Snow Job

by Charles Benoit

  “I know what that makes me,” she said. “And I don’t care. I’d do worse things than that for my sister.”

  She took another drag of her cigarette. I felt she was going to say more, but then the waitress was there with the cheery how’s-everybody-doing-can-I-freshen-up-your-drinks bit, leaving behind a stack of sugar packets and a pile of creamers, and the moment passed. When Dawn was done diluting her coffee, she slid down in her seat, sipping from the mug. It was a simple move—awkward, really—and not the kind of thing that was supposed to be attractive.

  But it was.

  I wanted to tell her that.

  And I wanted to tell her that I didn’t care about Reg, or what she was doing, or what others might think.

  And I wanted to tell her about my list, show her the copy I kept folded in my wallet, explain what each line meant and why they were important to me. I wanted to tell her that I admired her courage, that I respected her decisions, no matter how bad they seemed. And, most of all, I wanted to tell her that from that second on, I would be there for her, through anything that came our way. But before I could say any of it, Dawn asked, “What are you doing New Year’s Eve?”

  I sighed. “Working till midnight at the Stop-N-Go. Then, who knows. You?”

  She tapped her cigarette in the ashtray. “What I want to do is get all dressed up, go out to dinner someplace nice. The Rio Bamba, maybe. Or Top of the Plaza. I want to dance and drink champagne at midnight, and stay up to watch the sunrise at the beach and go for breakfast, still wearing my dress.”

  “I’m not big on dancing,” I said. “The rest sounds good, though.”

  She took a drag. “I won’t be doing any of it. Staying up, maybe, but that’s only because Reg and company will be making so much noise I won’t be able to sleep. It’ll be cold pizza and beer as they sit around getting stoned, watching the stupid ball drop.” She looked away. I watched the smoke from her cigarette twist toward the ceiling fan. Without turning her head and in a voice just loud enough to hear, she said, “I need a new life.”

  I OPENED THE front door of the house and they were on me, their tiny arms tangling up my legs, their high-pitched squeals of “Uncle Nick” making my ears ring.

  Connie was the oldest—five or six, something like that—but Jodi had the tighter grip, holding on to my knee and riding my leg like a swing. Connie looked like her dad, squinty eyes and square jaw, and Jodi was the mini-version of her mother, with the same high cheeks and turned-up nose, and that same I-deserve-it attitude that usually got her what she wanted. I liked it when they visited, but I loved it when they went home. They were cute and all that, but they were exhausting, and when they got tired and cranky, there was nothing cute about them.

  If Connie and Jodi were there, so was Eileen.

  I spent a few minutes pretending to be interested in Dancerella, then a few more than I thought would be necessary to lose a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos before making my way to the kitchen. My mother was at her normal spot at the table, facing my way but looking past me. Eileen was sitting where she sat when she was a kid. Her eyes were red and she didn’t smile. There was a cloud of blue smoke above them, a smoldering ashtray filled with butts on the table, and a suitcase on the floor. I opened the refrigerator and looked inside. I didn’t want anything, but I still looked. Better than hearing what I knew was coming.

  My mother motioned with her cigarette. “Go get the girls’ things out of the back of your sister’s car.”

  I shook the milk carton to see if there was enough to dunk some cookies. There wasn’t.

  My mother drummed her fingers on the table. “Nicholas.”

  “I heard you,” I said. I shut the fridge, walked over, and leaned on the counter. I looked at my sister. She had dark circles under her eyes, the kind that come with age and lack of sleep, and there were a few gray hairs among the dark roots in her dirty blond hair. An hour a day under a sunlamp gave her skin a leathery tan. It was hard to believe she was only twenty-three. “You want the bags in your old room?”

  They exchanged a glance.

  Of course they wouldn’t go in her room.

  She’d “need her space.”

  Just like last time.

  And they wouldn’t go in Gail’s old room, since my mother had spent the year turning it into her sewing center. It didn’t matter that she didn’t sew—that room was not an option.

  That left one place.

  “Put them on the floor in your room for now,” my mother said.

  I knew that “For now” meant “For as long as they’re here.” It also meant I’d be back in the basement, on the army cot they had bought the first time Eileen had moved out on her husband. That was two years ago. It was a wet spring that year, and every time it rained, water would roll down the cinderblock walls of our unfinished basement. It was winter now, so the basement would be dry. It’d be cold and the cot would still be too short and uncomfortable, and there’d be even more junk down there than before. But at least my clothes wouldn’t smell like mildew.

  “I really appreciate this,” Eileen said. “Me and Allen just need a little time apart, that’s all.”

  Just like last time.

  I was about to say something smartass, something that was more cruel than clever, when I remembered item number three on my list. Like it or not, she was my sister, and as much as I didn’t like it, I needed to stand by her.

  “My room’s not as big as you think,” I said. “Let me move some stuff to the basement first.”

  It’s not what I wanted to do, but if that list was going to mean anything, it’s what I had to do.

  I HEARD THE phone ring above me.

  The kitchen chair scraped against the floor, and my sister’s heavy footsteps crossed the room. I heard her say a muffled hello, a hold on, and then the whole house heard as she shouted my name.

  I rolled off the cot and went upstairs. The phone was sitting on the counter. I stretched the cord into the living room and said, “Hello.”

  “Bet you didn’t think it would be me,” Karla said.

  I smiled at that. “You’d be right. I figured I’d never hear from you again.”

  “You wish. So how’s life in the frozen north?”

  “Pretty much the way you left it,” I said, then, a little softer, “Thanks for the car.”

  She chuckled. “You thank me now. Wait till you have to get that thing repaired. And remember, it pulls wicked to the right.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said, then I asked the question I assumed she wanted to answer. “What’s the weather like?”

  “Nice. Not too hot. It was only like sixty today. But better than there.”

  “It is. And you got no snow.”

  “You should come down. You’d like it. Lot of cool people.”

  I was tempted to say, “Like Scott?” but I let it go. Instead I said, “Thanks, but I don’t think I could afford it.”

  “That’s just an excuse and you know it. Come on, you were all, ‘I gotta change.’ What happened to that?”

  “I’m working on it,” I said, and before she could ask for proof, I asked, “You get a job yet?”

  “First day. The Del Mar Hotel, right on the beach. Minimum wage, but they bump you up quick. They’re hiring like crazy. Scott’s brother has connections. He can find you something.”

  Everybody offering me a job.

  “You can stay with us. We got the space, as long as you don’t mind sharing the bathroom.”

  “Hmmm. Fun.”

  “Oh, stop. It’s not bad. And there’s a lot of girls down here, too. They’re so hot, I even notice them.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see.”

  “You’re an ass,” she said, and I could hear that smile in her voice that I missed. “You want real change? Come and get it. You’re not going to find it up there.”

  “I think I’ll stick around here for a while.”

  “Why? There’s nothing there to—Wait a minute.” She stopped and the phone got quie
t. “What’s her name?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Nick. You can’t lie to me. Who is she?”

  “Her name’s Dawn. You don’t know her. And we’re not dating or anything. We’re hanging out is all.”

  “You banging her?”

  “What? No.”

  “Bullshit. I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe whatever you want,” I said. “But it’s true.”

  “You like her?”

  I had to think about that one. I knew the situation, knew what my chances were, and I could see where it would all end up going, which was nowhere. But I also knew how I felt. “Yeah, she’s all right.”

  “She feel the same way?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You want some advice?”

  “No.”

  “You got to be a good listener.”

  “Thank you, Princess Obvious.”

  She sighed, and for a moment it felt as if she was sitting right next to me, and not way the hell down in Florida. “I know you, Nick. You focus on the stuff you want to hear and miss everything else.”

  “I hear you.”

  “I know you do,” she said. “But are you listening?”

  Friday, December 30

  GEORGE LOOKED AT HIS LIST.

  “It’s New Year’s Eve weekend, so we’re gonna need a lot of ice. Bag up what’s in the machine. Fifty bags, not one bag less, then—”

  “Sorry, can’t do it,” I said.

  George’s eyes popped and he made this choking sound. “What?”

  “I said I can’t do it.” I pointed at the ice maker. It was twice the size of a refrigerator, and it had a metal door that swung open to the bin where the ice was stored. “The machine shuts off at four hundred pounds. Says so right there on the sign. The bags hold ten pounds. There’s not enough for fifty bags.”

  “That’s plenty,” he said, his face starting to glow red. “Just bag it up.”

  “I’ll bag as many as I can,” I said. “But it won’t be fifty.”

  He inched closer to me and did his best to stare me down—nostrils flaring, mouth all bunched up. He held on for a good ten seconds before looking away. “Fine. Just get it done.”

  I smiled, but he missed it, busy scribbling something on his clipboard. “And when you finish that, clean the bathroom. It’s disgusting. And it better be really clean, or you’ll be doing it again.”

  There was more, but I tuned him out, enjoying how good it felt to stand up for something as small as a bag of ice.

  I WAS AT the register when Jay walked in.

  The last time I’d seen him was the night me and Karla had ended up at the college party. That was also the night—apparently—that Jay and the others had all decided that they’d be happier without some asshole named Nick hanging around. I couldn’t speak for them, but as far as I was concerned, this new arrangement was turning out all right.

  I’d worked every Friday night for the past six months—Jay had to know I’d be there. So that meant he wanted something. I smiled. No need to be a jerk about it. It wasn’t his fault that my life needed a major overhaul. If anything, I owed him for helping motivate me to change, just by being himself.

  “What’s up?”

  Jay came straight to the counter. “I wanna get some beer for tomorrow. You gonna be cool?”

  I nodded. “Better get it tonight, though. Georgie says he’s working the register tomorrow. No ID, no beer.”

  “All right,” Jay said. “But I wanna get a half keg. Doable?”

  “No, man. Sorry. Just go with cases. With a keg there’s a deposit and you gotta rent the tap . . .”

  “You got a half keg of Bud back there?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “Okay, I’ll take that.”

  “Dude, you’re not listening,” I said. “You gotta have a credit card to get the tap.”

  “Just let me borrow one. I’ll bring it back Sunday.”

  I rubbed a hand across my face. “Look, get a bunch of cases. It’s easier and there’s no—”

  “Why you gotta be an asshole?”

  I stopped. “What?”

  “It’s not like I’m gonna steal it, you wuss.”

  “I didn’t say that. I only said that with a keg—”

  “Forget it,” Jay said, hands up all dramatic, backing toward the door. “They told me you’d be a dick about it.”

  “Jay, you can get as much beer—”

  “Your problem is that you’re a little bitch,” Jay said. Then his head snapped back and his feet flew up and he was out the door, coming down hard on the pavement by his car. Zod followed him, kicking him once in the balls, then again in the back, bending over to clock him on the ear. Jay had his hands up around his face now, but Zod was done, stepping around him, onto the sidewalk, and into the store.

  “Hey, look at you,” Zod said, dusting his hands as he walked. “Nametag and everything. How’s it going?”

  “It goes,” I said, looking past Zod, watching as Jay stumbled himself into the driver’s seat of his car.

  “Not too busy?”

  “No, not really.”

  Zod followed my gaze to the parking lot as the car raced away. “You get a lot of assholes in here?”

  I looked right at him. “A few.”

  “Well, it comes with the job.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I suppose.”

  Zod tossed a twenty on the counter. “Give me a couple packs of Zig-Zags.”

  I reached behind for the rolling papers. That’s when I noticed George, peeking around the coffee machine, keeping a safe distance from the register. I rang up the sale and gave Zod his change, counting it back like I’d been taught to do.

  Zod stuffed the bills in his pocket, leaving the coins on the counter. “You still thinking over Reg’s offer?”

  Dawn had been right—they didn’t hear me. Or they didn’t listen. I shook my head. “I’m not working for him.”

  “Think of it as working for the higher-highers. Reg’s bosses.”

  “I’m not working for any of them.”

  “Not yet. But you’ll get sick of this bullshit job,” Zod said, then, raising his voice and pointing straight at George, “and working for some douchebag.”

  I didn’t turn, but I watched Zod’s eyes as they tracked George scurrying to the back room.

  “So, anyway,” Zod said, pulling a fat baggie of weed out of his coat pocket as he shuffled to the door. “You know where to find us.”

  IT WAS OBVIOUS that George had run out of jobs for me to do when he told me to straighten out the comic book stand. But I did it. Nothing else to do but wait for the minute hand to crawl up the last twenty minutes to midnight.

  That’s when Dawn came in.

  George was at the register, and even if he had recognized her as the girl who had burned him for ten bucks, he wouldn’t have said anything. He just smiled and did that half-nod thing, leaning forward as she passed, watching her ass as she went down the aisle.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said as she walked toward me. “Do you have the latest issue of Playgirl?”

  I held out a comic book. “No, ma’am. But I do have The Avengers.”

  She waved it off. “I’m more of a Catwoman fan myself.” She stretched on her toes and pulled a copy of Cosmo off the top rack, reading the cover aloud. “‘Are You Romantic? Take the Quiz!’ Ha. I’d fail.”

  “I doubt that,” I said, no idea why.

  “‘Sexy by Spring! Exercise Your Way to Excitement!’ They lost me at exercise.”

  “Funny, they had me at sexy.”

  She tapped the cover. “Here’s one I need to read. ‘Escape from Relationships with Sickos.’” She flipped to the table of contents, then flipped to the middle of the magazine and ran her eyes over the first page of the article. “Damn. I do need to read this.”

  Back at the register, George coughed loudly. I ignored him. “What brings you way out here on a Frid
ay night?”

  “You,” Dawn said, poking me in the chest with the edge of the magazine. “What are you doing after work?”

  Going home and going to bed. That’s what the plan was, but that’s not what you say to a hot girl poking you in the chest with a Cosmo. So I said, “Haven’t decided yet. What do you suggest?”

  She smiled. “I’ll swing by at midnight,” she said, then turned, walked down the aisle and out of the store.

  I watched her go. So did George, clearly not noticing the magazine in her hand.

  AT MIDNIGHT GEORGE locked the front door, mumbled a good night, got in his car, and drove off.

  There was no sign of her, so I sat in my car, engine running, heat on high, waiting. Two songs on the radio later, a blue and white Beetle pulled in next to me. She rolled down her window and said, “Follow me.” I did—out of the parking lot, south toward the mall, then right on Ridge Road, past the shopping plaza, the Kmart, and the movie theater, past a dozen car dealerships, past the diner, past any place I could imagine her taking me. Ahead on the right was a Chinese take-out restaurant. She slowed and hit her left directional, pulling into the parking lot of the Wishing Well Motel, the orange neon sign flashing NO VACANCY.

  Everybody knew about the Wishing Well. It was the no-tell motel guys joked about when they hit on the girls at school, the post-prom destination no one ever got to. The building was long and low and drab—twenty rooms, no pool, no cable, no pets. Its only selling point was the tall row of thick hedges that hid the narrow parking lot from the street. For all their macho bragging, no one I hung out with had ever been this close.

  I parked next to Dawn’s car and got out.

  “I know it’s a dump,” Dawn said. “But I just had to have a night away.”

  I thought of the army cot in the basement that was waiting for me at home. “I can relate.”

  We walked to the room. The curtains were closed, but there was a light on inside. Dawn put the key in the door and paused. “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want it to be a surprise.”

  Like Reg waiting with a baseball bat? No, thanks. “Just go,” I said. “It’s cold out here.”