“It sounds like an ex-boyfriend of mine,” Kylie said when Mila described her car issues.
“Hey that’s funny,” Mila said. “Kylie, could you please tell the boss that I’ll be in late – I need to drop my car off to get it fixed.”
“Yell out if you need a lift from there to work,” Kylie offered. “I’ll come and get you.”
“Oh, thanks. I will,” Mila replied thinking to herself that Kylie’s offer was very thoughtful.
Despite the noises, smoke and smells, Mila was able to drive the car to the Audi dealership where she had purchased it only four months prior and parked it in the service area. As if the world was applying brakes to its orbital speed to slow down to a near stop, the following happened at a third of the actual speed it would have taken normally, as if you were watching a film at reduced speed.
Mila stepped gracefully out of her car, careful not to flash her underwear at passers-by as she extended each lovely long tanned leg outside the driver’s car door. As she walked towards the dealership office, her above the knee dress rustled in the breeze. Barely noticing her reflection in the glass door, she leaned her body in and pushed the office door open with both hands. Once inside she paused to remove her sunglasses. A gentle shake of her head allowed her shiny, gorgeous locks to regain their natural body and fall back into place. Oblivious to the powerful impression she had made on all the men in the dealership office who had just witnessed this scorching display of femininity, she casually sauntered over to the waiting area and joined the queue.
A young man sitting at the service desk, who had witnessed Mila’s commanding entrance, managed to lift his jaw from the desk and wiped both sides of his mouth to remove any evidence of drool. He quickly calculated that her place in the queue would not match up with a free slot at his service desk unless he hot footed his way through the list of extremely uninteresting people who stood in front of her.
“Yes Mrs Jones, your car is in good hands here, if you’d like to wait over there where the customer lounges are, one of the reception ladies will come over and make you a lovely cup of tea while you wait for your car to be fixed,” he said courteously but all the time trying to move the old battle axe on so he could increase his chances of getting to serve that lovely hot bit of gear who had just walked into the room and made the crotch of his pants a little bit tighter.
“Next,” he said, signalling to the burley gent standing at the front of the queue, two people ahead of Mila. “Good morning Sir, dropping your car off for a service this morning?”
“G’day mate. Yeah, just handing in the keys so you can do a 60,000 km service,” he said in a friendly but frank voice. He casually rested both forearms on the bench with his keys dangling loosely between his fingers. The young lad was not about to let the customer get comfortable and loiter around his desk any longer than need be so he processed his booking very efficiently. While asking the customer his name and confirming his registration number, the young man maintained a close eye on the current queue position of the hottest little biscuit ever to present herself at his work place. On noting that she was now second in line, he re-evaluated his game plan of rushing his current customer. Not wanting to risk being stuck with the less than ordinary person in front of said hot stuff, he asked the man, “How are you finding the performance of the vehicle Sir? Would you recommend that model to others?”
Friendly and Frank was happy to oblige and began to detail his cars reliability on the highway should you need to overtake in a hurry or demand extra torque to right a wrong situation. The young lad saw that Ugly-Mick-Fugly was still standing in front of the desirable young lady that was now causing a deep vein throm-boning in the young lads briefs. As the queue had not moved, he continued to question the customer, engaging him in man-to-man conversation until finally he noticed that Less than Ordinary had been called to his workmate’s service desk. It was time to wind up the banter with Frank and Friendly and call upon Miss-Chevious.
Meanwhile, as Mila patiently waited in line, she had noticed the young man behind the service desk and secretly hoped that she would end up talking to him rather than the crusty old dude sitting beside him. This guy was wearing a tight short-sleeved business shirt that accentuated his basketball-shaped beer belly, his faded navy shorts had been exposed to the North Queensland sun for far too long during the natural drying process on the Hills hoist and his knee-high socks with a fold at the top kept making appearances as he walked back and forth from the service desk to the office behind him. He was the epitome of late 1980s work styling but as it was very much now in the naughties the old mate was in desperate need of a top-to-toe makeover.
From underneath her long eyelashes, Mila’s lovely brown eyes darted quickly away from the old man and rested for a moment on the young lad who was busy dealing with his customer. She noticed he had quite a healthy beard covering his face and although she was not usually a supporter of facial hair other than eyelashes and eyebrows, she wasn’t turned off. Instead she wondered what was hidden underneath it because as far as Mila could tell, he had a handsome noggin from the nostrils north. South of his eyebrows was a black swamp of hair as dark as midnight broken up only by a lovely white smile. His perfect teeth stood straight and firm and all in line, not fighting each other or trying to grow over the top of one another vying for poll position. As he spoke and built a natural rapport with his customer he was unknowingly showcasing a row of lovely pearly whites. “Hmmm,” whispered Mila to herself as, being careful not to get caught checking him out, she reluctantly turned away to study her perfectly painted toenails .
As Mila distracted herself further by looking at the floor and at her car keys, the young man stole a look in her direction and to his orchestrated delight he saw she was now at the front of the queue. “Thank you Sir,” he said then with a casual wave and a gentle, “Next please”, he signalled to her to come over to his side of the customer service desk. When she finally stood before him, the world resumed its natural orbital speed and as such, sounds and movements returned to normal.
“Good Morning! What can I do to you? I mean for you?” he said, ending his question with a beaming confident smile, his brown eyes looking directly into hers.
Mila giggled and replied, “Um, my car is playing up.”
He quickly retorted, “Your car is cheating on you?”
“No!” Mila said with a smile, “My car is coughing and spluttering and there are black clouds coming out of the muffler.”
“Well then, there’s no need to run a diagnostic, your car has had too many cigarettes and it needs to quit smoking.”
“Stop it! My car is broken and I need to get to work!” Mila said.
“I’m sorry. I apologise. I’m going to be serious now I promise.” He cleared his throat, “Heh, Hem, Young Lady, I will have my team run a diagnostic and I will give you a call to let you know what we discover and how much it will be to repair the vehicle.”
Mila smiled at him and steered him back into the casual flirtation she had tried to redirect him from. “You like that word don’t you?” she asked tilting her head playfully and brushing all her hair forward to drape in front of her left shoulder.
“Which word?” he asked leaning back into his chair, hands placed behind his head, enjoying the banter with the beautiful young lady before him.
“Die-ag-nos-tic!” she said leaning her bust into the desk and sounding out each syllable.
“Well, young lady, I’ll have you know that diagnostic is a word associated with careers that demand years and years of university education, it defines a term that includes problem solving, investigative and analytical findings and quite frankly, makes me sound a little posh, don’t you think?”
“Nup,” Mila said shaking her head. She pressed her lips together to try and stop herself smiling but it didn’t work.
“Well I’ve got another word I’d rather hear, but it’s from you....” he said standing up from his chair and leaning closer into the service desk and teetering on entering her personal space.
“Oh