The People Made of Stars

"Yeah, she's a real lemon, in need of a check-up, but she's precious; she'll take you anywhere you need to be." Gus Harding said, patting the car on its hood. I was shuffling around uneasily in my bleached jeans and Old Navy shirt, the smell of smoke and oil burning inside my throat. Kara Marlin, my best friend, stood beside me in her KISS shirt and white sweatpants. She had driven me to get my car, and then she would leave hers to get it fixed- it's check-engine light had come on just before we had arrived at Gus Harding's Cars & Fixes.

It was the best we could do in the microscopic town of Gray Court, South Carolina, population 1,021; it keeps getting smaller.

"Would I still be able to drive it around and not worry about it dying?" I asked Gus, eyeing the rusting car. It was the least expensive car in the dealership, only a thousand dollars, but that was still expensive for broke kids like Kara and me.

"Oh, uh, of course you would," Gus said in his thick Southern drawl, "she runs like a beauty if you don't press the pedal too hard now," He laughed slightly, and Kara's eyebrows raised in a concerning way. The car rattled slightly, and I could feel my stomach twisting.

"Don't you worry 'bout that rattle, sweethearts. My daddy always said, 'Pistons make the worst employees- they only start workin' once they've been fired'!" He guffawed at his daddy's bad joke and Kara looked at me with an uncomfortable look. The creeper called us 'sweethearts'. But hey, this was Gray Court. A man like Gus didn't get a second glance; no matter what bad deeds he did.

"So, uh, Gus, how much are you offering again?" Kara asked, crossing her arms and smirking.

"Just a thousand dollars," Gus said, patting the car's hood again.

"Only a thousand? For a classic like that, I'd put it on the market for higher," Kara said, her smirk growing.

"Ah, well, she is a classic, but I gotta put a bargain out there- gotta give the broke kids like you an option to get out on the road,"

"Alright. Well, why does the front of the car kinda smell like maple syrup? Is that a new air freshener you used? Must be, since a car like that would never have a transmission fluid or coolant leak, right?"

"Oh, that smell? Just Southern hospitality, hon,"

"Of course, forgive me. Now, just another question before we make the transaction- while we were just standin' here, the car kinda shivered. Is it just cold, or does the car have a 'personality'? Surely this classic doesn't have transmission failure."

"Well I'll be darned, she's just eager to get out onto the road!"

Gus smiled a gap-toothed smile and I could almost see a cigarette butt sticking out of his gold tooth. Kara smirked and rolled her eyes discreetly; no need to scare Gus Harding at his own shop.

I knew that the car had all of its problems, but I was desperate. You see, in Gray Court, the median wage income is about $64,000 dollars. My family- and Kara's too- makes about $34,000 per year. This thousand-dollar car was a gamble, yeah, but we were desperate, and Kara's old rust bucket couldn't get us around forever.

"So, will you young ladies take the car?" Gus said, leaning against the wall. He took a cigarette (I knew it) out of his back pocket and propped it in between his missing tooth and gold tooth. In Gray Court, there was only one prominent dental office, and you'd have to travel pretty far if you wanted to get a real good cleaning, or tooth replacement, in Gus's case. Let's just say that Gus didn't like traveling a lot.

"We'll take it," I said, fishing out the wad of cash I'd scrapped together from working at the gas station over three years. I handed him the cash directly and he stuffed it in his back pocket, which I thought was super shady.

He gave me the keys and then patted the car, bidding us goodbye. I looked at Kara and said, "Let's get out of here.".

It had started raining in the time that we were in Gus Harding's Cars & Fixes, and Kara and I didn't have rain jackets. We hurried into the car and then I turned the key, the engine creating a noise that resembled drums breaking. I winced.

"God, Charlie, that was an awful deal. We'd be lucky to even make it to your house," Kara said, and I sighed as we rolled down the gravel hill. It was a ten minute drive to my house from the shop, so we would indeed be pretty lucky.

"Well, I plan on this lemon getting us there and back, Kara," I said, knowing in my heart that the whole thing could give out in a matter of seconds. I stared at the road ahead, and Kara stared out the window.

"The color makes me want to be sick, Charlie. Like, what the actual heck is that shade of yellow? Not a lemon shade, that's for ding dang sure. But I like that name: Lemon. It would match mine, right?"

"Sure, Kara. Lemon and Brownie kind of match, I guess. And yeah, the color is hideous, but I don't give a crap at this point. This was a desperate gamble, Kara; we're broke."

"Charlotte Rose Frank! How many times do I have to tell you- we're not broke!"

"Yeah, breaking news, we're kinda like the bottom half of the median income, girl,"

"Shut up, Charlie,"

"I'm telling the truth!"

"Fine."

Kara rolled her eyes as the rain kept coming down harder and harder. The poor windshield wipers couldn't keep up with how fast the rain was plummeting down, and I could feel Kara's body tense up. She had a thing with bad weather and cars. I didn't pry, though. I pressed the gas pedal header, only two more miles until we were home and we could actually fix this hunk of junk.

The engine started making this loud, rhythmic metallic hammering sound and I could hear Kara gasping.

"Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot!" I said, my breath hitching. I knew nothing about cars, but Kara did and she was scared, so if Kara was scared Charlie was scared.

"As long as we can just make it and power through, we're golden. Just don't press that hard on the gas, okay?" Kara said, her knuckles white against her door handle, ready to get out at any moment.

"Got it," I said, my own knuckles white against the steering wheel, barely pressing my foot on the gas pedal. This was a road where we didn't have any cell service, and it was a small two-lane road, with heavy woods and deep ditches surrounding the road. There was no place to pull over, but nobody in Gray Court even needed to pull over until now.

Suddenly, the car came to a jolting stop, and Kara and I froze. "Charlie, the engine just crashed. It's raining cats and dogs outside, and we don't even have proper rain coats. We're stuck and we can't get out; there's no way of calling for help, too. We're done." Kara said, her eyes becoming glassy and hyper, as if she were high on something.

"No, it can't be hopeless, Kara, we can fix it! I-I'm sure it's just a minor thing and even if it wasn't we could suck it up and just run home, anyway! It's only two miles; I've seen how fast you can run," I said, unbuckling my seat belt and then pressing on the gas pedal fruitlessly. Kara put her head in her hands and then spoke, "No, Charlie, it's not that easy. This happened to my Uncle Don, thank God he was on a big highway- he got help, we can't get it out here. I could try to go out but the rain is coming down so hard, I probably wouldn't be able to even see the problem. This definitely isn't minor, Charlie. We might just have to stay in here or make a run for it."

I gulped and ran my fingers through my hair. Kara was right- we couldn't get help on this rural road. The chances of someone appearing and bothering to help us were so incredibly slim. Too slim for any type of comfort. Like we ever got any in Gray Court anyway.

"I'm going to at least try to go out there, okay? I'm not that pessimistic. But R.I.P to my shirt and shoes and socks and pants- basically everything I'm wearing right now." Kara said, and I hugged her so tight. I don't know why. It was just the rain, nothing to do serious damage, even in the Lemon. It wasn't like Kara was going onto the front lines or anything, but it was scary. And I was afraid, okay? Of losing Kara. I needed to feel her, to make sure this was really happening before she let out to fix the Lemon. Like it had any hope.

Kara opened her door, letting rain coat her seat lightly. It was really coming down hard, and the smell was no longer relaxing. Kara quickly closed the door and waved to me with a tight-lipped smile as she moved to the front of the car, shielding her eyes as much as she could. She crouched down at the front of the car, falling out of my view. Then, she opened the hood and put her hands in, doing God knows what to the engine and its surrounding parts.

After about ten minutes of Kara fiddling with the hood and engine, me picking my nails and holding my breath, waiting for Kara to come back in the car with any news, good or bad; Kara climbed back into the passenger seat, her hands held out as if they didn't belong to her. Her palms were smeared with a thick, tan sludge that looked like spoiled chocolate milk, and the creases of her knuckles were stained a deep, gritty black. When she wiped a smudge of "rainbow juice" onto her sweatpants, it left a shimmering, oily streak that wouldn't come out.

"What does it look like?" I asked Kara while she was cleaning off her hands and attempting to clean off her pants with a rag I gave her that I found randomly in the glove compartment that I assumed Gus had left complementary for emergencies.

"Oh, never better! It's all unicorns and rainbows in the Lemon's engine!" She said, a fake cheeriness coating her tone.

"Not great, huh?" I said, while Kara vigorously scrubbed out of her hands. That stuff would probably never come out.

"No. Classic engine failure. We can't physically drive it anymore. We either have to wait out the rain in this piece of crap, hoping for a bystander to save the day, or just make a run for it." She said, still scrubbing her hands. She had given up on her pants.

"Well, I vote on making a run for it," I said.

"Yeah, let's do it. Grab your stuff and make sure your phone doesn't get wet. Then we run."

"O-okay,"

Kara and I grabbed our belongings and then counted down from three, then opened our doors and booked it for the two miles of torture that was still ahead of us, rain pounding our backs the whole way. I had worn my ratty Chucks and Kara was wearing her old Crocs, so neither of us were prepared to run as fast as a greyhound in the torrential rain on a Saturday afternoon in Gray Court, also known as the most boring town in all of the world; probably.

I tripped over myself at least two times, but I still kept up with Kara and her fast legs. It took us about eighteen minutes to reach my house, and then we ran into my house and found that my parents weren't home. I checked the fridge and found a note.

"Charlie- sorry we couldn't be home to see your awesome new car! Dad & I decided to take a few days to ourselves before we make a final decision on the split. Love you bunches, Mom." The note read. My heart twisted in my chest as I caught my breath. They weren't going to be home because they were actually thinking about splitting. But I pushed away that thought and then walked to my room with Kara. I gave her some dry clothes to put on and she changed in the bathroom. As I stripped off my soaking clothes, I sighed. I quickly put on dry clothes and then placed my wet ones in the wash, and Kara gave me hers to put in the wash as well.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in my room, wordless.

And that, folks, is why you never buy cars from Gus Harding's Cars & Fixes.