little bit past the town sign, the vixen pulled the truck into a sizeable yard holding a two-story house and a large shed near the back. A newer model Land Rover sat parked near the house, and a very dark-furred Spectacled bear man - who actually also wore a pair of glasses - sat on a garden chair in front of the house as well, smoking a cigar. He got to his feet when the rollback truck pulled into the yard, and shook paws with both Monique and Doto as they got out of the truck and introduced themselves.
"Miss Winters?"
"I'm Monique Winters, and this is my good friend and now also assistant Doto van der Vyver," Monique smiled as she shook the bear man's paw and gestured at Doto with her other paw.
"Dieter Janson, very nice to meet you. You came very highly recommended by the people around here," the bear man said with a smile of his own, also shaking Doto's paw.
"I'm quite the professional," Monique smiled with a light chortle. "Might I ask what brought you to Birch Brook, mister Janson?"
"My mother actually was from here," Mr. Janson said. "She moved to Easton where she got married and had me, but she always had lots of praising stories to tell about this town."
"It's a very lovely place to live," Doto nodded with a smile. "You said you breed Eritrean gazelles? Those are endangered, you must have some kind of special permit or something for that?"
"Yes, I work together with the IUCN on a breeding program," Mr. Janson nodded as well. "They appear to have some troubles reproducing in zoos, mainly because of limited space, but the land here is very suitable for them. It was fortunate I got the opportunity to actually procure land and property right outside my mother's hometown." He let go a light chuckle. "Even if that property came with somewhat of a surprise."
"Right, let's have a look at that surprise," Monique chortled. "I'm actually already surprised they didn't force open that shed to get access for the estate auction, but I suppose they may have had their reasons for that."
"I don't know, but I would have rather they had emptied out that shed, because now it falls on my plate," Mr. Janson said with another light chuckle.
"I can give you a few recommendations of people to get in touch with, but I'll have to see the content first," Monique smiled.
She and Doto followed the bear man to the large building at the back of the yard. Mr. Janson removed a length of old chain that was wrapped around the large, long vertical door handles to keep the doors from swinging open and pulled the right-hand door all the way open with a bit of difficulty as it sagged slightly. The shed had several partial walls on the inside sectioning off areas, with a wide open path in the middle. Close behind the right door indeed a very old car was sitting on flat tires, an old wood workbench piled high with boxes and crates and bags was against the far right wall of the frontmost section, and random piles of boxes and crates and bags as well as random equipment were scattered throughout the building, along with sagging shelving racks and upright stands for gardening and land-working tools.
Monique calmly stepped around the old car, every now and then leaning over to look under it and tapping or rubbing her fingers at rusty spots. It was a 1952 Ford Mainline Fordor Sedan in a very dark green color that under a thick layer of dust was fading on the roof, hood, deck lid and the tops of the rounded front and rear fenders from many years of abuse by the sun, and creeping moisture from the dirt floor of the shed had started several areas of rust along the edges of the wheel wells, the bottom edges of the hood, deck lid and fenders, the bottom edges of the doors and the rocker panels. The front and rear chrome bumpers were also pitted and covered in spots of surface rust, and there was only a small limited amount of ornamental trim, but what should be there was still present, if dulled and oxidized. It was sitting on simple steel rims that were painted the same color as the body, and only at the left rear the rim still held a small chrome hubcap with the word Ford in the center.
Having made a full round around the car, Monique stood back upright and smiled.
"No wonder I was surprised as Joseph Frankovic's car had been sold in the estate auction; this is Joseph Senior's car. Like you said, though, mister Janson; still in pretty good shape, especially for its age and having sat in this shed for goodness knows how many decades."
"And there's another car behind that wall there in the back as well, I see a fender with a cover over the wheel and a very swoopy, slope-y trunk sticking out from behind that wall," Doto pointed out.
"Very observant, sweetheart," Monique smiled, stepping a bit further into the shed and holding a paw above her eyes to look towards the far end of the building, before turning back to the Spectacled bear man. "I also notice some toolboxes and such, and an engine stand or two; I'd be interested in those, would you mind if I were to take those as well?"
"And look at that awesome potbellied stove!" Doto said as she shuffled further into the shed. "Is it okay if I take that, mister Janson?"
"Please do," Mr. Janson nodded. "As I mentioned, all of this has to be removed and disposed of, and anything you are willing to take, I won't have to pay for to have it removed later, so that would actually be quite helpful."
"Great, thank you!" Doto smiled.
Monique smiled as well and stepped over to the path in the middle of the shed so she could look down it and at the separated sections to both the left and right of it, slowly running a paw over her slender muzzle and firm blue whiskers.
"Alright, let's have a logical look at this. To get to that car in the back, we'll have to move out all this lumber and tin siding in the middle path here. We can stack it up along the side of the building for the time being. All those boxes and stuff will also have to be at least taken off of that car, we could maybe stack them along one of those divider walls, but it'll depend on what's in them and how sturdy they are. This car here, we can pull that out, but I'll need the tires aired up, and some of them may not hold air. Hmmm... We can also make two small piles of things we want to bring home with us aside from the cars, that will make things handier. Let's see now..."
For another few moments, the vixen looked this way and that through the shed while running her paw over her muzzle and whiskers again, eventually turning to Doto and reaching into a pocket of her coveralls.
"Alright, I have a basic idea. Walk with me, sweetheart." She led the way out of the shed and over to the rollback truck, pulling a set of keys from her pocket which she used to unlock a few of the storage boxes. "Let me grab some stuff from the truck here." She pulled a small battery-operated air compressor from one of the storage boxes, a floor jack and a few axle stands, a small toolbox and a cordless impact gun. "Right, there we go. Now, I need you to do the following, sweetheart. Drive back to the garage with this truck. Behind the main building, there's that flat car trailer, you know the one? Hook that to the back of this truck, and take the van and put it on that trailer. And remember to strap it down, sweetheart, you've seen me do it plenty of times so I'm sure you can manage. Also, in that little corner at the back of the building, by the dumpsters, there's a stack of wheels, know the ones I mean? The trailer wheels, those white rims with all the holes in them and the small tires on them. I believe there's six of them if I remember right; grab all six of them and put them in the back of the van." She pulled another set of keys from her pocket. "Here's the keys to the place, and this small key here goes to that orange cabinet on the wall in the office; the keys to the fleet vehicles are in there. Can you do that while I stay here and see if I can get that Ford at least rolling?"
"Uhm... I'm not sure if I can drive that big truck, Momo," Doto said with just a tad of apprehension.
Monique waved it away with a smile.
"Sure you can, sweetheart! If you can drive that wagon of yours, you can drive the rollback. Just remember to look in the mirrors a bit more and take wider turns, okay? You'll be fine, don't worry."
"Okay, well, if you believe I can, I'll do my best," Doto said with a light smile, taking the keys.
"Atta girl, sweetheart," Monique smiled.
"In the meantime, I shall go into the house and see if I can find any documentation and perhaps keys to those cars," Mr. Janson promised.
"That'll be very helpful, thank you," Monique smiled.
She and Doto carried the things Monique had taken from the rollback truck into the shed, while the Spectacled bear man walked back to the house and disappeared through the front door. While Doto walked back to the truck and climbed behind the wheel of it to carefully drive off the yard, Monique turned her attention to the very old Ford. She tried the driver door; unlocked, but a bit stuck. Pulling harder, the vixen opened the driver door and stuck her head into the car to check the interior - and immediately pulled her head back out with her eyes squeezed shut and coughing.
"Oh gawd, fuck me!"
The front bench seat had a thick, blanket-like cover over it that was threadbare and had several holes worn into it, showing the original material the seat was covered with underneath - or what was left of it, anyway. Plumes and tufts of the material the seat was filled with were sticking out, clearly having been pulled out by small feral rodents. The headliner had holes in it and was sagging in several places, the door cards were curling and letting loose, the armrests were worn and chewed on, thick cobwebs were dangling from the large two-spoke steering wheel with the full chrome horn ring, the simple gearshift lever sticking up from the steering column and the metal, black-painted dashboard. But the reason for Monique's reaction was the floor of the car; the vinyl covering and the rubber mats were crumbling and chewed on, and covered in a layer of droppings that filled the car with a very strong odour of urine and feces.
Turning away from the car and breathing through her opened mouth, Monique was actually glad that for a change, she was wearing a shirt under her coveralls, as she could unzip the top of her coveralls and pull up her shirt to cover her muzzle with it. Still even holding her breath under her shirt, the vixen turned back to the car again and tried the window winder on the inside of the driver door. Fortunately, even if it was a bit slow and resisting, the door window went all the way down. Using her left paw to keep holding her shirt over her muzzle, Monique slowly walked around the car again and tried the other doors; the rear left door was unlocked and could be pulled open and the window rolled down, the front right door was also unlocked, pulled open and the window rolled down, the rear right door was locked, but easily unlocked by crouching a bit and reaching around the center pillar to pull up the small lock knob, after which the vixen also pulled open that door and rolled down its window.
With that done, Monique stepped out of the shed and lowered her shirt to pull in deep breaths of fresh air. Good grief, that car stank! She had seen her share of rodent-infested cars in her day, but this was on a whole other level! Staying outside the shed for a while, the vixen wiped at her muzzle with a paw and considered for a moment or two whether to wait for Doto to return, as there were muzzle masks in one of the storage boxes on the rollback truck. Eventually, she decided against it; after all, it was Doto's first time driving the large truck, and even attaching a trailer to it and loading the GMC van on that trailer, so it might be a while before the serval woman would be back. And the main work that needed doing on the old Ford was on the outside anyway.
After another deep breath or two and pulling her shirt back over her muzzle, Monique went back into the shed and pulled the floor jack over to the front of the old car. Sitting on her knees and leaning over to look under the car, she positioned the jack and started pumping the handle, slowly lifting the old Ford until it was up high enough for her to put two of the axle stands under the frame rails. She released the pressure of the jack to let the car sink back down and rest on the axle stands, putting the jack aside and kneeling down by the left front wheel. Grabbing a firm hold of the wheel with both paws, Monique tried to spin the resisting wheel, jiggling it back and forth until she managed to turn it a couple of full, if crunchy-sounding circles. Good enough. The cordless impact gun made short work of removing the five lug nuts and a short, firm yank took the wheel off the car, after which Monique put the lug nuts back on the studs to not lose them. The wheel itself was put aside and the hose of the air compressor was attached to the valve before Monique set the compressor to twenty pounds and let it do its thing while she knelt down by the right front wheel.
Repeating the processes she had done on the left front wheel, the vixen managed to get that wheel turning as well and removed it, putting it by the other wheel. A quick glance at the screen of the air compressor showed that the left front tire was in fact taking air, so again Monique left it to do its thing and took the jack and the other two axle stands over to the rear of the car. Jacking up the back end of the car and putting it on the axle stands was easy enough; getting the rear wheels to turn was not. Both rear wheels stubbornly refused to move even the slightest bit. Even taking them off the car was not as easy as it had been on the front, as the rear wheel wells were flattened off in the middle and extended lower down to cover part of the rear wheels. But after a good deal of wiggling and tugging, and some grunts and a few choice words, both rear wheels were off the car and sitting by the front wheels. The air compressor had shut off after reaching twenty pounds of air pressure in the front left tire, so Monique attached the hose to the valve stem of the right front wheel and activated the compressor again, leaving it to do its thing again while she once more turned her attention back to the car.
Taking a small sledgehammer and a large pry bar from her toolbox, the vixen started attacking the left rear brake drum, banging on the surface of the rusty drum and all along the edge of it, then sticking the pry bar between some of the lug studs and pushing down on it hard with all her weight. She repeated that several times, trying to get the stuck drum to free up and start turning, but without success. After several more failed attempts, Monique took another pry bar and a couple of large flat-head screwdrivers from her toolbox, wiggled the screwdrivers between the backing plate and the edge of the brake drum to create just enough space for the pry bars and used the pry bars to forcefully wrench the brake drum forwards. It took quite a while of tugging, wiggling, repositioning the screwdrivers and pry bars and more tugging, but eventually Monique managed to pull the brake drum off the hub, along with the old brake shoes which had rusted solid against the inside of the drum. The vixen removed the old brake shoes and brake hardware and tossed it aside, putting the brake drum back on the hub so it at least spun freely.
By that time, as it had taken so long, Doto had returned with the rollback truck which was now pulling a car trailer on which the GMC Vandura was sitting. Looking up, Monique stepped out of the shed and up to the truck as Doto parked it.
"Ah, thank goodness you're back!"
Doto couldn't help blinking.
"Uh... yay?"
Monique had already opened the passenger door of the truck and leaned inside to open the glovebox and take out a stack of simple muzzle masks.
"I've been needing these like you wouldn't believe, sweetheart. That car is like a freaking septic tank inside!"
"Oh... wooowww, greeeat," Doto drawled with her eyebrows quirked. "So how are we supposed to get it out of there and back to your garage?"
"Pushing through and holding our breath behind these masks when needed," Monique said with a light chortle, sticking some of the folded masks in the right chest pocket of her coveralls.
"Wooonderful," Doto drawled again. "You're giving me quite the positive impression on my first official workday, Momo."
"Yes, well, this just happens sometimes with cars that have been sitting for decades, and you gotta be prepared to face that," Monique shrugged. "I wouldn't worry too much, the windows are down so most of the smell will blow out on the way back, and when we're at the garage I'll clean out the inside of that car with the pressure washer." She chortled softly at Doto's disgusted expression and booped the serval's nose with a fingertip. "Lighten up, sweetheart, it's not like I'm gonna make you do that chore. Matter of fact, you can stay well away from that car for now, I still have to yank off the right back brake so you can make a start on pulling out that tin siding in the walkway, alright? That's not too heavy, and you can stack it up on the side of the shed. Here, I'll even open the other door for you."
She pulled open the other large door of the shed and took one of the long, narrow ribbed sheets of metal siding, carrying it out of the shed and showing Doto where to stack the other sheets. While the serval woman started taking out the other sheets of siding, Monique removed the ratchet straps holding the van to the car trailer - with a nod of appreciation to herself over the way Doto had attached them - pulled out the ramps and drove the van off the trailer. She also disconnected the trailer from the rollback truck and rolled it out of the way for the moment, before walking back into the shed and attacking the right rear brake drum with the sledgehammer and the pry bars. A quick check on the wheels laying off to the side showed the right front tire was not taking any air, so Monique tried the other two wheels. Only one of those also took air. Well, two out of four was not all too bad, all things considered.
The two wheels with the re-inflated were put on the rear of the car, and from the back of the van, Monique took two of the trailer wheels Doto had brought along and put them on the front of the car. The axle stands were removed, the old Ford was set back down on its wheels, and while holding her nose, Monique leaned into the car to check the gearshift lever and make sure the car was in neutral. Using the van and a chain with large hooks on both ends from the back of the rollback truck, the vixen slowly pulled the old Ford partway out of the shed, then put both hooks of the chain around the front crossmember of the old car and got into the rollback truck to maneuver it around until the back pointed straight at the old Ford, got out and tilted and lowered the deck of the truck.
After she had pulled out the cable of the winch and hooked it to the middle of the chain, Monique waved over Doto while tapping a button on the winch to pull the cable tight.
"Alright sweetheart, here's where I'll need your help."
"Sure, what can I do?"
"Reach through the window and hold the wheel so you can steer the car while I pull it up onto the deck."
Doto rumpled her short muzzle.
"I'm not touching that disgusting steering wheel, are you crazy?"
"There's a box of latex gloves in that box there, sweetheart," Monique said with a light chuckle, nodding at one of the truck's storage boxes.
"Whatever! I'm not going anywhere near that disgusting car!" Doto smirked.
Monique gave a light shrug.
"Fine, I'll do it then, but then you will have to operate the winch."
"That I can do, and I'll even follow your instructions to the letter. But I'm not getting near that stinky heap of shit."
"Not so derogative, sweetheart, Ford built pretty good cars back in the day," Monique sniggered.
Doto smirked again and pushed Monique's shoulder as she stepped past the vixen on her way to the winch controls.
"You know what I meant, Momo! That car looks pretty nice, but you said it yourself, it's full of literal shit and it smells repulsive."
"Won't fight you on that, it is pretty damn ripe in there," Monique chortled.
She opened another of the storage boxes on the side of the truck and pulled a bright blue latex glove from a small box. Pulling the glove over her right paw, the vixen walked over to the old Ford and stood next to it, sticking her right arm through the opened driver door window to grab a hold of the steering wheel.
"Alright sweetheart, start pulling," she instructed, with a light giggle at the cable going slack. "Other button, sweetheart. There you go, keep going, keep going. Hold it down, don't worry about how that cable is rolling up on the drum, just keep on going. Perfect." She lightly steered the old car to the left a bit when the front wheels hit the edge of the tilted deck. "Go on, keep on going. Short bursts now, yeah, like that. Again... again... that's it, pull her all the way up now." She straightened the steering wheel back out as the car started climbing the tilted deck. "Good, good... all the way to the front, there you go. Little more... touch more. There, that's perfect, thank you, sweetheart."
Monique put the lock on the winch and took a couple of chains with hooks and come-alongs on them which she used to secure the old Ford to the deck of the rollback truck. A few ratchet straps were added as well for safety, and the vixen showed Doto how the controls worked for lifting the deck of the truck back up straight and move it back in position. Once the truck's deck was all the way back in its original position, Monique moved the truck aside so it was out of the way and started helping Doto move the wood beams and planks out of the middle walkway in the shed, stacking them up on the other side of the shed.
The path cleared, both of them started moving boxes and crates out of the way. The first thing Doto grabbed was a very old cast-iron potbellied stove, pushing two crates sitting near it out of the way with a foot and dragging the stove out of the shed to set it near the van. Monique did the same with several old metal toolboxes and also rolled two old engine stands out of the shed, against which she leaned a few old traffic signs and commercial signs she also pulled out of the shed. Doto pushed wood and cardboard boxes to the side, and trotted out of the shed quite triumphantly with two very old brass oil lanterns which she set by the stove.
Within two hours, they had cleared the path to the back of the shed even more, and had also un-buried the car that was hiding behind the last divider wall. Monique slowly stepped around the car with her lips curled into a very cheerful grin, running her paw over the curves of the car here and there to wipe away the dust and reveal faded lettering.
"Well well well, three holes in the ground. Would you look at that, seems like Frankovic senior used to do a spot of racing in his day! And he must have been successful as well, this is the perfect car for it."
"What's so special about this car?" Doto shrugged. "All I can see is that it's very... well, tear-droppy."
"Ah, well, my dear feline friend, allow me to enlighten you," Monique said with a chortle mixing into the pompous tone her voice had adopted. "We are looking here at a nineteen fifty-one or fifty-two Hudson Hornet Club Coupe. These cars were designed with a step-down perimeter frame, so rather than the floorboards sitting atop the frame rails, they actually recessed down between the frame rails, which gave these cars a very low center of gravity. Combined with the twin H-power motor these cars could get, that had a hundred and forty-five horsepower which in the very early fifties was huge, these cars were unbeatable on the race track, which that early in the fifties were still mainly dirt tracks. And as we can see here..." She wiped more dust off the sleek, down-curving enclosed rear fender, revealing more faded lettering that read "Fairy Ring Dirt Track" along with a barely visible picture of a humanoid fairy. "...old man Frankovic has been racing this car on the local track. I bet, if we'd go there and check the history files, we'll find mention of him."
Doto gave a light smirk at Monique's tone of voice and shook her head.
"You don't have to talk like that, Momo, there's no need to sell this car's capacities to me. I believe you even if you talk normally. And what even is the Fairy Ring track? You mentioned Fairy Ring a while back as well, when that old lady came in with her car that she wanted you to take out on your test track, but I never heard of a track called Fairy Ring anywhere near here, I only know of the Fairy Pond Park race track."
"The Fairy Ring was the original dirt track, sweetheart," Monique smiled. "It was just a sort of kidney bean-shaped dirt track that's been there since the mid fifties or so. Only about twelve years ago did they build that whole other tarmac track that goes all the way around the Fairy Pond and even up over the hill where the Fairy Spring wells up and feeds into the pond. From then on, with all the upgrades and extras they built, that's when they called it Fairy Pond Park. But the original Fairy Ring dirt track is still there, you know, it's in the infield of the new track and they even built the pit lane of the new track to run right along the original pit lane, so one row of buildings can still service both tracks."
"Ohh, right, that makes sense I guess," Doto nodded, tilting her head a bit. "You seem to know a lot about that place, too."
"Sure I do, have you seen my race car?" Monique winked with a laugh. "I've been running races there since about a year after I moved back to this place, you know! Amateur class at first, then the official races; heck, I used a huge chunk of the prize money I won to pay off the garage after I took it over from my uncle."
"So those trophies in the office are yours?!" Doto mewed.
"Hell yeah, sweetheart!" Monique laughed cheerily. "My uncle did some work on the race cars of some of the folk around here at that place, but I built my own and actually raced it at that place! Still do as a matter of fact!"
"Is that why your place is closed for a few days in September and October? Why didn't I know about that?" Doto said wide-eyed.
"You never asked about it, sweetheart," Monique chortled with another wink. "But yeah, late September and twice in October, there's races there that I participate in." She curled her lips into a cheerful grin. "You should totally come along next time, sweetheart, you can be in my pit crew."
"Oh hell no!" Doto said, raising her paws. "I'd love to come and watch you, Momo, but I'm not touching your race car! I know nothing of that sort of stuff, and I wouldn't want to mess anything up. You could get hurt! Seriously!"
"You can be the supervisor, sweetheart," Monique chortled. "No need to touch my race car, but do touch this one to help me move it out of here, okay?"
"Alright, well, sure," Doto nodded, looking at the teal-colored and very dusty car. "But how'd we even get it out from behind this wall? Push it? That's not gonna work, the tires are flat."
Monique made a dismissive gesture with a paw.
"We'll pump'em up. These are dirt track tires, I wanna bet all four of them will take and hold air just fine. I admit though that it being behind this wall makes things a tad tricky, but if I back the trailer into here, we can use the winch of that, with a snatch block attached to the post of that divider wall over th..."
She stopped short as she looked towards the opposite side of the shed. Doto blinked and tilted her head again, following Monique's gaze and blinking yet again. In the section behind the dividing wall on the opposite side of the shed, half hidden behind a stack of wood crates and a pallet full of old bags of concrete mix, sat a third car. And even Doto could tell it was a positively ancient car from its boxy design making it look like an actual box, with long, sweeping fenders curving over the rear wheels and the front wheels, connected by a running board.
It was, in fact, a 1928 Fiat 520, with black fenders and the top part, from the door windows up to the roof being black as well, and the area in between a dark blue. Both women stared in silence for a few moments, then Monique closed her eyes and gave her head a firm, short shake.
"Well then! Looks like we may need to do a bit of creative shuffling on the truck. Because apparently, Frankovic senior senior's car is also stashed back here!"
"Jeez, how do you keep running into these kinds of stupid windfalls?" Doto said with a playful smirk.
Monique grinned and poked the serval's shoulder.
"This one's your fault, sweetheart, you answered the phone."
"Yeah yeah, sure, I'm sorry," Doto sniggered. "I'm sorry for you getting your hands on three cars, of which one is a goddam vintage race car. Oh can you ever forgive me?"
"I will for this once, sweetheart," Monique grinned. "Because hey, this also means you're gonna be working overtime on your first official workday because this is going to be a long afternoon."
"Wonderful," Doto sniggered again. "Well, at least I'm getting an awesome vintage potbellied stove and some awesome vintage oil lanterns out of this deal, so it's not a total loss I suppose."
"In that case, stop them lips a-yappin' and start them hands a-flappin', sweetheart," Monique chortled. "We got a bunch of work to do here."
Doto couldn't do anything but agree with that. She started moving boxes and crates and bags out of the way to uncover the ancient Fiat, while Monique took the air compressor and re-inflated the tires of the teal 1951 Hudson Hornet race car. Both doors of the car also were unlocked, allowing the vixen to wind down the windows it actually still had and reach inside to make sure it was shifted into neutral.
Some time was taken to put all the additional items they had singled out into the back of the GMC van, after which Monique attached the car trailer to its tow hitch and slowly maneuvered the combination into the shed backfirst. She wrapped a rope shackle around the solid support post of the dividing wall hiding the Fiat and attached a shackle with a sort of pulley to that, pulling out the cable of the winch on the trailer and leading it through the pulley before hooking it to the chain with hooks on both ends she had attached to the underside of the Hudson. That allowed her to pull the car more or less straight backwards even though the winch was perpendicular to it.
As the rear end of the car came out from behind the wall, Monique had Doto operate the winch so she could reach in through the opened driver door window and steer the car around the edge of the dividing wall as best as she could manage. Eventually, she locked the winch, took the winch cable off the pulley and had Doto drive the van out of the shed very slowly while she kept steering the Hudson as it was pulled backwards. Once outside the shed, the car was parked off to the side, and Monique backed the van and trailer back into the shed so they could repeat the procedure to pull the ancient Fiat out of the shed as well.
With both cars out of the shed, Monique undid the chains and straps holding the old Ford Mainline to the deck of the rollback truck and had Doto help her roll the car even more forwards by turning the front wheels by paw until the car's front bumper touched the rack at the very front of the deck. It was strapped and chained back down securely, and a battery-powered angle grinder was utilized to cut off a few rusted bolts which enabled Monique to pull off the rear bumper and lay it on the backseat of the car. The cable of the winch was pulled out again and ran under the Ford, and Monique deftly manipulated the controls on the side of the truck to carefully let the deck slide backwards and tilt down with the old Ford still on it.
The winch cable was attached to the frame of the ancient Fiat to slowly and very carefully pull it onto the rearmost free part of the truck's deck backwards. When its spindly rear bumper touched against the rear of the Ford, Monique held the controller of the winch in one paw and manipulated the controls of the deck with her other paw, very slowly and gently lifting the deck back up and every now and then giving the winch a little tug to keep the cable pulled tight. It took quite a bit of careful maneuvering, but eventually the truck's deck was sitting upright and forwards again, with the narrow front wheels of the Fiat only just balancing on the back edge of the deck. Taking two longer chains, Monique attached them to the front of the Fiat's frame and hooked them to D-rings almost in the middle of the deck, so the ancient car was pulled sharply backwards against the back of the old Ford, and kept in place with the winch cable while Monique strapped it down tightly.
Loading the Hudson onto the car trailer went a whole lot smoother and easier. It took less than fifteen minutes before the old race car was sitting on the trailer and strapped down securely, and by that time it was not yet seven o'clock in the evening. Very content with the results, Monique took a couple of small bottles of fruit juice from a small cooler in the cab of the rollback truck, gave one to Doto and one to the Spectacled bear man who joined them with a small box.
"There were three cars? I had no idea!" he said as he walked over to the rollback truck, handing Monique the box. "Anyway, this was all I could find, it seems like there's a bunch of random paperwork in here for several different cars, and at least one or two which are not here anymore. And there's keys in that small lockbox that's inside."
"Thank you," Monique smiled, setting the box in the cab of the truck. "Yes, we were rather surprised as well when we got to the back of the shed to free up the Hudson, and we turned around to see that old Fiat sitting behind the opposite wall. But as you can see, we got all of them out." She took a drink from her bottle of juice. "It's likely that some of the paperwork you found concerns the family cars that were sold in the estate auction. I'll sort through the papers and get in touch with the auction house to inform them about that, so you don't need to worry about it."
"I appreciate that a lot, thank you," Mr. Janson nodded with a smile. "I wouldn't have minded doing it, but truth be told, I already have a whole lot of things to keep in mind, it's a smidge overwhelming."
"I'd hate to add to that, but I still have some recommendations for you," Monique smiled with a light chortle. "We put all that siding and a bunch of other scrap metal over there on the left side of the shed, and we've put all those beams and planks and other scrap wood on the right side. I'd advise you to get in touch with Jeffrey Donner, who runs the junkyard south of town, and Dennis Browne who runs the lumberyard a couple miles thattaway," she gestured towards the east. "I'm sure they'll be willing to pick up and recycle that stuff for you and make a good deal in the process. As for all those boxes and stuff, I noticed a lot of them have old clothes and linens in them, so you might want to give the community center a call and see if they would want to send out a group of volunteers to sort through it; a lot of it could go to a thrift store or be recycled for art projects in the community center." She let go a short laugh. "But if that's too much or you think it might take too long, Jeffrey also rents out these large mobile squeezy trash containers, you know, kind of like what's on the back of a garbage truck? They take a whole lot of trash because they squeeze it, and you can toss anything in there that couldn't be otherwise recycled, so you may want to ask Jeffrey about one of those as well."
"That is actually very helpful, thank you so much," Mr. Janson nodded with a smile. "I'll definitely do some calling around tomorrow and see what can be arranged."
"Folks are very helpful around here," Monique nodded, taking another drink from her bottle of juice. "Heck, I'm willing to bet that if you mention your mother was from here, they'll welcome you with open arms and offer to take all the scrap to their yards for free."
The bear man chuckled softly.
"I might try that. And I'm already very happy with how helpful you have been. Are you all done now, or is there more you need or want to take from that shed?"
"We've picked through the stuff for what we're interested in, and that's all in the back of the van," Monique smiled. "And we got the cars out, that was the most important. It's about time we went back now and get these cars unloaded, it's still gonna take a decent amount of time because I'll have to drive very slowly and carefully with those two cars on the back of the truck. And we'll need to grab some late dinner on the way, we haven't had any of that yet," she added with a chortle.
"Of course, of course!" Mr. Janson nodded, shaking paws with Monique. "Again, thank you so very much for your help and your advice, miss Winters. This has made things a lot easier for me. I hope you'll have a nice rest of the day, and a pleasant dinner as well."
"Thank you, we will," Monique smiled, letting go another chortle. "And if you ever need your car serviced or your trailer repaired, you know where to find my garage."
"Absolutely!" Mr. Janson nodded with a laugh, also shaking Doto's paw. "And thank you as well, miss van der Vyver."
Their goodbyes said, Monique climbed into the cab of the rollback truck, and Doto got behind the wheel of the GMC Vandura. Leading the way very slowly and carefully, the vixen drove off the yard and switched on the hazard flashers and the orange strobe lights in the column on the truck's roof as she started making her way down the road back towards town. Due to the slow, cautious speed, it took them almost half an hour to get through the town and back out of it as the west border, with another almost ten minutes added to get to Monique's garage. The cars on the back of the truck, and especially the Fiat teetering so precariously on the very back edge, wobbled dangerously as Monique made the turn into the yard of her garage and bumped the row of kerb stones outlining the planted area on the left front corner of the yard.
But she got there without any accidents, and immediately pulled the truck all the way around the main building to the back of the yard where she turned it around. Doto followed her in the van, and Monique leaned out the driver door of the truck to wave at the serval woman and direct her on where to park the van and the trailer it was pulling. Getting out of the truck, the vixen started manipulating the controls again to slowly and carefully move the deck backwards and tilt it until the rear edge was resting on the ground. The straps were undone, the chains were removed, and tapping a button on the winch controller, Monique slowly let the ancient Fiat roll off the back of the truck until it was sitting solidly on the ground. She detached the winch cable and had Doto help her push the very old car into a roofed-over area to the side of the small building behind the garage, winding the windows back up once the car was in place.
Doto took the box with the paperwork and the small lockbox in it into the garage to put it in the office by Monique's request, quite happily as it meant she didn't have to be close by as Monique started letting down the very odoriferous old Ford off the truck's deck. Once that car was sitting on the ground, Monique opened all four of the doors as well as the trunk and the hood as wide as they would open, moved the truck's deck back up and into position and got into the truck to drive it back around the building and park it along the right border of the premises where it was always parked. Doto walked back outside, and blinked in surprise when she saw Monique taking the hose off a pressure washer, clipping a regular spray pistol to it and beginning to spray water all over the floors of the old Ford Mainline, while holding her shirt over her muzzle again.
"Oh, wonderful! Amazing! Fantastic! Now that is an awesome idea, Momo! That's gonna make it even more of a disgusting mess!" she said, shaking her head. "Why the hell would you even do that?"
"To keep the dust down, sweetheart," Monique said from behind her shirt. "You didn't think I was gonna blow all that crap all over the yard with the pressure washer, did you? I gotta vacuum most of it out of there first, and it's better to wet it for that a bit so there won't be a lot of smelly and dangerous dust flying around."
"Fine, okay, make sense I guess, you're the professional. And I'm gonna be inside and well out of the way!" Doto smirked. She started walking back to the front of the main building, but halted and turned. "Oh, hey, should I actually stick around, or has my work day ended? It's well after seven-thirty now after all."
"Your workday is over, sweetheart, but you can always stick around for a bit if you want to," Monique nodded with a smile, even if the shirt over her muzzle hid that. "We still gotta put the stuff you brought into your car for one, and I was gonna treat you to dinner because the day dragged on for so long with all the work it turned out we had to do."
"Oh, aw, well, that's very nice of you, Momo, you didn't have to do that, but I appreciate it a bunch," Doto said with a smile. "So is there anything I could do while I hang around?"
"You could toss an extension cord this way out the back door and bring the big shopvac over here?" Monique smiled from behind her shirt. "The yellow one, you know? And bring a death wheel."
Doto blinked.
"A... what now?"
"An angle grinder, sweetheart, with a cut-off wheel on it," Monique chortled. "There's one on the workbench in the repair room."
"Oh, okay. Yeesh, you and your silly technical terms," Doto smirked, shaking her head.
She walked into the garage's main building while Monique returned to spraying down the inside of the old Ford with the hose. A moment or two later, one of the doors in the back wall of the main building opened and Doto came back out, carrying a spool from which she was pulling out a bright orange extension cord so she could bring it all the way over to where the old Ford was sitting. She quickly darted back into the garage however, with her muzzle rumpled and her whiskers twitching at the foul smell rising from the car, and Monique followed her in a quicker than usual pace as well.
The vixen grabbed a full-face respirator with face shield and two large filters on it and put it on, along with a pair of old, scorched but thick welding gloves. Also grabbing a length of PVC pipe that fit the hose of the large wheeled yellow vacuum cleaner, she went back outside, plugged in the vacuum cleaner and stuck the pipe to the end of the vacuum cleaner's hose so she could start vacuuming the layer of literal crap from the floors of the old Ford Mainline from a decent distance. Pretty clever thinking.
When everything she could vacuum out of the car was out, Monique rolled the vacuum cleaner over to a dumpster and attached the water hose back to the pressure washer. Still with the respirator on, she started blasting the inside of the old Ford with the pressure washer, blowing the ripped and sagging headliner to pieces so more droppings and feral mouse nests fell out and blowing the rest of all the muck and crap out of the car. Doto looked at it with a smirk from the doorway of the back door, tilting her head and blinking when Monique eventually stopped once the inside of the car was as clean as she could get it, put the spray pistol back on the water hose and waved Doto over while she took off her respirator and peeled off her stained coveralls and the shirt she was wearing underneath it.
"And there's the shameless exhibitionist I know so well," the serval woman sniggered as she stepped over to the naked vixen.
"Pure necessity this time, sweetheart," Monique said, handing Doto the spray pistol and turning her back while lowering her head a bit. "Hose me down please."
"Ohoho, with pleasure," Doto chortled.
She directed the spray pistol at Monique and started soaking the naked vixen with water. Monique shivered a bit as the water was quite chilly and flicked her bushy tail, slowly turning and running her paws down along herself to wipe the water down her body. She turned two full circles that way before lifting her head a bit and turning to Doto.
"Okay, thank you, that's enough, sweetheart." She ducked her head to the side and stepped aside a bit as Doto sprayed even more water onto her. "That's enough, sweetheart, thank you!"
"Oh come on, this is fun!" Doto giggled, following Monique with the hose to keep spraying water on her.
"Yeah yeah yeah, sure, but it's still enough, sweetheart," Monique chortled. "This water is cold, and my nipples are about hard enough to cut glass by now, so shut, it, down, please!"
She swished her dripping tail to flick some water at Doto, who mewled a giggle but did indeed shut off the hose and lay it aside. Monique wiped the last excess water down herself with both paws and shook herself for a moment before stepping into the garage and taking a towel from the washroom to dry herself a bit, leaving the old Ford sitting right where it was with all the doors, hood and trunk still wide open. Doto closed and locked the back door, sitting in the office with Monique and using a second towel to rub at the naked vixen's still damp fur to help her dry off and warm back up.
It was well after eight o'clock when the two of them finally locked and left the garage, after putting the cast-iron potbellied stove and the brass oil lanterns in the back of Doto's green 1984 Alfa Romeo Giardinetta station wagon. With Monique leading the way in her light blue 1971 Fiat 125 Special daily driver, they drove into town where Monique did indeed treat Doto to a late dinner - even if it was just small pancakes at a small diner.
All in all, it certainly had been a quite interesting first workday!
