by Anne Pfeffer
“This is not my favorite thing, working at the Community Center! I just do it for community service credit,” she said. “It’s required at my school.” She kind of hugged herself so that her arms moved in, squeezing her breasts together and creating an obvious and tempting slice of cleavage.
She might as well have been wearing a sandwich board sign that said “I’m available.” Her legs were just right – toned with slim ankles. Zoey’s got a boyfriend, I reminded myself. It’s okay to look at another girl. And touch.
“I’m in school full-time, and I work as a receptionist,” she said. “At my dad’s office.” She turned so I got the three-quarter view. She was quite excellent from every angle.
By now I’d cleared a couple of tables, moving dirty dishes and glasses onto a rolling kitchen cart. Kat picked up a damp rag, with which she could have wiped off the tables, if she’d been the type to do some work. I spotted Hilda wandering in our direction in her fluffy bedroom slippers, the only shoes I’d ever seen her wear.
“It’s a very social job,” Kat continued. “You just sit around and talk to people all day long.”
She’d be a natural for that. Since I couldn’t think of anything to say, I gave Hilda a big greeting as she stopped in front of me.
“Hey, Hilda! What’s up?”
She eyed Kat with a scowl. “There are no words that rhyme with Travis.” Her face, tanned dark from the sun, had brown blotches that looked like age spots. Over her other clothes, she wore a huge, torn apron with pictures of vegetables.
Kat had an artificial smile pasted on her face. “Hi. What a pretty apron.”
Wrong. I knew what looked good on a woman, and this apron had never had a pretty moment. Even before it got all stained and ripped.
Hilda didn’t have to be sane to know bullshit when she heard it. She leaned toward me, as if she had secret to tell. “Silly. Filly. Hillbilly,” she pronounced. Her lips were chapped and cracked.
Kat recoiled. I struggled to keep a polite expression on my face as Hilda’s foul breath enveloped me like fog. She wandered away, muttering. I looked around for Zoey. Finding no sign of her, I began to push the cart toward the next table.
“So I guess we’re done, right?” Kat tried to get her bright-and-perky face back into place. Anyone with an eye could have seen we had more dining tables to clean up, along with the serving table. And the dishes had to be done. But Kat was looking back and forth between me and the exit.
“You wanna go hang out after work one day?” she asked. Her hair was pretty, curled around her face. As hard to get as she’d been earlier, she was a sure thing right now. A sure thing, and hot as Hades.
Easy to bag, but the flip side was, the escape routes were problematic. She was Zoey’s friend. She sometimes worked at the Center. This would be a nightmare. It was Suki times ten.
And worst of all, if I slept with Kat, Zoey would write me off forever. Other girls might look past something like that, but Zoey wouldn’t.
I couldn’t do it. “I got another job after this one.”
“Her lips bunched together in a pout. “Okay then.” She started to turn away, then seemed to have second thoughts.
“Do you know how to change a tire? When I parked my car to come here, I noticed I was getting a flat.”
I swore silently to myself. “Okay, but let’s finish up here first. We can do it when the shift ends.”
“I have a doctor’s appointment! I have to leave now.”
I didn’t want to be one of those volunteers like Charlotte, who flaked out on their work, leaving it for Zoey to do. “Let me just tell Zoey what’s happening.” I’d come back afterwards and help her finish up.
“She went to the bathroom. It’ll only take a minute, and I’m late for my appointment.” Kat headed for the parking lot, with me following reluctantly behind.
Her brand new cherry red Mini Cooper had picked up a nail in its left front tire.
“You can probably get it patched,” I said. “Do you know where the spare is?”
Of course not.
Kat made dumb conversation to me for the entire half hour it took me to wrestle the spare from its hiding place, get it onto the car, and put the flat tire away. Since my hands were black, I used my wrist to wipe the sweat off my forehead.
Kat laughed. “Silly boy! Now you got black all over your face!” She produced a tissue and started wiping my face.
I ducked backwards. “That’s okay.” But I was too late. Zoey walked up just in time to see us standing close together, Kat touching my face.
“Oh, hi Zoey!” Kat said. “Travis is my knight in shining armor!”
“She wanted me to change a flat tire for her,” I explained. “Do you still need help with the kitchen?”
Zoey was back to cool and impersonal, like the first day I’d met her. “No. I did it myself.” She headed straight for her car, jumping in and revving the ignition.
“Hey, Zoey wait up,” I called out to her.
“Gotta go,” she said and drove off.
“Bye,” I said to Kat, furious. I took off.
“Hey!” Kat called after me. “Hold on a sec.” She ran after me and pressed a piece of paper in my hand. “My number. In case you want to give me a call.”
“Thanks.” I jumped into my car. Kat probably thought I was crazy— writing her love notes and then avoiding her.
Was I crazy? It seemed like everyone around me was. My mom was falling to pieces, and most of the street people had already lost it.
I realized I was mumbling to myself. Okay, I thought, well, that’s crazy. I turned on the ignition and drove back to the hillside.
Fold
It was my second evening at the fire station. I laid down my cards and pushed the last of my poker chips toward Garret, who cackled and dragged them toward his large pile.
“And another one bites the dust,” he crooned. On duty, he and the others still wore their official firefighter clothing at eight o’clock at night, although some had traded in their button-down collar shirts for navy t-shirts.
“Damn,” I said, “You got me.”
He didn’t have to know I’d had a full house. I’d learned my lesson well. There’d be no more showing Garret up, at least not for a long time. As in, when or if I ever completed the Discoverers program, passed the Firefighters’ Exam, and got a job.
I was in the Day Room with Perkins, Garret, Jason, and one of the oldest guys at the station, Larry—five sets of broad shoulders crowded around the dining table. The surface was sprinkled with cards, popcorn bowls, glasses and soda cans, and bags of pretzels and cookies. The only sign of health lay near Larry—a bottle of sparkling water and a small tray with carrot sticks and other raw veggies.
He had refused the high-fat, high-sugar items we waved under his nose. “My body is a protected area,” he’d said. “Kind of like a national forest.”
“More like a historic landmark,” Garret said, then chortled at his own humor.
“Young troublemaker,” Larry grumbled, but he laughed too and gave Garret a friendly punch in the shoulder.
“I only speak the truth,” Garret crowed, on a roll from his victory over me. “Too bad we don’t play for cash.”
If they’d played for cash, they would have had to count me out. I wouldn’t soon forget that my father’s gambling had destroyed my family. I’d enter a shark tank before I’d play poker for money.
From another room, female voices drifted in—wives and girlfriends who had come to spend time with their on-duty men.
“Travis, you gotta girl? You should bring her over,” Perkins said.
“Thanks, but none right now,” I said.
The female voices were close now, as their three owners walked in. One of them was a bottle blonde with a superb rack. She came up behind Garret, winding her arms around his neck and resting her chin on his shoulder. “You almost done?”
She looked at me across the table and winked. I gave her a polite smile, immediately recognizi
ng the kind of girl I knew from Chick’s. A girl who liked to have fun. Purring, she said into Garret’s ear, “Who’s the new guy?”
Garret stood up abruptly. “Let’s go.” Ignoring her astonished face, he bolted from the room, taking her with him.
Silence. Then Perkins got up. “I’m gonna turn in. Travis, glad you could come. We want to see more of you here!”
I left soon after that, wondering if Garret would ever stop being pissed at me.
Tool
The hills were on fire again. Zoey and I listened to the radio report together in the kitchen. The firefighters were just able to save some small homes and a convenience store on the fire’s eastern edge, but the big news was that one of them had risked his life to pull a man and his son from their burning home. He was hospitalized, but in stable condition. I wondered who it was. I would find out on Saturday.
The report ended. “Isn’t it weird that you know those people now?” Zoey said. “I mean, when they talk about firefighters on the radio. You actually know them.”
“Yeah, it makes it different. It makes me worry.”
Her eyes darkened. “If you went to work at the station, you’d be in danger, too. Every time there was a fire.”
“Would you worry about me?”
I meant to make it sound light, in keeping with our “just friends” status, but it came out with a rush of feeling that I hadn’t known was there. My face went red.
Her voice was cool and cautious. “I’d worry about anyone I knew who was in danger.”
I set myself up for that one. Who was I kidding? Zoey thought I was interested in Kat. She had a boyfriend. And even if she didn’t, no way would a girl like Zoey Singleton date a dropout with two bucks in his wallet and a convicted felon for a dad.
The guests were getting in line at the serving table, while Charlotte and Terra and the other girls stared over at the two of us, waiting for us to stop our intense one-on-one conversation and go to work.
“Break it up, you two!” Johnnie yelled, his smile punctuated with missing teeth. He cackled as if he’d said something hilarious.
As I ladled out the carrots and broccoli and lugged trays of roast beef, I cursed the fact that I’d bombed out with the one girl who’d ever really interested me.
“Travis!” Charlotte said. “You’re so quiet today!” She gave me a hip bump.
“Gotta get this one.” I grabbed an empty tray and started to lift it.
Charlotte pouted. “I need to visit the little girls’ room.”
“Gimme a minute and then you can go.” As usual, I would cover Charlotte’s station, in addition to my own, while she escaped on one of her twenty minute breaks. Once she never even came back from break, and I did all her work that day.
“Wait your turn, please!” It was Terra, her voice sharp with fear and anger. A guest, one I’d never seen before, had pushed his way into the middle of the line. The hands that protruded from his tattered shirt were black with grime, and he reeked of liquor.
I put down the tray I was holding.
He had a broad, red face, with hair that he somehow managed to grease and comb back, despite the fact that no soap or water seemed to have touched his body in a long time.
“More cornbread!” he growled.
“That’s all we give,” Terra explained, cowering a little as she pointed to the two pieces on his tray. “That way there’s enough for everybody.”
“Summa bitch,” he grumbled, his voice carrying halfway across the room. He wasn’t interested in my vegetables, but homed in on the roast beef that Charlotte was serving. Pushing his way forward, he rammed his tray into the one ahead of him in line, spilling the woman’s drink over her food.
“Aaaah!” The woman, who had horrible scaly patches all over her face and arms, began to wail. “No, no, no, no!”
“Button your lip!” In one motion, the man knocked the woman’s tray to the floor.
The wailing increased in volume as the woman rocked forward and backward. “No, no, no, no….”
Zoey and I both got there at the same moment.
“It’s okay Martha. We’ll get you a new lunch,” Zoey said. Fastening a stern look on the man, she drew herself up to her full five foot two and commanded, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I know my rights!” he hollered, as he sent his tray flying in Zoey’s direction. I waded into him, twisting one arm behind his back and forcing him to pivot while I pressed a hard forearm against his windpipe. From the side of my eye, I saw Zoey holding her head.
“The lady asked you to leave,” I told him. His sick, drunk body was no match for my muscles of steel, honed by weeks of back-breaking labor. I dragged him out the door and toward the center of the park, allowing him just enough air to stay alive. At one point he went limp, his feet dragging loosely behind him, but I knew he was breathing and kept walking. I’d carried heavier rescue dummies up and down fifty-foot ladders.
We passed alongside the Monday farmer’s market and reached the fountain, where there were fewer people. I turned him around to face the way we’d come, jerking him unnecessarily hard, my wrist still pressed against his windpipe. “You see the Community Center?” I asked him. “See how far away it is? This right here is the nearest you’ll ever come to that building again, you got it?”
He tried to lunge out of my grip, but yelped in pain when I twisted his wrist up behind him, hard.
“Say yes, you understand.”
“Okay,” he grumbled. “Yes.”
I spoke in his ear, which was tough to take given the state of his hygiene. He had black grime all over his neck and disappearing down into his shirt.
“And another thing. If I find out that you hurt that girl in there just now, I will come back and I will hunt you down. And I will hurt you ten times worse, got it?”
I released him. “Have a nice day.” I sprinted back to the Community Center, thinking I needed another shower after holding that guy in a clinch for ten minutes. As I passed the Center’s rest room, I started to duck in to wash my hands, but then, wanting to check on Zoey, changed my mind at the last second. I reversed direction, almost bumping into a guy about my age, who was walking in behind me. “Sorry,” I said and ran to find her.
She was sitting on a chair holding a bag of frozen peas to her head. I skidded to a stop next to her, squatting down to her eye level. “You okay?”
She nodded. “The corner of his tray hit me in the temple. But I’m fine. I’m so glad you were here,” she added. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“Aw, you could have brought him down. It just would have taken you longer.” I studied the strands of hair falling out of her ponytail around her face and then the angry red mark on her temple, thinking how beautiful and fearless she was. “You’re going to have a bruise tomorrow. Maybe even a black eye.”
Her lips twitched. “I’ll have to make up a good story to go with it.”
We both laughed, and I would have kissed her right then if I could. “Seriously, though,” she said, “Thanks.”
“Zoey?” A guy stood a few feet away, checking me out with undisguised hostility. It was the one I’d seen going into the men’s room.
“Josh! Is it… why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at work?” Zoey took the bag of peas off her head and tried to stand, then sat back down quickly.
“What happened? Who did this to you?” His eyes flicked over at me as if he half believed I was the culprit. He walked over to her and snaked his arm around her shoulders, which made me want to go and remove it. Immediately.
“One of the guests threw a tray and it hit me. But I’m okay,” Zoey said.
“I told you those street people are dangerous. You need a security guard.”
“Travis took care of it. He got the guy under control and took him away.” She smiled at me and asked, “What did you do with him, anyway?”
“Let’s just say he’s under a permanent restraining order.”
Josh looked like he’d swallowed part of a cactus. His eyes went from my torn jeans to my old boots. “Who are you?”
The faintest trace of annoyance crossed Zoey’s face. “Joshua, this is Travis. He and I work together. Travis, this is Josh. My boyfriend.”
The competition. I shook Josh’s soft lily-white hand. “Nice to meet you. I work with Zoey.”
“Yeah. She already said that.”
Silence.
I was glad to see the guy was shorter than me. I registered khaki pants, an expensive-looking jacket, a more expensive-looking watch, and the strong, unmistakable scent of entitlement. Girls would think he was good-looking, which I guess he was in a smug, my-dad’s-richer-than-yours-is kind of way. I reminded myself that girls thought I was sexy in my old t-shirts and jeans—good thing, too, because they were all I had to wear.
“But why’re you here, Josh, instead of working?” Zoey asked him, looking back and forth between me and him.
“I am working,” he said. “I’m here to inspect the facilities and make sure they’re sufficient to support the influx of people from today’s event. The farmer’s market in the park.”
So he’d been in the men’s room on official city business. Probably checking the toilet paper supply.
Turning to me, he added, “I work for the mayor. I’m kind of like his eyes and ears, going out into the community and reporting back on groundswells of public opinion.”
“Sounds interesting,” I lied. “Catch any groundswells there in the john?”
“Uh, no.”
I didn’t think so.
Zoey spoke up. “Travis is in training to become a firefighter.”
He sighed, as if his boredom was beyond endurance. “Ah, the hero type.”
“If you say so,” I said pleasantly. I gave Zoey a slow, intimate smile, just for the hell of it.
“Travis is friends with Kat,” Zoey said. “They plan to get together.”
We did? Where had she gotten that idea?
“And I was thinking,” Zoey went on, “it might be fun to all have dinner, the four of us, at my house. I’ll cook dinner and we can hang out.”
