The Other Side of the Street

by Nicole Thorn

  “Are you Jay’s friend too?” Dee asked, sounding excited.

  “Nah,” Sam said. “I’m just his ex.” He jabbed his thumb at me. “But I wouldn’t mind being friends with your brother, either. He just hasn’t given me a chance. It’s a wound that’ll never heal.”

  “Jay!” Dee hollered.

  He looked like he wanted to jump in front of traffic. “You could have come across the street and introduced yourself,” he pointed out.

  “Why should he have to?” Bea asked.

  Jay glared at all of us in one sweeping gesture. Then he sighed and set his sister down. “Hey, Dee Dee, I’ve got to get back to work. Why don’t you sit in the truck with Bea, and when I’ve got another break, I’ll come say hi to you. I’ll give you a hug goodbye when Mom comes around to pick you up, too.”

  “Okay,” Dee said. She stood on tiptoes to give him a fat kiss on the cheek, took her sister’s hand, and dragged her back to the truck. Bea laughed the entire way, for some reason.

  Jay straightened out and glowered at me. “You are the worst,” he said. “Do you have any idea how disappointed Dee Dee is going to be when you don’t show up. She’s going to ask me all the time where you are, and I’m going to have to keep lying to her, so she doesn’t get her feelings hurt.”

  “What did you do now?” Sam asked, sounding exhausted.

  “Hey, you’re the one that kept sending me over here,” I said.

  Jay ignored this but answered Sam’s previous question. “He told Dee Dee that we were friends and that he would come by the house sometime.”

  Sam gave me a look that had my chest feeling too tight. Shame washed over me. “Well, he will.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “I think it’s best if we just leave it alone, don’t you?”

  “No,” Sam said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re going to her house.”

  “No,” I said, making it clear that I wouldn’t budge.

  “All right, how about this, then,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “A bet. If Jay makes more honey sales by sunset than you do, then you have to go over to his house once, so that his little sister isn’t disappointed. And if you make more, then he has to tell his sister that you moved away, so that she doesn’t have to worry about you anymore. Got it?”

  Jay and I looked at each other. He had a glare for me that wouldn’t seem to quit. I couldn’t really blame him for this, considering the blunder that I had made. And I could admit that it was a blunder. I hadn’t thought about what it would do to the little girl if I didn’t show up at their house.

  Children hung their hopes on the weirdest things. If she wanted her brother to have a friend so badly, I shouldn’t have played along like I could be that friend. So, yeah, I had fucked up. I thought it would be best if I stayed away from her so that I didn’t have to fuck up a second time, or a third.

  Much to my surprise, Jay smirked. “All right, I’ll take that deal.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Jay shrugged. “If you didn’t want to get roped into this, you shouldn’t have been an idiot. What do you say?” He stuck his hand out, a challenge burning in his eyes.

  I sighed, looking up at the sky. I wanted to tell him to fuck off or to just walk back across the street… but why not? Why not do this and make huge fools out of both of us. “Fine,” I said, and slapped my hand into his. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jay

  “She’s going to hate us when she’s older,” I sighed, snapping another picture, because of course I wanted a hundred pictures of this.

  “Not a chance,” Beatrice responded. “She’s adorable and we’re going to have solid proof that no one has ever had a cuter little sister than us. Mom’s gonna melt when she sees these.”

  “Honeeeeey!” Dee shouted, dancing around with a glittered-up sign with our prices on it. The bee costume that our mom had made her last Halloween really slammed it home. She’d told me that she wanted to dress up as a bee, and I had to be the queen. Obviously, I was the god of all honey, so I’d agreed. I had no idea it would turn out as well as it had.

  “We should have taught her to break dance,” Bea said. “Dammit, I told you.”

  “I don’t know if we should have a little girl breakdancing by the side of the road. Someone is gonna think we’re taking advantage of her.”

  “Or they’ll think our sister has some sick-ass moves and they’ll buy more honey.”

  I had my doubts, but she seemed sure about it.

  While my sister danced, I looked across the street to see what Hamilton and Sam were up to. Sam hadn’t stopped reading, but Hamilton seemed to have been working on kicking things up a bit. It seemed unfair that he had cut his prices, but I wouldn’t tell him that. If he thought he needed to stoop that low, I would let him. The quality of my honey would get me the win.

  Beatrice kept looking at her phone. I thought nothing of it until she started getting squirmy. While I kept an eye on Dee Dee, she’d slipped over to the truck to get something from the back. She’d taken the truck to go get supplies for us, so I had no idea what she had in her duffle bag until she took it out and put it on.

  “Oh,” I said.

  She frowned at me, buttoning up the shirt she threw on over her tank top. It was orange and advertised the yogurt shop right by the store not two hundred feet away. I knew she had started working there, but she’d yet to take off in front of me.

  Reality came in. I would be without my sister most of the time now. Dee’s comment on my not having friends was kind of a stab to the chest. I knew I didn’t have any friends, but at least I had Beatrice. With her off and busy with her own life, I would be alone again. It was probably pathetic to lean so heavy on my little sister as my only source of company.

  “You heading out now?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yeah, I have to be there in like ten minutes. Since it’s a training day, I’ll get a break after a few hours. I can come back and check on you guys if you want.”

  I didn’t want to sound desperate for company, but Bea would have known better no matter what I said. She had a ton of friends that she liked to spend her time with, but her lame brother obviously only had her.

  “You don’t have to hike all the way over here,” I said. “I know it’s getting hot. You don’t wanna be all sweaty when you have to work with yogurt.”

  She made a face of pure disgust. “I feel like more buildings around here should come with showers for such a reason.”

  “One day,” I said with crossed fingers.

  Beatrice took a long look at me, clearly trying to read my mind. I pretended like I didn’t notice, fixing up the table and organizing the honey jars into an eye catching pyramid display. Bea read my thoughts as if they had been written across my face.

  “I’ll come see you later,” Bea finally said. I felt like I’d failed, though I never had a chance in the first place.

  I could see how it would all play out this summer. Bea would hardly have any time to see her friends, and she would still pick me because she would think I needed it more. She wouldn’t resent me for that sort of thing, but she would still be missing out. Bea was sixteen. She should have been off doing things a sixteen-year-old did. Not working with her brother, not taking on the responsibility of bills, and not trying to be the only friend to a lonely kid who couldn’t manage to make friends on his own. Bea shouldn’t have felt like she had to make up for what I couldn’t get myself.

  “Bea,” I started.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said before I could finish. “Love you. Love you, Dee Dee!”

  Our sister ran over to give her a big hug before she left, getting a million face kisses until Dee dissolved into a giggling mess. Bea set her down and hurried toward the yogurt shop.

  Great, so I needed a plan to get Bea to go live her own life. If I just threw myself into the business, then maybe I could play it off like I really didn’t have time for her. It
wouldn’t have been a lie even. I needed the money and that would take time.

  I only felt guilty again, thinking about how Bea would be picking up my slack once I moved out. There was no winning. Either my brother didn’t get a room, or my sister had to work and give most of that money to our parents so they could keep the power on. What a great situation I found myself in.

  “Hey,” I called out to Dee. “Come get some water.”

  She put her sign down on the table, letting me pick her up and sit her in the truck. I turned it on, aiming all the vents toward her as I took off the bigger pieces of her costume. I had a cooler filled with cold water, and I made her drink half a bottle and have a snack. It wasn’t terribly hot outside, but she would have way less of a tolerance for it than I did.

  “Full blown dad mode, huh?” I heard from behind me.

  Hamilton had come over, walking past my table and looking over my shoulder at Dee. For some reason, I wanted to block her from him. He’d proven he could take a break from being an ass with a kid around, so I shouldn’t have been worried.

  “She’s got a dad,” I said. “A really good dad.”

  “Didn’t say otherwise. Do you take care of her a lot?”

  I left Dee in the car, walking over to the table so I could straighten out an already straight display. “Both of my parents have worked my whole life, so sometimes I would have to watch the kids. I have a lot of experience with children.”

  I didn’t want to make it sound like I was bitter toward my parents, or that I had been saddled with a bunch of stuff that they didn’t want to do. I had never had a problem watching the kids, or working, or doing anything else they’d needed around the house. My parents worked their asses off and never got to do anything for themselves. I had no right to be bitter when they struggled too.

  “You said you’ve been coming out here for years,” Hamilton said. “Is that true?”

  “You think I would have lied about that? Why?”

  He shrugged. “You never know. Maybe you really wanted me to leave your spot.”

  “I do,” I assured him, moving the final jar of honey. “That doesn’t mean I would lie to you about that. I was a kid when I started making honey, and it sold well enough to justify the costs of having bees in the backyard, so my parents let me keep doing it. It helped us get through the summers when the AC would make our bill insane. Then it turned into my job.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a terrible gig.”

  I smirked at him. “You thinking about switching careers, Hammy?”

  I got a kick out of the way his eyebrows lifted up on his forehead. It was like a dragon had come out of the sky, going by the surprise on his face. I couldn’t tell if my nickname irritated him, which had been the goal. If not, then I would have to kick it up a notch.

  “Why would I switch when I’m selling so well?” he asked. He took a glance back at his set up. “Don’t you think the sun hits the table in such a nice glow that it makes the jerky that much more appealing?”

  I stared flatly at him, suppressing the desire to growl. “No, it really doesn’t. Kind of makes it look like it would be warm, and it’s too hot for that sort of thing.”

  “It’s all in the cooler.”

  “Not the display packages.”

  “I think it’ll be fine.”

  “Will it though? Are you positive?”

  We faced each other, both staring down the person in front of us. I could shove him into the street, but I wouldn’t do that in front of the kid. She would only tell our parents I was a murderer, and I would probably get grounded.

  “Very positive,” Hamilton said. “I’m so positive that I’ll come over and show you how much money I made at the end of the day.”

  “All that cash and you can’t buy yourself a shred of decency.”

  “Decency? I recall giving you a free bag of jerky, while you made me buy two bottles of your honey. One of which was way overpriced.”

  I smiled up at him. “That’s your fault. Know that it could have been avoided if you’d bothered to look for a price tag.”

  “Maybe you should have been more careful about your honey selling.”

  I waited for him to have something else to say, both of us still staring like it would break the other. It didn’t appear like either of us would break any time soon.

  “Are you guys gonna kiss?” I heard in a tiny voice. I looked down to see Dee with her bottle of water, staring up at us as she giggled. “If you get a boyfriend, does that mean he’s gonna come over?”

  I stepped back, hoping my face hadn’t turned red. “I’m not getting a boyfriend, Dee. Hammy is just my friend, remember?’

  “Oh, okay. But is he still coming over?”

  I looked to Hamilton, waiting to see what he would say and if he was still willing to appease a little girl. It turned out, he was.

  “Of course,” he said. “I’ll come over real soon if Jay wins our little game here.”

  “We can play Jay’s Wheel of Fortune game.” She laughed. “He’s so bad at it!”

  Well, that wasn’t very nice. “I’m not bad at it. I’m just not as good as Beatrice.”

  “No, you’re bad. You never get the puzzles right.”

  She got that attitude from AJ. He would probably be proud of it, complimenting her on her expert burn. She had no idea how deep that one cut me.

  I sighed. “We’ll figure out what Hamilton can do once he comes over. I think you should go back to the car.”

  “No, I want to dance! Would you dance with me?”

  I really didn’t have a choice, but I didn’t mind it so much. Hamilton had vanished back to his side of the street, so that left me to get back to trying to kick his ass at sales. If I lost on my own turf, my pride would have been wounded beyond all repair. My pride wasn’t as important as destroying Hamilton though. I wanted to make him regret ever parking here and thinking he could bust in and take what he wanted.

  Mom had made my queen bee costume out of heavy, thick fabric, which held all the Arizona heat. I didn’t have all that much extra weight I could sweat out, but I would make the sacrifice in the name of winning. I drank plenty of water, knowing that I would have to eat three pounds of food when I got home in order to make up for what I sweated out in the bee costume.

  I danced with Dee, both of us holding signs as we tried to get people to pull over to check us out. It worked too, and I sold thirteen jars in an hour. It was better than I’d done in the last week.

  Dee ran at me, leaping into the air and having the purest kind of faith that I could catch her. I did, of course, and I spun her around in the air, being a good queen bee. I heard Sam laughing from across the street, cheering us on as he took pictures.

  “Can I post this!” he shouted over at us.

  “Why?”

  Hamilton glared as he did it.

  “Because it could bring more people!” Sam called. “Who doesn’t want to see a little baby dancing with her queen?”

  I had never had much luck with the online stuff before, but I let Sam do what he wanted. I had no shame when it came to playing with my sister. It was my job to make myself look like a fool if it made her happy.

  “You’re helping him more than you’re helping me,” I heard Hamilton complain to his friend. “You realize that if I lose, I have to go spend time with him.”

  “Oh, really? I forgot.” Sam shrugged. “Sorry. I mean, it would be totally awful if you had to make a new friend. What would even happen if you hung out with him? Gasp! Would, would you maybe like it?”

  “No.”

  This didn’t offend me. It seemed pretty clear to me that Hamilton and I would never get alone, and not even just because the ass had stolen my spot. We just didn’t mesh. I didn’t mesh with anyone, actually. Maybe some people weren’t meant to have friends in life.

  “I like your crown,” a little boy said to me as his dad bought one of the bigger jars of honey. The dad didn’t look too amused with me, but the kid was nice. “D
id you make that yourself?”

  “My mom did,” I told him. “And now I rule the hive with an iron wing.”

  The kid laughed and left with his father.

  I noticed that Sam had taken up his sign, starting to walk it around as he spun it. A couple of people left my side to go to theirs, but only after they bought honey. No matter how fancy he spun that sign, it wouldn’t beat out two bees with a zest for life.

  “I didn’t think you would actually do it,” I heard from a familiar voice. I hadn’t realized that Bea had showed up in the middle of the crowd. I noticed other people wearing those yogurt uniforms, all headed across the street.

  “Do what?” I asked.

  She gestured to me as Dee went off to the truck to get more water. “I thought you would maybe rock the crown, but not the whole costume. Are you not in pain?”

  “Nope,” I lied. “Even if I was, it would be worth it. I have to ruin Hamilton before he can ruin me.”

  She looked over at his table, seeing people buying a worrying amount of jerky. “Is, is this not a little over the top? Risking your health so you can sell more than some guy you don’t know?”

  “It’s important,” I said. “I have to make a statement. There’s purpose to this madness.”

  “Sure there is.”

  The sun started setting, letting us know that the game would soon be over. There was a certain point where we knew we wouldn’t get more customers, and I wanted Dee home anyway. Mom would hopefully have gotten enough of a break after shopping that she would have been up for the kiddo to go home.

  Hammy came over with his box of money as Sam packed up stuff at the RV. I began to strip from my costume while he took it upon himself to sit at the table.

  “Shall we?” he asked.

  “We shall,” I said, “Count your money.”

  We both started, adding it up along with the units we’d sold. I had almost nothing left, which gave me a good indication of how much I had made in the day. I’d done good. Really, really good. I still didn’t know if it was enough to win.