by J. M. Kelly
“I had it painted in a shop,” he says. “But I did a little of the body work with Uncle Jimmy’s help when I came to visit last year.”
News to me. I was here all last summer and I don’t remember him. I smile, but it’s as fake as this guy’s résumé. He’s a total poseur, which doesn’t really surprise me much, since he has girly hands. Also, he took up two parking spaces. I mean, yeah, you do that at the mall, but not at a garage where space is limited. I see guys like him at car shows all the time. Mommy and Daddy buy them fifty-thousand-dollar cars, they fix one thing on it—change the air filter, or check their own oil, or something piddling like that—and suddenly they’ve restored the whole damn car.
“That’s an amazing piece of machinery,” I say, to be polite. After all, he’s Jimmy’s nephew. I’m actually pretty happy when Rosa yells that she needs me. “I gotta go.”
“See you around, Crystal.”
“Uh, sure.” That’s not very likely. We definitely ride in different circles.
It’s not until the end of the night when I’m getting ready to punch out, and I’m whining to Rosa about not having my regular shifts next week, that she sets me straight.
“You know why, right?”
“Because I was late again?”
She shakes her head. Her eyes are made up with heavy blue eye shadow, making her look like a cartoon character.
“What, then?”
She gives me a knowing look. “David.”
“What about him?” I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.
“Jimmy gave him your shifts. You and Raul have to train him.”
“No way.”
She nods, all eight of her gold earrings bouncing up and down.
“No fucking way,” I say louder.
“Way.”
I am so pissed, I make the eleven-minute drive to the Glass Slipper in six flat.
Chapter 3
I have to wait twenty minutes for Amber. I’m not in the mood to help her after all, so I sit in the car, steaming. I don’t want to go inside when I’m pissed. Our aunt Ruby owns the place, and she lets Amber bring Natalie to work with her, but she expects us to be cheerful and grateful all the time. Which we try to be. It’s not like we could afford a babysitter if Amber couldn’t take her along.
By the time my sister comes out, carrying a to-go container full of scraps for Bonehead in one hand and lugging Nat’s car seat in the other, I’m slamming my fist on the steering wheel. I rant the whole time she buckles Natalie in. “This is bullshit. I’ve worked my ass off there for four years and now he’s giving my shifts to some rich mama’s boy?”
“Can you be quiet?” Amber whispers. “Nat’s been crying all night, and I finally got her to sleep.”
The rest of the way home I rage under my breath. I drive slower than I want to. It’s late and the cops are probably out patrolling. A muscle car is a target for getting pulled over, and we can barely make the insurance payments as it is. Amber doesn’t have her license because it would make our premium go up, even if she isn’t on the policy.
Bonehead practically yanks his stake out of the ground, he’s so happy to see us. He can probably smell all the good things Amber’s brought him. He’s barking like crazy, and from across the street, we hear Mr. Hendricks yell, “Shut that goddamned dog up!”
Natalie whimpers in her carrier. I rock her while Amber distracts the dog. “Shhh . . . shhh . . . Boy, sit . . . Here, have a T-bone.”
He immediately clamps down on it, dropping to the ground and starting to gnaw. Natalie’s whimper has turned into a moan, which makes me afraid she might start wailing, so I run her inside and set her on the table. When her little cries turn into a yawn and I see she’s falling back asleep, I grab a can of dog food and go outside.
There isn’t any light coming from our house. Gil hung up some towels in the living room window to make it darker for watching TV, and the porch light’s burned out, but the streetlight is right in front of us. I can see enough to grab a shovel and clean up some of Bonehead’s giant turds. I toss them in the mostly dead hedge.
“What else you got for him?” I ask Amber. I want to go to bed, but I can’t until he’s eaten. He sleeps in the Mustang and there’s no way he’s taking food into my car.
“Not much,” she says, tossing Bonehead a bit of burger she saved off someone’s plate. He immediately drops the bone and scarfs down the beef, managing to somehow leave the lettuce and pickle. Then Amber gives him a handful of fries and something slithery and brown I don’t recognize. Bonehead apparently loves it.
I pop the top on the can of no-name dog food I got at the discount food warehouse, holding my nose the whole time. When I give it to him, he inhales the whole bowl, and Amber goes inside because the smell makes her want to hurl. Not that I love it, but she really does get queasy. When Bonehead is finished eating, I lead him over to the only tree in the yard and wait for him to pee. He knows the routine and does his business. After he gets his steak bone, I open the car door for him so he can scramble over the seat and stretch out in the back. I crack the windows to give him some air. The October days are still kind of sunny and warm, but I’m freezing my ass off out here tonight.
“Don’t let anyone steal my car,” I tell him, like I do every night. It’s win-win—I save money on an alarm system, and he gets to stay out of the rain. In the summer, there are always a few weeks when it’s too hot for him to sleep in the car, and if I leave the windows down, he goes wandering off. Next summer, me and Amber will have our own place, and I don’t care how small it is as long as it’s in a neighborhood safe enough to park the Mustang at night.
When I get inside, I find the usual: Mom’s dirty dishes on the table, which she left behind when she realized she was late for her shift at the bakery, and Gil passed out on the couch in front of the TV. Amber’s already turned it off and grabbed Nat from the table. I hit the light switch on my way to our room. Thank God Amber’s somehow managed to move the baby from her car seat to the crib without waking her. A real miracle.
“Man, I’m beat,” she says, getting into bed.
“Me too. But mostly I’m pissed.”
“Maybe the guy won’t know shit about cars,” Amber says.
“I’d put money on it if I had any.” And my confidence in my skills actually makes me feel a little better. But not a lot. Anyone can pump gas, and as long as David’s around, those are shifts I’m not getting.
I hand Amber a birth control pill along with a glass of water. I pop one of my own, too, mostly to keep her company, since there is no way I’m having sex with anyone. When Mom heard we’d gone to Planned Parenthood after Nat was born, she’d snorted and said, “Too little, too late, dontcha think?” And then she’d laughed until she choked on the day-old lemon pound cake she was scarfing down.
Maybe it seemed like it was too late to everyone else, but it was the only way to keep Amber safe. Now that we have Natalie, we can’t party together, so I’m not there to drag her home when she’s too drunk to protect herself. Once she’s had a couple of beers, she never can say no. There’s also our family history. It’s like we’re extra fertile or, more likely, extra stupid. Mom had us when she was fifteen; Aunt Ruby had our cousins Jade at seventeen and Topaz at nineteen.
You’d think maybe the next generation would’ve learned something, but it’s like babies are an epidemic in our family. At the end of our freshman year, Jade gave birth to Lapis, then Onyx fifteen months later. And her sister, Topaz, popped out Rocky last Christmas. At least by being a boy he’d avoided one family curse: the “precious stones” name thing. Everyone agreed “Rocky” was close enough.
As I get undressed, I hear Amber munching crackers so she doesn’t get nauseous from the pill. I don’t need to eat them—if I go right to sleep, I’m fine, and even saltines cost money. There’s a small wad of cash and change on my pillow.
I count it before I get into bed. “This is a lot. You got it all tonight?”
“An
d last Sunday,” Amber says. “I forgot to get my tips then.”
“I’ll put it in the bank after school.”
She’s already in bed, her eyes closed. I stick the money in my pillowcase and switch off the lamp. Me and Amber are the only people we know with a bank account. We used to hide our cash in different places in our room, but because we were away at school all day, that left plenty of time for Gil or Mom to search for it. After they’d “borrowed” our savings for the sixth or seventh time, we figured out how to open an account. It’s actually not that hard. You just need some ID.
I’m drifting off when Amber yelps from her side of the room. Unfortunately, her bed’s only about six feet away from mine, so it’s like she’s yelling in my ear. “Crap! Crap! Crap!”
I sit up and flick on the lamp. “Shhh, you’re gonna wake Natalie.”
She lowers her voice to a whisper. “I got a stupid paper due tomorrow.”
Oh, God. Not again. “Let me know how that works out for you.” I pull the pillow over my face to block the light.
“Crystal?” she says, her voice going all soft and sweet. “Please?”
“Forget it. I’m too tired. I did my homework already. Remember? While you were doing number puzzles before work?” She’s addicted to numbers, but words mystify her.
“Pretty please?” She’s now crawled onto my bed and is trying to snuggle up to me.
“Amber . . . go away.”
“I’ll bring you something good to eat after my shift on Friday.”
She knows how to win me over. “Like what?”
“Lasagna?”
“And cheesecake?”
“Chocolate cheesecake.”
I sigh. “Okay. But you’re not gonna fall asleep while we do this. I’m not writing it for you.”
“I know,” she says. “I promise.”
An hour later, we’re sitting on my bed, propped up against the old garage door. Amber’s dozing while I’m flipping through The Scarlet Letter looking for things to add to her paper. “It would’ve been a lot easier,” I say, “if you’d actually read the book and could tell me what it’s about.”
“I know, I know . . . I meant to. I didn’t have time.”
Everyone says senior year’s supposed to be a light load, but not if you have to do most of your sister’s homework, too. Except for math, which is Amber’s superpower, she’s in all remedial classes. I’m in regular ones, which makes it hard for me to help her keep track of her homework assignments. I usually find out when she freaks out in the middle of the night. Or the day after, when it’s too late.
“You’re gonna have to get to school early to type this in the computer lab,” I tell her. “And I’m not driving you. I’m sleeping in.”
“Yeah, okay.”
By the time I finish writing the paper, Amber’s out cold, her head resting on my shoulder. “Gross,” I say, waking her up. “You drooled on me.”
“Sorry. Are we done?”
“Yeah—now get out of my bed.”
In the morning, Nat wakes me up, screaming the rage of the wet and hungry. I change and feed her, but Amber sleeps right through the noise, probably because she was up to do the middle-of-the-night feeding and Nat wouldn’t go back to sleep afterward. Her gums hurt from a tiny little tooth poking its way through. I never thought much about teeth before, but having them push right through the skin like that seems like a flaw in human design. Poor baby girl. No wonder she cries until she can’t—she’s so exhausted. Half the time I feel the same way.
I don’t bother to wake Amber. If she’s half as tired as I am, she needs the sleep. Before me and Nat leave the house, I set the alarm for seven thirty and put it on the pillow next to Amber’s ear. That should give her enough time to make it to first period if she doesn’t hit snooze too many times. I drop off Natalie at the school’s daycare and head to the lab to type Amber’s paper for her.
We’re both going to graduate, even if it kills me.
Chapter 4
I’m pretty sure our school’s new guidance counselor’s got a college degree in perky with a minor in enthusiasm. Even her green sweater is bright and cheerful, like spring grass. Except so soft looking, I kind of want to pet it.
“So,” Ms. Spellerman says. “Miss Robbins, isn’t it?”
I want to say, “No, actually, it’s Crystal. I’m eighteen, not thirty.” But I nod instead. In the middle of our sophomore year we got a new principal, and he decided that as a matter of respect, all teachers and staff would refer to the students by their last names prefaced with Mr. or Miss. You can imagine how much more respect is flying around now. It obviously never occurred to anyone in charge that last names like Cochran and Dykster are so much easier to make fun of than Robert or Ashley. But whatever.
Ms. Spellerman holds out her hand to me. “Nice to meet you.” She’s got long fingers and perfectly pink nails. When we shake, all I feel are skin-covered bones.
She shuffles through some papers for a while, the huge diamond on her engagement ring catching the fluorescent light and hypnotizing me. I wonder if we’re ever going to get to the reason I’m here. I’ve made it through three years of high school without seeing a guidance counselor, so I can’t imagine why they called me in when I’m almost done. As far as I know, I’m doing fine in my classes. I’m even doing okay in Amber’s classes. Not that anyone knows about that.
I hide a yawn behind my hand—I’m super tired and missing the little nap I usually take in English. Ms. Spellerman holds up a sheet of paper and squints at it. Then she slips on a pair of square pink-framed glasses and smiles. “Don’t look so worried, Miss Robbins. I just want to talk to you about your college plans.”
Is she kidding me?
“Now that I’ve joined forces with Mr. Akerman, we’re not so short on guidance counselors,” she explains. “So I’m working my way through a list of those of you who haven’t previously requested an advisor.”
Maybe not asking was a clue that we didn’t want one. I don’t say anything, though. I don’t think she expects me to.
“Now,” she says, “you might be wondering how your name came up so early in the school year. Well, I’ll tell you a little secret.” She leans in across her desk and practically whispers, “I started at the end of the alphabet instead of the beginning!”
I wonder if I’m supposed to clap or something.
“So,” she continues, “what are your plans for college? Where are you going to apply? What’s your dream school?”
“Umm . . . I don’t have one?”
“No dream school? Well, that’s understandable. There are so many choices! Do you think you want to stay in Oregon, or go somewhere out of state—get away from it all, that sort of thing?”
Is this where I tell her I’m not going to college?
“You must’ve thought about it,” she says when I sit there speechless.
“Umm . . . not really.”
“Not at all?”
“I’m not going to college,” I finally admit.
Her eyebrows shoot up. “What? Why not?”
I’m thinking I was wrong about her minor being enthusiasm. It must’ve been stupidity. Does she think she’s somehow landed at a private school? Or maybe one of Portland’s fancy high schools? This is Sacajawea High, and half the kids can’t even spell the name of it by the time they graduate. If they graduate. College is not part of the plan here.
I try to keep it simple for Ms. Spellerman. “I’m gonna . . . you know . . . get a job.”
“But, Miss Robbins,” she says, “I’m looking at your transcripts, and you’ve got very respectable grades—a B average.”
That’s because school is easy and I have no life. At least, I didn’t until Natalie took over ours. When I don’t say anything, she starts asking me a million questions about my interests. I mostly answer with I don’t know and I guess not. I don’t really have any interests, and no, I’ve never considered trying to figure them out.
�
�With your grades, you have lots of choices.”
“Really?” I ask. “Like Harvard?”
I’m screwing with her, but it goes right over her blond head.
“Well, probably not Ivy League,” she admits. “I was thinking more of a state college. You might even be able to get into University of Oregon.”
If I wasn’t so tired, I’d laugh. Me? At U of O? Right. That’s where the popular kids from other schools go. No one from here goes to U of O. I stare at the linoleum floor, which is covered with a bright orange and blue rug. It’s not big enough to hide the brown prison-looking tiles around the edge of the room.
“If you could do anything at all,” Ms. Spellerman asks, “what would it be?”
What she doesn’t get is that I plan to do exactly what I want to do. It just doesn’t involve more school. As soon as we graduate, me, Amber, and Nat are getting out of this dicey neighborhood. First we’re gonna get a nice apartment, but someday we plan to buy our own house. That way we won’t waste our money paying rent.
Amber’s going to waitress at the Glass Slipper, and Aunt Ruby’s going to teach her how to run the tavern so Amber can take it over from her someday. And I’m counting on Jimmy to give me at least forty hours a week at the gas station and garage. We know we can do it. We have it all worked out.
At least, I thought we did. Until yesterday, I’d always assumed Jimmy would be glad to have me full-time. Anger flares up when I think of his stupid nephew. Still, David won’t be around forever; he’s probably going to Yale or somewhere anyway. But I’m in it for the duration. Me and Amber know what we’re doing, but somehow I doubt Ms. Spellerman would agree. So I don’t answer.
“Miss Robbins?” She shuffles her papers some more. “You must have some dream. Something you love to do . . .”
