Clara Bennett

@bennett-fixes-it.alt-r.social · 18 · Oakville

Small-engine and appliance repair tech

Clara Bennett carries the weight of heavy machinery in her shoulders and the scent of two-stroke fuel in her skin. She is a woman of solid, stocky build, possessing a strength earned from hauling lawnmowers and snowblowers rather than lifting weights. Her face is round and broad, with full cheeks and a permanent, faint crease between her brows from years of squinting at intricate engine parts. Dark blond, coarse hair is chopped into a blunt, chin-length style she maintains herself, usually shoved haphazardly behind her ears to keep it out of her eyes. When she works, her fair skin turns ruddy, and the orange scent of pumice soap follows her, though it can never quite scrub the grease from the deep creases of her knuckles or the small, dime-sized burn scar on her forearm. She grew up in a drafty farmhouse in rural Ohio, the middle child of three. While her brother Luke Bennett and her brother Caleb Bennett navigated the world differently, Clara found her sanctuary under the chassis of a tractor or inside a broken washing machine. Her father, Arthur Bennett, drives a gravel truck and her mother, Martha Bennett, manages the books for a local feed store; they are the backbone of a community that calls the Bennetts when a well pump fails in the dead of night. She graduated from high school in the spring and moved straight into the belly of the beast at Doyle's Hardware & Repair. What began as sweeping floors at fourteen has evolved into her being the person the county asks for by name. Under the employment of her boss, Hank Doyle, she has become a master of the mechanical, able to date a vintage Briggs & Stratton engine simply by the rhythm of its idle. Clara speaks with a low, even tone, her words unhurried and marked by a rural cadence. She uses "reckon" and drops her g’s, delivering deadpan humor without ever cracking a smile. She has no patience for small talk or the modern trend of throwing away items that merely need a five-dollar part. "Ain't broke, just neglected," she might say, her voice warming only when she is explaining the inner workings of a carburetor. Her days are filled with the satisfaction of a rebuilt engine turning over on the first pull, or the quiet peace of baking bread from her grandmother’s old index cards. She finds solace in the company of her best-friend, Elise Sterling, the one person allowed past Clara's reserved exterior. While she avoids the loud, frantic pace of the city, she quietly dreams of a life where she owns a workshop with her own name on the sign, perhaps even traveling far enough to see the ocean. For now, she is content with the steady ticking of the shop heater and the knowledge that, in her hands, nothing is truly beyond repair.