The Other Side of the Street

by Nicole Thorn

  “Jeez, Dee Dee, you could have been a little more thoughtful,” AJ said.

  “It’s fine,” Bea responded at the same time.

  And Dee, talking over both of them, said, “Ham’s here.”

  I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

  Jay blinked at all of his siblings before finally lifting his head to stare at me. I must have had a funny expression on my face, because he shook out his damp hair. “Um, hey.”

  I sounded exhausted as I said, “I came to pick you up.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Jay said. “Just give me a few minutes, and then I’ll be ready.”

  “He can play with me until you’re done!” Dee said. “The two of us have to be friends if you’re going to be friends!”

  “What is going on?” yet another person asked. I wanted to hide under the RV until everything calmed down. I remembered thinking about how I didn’t like the quiet of my house, but this seemed like a completely new extreme. To go from only having a cat to keep me company to this many people felt like… too much. Way too much.

  A man came down the hall, looking exhausted and done with everything. He also looked enough like Jay that it had to have been his father. He wore pajamas as well. It looked like the only person who had actually been awake when I arrived was Jay, and he had been outside… doing something. Tending his bees, sure, but I didn’t know what that meant.

  “Daddy!” Dee shouted, running at him. “Jay’s friend came by. Didn’t I tell you that he would?”

  Someone kill me. It doesn’t even have to be a quick death. Just end this.

  I cleared my throat and looked at Jay. He seemed as bothered by the entire situation as I did.

  Jay’s father glanced up at me and his eyebrows rose. “Oh, yeah. You’re the one with the RV, right?”

  I couldn’t tell if he sounded annoyed with my existence or not. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  He nodded as he lifted his daughter up into the air. He flung her casually over his shoulder, making Dee squeal in delight and kick her legs uselessly while screaming at him to let her down. “You two aren’t heading off this early, are you? There won’t be anyone there this time of day.”

  “Well, we have to set up,” Jay said. “I’ll just grab my shoes and then we can head out.”

  “Okay,” I said, as Jay disappeared. He ran past his mother, who had been making her way down the hall. She barely managed to dodge out of Jay’s way, and yet she did it with so much grace that it surprised me.

  “What’s all the noise—oh hello. Are you the RV boy?”

  God, I’ve never believed in you before, but please strike me down. “Uh, yes, that would be me.”

  “It’s lovely to meet you,” she said, holding her hand out. I took it, rather awkwardly. “I hope that you weren’t planning on leaving already. It’s so early in the morning. Come, have breakfast.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Jay and I really should be leaving.”

  “I wasn’t asking you, honey,” she said, smiling up at me.

  “Um.”

  The next couple of minutes blurred together. Somehow, I ended up sitting at Jay’s table, with the rest of his siblings, while his parents hustled around the kitchen making breakfast. Dee kept asking questions about Purricane, and I couldn’t even remember how the cat had come up to begin with. Meanwhile, AJ would throw out the occasional comment, calling into question my ‘friendship’ with his brother. And Bea drank all of this in, clearly enjoying every second of it.

  Jay walked in about that time, looking as confused as I felt. He must have seen the panic in my eyes, because he derailed the conversation pretty easily by asking where his laundry basket went. Dee, it turned out, was a terrible liar. She had been using it to slide down their driveway after spraying it with water. She claimed that it didn’t work very well after she had gotten caught lying.

  All of the sudden, I had French toast in front of me, and I didn’t have much of a choice but to eat it, then I had a child sitting on the edge of my chair, stealing the bacon from my plate, and the next thing I knew, breakfast had ended and it felt like the strangest fever dream.

  I stepped out of Jay’s house in a daze, stomach full of delicious food, and unsure of what to do with myself.

  Jay pushed up his garage door, revealing all of his work supplies. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I’m sure they didn’t mean to harass you.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, though I still felt kind of dazed. “Is every morning like that for you?”

  Jay shrugged, his face tight, as if he thought I’d judge him for the way he lived. I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t think I could survive with that many siblings. It’s chaos.”

  “I’m used to it,” he said, grabbing his work table. I helped him get it onto the RV, mostly because watching him trip up the stairs would have made me feel like shit after his mother stuffed me full of French toast. Then we gathered his boxes of honey and brought them onto the RV as well. The back looked stuffed with all of our supplies, but everything fit without too much of a hassle.

  I got behind the wheel while Jay went to close the garage door. As he climbed back into the RV, he said, “Again, I’m sorry about them. They didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  “I wasn’t,” I told him. “It’s just a lot more than I’m used to. A lot of noise. I’ve never seen a dog manipulate people like that.”

  Jay rolled his eyes. “I’ve told the kids a thousand times not to give him human food, but they don’t listen to me. He’s going to get fat now that he’s old, and then what’ll we do with him. Walk him around in the wagon?”

  I snorted at the image.

  “So, you don’t have any siblings?” Jay asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t even really have cousins. My dad’s sister had two kids, but they’re fifteen years older than me, and we don’t talk. To be honest, I can’t even picture what they’re faces look like.”

  “Well, that would explain why you never learned how to play nicely,” Jay grumbled.

  I didn’t respond, just stared out at the road.

  After a few minutes, he sighed. “Do I need to apologize?”

  “Huh? Oh, no, it’s fine.”

  “Listen, if this is too awkward, then we can just ignore Sam, and I can bring my wagon up the hill like I used to. It’s not that long of a walk.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “It is, actually, especially when it gets to June. It’s fine, I don’t mind bringing you.”

  Another bout of silence stretched between us, this one tense and awkward. Jay broke it again by saying, “Where is Sam, anyway? I thought he would be with you this morning.”

  “I left him at home until he stops annoying me,” I said. Then I shrugged. “He’ll probably show up around noon, after he wakes up and realizes that he isn’t going to be making any money today. So, be prepared for that kind of annoyance.”

  “He’s not that bad.”

  “Give it time. He will be.”

  “If he annoys you so much, why bother hanging out with him?”

  I sighed, tapping the steering wheel. “Just because he annoys me doesn’t mean that I don’t care about him. It just means that he’s annoying. I can move past it, especially since I’m the only one in Sam’s life that actually gives a damn about what he wants. That doesn’t mean he should get it right now. I’m sure you’ve noticed that Sam is a little…”

  “Pushy?” Jay offered.

  “I was going to say obnoxious, but pushy works too.” I pulled over to the side of the road, where we would be selling our wares. Despite the fact that we disliked each other greatly, it was hard to ignore the boost in sales we got when we sat on the same side of the street.

  “I don’t really get why you bring him along,” Jay said. “He doesn’t do anything, and he takes a huge chunk of your profits when he does.”

  “It’s better than sitting out here alone, hoping that someone will come over to the sad guy with a table
full of jerky,” I said as the two of us started to move toward the back.

  Jay snorted. “You make an excellent point. I still don’t think you should pay him what you do.”

  “Believe it or not, he wouldn’t stick around unless I did.”

  Jay paused in the process of grabbing his table. “Are you sure that the two of you are friends? It doesn’t sound like it. What do your parents think about you splitting the profits with him.”

  “It’s just me and my dad,” I said, grabbing the table and walking backward with it. “And Dad doesn’t care what I do with the money.”

  We started to set up outside, Jay getting his table ready while I got the fans in the RV going, so that we wouldn’t roast alive out in the sun. I expected Jay to ask me more questions about my mother, because most people did. They always wanted to know what happened, if she had abandoned me or if my parents were just divorced, or what.

  He didn’t say anything, though. Perhaps the tone of my voice had been enough to convey that she was dead.

  Either way, we finished setting everything up in peace. Once I’d gotten the first cooler of jerky emptied out on the table and Jay had all of his jars set up, the two of us sat down in our chairs and waited for the first customers to come by.

  I didn’t want to jinx anything, but we almost seemed to be getting along.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jay

  It didn’t seem fair that we had clear blue skies that welcome you outside, but it felt like actual hell the second you left the house. It almost didn’t feel worth it to try and sell anything. People would be less likely to get out of their air-conditioned cars and walk up to me. In fact, I’d had plenty of people pull up and have me run them honey. It felt kind of demeaning, but I needed the cash.

  Of course, it pissed me right off that Hamilton had an air-conditioned RV to sit in. Not from jealousy, but because I didn’t want him to feel like he had done something to make me feel comfortable. We had to remain sworn enemies, even if my sisters loved him and my mom insisted he ate breakfast with us. In a hundred years, that would never not embarrass me.

  We’d done all right in the few hours we’d been out so far. I’d sold three jars and Hamilton got a few bags of jerky unloaded. In those few hours, we hadn’t said much to each other. We hadn’t become friends just because he offered me a ride. He didn’t need to know about my life, and he didn’t ask anything. We seemed to get along best when we could pretend the other one didn’t exist. People liked me best that way.

  I leaned back in my seat, content to do nothing but stare out the window and sit in silence. We didn’t have any music or TV, but I entertained myself by zoning out and picturing a life where I had my own place and could finally sleep without clothes on. As God intended, really.

  “Don’t suppose you have any water here, Hammy?” I asked.

  He looked up from his book to glower at me. “It’ll cost ya.”

  “Cost me what?”

  “Twenty bucks.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Are you ever going to forget that? It’s not my fault Bea tricked you into overpaying. And you can’t pretend that honey wasn’t worth every last penny.”

  Hamilton shut his book to give me his full attention. “My dad is the one that likes your honey. Not me.”

  My eyes narrowed. “My honey is like the nectar of the gods and you know it. My honey could cure depression.”

  “Your honey tastes the same as the honey that you can buy at the store.”

  I gasped. “You son of a bitch.”

  He smirked at me, proud of himself. “See what happens when you get cocky? You only get hurt in the end.”

  “I could bite your face right now if I wanted to. We can see who gets hurt in the end.”

  “Biting me won’t make what I said any less true. Get mad all you want, but you know it.”

  I’d never wanted to fight anyone in my whole life. Yet, every time I got around Hamilton, I just wanted to throw him to the ground and go tumbling until I came out a winner. Of course, if I tried something like that, I’d probably get all my bones broken. Then I would have had to explain to my parents why I was in the hospital, and some form of grounding would have taken place. Hamilton got to poke at me all he wanted, and he never reacted to my poking back. Maybe I’m bad at poking.

  “Hmm,” I said.

  “Hmm, what?”

  I sat back, crossing an ankle over my knee and looking out the opened door. “Your buddy hasn’t showed up yet. Do you wonder if he’s sick of your grouchy attitude?”

  “Every day,” Hammy answered. “And he might have found sleep more tempting than making money. That, or he wants me to suffer, so he’s making me be alone with you.”

  Everything had been perfectly fine when we sat in silence. I knew the moment I opened my mouth, it would all go downhill from there. Maybe I wanted it to go downhill. Maybe the idea of getting along with the guy who rolled into town with a bigger, better setup than mine was too much to handle. Why should I have been okay with working so hard in this spot for years, just to get it taken away from me by some guy who showed up without warning?

  I’d run out of things to say at that point, and I thought it might have been for the best. I knew Hamilton wanted me there about as little as I wanted to be there. He had only given me a ride because he felt guilty. Surely it wouldn’t last that much longer. In fact, I could probably figure out a way to get him to stop coming by. He had to be looking for an out, as he had been the second Sam decided he should be taking me to work.

  I heard a car. Being by the road, I heard an awful lot of cars during the day. This one sounded extra close though, and that meant we had a customer. That also meant we got to engage in the very fun game of Who Does This Person Want to Buy From. It was great because when they picked something from the other person; everything got super tense and we had no way of dealing with it. We didn’t work as a team, so every sale didn’t feel like a win.

  Hamilton was the first one to get up when a car parked off the road. I was right behind him, slightly pessimistic that the customer was there for me. When I heard Hamilton curse under his breath, I didn’t understand it. I saw the man’s face. He had a good handful of features that matched my constantly irritated companion, and I put some pieces together. That, and I heard Hamilton call him Dad.

  “Hey, Dad, what’s up?” Hamilton asked, walking toward the man.

  He had a cooler in his hands and a smile on his face. The smile might have had me questioning his relation to Hamilton if I didn’t know any better already. Hamilton could only smirk at me, and it always proceeded him saying something not so nice. This man seemed kinder. Tired, and kind.

  “Not much,” the man said. “I wanted to bring you boys some lunch. I was on my way out and I thought you might be getting hungry. Didn’t want you to have to hike it all the way up the road for fast food.”

  “Wow, thank you, sir,” I said, holding my hand out to him. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jay.”

  “Harry,” the man said, shaking my hand. “Nice to meet you too, kiddo. I’ve heard… well, not much about you.”

  My hand dropped. “Really? Hammy didn’t talk endlessly about me when he got home that first day?” I turned to my not-friend, putting an arm around his shoulder and earning a hell of a glare. “Are you ashamed of me?”

  “Endlessly,” Hammy responded.

  “You got yourself a new nickname, Ham?” his father asked. “I bet that one goes over real well with the girlies, huh?”

  Hamilton faked a laugh, slithering out of my arm to take the cooler from his dad. “Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. We, we have a good time.”

  “Great, I’m glad. You two getting a lot of traffic?” He looked around us, seeing cars passing by. It hadn’t been too busy on the road yet, but the lunch rush hadn’t started. I expected at least a few more jars sold before I had to go home.

  Hamilton set the cooler down and crossed his arms. “Uh, we’re doing okay so far. The mornings aren’t really
ever that busy. We mostly get hit up at the end of the day when everyone is on their way home from work.”

  I tried hard to get some kind of idea of what kind of relationship they had, but I honestly couldn’t tell. It seemed like Hamilton liked his father well enough, but that comment about girls seemed weird. I’d been under the impression Hamilton was only into guys. Of course, I might have been wrong on that one. I must have, if his father would say something like that.

  “You expecting Sam to come by and help you two out?” Harry asked.

  “I’m not so sure,” Hamilton responded. “I think he might be busy with something else. Family stuff, probably.”

  “Or enjoying his summer,” I suggested. “If it were me, I probably wouldn’t want to spend my days constantly dealing with the awkwardness, to be honest.”

  “Awkwardness?” Harry asked. “What’s awkward?”

  I opened my mouth, but Hamilton cut me off fast. “The awkwardness with… this. Ya know? Hanging out with a stranger can get a little weird sometimes and Sam isn’t all that social.”

  “Not like you,” Harry laughed.

  I kept my mouth shut, staring at Hamilton while I tried to figure out why he would have lied. I could only guess that his father didn’t know him and Sam had dated. Which meant that Harry probably didn’t know that Hamilton had no interest in girls. The thought of that felt strange to me. Of course, I knew that not everyone was like my family. Still, Harry seemed like a nice guy. Not the kind that would have been an asshole about this sort of thing.

  “You can all get to know each other,” Harry went on. “This is actually pretty nice. Now that you’re finished with high school, meeting people is going to be a lot different. Making friends is harder. But here you are, having found a kid who pretty much does exactly what you do. How great is that?”

  “Wonderful,” Hamilton lied. “It’s really great.”