Zephyr tried Marsh's suggestion on the drive home. He told himself he was going to enjoy the ride, that there was nothing to worry about. After all, the car was a nearly indestructable 1969 Buick. And Reg had an impeccable driving record - he'd never once in ten years been involved in an accident or even been pulled over. That was extremely fortunate. Imagine what would happen if a cop stopped them and tried to talk to Reg! Zephyr supposed he could put himself in charge of providing the license and registration (as long as he wasn't panicking too much at the time), but what would the cop think when Reg refused to answer his questions? What if he thought Reg was under the influence of something and tried to make him take a sobriety test? How would Reg react to that? He'd probably...
Stop stop stop. That train of thought was not helping. Reg had never been pulled over, and there was no reason to expect him to be this time, either. Reg was an excellent driver and the weather was nice and he was going to enjoy himself, dammit.
And he should enjoy it. He had every reason to. Riding around in this pale yellow antique convertible would be a dream come true for many people, especially when summer grew closer and they could put the top down again. The trip to Portia's house Zephyr planned to schedule for July could be glorious if he let it. He recalled the cross-country trip he and Reg had taken from Massachusetts to California several years ago... now, that was something he regretted ruining with his stupid hang-ups. Man, they saw everything on that journey, every sight the world had to offer as far as Zephyr was concerned. Who knew when they'd have a chance to do that again?
Well, maybe someday. Marsh was right; he needed to take things one step at a time. First he'd teach himself to relax for the 20-minute commutes, and maybe by July he'd be ready for the three hours through scenic mountainous terrain between them and Portia.
It didn't go so badly, Zephyr decided when they arrived home. And then he got to try again the next morning, and decided that went well, too. The trick was to think about something else and not keep his attention on the road. He had to trust Reg to watch the road by himself. Zephyr could do that. It was trusting other people that would be a bigger struggle. Zephyr wondered whether that was the root of the problem. Was this all just a trust issue?
That was silly. He could trust his friends. Okay, so, maybe he had a little trouble trusting his friends. That one was easy to solve. He'd simply start trusting people more. Oh, and while he was at it, he could earn their trust, too. Starting with Marsh.
"I'm going to do something nice for Marsh today," he informed Reg. There. Now that he said it aloud with Reg as a witness, he'd feel obligated to stick to it. He wasn't sure what he'd do yet, but maybe an opportunity would arise.
As Reg turned off the Buick's ignition, he repeated, "Nice for Marsh."
"Yeah. You know, to thank him for helping me yesterday." Zephyr hoped he was fully convinced of that. Marsh had helped him, right? And the appropriate response to being helped was to return the favor somehow. It was, like, humble or something, and that was good. Right?
"Morey," said Reg, and got out of the car.
Zephyr did, too, and as he followed Reg into the building, he asked, "Morey? Sorry, Reg, I don't understand. Do you mean Diane Morey? Reg? What about her? What about Morey?"
"Morey wheelchair is ready to be tested."
Reg stopped abruptly in front of the receptionist's desk, waited for Mariluz to trill her usual, "Morning, Zeeeeeph'r! Morning, Reh-geenald!" and continued to the workshop downstairs.
"You finished... it already?" Zephyr said to his quickly departing partner. He sighed and completed his thought half to himself. "That was fast. I didn't even get around to checking his progress. Oh, yeah, good morning, Mariluz."
"Ees all right, Zeph'r," Mariluz reassured him as she punched at the phone with fire-engine red fingernails. "I am sure Reh-ginald did a fine job. Have a chocolate. 'Allo, z'is Mister Creager? 'Allo, I am Mariluz from MARZ Inc. How are you today? Thank you, very good."
Zephyr left her to her phone call and eyed the bowl of candy on top of the counter. This week Mariluz's poison consisted of bite-sized assorted chocolate bars. He carefully fished out three with peanuts and put them in his pocket for later. As he shuffled the rest of his way to his office, he considered telling Mariluz that Connor was on a diet and she might want to consider putting out, oh, carrots sticks or something for a while. But he knew he'd never have the guts to actually say something.
******
"Oh, my god!" Zephyr said. "It's beautiful!"
He circled the wheelchair, touching different parts as he passed them. Everything metal was basic black, but the seat and armrest padding was dark purple, as was the sleek plastic battery case. One set of controls sat conveniently arranged in a matching purple panel on the front left-hand side, and additional controls were placed discreetly to the left of the headrest. The end of the right-side armrest, by where Diane's right hand would be, contained a port for interchangeable components that Diane hadn't finished ordering yet. The wheels had purple mag-tyle spokes and special treaded tires. It looked very much like a glorified, high-end mountain bike, and looked almost as though it could achieve comparable speeds.
"When did you have time to do all this? It's... man, it's gotta be a masterpiece. You did it all yourself while I wasn't looking?"
"Marsh helped," Reg said. "I will do something nice for Marsh."
"Cool. So now it just needs to be tested, huh?" Zephyr tried sitting in it, but realized it would be a tight squeeze. "I can't. We need somebody as scrawny as Diane. Shauna, maybe. Hey, I'll go up and ask Marsh if he needs anything tested. Maybe we can have a game of... oh, I don't know. Want to come with me?"
Reg didn't, so Zephyr left him to his work on another project and took the elevator up. Marsh's office door was open, so Zephyr rapped briefly on the door and sat right down in the chair facing Marsh's desk.
Marsh eyed him for a moment and then went back to slicing open a stack of mail. "Yah?"
"Do you have anything ready for testing?" Zephyr asked. "Reg just showed me Diane Morey's wheelchair. Incredible work. Oh, and he said you helped. Good job, man."
Marsh shrugged. "I just brainstormed with him a little, that's all. I have this one thing, but to test it we'd need somebody the size of a three-year-old."
"Oh, the cherry-picker chair?" Zephyr inquired.
Marsh nodded.
"Man, next employee we hire better be a midget," Zephyr mused. They certainly had enough abnormally small clients, children and adults, to warrant a need for someone of that size to test MARZ-built devices.
Marsh tore open a large manila envelope and slid an official-looking green paper out of it along with an impressive stack of photocopied documents. Zephyr couldn't read his expression as he skimmed them, but his sigh provoked Zephyr into asking.
"What's that?"
Marsh looked from the papers to Zephyr and back again. "It appears I'm officially divorced," he said, his face as opaque as when he still had the mustache.
Zephyr took a moment to digest this information, and then broke into a grin as ideas flew through his head. "Congrats, man! You're free at last! Hey, maybe we can have a party, like to celebrate. Ooh yeah, with champagne and cake and music... or we could all pitch in and take you out to eat or get you something useful for bachelorhood." That was it! That was how he could return the favor. He'd go all out and organize something special and repay Marsh for going out of his way to help him. That was what friends were for, right? Helping ach other overcome obstacles and helping them celebrate victories.
Zephyr grinned at Marsh, but Marsh's opaque expression didn't change. Maybe, unless Zephyr was making things up, he even looked annoyed.
"I need to do the budget," Marsh said blandly.
That was a put-off, right? Zephyr was pretty sure it was a put-off. "Now, wait a minute," he objected.
Marsh interrupted him. "Zeph, the budget needs doing. Do you want to help, or do you have something else to do?"
He was not going to stand for this. He'd been demonstrating his friendship, dammit! "But..."
"Budget," Marsh repeated.
Zephyr did not have to stand for this treatment. However, he decided he'd prefer to not stand for this treatment in his own office. "Fine," he growled, and left. This was wrong; this was stupid; this never should have happened. He and Marsh were supposed to like each other and trust each other and help each other, not act like hateful, pissy children at each other. It was very, very wrong.
Now he just had to determine which one of them had been the wrong one, so he could feel guilty or angry accordingly.
Well, that answer was just a little bit obvious. Zephyr had screwed up again. Marsh had humiliated him the day before, but he'd let him because he knew Marsh was trying to help, and then when he tried to return the favor not by humiliating Marsh but by congratulating him, everything fell apart. It wasn't fair. Why couldn't he develop a sense of figuring out what people needed and then giving it to them? How the hell was he supposed to know that the idea of a party with champagne would piss Marsh off?
If only people were easier to predict. If only Zephyr had more experience, more... more something. If only Marsh and everybody else were more like Reg. Reg wouldn't have gotten upset. Reg didn't particularly like parties, either, but he wouldn't have gotten upset.
Zephyr sat at his desk and let his head fall on his desktop. That position would have felt better if it didn't hurt his back so much. He sat up straight again.
He heard the door to the back stairs open and spun his chair around to face the person approaching. Luckily, it was just Connor.
"Hey, um," Connor said, stopping at the doorway, "Reg is asking for you."
"Oh." Zephyr hoped everything was all right, but was afraid to ask. He'd find out soon enough. He stood up slowly.
Connor shifted out of his way and then moved to follow him, asking, "Should I watch?"
"Watch what? What does he need me for?"
"I dunno. But he's got blueprints all spread out, so I thought you might expect me to watch."
"Oh, all right then," Zephyr said.
They took the elevator.