by Nicole Thorn
“In case you didn’t notice, I don’t have any.”
That didn’t seem to help. “Maybe you could have made some if you weren’t so busy trying to plug leaks all by yourself.”
She spoke as if I ever had any choice in the matter. “Ya know what, I have to leave. If I want to make it before the next rush is over, I have to start walking.”
“Jay,” Beatrice growled.
“I’ll see you later.”
I loaded up my wagon with all the honey I’d made the night before. I didn’t have room for too many water bottles, since I needed a pop-up table and chair, so I would have to try and deal with it. Me dying would be the worst thing that happened. At least I’d get to sleep then.
It was a long, long walk from my house up to the spot. I distracted my mind with trying to make plans for when I got home later. I really needed to jar more honey, and that would take a while. Again, I wouldn’t get much sleep. The next day would probably have to be a half day, what with all the work I had to do. I wished so much that I had been able to figure out how to sell it online. I could do that from home. The risk in shipping seemed like too much to deal with, on top of the fact I had no idea how to market.
Of course, Hammy and Sam were already there by the time I dragged my ass up the hill to my spot. I tried not to look at them as I started setting up my table and chair. I just wanted to collapse onto the ground, but I pushed myself until I had the legs unfolded.
“Whoa, what’s up?” Sam asked. “You walked?”
I nodded, still trying to catch my breath. “The truck is in the shop and probably will be for a while.”
Hamilton walked over while I silently wished for death. He stood there while Sam started setting up my table with me. I would have thanked him if I thought I could get more than a sentence out before dying.
“The truck is that bad off?” Hamilton asked.
“I’m that bad off. The bill is almost a grand and I can’t swing it. I have to see if they’ll take about thirty small payments instead of one big one. Otherwise, I’m selling the thing for parts.”
“Would you be able to get another car?” Sam asked.
I snorted. “If by another car you mean a bike, then yes. Until then, I’ll be getting reacquainted with my wagon. And to think, I had so many good memories with it. My dad used to pull me around in this thing, and now I’m going to die in it. What a beautiful closing of the circle.”
Sam got a thoughtful look on his face before he turned to Hamilton. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, our friend here needs a ride for the foreseeable future, and you happen to have the means to help him out. Obviously, this is the part where you offer to give him a ride until he can figure out his truck.”
I held my hands up, snapping out of the heat induced fatigue brought on by all the walking. “Wait a second. I don’t need a ride.”
“Yeah, of course not,” Hamilton said, the horror on his face beginning to ease a bit. “He’s probably got people who could bring him here anyway.”
“Like he did today?” Sam said. “Come on, he can get hurt trying to walk here and back home again. Can you please do the right thing?”
Maybe Sam couldn’t hear me. Or, he could, and he didn’t care what I had to say. It sounded a lot like Bea, if I was being honest. After a few years, when she realized how stressful trying to pay the bills could be, she would get it. I’d been at the kitchen table a hundred times with my parents as we tried to figure out how we would be eating that week. The awful memories of fear of failing would keep me from taking a day off.
“Really, I’m fine,” I said.
Hamilton looked like he wanted to kill his friend. I couldn’t blame him. We hadn’t exactly been trying that hard to get along, but it wouldn’t have worked, even if we had been trying. Sam didn’t look like he understood that. Or, if he did, then he wanted to push us together for some other reason. Like, Hamilton probably didn’t have that many friends. Maybe I looked so pathetically lonely that he thought this would be for my own good. That would have been horrifying, and the thought alone made me want to run away and abandon my post.
“You aren’t fine,” Sam decided for me. “Ham, you took his spot and now’s your chance to make it up to him. I see no reason you shouldn’t give him a ride.”
“I can think of several,” I said.
Again, I went ignored. “Didn’t you guys sell really well not two days ago, and all because you were working together?”
“I wouldn’t say we were working together,” Hammy said. “More like, we were literally trying to outsell each other.”
Perhaps walking out into traffic would end the conversation.
“Will it get you to shut the hell up?” Hamilton asked his friend.
Sam smiled with the win. “Of course it will.”
“Fine,” Hamilton hissed, his eyes closed. “I guess I’m going to be giving you rides, Jay. Get ready for a whole lot of awkward conversations.”
No… Did I have no say in this? In reality, of course I did. But I’d lose sales in the time it took me to walk here, and my pride couldn’t be worth that. My family needed money more than I needed self-respect, and I’d grovel if it came down to that. If I had to sell my soul, then so be it.
“Great,” I sighed. “Wonderful. Fantastic.”
Sam gave me a clap on the shoulder before he pulled me to his side. “Don’t be so upset. I think this could be really good for both sides. If we all stick with the same end of the street, it’ll look like we kind of have a little store going on. Maybe it will attract more people. They wouldn’t have to choose which side they want to be on, at the very least. They’d be more likely to buy from both of you.”
I didn’t know about that, but we would probably be finding out soon enough. God, I missed the days where I would sit up here by myself.
Sam started loading all my stuff up and hauling it over to the other side. Again, I got no say in the matter. At this point, I just let people tell me what to do if it meant I didn’t have to think for myself. The heat had zapped every bit of energy I had, and my day had barely started.
A cool breeze shot out at me as I walked past the RV’s opened door. I might have started to cry a little, missing air conditioning. Even at home, we didn’t really get to use it all that much. I would have been happy to lay myself on a block of ice until I died.
After we set up the table again, I sat on the bottom step of the RV, still trying to recover from the walk. If I’d tried to do that every day, it probably would have put me in the hospital. Really, what Hamilton agreed to do for me was very, very nice. I didn’t want to admit it. It would have been much easier if he’d remained the asshole who’d told me he would stay in my spot, even though it was my friggin’ spot. Now, I could see more than him being grumpy and mean for no reason. I didn’t know how to feel about that.
“That your phone?” Sam asked, pointing to my pocket.
I hadn’t noticed the beeping. I pulled it out, seeing a text coming in from Bea. She told me that she’d gotten a ride to work and I didn’t have to worry about that, if I had been. Which, of course I had been. I didn’t want my sister walking around in this. But as relieved as I felt, it still stung to think about how easy it had been to replace me. She had the means to do it, so good for her, but now I didn’t see myself spending nearly as much time with her. She would be all wrapped up in her life, I would be busy working, and that would be it.
I stared at my spot from across the street, loathing setting in as I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. I’d sat over there almost every day for years, and it started to feel it. I would go back to that spot as soon as I had my truck, and I would be alone. No one to talk to. Nothing to do but wait for someone to come by. Would that be my future? Would I be the weird old man who sold raw honey on the side of the road?
“So, you don’t think you’ll be able to get a new car?” Sam asked me. I pulled my head up from my hands. “You could probably find a k
ind of cheap used one somewhere.”
“I guess that all depends on how bad the AC bill is this year,” I said. “The house isn’t all that big, but it’s just so fucking hot all the time. I have to save up for that, and a place to live.”
“What?” Hamilton asked. “Are your parents kicking you out or something?”
I shook my head. “My little brother and sister share a room. He’s a teenager now, and I wanted to make sure I’m out of the house soon so he can have his own space.”
It hurt a little, knowing the second I moved out, my room would be taken over like I had never been there in the first place. I felt dumb for letting it bother me, but it almost felt like I would get erased. Bea had already moved on, my parents worked so often that we only every talked about bills these days, and AJ had his own stuff going on. I could play with Dee, but that didn’t feel the same as having a friend.
“Where are you going to live?” Sam asked.
“No idea. Anywhere I can afford. I’ll probably need to find a roommate or two. I expect a very small apartment and a shared bathroom.”
Without a car, none of this could happen. I would need to be able to get back home so I could handle the bees, and I’d have to do that often. Not to mention, any place I lived would probably be pretty far from the house. I might have to get a new spot, and all of this fighting would have been for nothing.
“You pay bills, have to save up for a place, and now truck repairs?” Sam asked. “Do you even get to spend any of your money on fun stuff? Do you have like an Xbox or anything like that?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really have time for a whole lot of that. I mostly sleep when I’m not working or watching the kids.”
He made a face. “Wow, that’s kind of a bummer. Ham, this is where you say something sympathetic and join the conversation.”
I looked to him, seeing that he had his eyes on the ground. “Yeah, it’s a bummer.”
“What are you here for then?” I asked. “I assume you’re not selling jerky for the hell of it.”
“College,” he answered. “I want to be able to start school sometime soon. I didn’t get good enough grades to earn a scholarship, and I don’t know if I would be able to get a loan. Loans screw you over with interest anyway.”
“Are you going to go to a school nearby?”
“I have no idea. Whatever school I can get into and afford. If I stick close, I could at least live with my dad for free.”
I’d assumed he didn’t sell jerky just for extra spending money. Selling things on the side of the road didn’t come to someone on a whim. And he had been too adamant about sticking to this spot for it to have been a casual interest We had a familiar desperation to the both of us, each needing cash we didn’t have.
“This is depressing,” Sam said. “I feel like I should go down to the store and buy us a bunch of candy, since neither of you can afford it.”
I didn’t tend to get upset with people because they had disposable income, but it rubbed me the wrong way that he could even do that. Every single penny I made went to paying bills, no matter what. I’d thought with that nice little bump from a couple of days ago, maybe I could have done something with it. Then the truck decided to die.
“Can you boys make nice for a half hour?” Sam stood up, checking to make sure he had his wallet. “I would hate to come back to a bloodbath.”
Hamilton gave him a look. “Are you seriously going to go buy candy?”
“I have no idea. I’ll see how I feel once I get down there. Any requests?”
Hamilton just sighed, and I shook my head.
“Have fun,” Sam said as he started walking toward the store.
I went back to resting my head in my hands.
Chapter Eleven
Hamilton
I took a deep breath as I hit the brakes at a stop sign. According to the GPS, my destination was on the right. I couldn’t tell which house belonged to Jay just by looking, but staring at the houses in front of me helped distract from all the bad feelings inside my chest. I didn’t want to be stuck with Jay for an unknown number of days, while he waited to get the money up for his truck. Nor did I want to be forced to sell next to him during that time either, even though it wouldn’t be that big a deal.
I couldn’t put my finger on why I didn’t want to spend any time with him, beyond the general feeling of unease.
Either way, I would have stayed at that stop sign for several minutes longer if someone hadn’t pulled in behind me and honked their horn.
His house, it turned out, was the smallest one on the street. It looked well-kept, though. It had two trees out front, no toys, and red rocks instead of white like the majority of the houses in this neighborhood. It even had a sign out front, proudly proclaiming that this house belonged to the Barkers.
I pulled my phone out, intent on texting Jay, when I remembered that we had never bothered to exchange numbers.
“Goddammit,” I muttered under my breath and dropped the phone back into the cupholder. I leaned back in my seat to stare at the house, which seemed to be staring back at me in a mocking sort of way. “I hate you,” I told it.
The house didn’t respond.
I climbed out of the RV and made my way up the path leading to the house. Their porch had a welcome mat with a bumble bee on it. This just kept getting harder and harder. I rang the doorbell and a dog started to bark. He didn’t sound big enough to hurt me, but he did sound like he wanted to give it a shot.
The door swung open a second later, Bea standing on the other side. She wore her pajamas and didn’t look eager to take them off. A smile spread across her face. “Well, hello.”
“I’m here to pick up Jay,” I grumbled. “Can you tell him that the RV is outside?”
Bea cocked her head, while a dog tried to get past her to sniff at me. She kept her foot out, making sure that he didn’t get more than one inch out the door. I wondered if he would try to kill me. At least with Purricane, I knew that if he tried to kill me, he would wait until I had fallen asleep. I’d never see his teeth coming for my throat.
This dog was bigger than I had thought he’d be from outside. He looked to be of medium size and had the saddest fucking eyes that I had ever seen on an animal. At least his tail kept wagging.
“Why don’t you come in?” Bea offered.
“That’s all right,” I said, still maintaining eye-contact with the dog.
“Oh, this is just Cullen,” she said, finally shoving the dog out of the way. “You don’t have to worry about him. He’s the sweetest thing that you’ll ever meet. Come inside.” She made the last sound like an order, which wouldn’t have made me listen, but then a littler voice spoke up.
“Ham!” Dee Dee, Jay’s little sister, shouted from behind Bea.
I could have screamed.
I looked around Bea with a smile on my face while the little girl came barreling toward the door. She, like Bea, had on her pajamas. Hers had narwhals on them and a pink background. She also rocked some seriously tangled hair, but her smile brightened up the whole damn house.
“You came!” she said, squeezing around her sister.
“Of course I did,” I said.
She beamed at me, grabbed my hand, and hauled me into the house. I could have easily stopped her, but only a monster broke a little girl’s heart like that. I very much wished that I could have been that kind of monster. I’d barely gotten two steps into the house before the old dog jumped on me and started licking at my face. No matter how hard I tried to shove him away from me, he would just keep coming back.
“A little help here!” I shouted.
Dee just kept laughing, while Bea said, “See, I told you that he’s the sweetest thing in the world.”
“Cullen, down!” another voice said, one that I didn’t recognize. I looked over to see a boy coming around the corner. He looked about thirteen and as sullen as any thirteen-year-old would be. He squinted at me, clearly unimpressed, and said, “Who the hell are you
?”
Dee ran at her brother, flinging herself at him. He didn’t catch her, but she fortunately didn’t fall either. She had her arms around his neck, hanging on for dear life. “This is Ham. He’s Jay’s bestest friend, and he came by to see us. Isn’t that right, Ham?”
“I’m actually here to pick Jay up,” I said. “The two of us need to head out. Do any of you know where he is?”
The kid narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re Jay’s friend?” he said with enough skepticism that I was surprised it didn’t hurt on the way out.
“I said he was! Don’t be mean, AJ. You’ll scare him away!” Dee shouted.
I looked at Bea. “A little help?”
“Nah, that’s okay,” she said. “I like watching you flounder.”
“How are you two friends?” AJ asked, still looking suspicious. I started to feel myself sinking.
“We work next to each other,” I said.
Dee grinned again. “Ham sells jerky.”
“Oh, you’re that guy that Jay complains about all the time.”
“Sounds legitimate,” I said. “I’m giving him a ride until his truck is fixed up. Do you know where he is?”
“No,” AJ said.
I almost screamed. Why talk to me if they couldn’t even give me the information that I actually wanted? I took a deep, deep breath, and turned to look at Bea, who grinned so widely that I could almost see her wisdom teeth.
Dee, as if sensing that I might not be so happy right then, ran up to me and grabbed my hand. “Don’t get upset and leave! AJ is just a big jerk! I’ll get Jay.”
“That’s all—”
“JAY!” Dee shouted this at the top of her lungs, for as long as she could. The dog started to howl with her, while AJ and Bea both started to shush her. For my part, I just tried to remember what it felt like to not have my ears bleed. Fond memories.
Something crashed into the side of the house, followed by the sound of a door sliding open, rather violently. A second later, Jay stumbled into the room, a bee following behind him. His face had taken on a red sheen and I could hear him panting from where I stood. “What happened? Is everything all right.”