“I’m guessing not?”

“And you’d be right,” Struts said. “Patty went into a tailspin and let go of the steering wheel. She started drinking, decided she was too fat—at maybe ninety pounds—so she got herself hooked on diet pills and then sleeping pills. Plus she still drank her meals. She died less than a year after Charles Sr. Nobody talks about exactly how she died, but I think we can guess.”

“Those poor kids,” Olivia said.

“Yeah.” Struts picked up her half-eaten purple Tin Lizzie cookie. “Pills, booze, and starvation. That’s a sad way to go. Me, I’d rather sail a Maserati over a cliff.” Struts made a dent in the Model T’s back end and surveyed the damage while she chewed. “Did you know Model Ts mostly came in black?” she asked.

“I did not.”

“I like it in purple,” Struts said. “Very tasty.” She reached across her desk and pressed the intercom button. “Break time, lads. Caffeine and sugar in my office.” Whoops of joy penetrated the hum of the air conditioner.

Before the young men arrived, Struts took an old Baltimore & Ohio dining car plate off a hook on the wall. She spread a paper towel across it and placed a few cookies on top. “Gotta slow those boys down or they’ll plow right through those cookies.

Olivia said, “Somehow I’ll have to get a good look at Charlie from the back.”

“Don’t fret, I’ll make it happen.” Struts swept her nail file and hairbrush into her desk drawer, perhaps to preserve her tough-woman-mechanic reputation.

Charlie Critch and Olivia’s younger brother, Jason, crowded into the small office, filling it with movement and noise. The smell of gasoline trailed in behind them. They tore into the plate of cookies as if they hadn’t seen food for days. A turquoise race car decorated with black flames and a royal blue baby carriage with tulip-red wheels disappeared into their mouths without even a murmur of admiration for their artistry.