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car?”
    “Yeah. I’ll put her in neutral. It’ll be easy with the both of us.”
    Ardelia gazed at her phone with a pained expression. “Why don’t I just call someone to get us?”
    “Movie Star, we can’t leave this car here. It’ll get towed or, worse, stripped. And besides . . .” She pushed the other girl’s shoulder, a gentler version of her usual punch. “Why pay someone else when you can do it yourself?”
    “I was about to say precisely the opposite.”
    Another truck rumbled past, honked twice, didn’t slow.
    “Well?” said Cherry.
    Ardelia tucked her phone away. “Fine. Let’s just get it over with.”
    Cherry climbed behind the wheel, shifted into neutral, and popped the emergency brake. Too late, she realized Ardelia was already braced against the rear. The Spider lurched forward and the other girl disappeared in the rearview mirror. Cherry rushed to the back of the car, where Ardelia was on her ass, spread-eagled in the grime, hair hanging over her face.
    “Oh, fuck! Are you okay?”
    Ardelia was convulsing. Cherry pictured twisted ankles, sprained wrists. The starlet turned her face to the sky. Her cocktail dress was covered in mud, dirt speckled her ivory complexion, and she was laughing.
    “What’s so funny?”
    Ardelia sniffed, trying to catch her breath. She looked down at her ruined dress.
    “Chartreuse!”
    Cherry was speechless, dumbfounded by this weird-ass, bat-shit, mind-blowing, star-studded, heartbeat-y, pulse-racing, head-spinning, face-melting
brain-fuck
of a day. She laughed too, so hard she couldn’t stand anymore and dropped into the mud. The girls leaned against the crippled car and filled the vacant road with their cackles.
    Chartreuse.
It
was
a ridiculous word.

The Spider jerked, heaved, and rolled into the lot of Kerrigan Auto on Main Street, pushed by two sticky, filthy, bruised young women. They lurched the last few feet into the waiting garage.
    “If only my friends could see me now,” Cherry said.
    Ardelia picked at a leaf sticking to her rear. “I was thinking the same thing.”
    Cherry turned on the shop lights, casting a glare across the chrome and metal tools. The light was on in Pop’s office, a half-finished beer on the desk, still cold, as if they’d just missed him. Ardelia, refreshing herself with a bottle of water from the mini-fridge, inspected the guts of a turbo engine, then peered into the undercarriage of an elevated pickup truck.
    “This is where your father works?”
    “It’s his business,” Cherry said. “This is my inheritance.”
    Ardelia hefted a menacing-looking power drill. “Very impressive. Will we get to use this?”
    “Not to change a tire,” Cherry said. “But if you want to put holes in shit, there’s an old Gremlin out back.”
    “Delicious.”
    The girls positioned themselves on the dusty floor. Cherry showed Ardelia a length of beveled piping with a crosspiece. “This,” she said, “is a tire iron.”
    “I bet I know why it’s called that.”
    Cherry started on the busted tire. “Now, you wanna pop the bolts before you jack up the car. That way the weight on the wheel gives you extra leverage.”
    “I’m learning so much today,” Ardelia said. “No more shall I be a damsel in distress.”
    “I hate damsels, especially distressed ones.” Cherry grunted, popping off the last bolt. “Okay, now we jack.” She rummaged under Pop’s table and came back with a jack. “You should always keep one of these in your trunk.”
    Ardelia saluted. “Roger.”
    Cherry showed her how to position the jack under the car and started to crank. After a few revolutions, she felt Ardelia’s gaze.
    “Do I have something on my face?” asked Cherry.
    “Yes. Grease. And possibly caramel?” Ardelia wiped Cherry’s cheek with her thumb. “But I was wondering why you dye your hair.”
    Cherry cranked with a little more force. “You can tell?”
    “Darling, I may not be able to change a tire, but I know a home dye job when