Shift

by Ginger Scott

  “Kiddo, Dustin’s family isn’t like ours. You know that much, right?”

  I nod because yeah, I know more than he probably thinks I do. Dustin has always gone to the same school as me. He can be a handful in the classroom, and when we were little, he got in fights on the playground all the time. He still throws a lot of punches, but he’s bigger than most of the other kids in junior high, so he doesn’t get hit so much himself. Somehow, though, his arms and sometimes his face, they always look bruised.

  “That man you saw. That’s Dustin’s dad, I’m pretty sure.”

  My instinct is to respond with Dustin has a dad? It’s just that none of us have ever seen him. When we all hang out, it’s always at our house. I’ve never asked why, but as I got older I assumed he was embarrassed about living in the trailer park. We have a pretty nice house with a pool, so it makes sense that when friends want to do something, we do it there.

  “Does Dustin know he’s here?” I glance up to meet my dad’s waiting gaze as he hands the binoculars back to me with a shrug.

  “I’m guessing no,” he says.

  I suck in my lips and think about all the questions I could ask but don’t really need to—and maybe don’t want to. Thankfully, Dustin is driving in the first heat, and the announcer is making the last call for racers to take their positions. My dad pulls the cooler out of the wagon and takes two Cokes out, passing one to me when he sits on the closed lid. We crack them open as the motors vibrate from the track below.

  “How are they going to do today?” I ask this question about every race. I grin as I take a sip of my soda, anticipating my dad’s usual answer.

  “With Dustin driving? I’d sure hate to be in one of the other cars.”

  I chuckle against the can and meet my dad’s sideways glance with my own. He winks as the race kicks off and we both consume ourselves with the track below. Fifteen laps for qualifying. It’s twenty-five for the final. I know Dustin and my brother are going to be doing this with bigger cars one day, the sponsorship sticker-covered kind that get hauled around the country on eighteen-wheelers. I bet Dustin will have his own life-size cutout one day, too.

  As expected, Dustin cuts his way to the front of the pack before the second lap is done. He’s sitting comfortably in fourth, and though one more spot might get him a better start for the final, he doesn’t need to do more than finish where he’s at. Dustin likes starting from behind, though.

  “Kid’s a chaser, and he likes to have an enemy,” my dad always says.

  I always thought that made sense with the competitive side I’ve seen of Dustin at school during recess kickball games or when we got older and he played flag football with my brother. He’s always an impossible defender, fast enough to run anyone down. But now that I’ve seen the guy who might be his dad—and stared into his dark, coal eyes—my dad’s words conjure a different meaning. Maybe Dustin has one enemy, and I’m not so sure he’s chasing him as much as running away.

  This is the part of the race when I can usually sit back and relax, but my dad is still poised, leaning forward and surveying every camp spot around the track. It’s making me do it too. I’m not sure whether it’s good or bad, but as Dustin finishes his twelfth lap, my eyes land on our target.

  “I found him. Dad!” I point as my dad leans against my shoulder to follow my sightline, and as soon as he sees the man I’m signaling to, he hops over the short embankment wall in front of us and jogs down the hill to where my brother is cheering on his driver.

  I glance around at our stuff. We don’t have anything worth much except the binoculars, so I stuff those in the front pocket of my hoodie and head down the hill in my father’s footsteps. The sun is finally warming things up, and my dark hair sticks to my neck and face. I’ll be melting under the sweatshirt soon, so as I walk I pull the string from the hood and use it to tie my hair back before freeing myself of the sweatshirt, opting to carry it like a bundle. I step up next to my dad and set my things on the ground between my feet, looking up as Dustin whips by at the final curve.

  “Go, Dustin!” I shout as he passes. He doesn’t balk. He says he can hear me, though, even with his helmet on and the rumble of the track drowning out the world, so I always cheer.

  My dad digs his feet into the gravel and folds his arms across his chest. His sunglasses are the kind that wrap around his face, which makes it hard to tell what he’s looking at. Based on the flex of his biceps and the way he positioned himself between me and the bearded man walking our direction, I have a pretty good idea where his eyes are fixed.

  “You must be Tom,” the man says, reaching to one side and hitching up his slouching jeans as he walks. He runs his palm along his hip before holding it outstretched. My dad pauses for a second before gripping it.

  “Colt, right?”

  My dad’s forearm is flexed.

  “Riiiiiight,” Colt answers, dragging the word out as a smirk takes over his face. Both men let go from their shake, their faces reflected in each other’s lenses.

  I lean forward to look around the standoff at my brother, hoping he has a better idea about what’s going on, but he’s more focused on Dustin’s route. I have a feeling he’s trying to ignore our guest, and I wonder how much he knows about Dustin’s parents.

  “You living down here now?” my dad asks, pulling my attention back to their conversation. I tie the sleeves of my hoodie around my waist and pull the binoculars out to make myself look busy while I listen. I follow every curve Dustin takes, all the inches he shaves off of the next guy’s lead with every line he makes on the track. I could get lost in watching his details but I’m only halfway invested because of the conversation happening a few feet to my left.

  “Oh, here, there, a little bit of everywhere.” Colt coughs through his laugh and I note that my dad doesn’t make a sound.

  “I hear Trisha’s got a job,” he says.

  “Mmm, yeah,” my dad responds. Trisha’s Dustin’s mom. I’ve seen her a few times at school for pick up and drop off. Seems she’s always working because every time Dustin spends the weekend at our house it’s because his mom has a shift. She works at the gas station convenience store right off the highway. It’s the only thing open twenty-four hours a day along the route up north.

  “That’s good. Good,” Colt says.

  I hold the binoculars out a fraction, giving myself enough space to look to my side and study Colt and his movements and expressions. He’s jerky, his face constantly moving with these slight ticks, and he keeps stretching out his jaw, moving the bottom half of his mouth around as if it’s some independent piece he can snap in and out of place at will.

  I miss Dustin’s next pass at our curve because I’m so busy inspecting the man who’s supposedly his father. I refocus my attention to the track but my ear stays tuned on the conversation taking place next to me. My dad sounds angry. Not irate angry, the way he gets when Tommy comes home with an F or when one of us leaves the milk out on the counter, but a low-key kind of simmer . It’s obvious my dad doesn’t like Colt. But his tone says more than simple dislike—I get the feeling my dad doesn’t trust him, which makes me not trust him either.

  “He’s making a move,” Tommy shouts back toward us over his shoulder. My brother’s moved closer to the track and I join him, abandoning my eavesdropping in favor of rooting on my friend.

  “Come on, Dustin. Come on!” I growl loud enough for Tommy to hear but nobody else. Not even Dustin, this time. He’s going too fast to hear anything other than his own voice telling him what to do, where to cut, and how to get what he wants.

  This is when he’s at his best. Two laps. Eleven turns on the track. Three cars in front. In theory, he’s only racing the clock right now. It’s a qualifying heat. But for Dustin, there’s always someone to fight, to be better than.

  My dad moves into the space next to me, and I breathe out a short sigh in relief. Short, because Colt steps in on my father’s other side. He hasn’t moved on or gone to watch from somewhere else.
He’s settled in. Attached himself. As if he’s maybe staying awhile.

  A long stretch of straightaway points right at us, and I count in my head the turns Dustin has left before he heads our way. My brother’s fists are clenched, as if he’s guiding the kart himself, holding the steering column taut and praying the tires hold their path.

  “Come on, Dusty. Come on,” my brother grits out.

  I hold my breath as our friend finishes the final turn and manages to gain half a length on the kart in front of him. The euphoria is fleeting. Dustin never makes eye contact with us while he’s driving. It’s been that way since he hopped behind the wheel in their very first kart and practiced driving down our street. He’s always been a natural, focused to a fault. But something has his eyes today. Through the slit in his helmet, I can tell his eyes are not narrowed on the road. They’re locked on us—or rather, the man standing alongside us.

  My brother somehow knows Dustin’s speed and angle are off and calculates the situation with only a second or two to spare.

  “Fuck!” Tommy breaks into a sprint just as Dustin’s tire clips the back end of the kart he’s chasing. He lost the ground he’d gained the moment he saw Colt, but he didn’t ease up on the gas to avoid the wreck. It was inevitable, almost purposeful.

  Our kart rides up the back end of the leading kart, taking it out of the race along with Dusty. His arms flex and his body fights to right the spinning vehicle that’s now cutting through dry grass and kicking up gravel on its path toward the protective bank of hay bales. The impact is swift, sending hay in all directions and the scent of burnt rubber and fuel into the air. The race managers are on-scene a second before my brother reaches the kart, where he works quickly to yank our friend free of the safety harness. I must have been rushing toward them without realizing, because by the time Dustin’s pulled his helmet from his head and thrown it, I’m close enough to pick it up from the ground.

  “Dude, what happened? Was it the tire? Something on the track?” My brother hits Dustin with a barrage of questions, but it’s a ploy to stall him from what I’m sure we all feel is coming.

  Dustin breaks into a run, charging the man who calls himself his dad, this stranger named Colt who showed up out of nowhere and claimed he was invited. Colt doesn’t even flinch as Dustin closes the distance between them, his palms landing in the very center of the man’s chest. The impact knocks Colt off balance, but rather than get angry and come back at Dustin with a shove of his own, he stretches his arms out wide and begins to laugh.

  “This isn’t good,” Tommy says at my side, moving his eyes from me to the scuffle happening a few dozen feet away. Most of the track is watching us now—watching Dustin. His neck burns red from the blood flowing through his veins, and his cheeks puff with heavy breathing. His dark hair pokes out in crazy curls that jut in all directions thanks to the sweat caused by his helmet, the helmet I’m glad I’m holding for him. I think if it were in his hands, he’d launch it right at Colt’s face.

  “What’s this greeting, son? I thought you wanted me to come watch you race?” Colt’s hands are still out at his sides, as if proving to all of us witnesses that he’s the innocent good guy.

  “That was when I was seven!” Dustin shouts.

  “Dust—” My dad reaches out to touch his shoulder, to calm our friend. Dustin cuts him off and slaps my father’s hand away.

  “No! Who invited this guy? Who told him where to go? Was it you, Tom?” Dustin rocks on his feet as his eyes dart from Colt to my dad, as if he’s holding a gun on everyone who feels a threat.

  “I did.” Tommy speaks up next to me. It’s times like this when I realize how much we look alike. Our freckles seem to pronounce themselves when we’re guilty, and it’s hard to hide the red that flushes our cheeks when we’re nervous.

  My stomach sinks at my brother’s confession. There is clearly so much I don’t know. I instantly feel betrayed and left out. Our triangle is not equal; my brother is included in parts of Dustin’s life that I’m not. There are secrets they keep, and there are promises my brother has broken—is breaking. Right now.

  “You . . . what?” Dustin’s head falls slightly to the side and his eyes droop even as his chest puffs violently with a new panicked round of breathing.

  “I didn’t mean to, Dust. I wanted him to go away. It was last week, when you were at the shop, and I was waiting with your mom. I—”

  Dustin’s eyes grow wild, the centers dark and his focus roaming around the space between everyone but never stopping for long on someone’s face.

  “You . . . saw Mom?” he finally manages to question, stepping close to Colt again.

  “I mean, it’s my house, isn’t it? I paid for it and all,” Colt says, reaching to his back pockets and pulling a cigarette pack from one side and a lighter from the other. Holding the pack to his teeth, he pulls out a cigarette and holds it between his lips while cupping his mouth to block the breeze from the flicker of his lighter. A few short puffs generate a circle of smoke that he blows into Dustin’s face.

  “Why would you tell him about the race?” I mutter to my brother.

  “Shut up! You have no fucking clue about any of this,” Tommy says, turning his sour expression on me.

  “Hey!” my dad pipes in, poking his enormous finger into the center of my brother’s chest. The move sucks all the boldness out of my brother’s act, but he’s still too set on not admitting to anything wrong to apologize to me. My dad grabs the shoulder of Tommy’s sweatshirt and pushes him back several steps, probably to create space between us. The two of them try to focus on the wreckage instead.

  “Paid for it,” Dustin finally laughs out. His hands are still balled into fists at his sides, but a smile has spread into his cheeks, the dimples deep on both sides, a complete opposite expression from the tears welling in his eyes.

  “Yeah, I paid for it,” Colt puffs out through smoke, only using one side of his mouth to talk. “Some fuckin’ race there, sport. You’re a little too old to be playing around with cars, aren’t you?”

  “What, should I be selling dope like good ol’ Dad?” Dustin fires back.

  The words silence those of us close enough to hear. They silence the air around us, the bugs and birds living in the grass blades, and the thin branches of the desert trees nearby. They silence my heart. They break it, for my friend.

  The only preface to the hand landing on Dustin’s cheek is the quick flex in Colt’s jaw just before he cocks his arm and swings his palm at his son’s head.

  “You gonna make a living doing this shit? Take care of your mom with this? Riding on lawnmowers?” Colt punctuates each insult with another slap of his hand. Each time, Dustin takes it. His knuckles whiten at his sides as his fingers curl tighter with every strike.

  “Stop it!” I cry out as one more blow lands on my friend’s face. His eye is already swollen from the one before.

  Colt laughs at my plea, but it’s enough of a pause to give Dustin the breath he desperately needs to catch. Shoving past his father, he storms up the hill, swinging his feet over the embankment and past my wagon on his way back to the camper and trailer—back home.

  I blink away the vision of him ducking between the cars parked closest to the track and let the panic I’ve been holding off settle into my chest with a quaking breath.

  “Probably a good time to move along, Colt,” my dad says to Dustin’s father. The two of them stare at one another, my dad’s face hard as stone and his mouth a perfect line while Colt merely smirks as his cigarette collects ash where it dangles from his lips.

  Not wanting to be the reason my dad holds in his temper, I decide to chase Dustin for once. I pick up my hoodie and binoculars and sprint up the same path my friend took, climbing over the small wall and dropping my things in the wagon. Nothing I own is worth more than the hurt I think my friend is feeling right now.

  “Dustin?” I shout his name as I cut through the lines of trucks and minivans. I step over hitches and when I reach our truck
, I step up on our trailer to get a better view of the parking lot or the road leading back to the highway. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dustin walking home—despite the two hundred miles that walk entails.

  “Hannah.” Dustin says my name as if he’s about to ask me to pass the rolls at the dinner table. I leap down from the trailer and follow the sound around to the other side of our camper where my friend is sitting on the wheel well with his forehead in his hands. He lets go as I step up, his fingers widening enough for him to meet my gaze through them as his palms slip away. The whites of his eyes are a bright pink and his cheeks are streaked with muddy lines from the tears he doesn’t want anyone to know fell. They cut over deep bruises, and his busted lip weighs heavy on the bottom of his face.

  “You’re hurt,” I say, such a dumb and obvious observation. He chuckles, but within seconds the shaking of laughter turns to sobs. I step up to him in time for him to stand and wrap his arms around me. Dustin holds me so tightly that his arms seem to wrap around me twice, his lips quivering against my bare shoulder. I’m sure the blood from his lip is staining the strap of my tank top, but I don’t care. Tommy may know more of Dustin’s secrets, but I know the important ones. I won’t ever tell anyone he cried like this. Just as I won’t let go until he’s done.

  FOUR YEARS LATER

  “You ready to blow out your candles?” Tommy holds a pan filled with yellow cake and fudge icing in front of me. Behind him, my parents, cousins, and friends are all gathered, singing to try and embarrass me. My brother is just tired of holding my dessert.

  I force my smile in place. I’m seventeen today—the same age as the boy I love, but only for the next six weeks. Dustin turns eighteen at the end of next month, and then I’ll go back to being his best friend’s baby sister. Flirting will be inappropriate because some law somewhere states those ten and a half months make kissing someone illegal. I’m probably imagining things between us anyhow—the lingering hand on my arm, the thigh pressed against mine in the back of the truck during long rides, the few times I’ve caught him staring at me in the one class we have together.