by Nicole Thorn
“Strange. Well, I don’t want you going that far away from home just to sell jerky. We can try to put more up in the shop. It sells really well there. People love it,” Dad continued.
“I won’t make enough just selling it in the shop,” I said, shrugging. “I guess I just gave all the local stores too much supply and now I can’t make anything.”
Dad chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of rice. “Well, even if you had given them less, you still wouldn’t be making any more than you are now.”
“Yes, but I’d still be steadily making money and perhaps I could have drawn the relationships I carefully cultivated out a little longer.”
Snorting, Dad shook his head. “If you had carefully cultivated them, then you wouldn’t be sitting at the table with an entire cooler of jerky by your elbow.”
“Why call me out like that?” I asked. “I’m your only son, and you say the worst things to me.”
“We’ll put more out in the shop,” Dad decided. “But if you go into Phoenix and try to sell it, at least text me first. The last time you went out there wasn’t exactly a picnic for me.”
I groaned. “That was a year ago.”
“I still remember.”
I’d gone out with my boyfriend to see a concert, which had been fun, until the car broke down on the way home and I had to call my dad to come get us. He had shown up at nearly three in the morning, bleary eyed, checked out the car, and turned to look at us like we were morons as he informed us that we had run out of gas. I’d felt like an idiot every time I looked at him for the next week.
“I won’t break down at three in the morning,” I promised my father, trying not to groan.
“You didn’t break down,” Dad said, clearly enjoying this too much for his own good. “You didn’t look at the gas tank.”
I put my head down on the table. “You’re the worst, you know that? I make one mistake, over a year ago, and you can’t let me live it down.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it, son. One day, you’ll have your own children and you’ll be able to make fun of them the way I do you. It’ll be wonderful. Of course, I’ll also make fun of them.”
“You’re going to give the fictious children a complex,” I said, lifting my head just enough to look at him. “Every time I tell them that it’s time to go to grandpa’s house, they’ll start to scream and hide under the bed.”
“Nah, they’ll be fine,” Dad said. “By that time, I’ll have my second wife. She’ll be gorgeous and bake cookies constantly. They’ll forgive me for being mean so that they can eat the chocolate. That works on all kids.”
I frowned. “How are you going to meet a second wife when you never leave the shop?”
Dad winked.
This conversation had taken a strange turn, so I decided to stop it by putting my things away. The dishes went into the sink, while Dad started putting the clean ones away. Most of the kids my age would be looking forward to their last summer before they headed off for college and jobs and such.
Me, I just wanted to figure out a way to make money without having to take a job at Dad’s butcher shop. I didn’t mind going there, to be honest. Nor did I mind what he did for a living. He made enough money to pay for this house, two cars, and he had a good chunk saved for my college before everything went to shit. Of course, a lot of that came from Mom. She had been an accountant and most of the money we saved had been because of her.
After she died, Dad used the life insurance to pay off the cars, which left us with only the house payment to worry about. So, we didn’t have to move or downsize, or anything like that.
Then Dad started having chest pains and went into the doctor. We weren’t in danger of losing the house, but the bills had still hit us where it hurt.
Nope, my main problem with working in the butcher’s shop was that I couldn’t break down animals. My father tried to teach me, but it always escaped me, the way he would do it so effortlessly. At some point, I’d stopped trying. I could make dishes from the meat, but otherwise, I didn’t belong anywhere near the product.
Dad grunted. I glanced over to see him staring out the window with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“What?”
Dad turned to look at me. “Why not the RV?”
“Huh? Are you talking about selling it again? We tried that already, Dad. No one wanted that piece of junk, remember? We couldn’t give it away.”
“First of all, it’s not a piece of junk and you’ll have to apologize to her before I hand over the keys. Second of all, I’m not talking about selling her. I’m talking about you using the RV to sell your jerky.”
I blinked at him. “You lost me.”
“We see it all the time,” Dad said. “People sitting on the side of road with art or hats or oranges, selling them to passerby. There was even that kettle corn vendor, remember? They teamed up with a barbecue place, and they’d have cars all the way down the road, waiting to buy what they had to offer.”
“I remember,” I said, thinking now. “I don’t know. Isn’t selling jerky out the back of an RV kind of…”
“Brilliant?” Dad provided.
“Trashy. Will people go for it?”
“Son, I’ve seen people buy shrimp out of a nondescript white van that’s been sitting in the Arizona heat. And shrimp is pretty cheap at the store, where the chances of dying from it are much smaller.”
I had seen people getting oranges from vendors on the side of the road too, even though they wouldn’t be any better than the ones already at the store. Perhaps my father had a point.
“Think about it,” Dad said, seeing that I had started to waver. “You make yourself a sign that looks pretty decent, you set up someplace along the road, you’ll have your supply in the back of the RV, and when it gets too hot, you can turn the air conditioner on and everything will be fine. You can make all the profit off the jerky, and then bam. In no time, you’ll have enough for your first semester at college. What do you say?”
“It’s not the worst idea,” I said.
Purricane jumped onto the counter to meow at me and beg for attention. I ignored him, while picturing what my father had suggested. It wouldn’t be too bad, I supposed. If I could get Sam to help me out, then I wouldn’t even be lonely. I’d give him some of the profits, so that he wouldn’t feel like I had taken advantage, though he’d probably be happy just to get out of the house.
“I guess I’ll need to head to the store,” I said, pushing off the counter. “So that I can get art supplies for the sign.”
I heard the jingle of keys and turned around to see my dad holding out the RV’s keyring. I took it from him and let out a breath of air. Well, this would be interesting.
***
“You want me to what?” Sam asked, rubbing the back of his head. His black hair stood on end, but that didn’t really change anything. I’d clearly woken him up much earlier than he would’ve gotten up on his own. He still had on his Superman pajamas and had sleep lines across his face.
Sam was second generation Vietnamese American and he had inherited his love of superheroes from his father. Just standing in the hallway, I could see classic editions of Batman framed and put up along the wall. None of them were worth that much. They had also named their turtles after characters from Aquaman, and only his mother putting her foot down had kept his little sister from being named Diana.
Neither one of us thought that we’d start the morning like this.
“Come keep me company while I sell jerky,” I said. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll give you some.”
“Money or jerky?” Sam asked.
“Which one do you want?”
He blinked again, looking lost. “Both?”
“Is that a yes?”
Still not awake, he nodded. “Sure. Just let me get my shoes on.”
“Um, Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“You might wanna get dressed.”
He looked down at his clothes with a frown on his fac
e. “Right. Okay. I’ll take that under advisement.”
He closed the door and I turned around to lean against the wall. A second later, Lucy stuck her head out of her room. At fourteen, she wasn’t as nosy as one would have expected. That didn’t stop her from brightening upon seeing me. “Ham! When did you get here?”
“About two minutes ago. Your mom let me in.”
Lucy bounced out of her room, still smiling. “Are you going to take Sam out on a date?” she asked, sounding hopeful.
“Ah… no,” I said. “We’re just going to hang out today.”
Her face fell. “C’mon. When are you going to forgive him? He misses you.” She looked up at me with her kind brown eyes, clearly trying to hypnotize me into doing what she wanted. Unfortunately for her, puppy dog eyes had never worked on me.
“I’m not mad at him,” I said. “We just aren’t like that anymore.”
She pouted some more. “But you could be.”
“I could also paint myself pink and walk down the street in my underwear, but you don’t see me doing that, either.”
She blinked, clearly trying not to picture it. She shook her head, violently, and glared at me. “You’ll forgive him eventually.”
“I doubt that,” I said, without heat. Truth be told, I didn’t have anything to forgive Sam for. I just didn’t want to talk to her about this, despite Lucy being the only person that might understand.
She pointed her finger at me, clearly getting ready to tear me a new one for not giving her brother every chance, when his door opened. Sam hadn’t bothered to tame his hair, but he had put on real clothes. He had on a red shirt with some character that I couldn’t name on it and jeans.
He took one look at Lucy and narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she said, lifting her chin in defiance. “What are you doing?”
“Shoo,” he said.
She crossed her arms.
“As much fun as this is, I’d like to hit the road. Sam, are you coming?”
“Uh huh,” he said, still locking eyes with his sister. I began walking away and Sam eventually fell into step behind me. Good, because I would have left without him, despite my entire mission being to grab someone who would keep me company. Once outside, he stopped and blinked. “Um. You weren’t kidding about selling jerky on the side of the road, were you?”
“Nope,” I said. “Did you think I was.”
“I was hoping,” he said. “But all right. If we have to do this, then let me get the megaphone from the garage.”
“Uh, that’s all right,” I said, grabbing his arm before he could do more than turn away from me. “I don’t need someone calling the cops on us the first day that we try this.”
“You sure? I can attract lots of attention with the megaphone. No one can ignore me if I don’t want them to.”
I already knew that from experience. “I’m sure.”
“All right, it’s your lost sales. Let’s do this.”
I’d spent almost an hour that morning learning how to drive the RV. It wasn’t a huge one that could fit an entire family, but big enough to house two people, if they really liked each other. I’d stashed two boxes of jerky in the back, along with my sign, and everything else that I might need throughout the day. Including a packed lunch, which I had stuffed into a cooler and then put in a minifridge. Everything about this felt strange.
As we drove around, looking for a good spot, I looked at Sam sideways. “So, when are you going to tell your family what actually happened with us?”
“Mmm, I was thinking never,” Sam said.
“Really? Because Lucy seems to be under the impression that I’m going to forgive you and that we’re going to be together forever.”
Sam winced. “I’ll talk to her about that.”
“Or, you could just tell them the truth.”
He didn’t say anything. I sighed. Sam and I had dated for almost six months. I broke up with him around the time my father had his surgery, because Sam wanted me to. He didn’t say that in so many words, but I could tell that he wanted me to. The look of profound relief on his face when I’d dumped him had just confirmed my suspicions.
Sam’s family didn’t approve of him being bisexual, and that had been the start of everything. The two of us had kept it a secret until Lucy found out. She had been super happy about the entire thing and blurted the truth to her parents one day, who then cornered Sam and demanded to know if she had been lying. He had told them the truth and for the next two months, things had gotten tense.
They wouldn’t let me into the house, and Sam had to sneak out if he wanted to see me. I had been willing to do that for as long as needed, but I could see the strain in Sam’s eyes. I could tell that he wanted to break it off.
And when I had broken it off, he told his family that I dumped him when I found out he cheated on me with a girl.
So, yeah, complicated didn’t begin to cover it. His parents had loosened the reins, Lucy thought that I had been unfair to her brother, and Sam and I stayed friends.
“You know, you haven’t exactly told your father the truth, either,” Sam pointed out, sounding petulant.
I glanced sideways at him, seeing his stony expression. I should have just kept my mouth shut. “I know. I will.”
“When?”
I shrugged.
“When things settle down. They haven’t yet.”
Sam shook his head. “You’re making excuses.”
I could’ve pointed out that he had been doing the same thing with his family, but then it would have dissolved into a full-on fight, and I just didn’t want to bother with that at the moment. Sam and I had never been a perfect match, if I wanted to be honest.
“Are we going to drive around forever, or are you eventually going to pick a spot?” Sam asked, sounding even more frustrated than he had been before.
I glanced around. “Where do you suggest I park? We’re next to a freaking grocery store. Nobody is going to want to buy jerky when they have a car full of groceries.”
“Sure they will,” Sam said, sounding bored. “They’ll want a snack after shopping, and people love jerky. Just park there.”
“And what if nobody comes?” I asked, looking at him.
“Then we move,” he said, fluttering his hands. “The best part of having a store like this is that it can be driven away. Just park and let’s get the sign out. Let’s make some money so that you can stop pouting.”
“I’m not pouting.”
He smirked at me. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love it when you pout. You’ve got this whole broody thing going.”
“I’m not pouting!” I jerked the wheel to the side and parked in the dirt next to the road. Sam and I continued bickering as we set up the sign. I’d barely gotten it up before someone pulled over and asked for a price for a quarter of a pound.
I hated it when Sam was right.
Chapter Four
Jay
I had… no idea what to do.
For like the tenth time, I’d sat down to try and figure out some kind of website for my honey. I didn’t know how to code properly, and I didn’t exactly have the money to hire someone who could set up a website for me. So that meant I got to look around at those free sites and see if one would work. It all looked so tacky.
“I wouldn’t feel bad,” AJ said, petting the passed-out dog on his lap as we sat on the couch. “How many people could you really be losing by not being online? It would be almost impossible for someone to stumble on you.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But a lot of my sales come from snowbirds.”
“True,” Bea chimed in from the recliner. She picked at a hole forming on the arm. “They come get a couple jars before leaving for whatever home their rich asses can afford in another state. Then they get more when they come back. Not to mention, a lot of people stop off when they’re in town for some holiday or visiting family. Then they leave and can’t get more honey. If they could order it online,
he might have loyal customers.”
I had to decide if a website would even be worth it. Bea might have been right, and I could get some loyal customers during the year. But people didn’t pound a jar of honey in a week, typically. A lot of people had a jar in their pantry for a year at a time. The shipping would be costly if I absorbed it, which I would need to if I wanted to sell anything. No one wanted to spend almost as much on shipping as they did on the product. Also, if it got damaged on the way, I could get angry customers. It seemed like a mess I shouldn’t even have thought about trying with.
I closed my laptop, sighing. “I think this is a problem for another day. We’re late. “You good with Dee Dee?” I asked my brother.
He nodded but didn’t say anything else. I felt like shit of course, because it was summer. AJ had to give up spending time with his friends so he could babysit a five-year-old without pay. I would have taken Dee with me if not for the heat.
I stocked up my truck with product while Bea started the engine. Every time it roared to life, I felt a little relief. A thirty-year-old car starting up was a wonderful thing. The miles it got weren’t, but I couldn’t complain about a free car. All the leftover worry melted away, replaced with amusement when I saw my sister batting at the shark toy hanging from the rearview mirror. She said it stared at her funny, so she hated it. Bea might have bad taste.
“I’ve mentally prepared myself for a warm outing,” Bea said once I got in the truck with her. “Do you have anything to entertain yourself with?”
“I think I’ll be too busy worrying.”