Birdie had been up since six. She had dressed herself in her overalls, the ones with the patch on the knee, and put on her own Haapala's Service cap, which was a men's small and came down to her eyebrows, and she had laid out the tools on the bench in the second bay in a neat row like a surgeon's tray. Lug wrench. Tire iron. Floor jack. A can of WD-40. A rag. A tire pressure gauge. A pair of safety glasses, adult size, which on Birdie would have covered most of her face.
"This is where we learn," she announced. "First you have to put on the glasses."
Nora put on the glasses.
They started with the tire because that was what she'd asked for, and because it was the thing that would kill you first up here. Dale had a new Goodyear for her, and after he'd mounted it he stepped back and made her do the rest herself. He'd taught a dozen people to change a tire over the years, and most people did one of two things. Either they were scared of it and wanted you to do it while they watched, or they weren't scared of it and did it too fast and got the wheel on crooked.
Nora Brennan did neither. She listened. She asked one question and then a second question that was the right second question. She found the jack point under the frame without his showing her twice. When she broke the lug nuts loose she stood on the wrench, the way he'd told her, not jumping on it, just bringing her whole weight down slow and steady, and when the first one gave with a crack she didn't flinch.
"Star pattern," said Birdie.
"Star pattern," said Nora, and did it.
"You've done this before," Dale said.
"Never in my life."
"You've done something before."
She glanced up at him, then went back to the lug nuts. "I've done a lot of things with my hands," she said, "in a lot of places where you had to do it right the first time. It's the same muscle, I think. The paying attention."
She didn't say what places. He didn't ask.
By ten-thirty she had the new tire on and the pressure checked on all four, and had learned that the jack in her car was no good. Dale sold her a better one at cost. By eleven she was lying on a creeper under the Volaré with Birdie on a second creeper beside her, Birdie pointing out the oil pan and the exhaust and the "thingy that does the steering," which was the tie rod end, and which Dale let pass because he was busy listening.