by Amy Sparling
She didn’t say it in a mean way, but it cut me to the core. I wasn’t her real kid. I wasn’t worthy of a photo because they last forever. And I wasn’t forever.
I met Riley at a counselor meeting at school one day. The counselor had called us in because we were both foster kids and she wanted to give us one of those feel-good talks about how we’re welcome to talk to her anytime we wanted. But we never wanted to.
Riley and I became instant best friends. We met other kids at school and soon realized that their versions of Christmas and birthdays were not at all like our versions. From the age of nine to twelve, I stayed at Good Grace Shelter, a group home for kids like me. Riley was there, too. Here, we plotted our future together. How we’d break out of poverty and marry nice men with fancy cars and parents who would like us. We’d get good jobs (I’d be a pastry chef and Riley would be a kindergarten teacher) and we’d have money to buy our kids lots of presents and brand name clothing. Our husbands would love us and they would have big extended families who loved us too. It would be perfect.
Things changed a little bit when my mom went to prison for drugs and writing hot checks and stealing a car with her boyfriend. I hadn’t heard from her in years so I didn’t care, but somehow my uncle found out that I was in a group home instead of living with my mom. I didn’t really remember him but he said we had met a few times when I was a toddler before Mom’s drug habit got really bad and she stopped coming around. He said she must have been ashamed of her addiction because she hid us from the rest of the family. He felt compelled to rescue me from the group home and when he said I could have my own room at his house, I felt compelled to let him even though he was a stranger to me.
Riley had to stay behind. She doesn’t have parents at all; they’re both dead. But we still went to school together and the Good Grace Shepard people were really nice and let me come visit her and even have sleepovers sometimes. Once Riley turned sixteen, she was allowed to sleep over at my house so long as her grades were passing and she hadn’t gotten into trouble at the home. When she turned eighteen two months ago, they gave her six months to get out. She has a stack of papers to fill out to sign up for government benefits, but Riley doesn’t want that. I don’t want it either. We want to take care of ourselves.
Over the years, our dreams haven’t changed. We’re going to get out of this. I believe it with all that I have, because I can’t bear the idea of failing. I won’t become like my mother. I won’t have kids unless I can afford them. I won’t dive into drugs and never resurface. I will be better than that.
Unfortunately, now my plans are all screwed up. Riley and I had a six month timeline to get our own apartment. We’ve plotted and calculated and were fairly confident that we could afford our own apartment at the complex on west beach, so long as we saved up four thousand dollars by then. Cristal Cove Apartments are the cheapest around, and it shows. They’re run down and occupied by seedy individuals, but the rent is cheap. It’s a stepping stone until you can afford something better. Once we saved up four thousand dollars, it would be just enough for the deposit, first month’s rent, and some cheap furniture like a couch, silverware, towels and shower curtains, that kind of stuff.
So getting kicked out of Uncle Will’s house isn’t the worst thing ever. I have a plan.
It just happens to be four months too soon for my plan to work.
I grab the spiral notebook off my dresser and flip it open. Riley and I have two thousand one hundred and four dollars saved. That’s enough for the deposit but not quite enough for the first month of rent. My heart sinks.
Riley and I both work at Surf n’ Shop, a combination surf shop and convenient store on the boardwalk. The pay is okay but they refuse to give us any more than twenty hours a week, despite how often we beg for more. I take over any extra shifts I can, especially now that I’ve finally graduated high school, but it’s still not enough. And every business within walking or biking distance has our applications on file. Too bad no one ever calls to set up an interview.
Just like Uncle Will’s business, the economy in Sterling, Texas has gone to hell. No one is hiring and everyone seems to be one paycheck away from homelessness. Despair is in the air, in every inch of town except the beaches where people come in from out of town.
I flip to the back of the notebook and pull out the cloth makeup bag with the word fabulous stitched across it in gold sequins. Riley got it from her secret Santa in dance class our junior year. There was a five dollar limit for the gifts, and I’ve always suspected this bag costs more than that. I unzip it and shove the twenty dollars I got from my uncle inside, tucking it away with the rest of our money. On the notebook, I cross out the number and write $2124.
Using the old laptop Uncle Will gave me, I get online and go to the Cristal Cove Apartments website, hoping that maybe fate has heard my dilemma and decided to make all apartments half off this month.
Hey, weirder things have happened.
The website is state of the art, elegantly designed and including features that let you pay your rent online. It’s kind of misleading, since the apartments themselves don’t look very nice from the outside, but Riley and I have never been inside of one so I’m hoping for the best. I check their availability section and find that they have two apartments available for rent. The cheapest is $1250 a month. The deposit is one month’s rent, so it’d cost $2500 to move in today. My heart flutters around in my chest.
We’re so close. We wouldn’t have any furniture or any savings at all, but if Riley and I could snag an apartment before I’m homeless, then we can make it work. We can pile blankets on the floor instead of a couch. I have this laptop that we can use as a TV if there’s any free Wi-Fi around. Together, with our Surf n’ Shop jobs, Riley and I bring in about two thousand a month, so we’d barely have enough for rent and food. It would suck, but we could make this work. One of these days we’ll find better jobs and we’ll get nicer things.
I look up at my room, at the dresser against the wall, the couch bed I’ve slept on for six years. Uncle Will said he was going to sell it all, but maybe he’ll let me keep some. I scramble up and run to ask if I can have some stuff for my new apartment, but he’s already left, probably gone to Racheal’s house.
Instead, I call Riley.
“Allllmost ready,” she says instead of a hello. The sound of wind in the background makes her voice all staticy. She must be outside, near the boardwalk. Probably walking over here now.
“That’s not why I’m calling,” I say. My heart is thundering in my chest and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m terrified or excited that we have to move out earlier than expected. “Uncle Will is losing the house to foreclosure and moving in with his girlfriend. I have to get out, like, soon.”
“Seriously? We’re not even close to four thousand,” she says, her voice losing some of its happiness.
“I know, but I think Uncle Will will give me some of his furniture. Like my couch and dresser, and maybe even the dishes and stuff since he’ll be moving in with his girlfriend. It’ll be tight, but Cristal Cove has two apartments available right now. We should go apply.”
Riley sighs. “We’ve already done this math. With our paychecks now, we’ll have like six hundred dollars for food, the electric bill, and everything else. It’ll be impossible to make ends meet. We need full time jobs.”
Anxiety starts to take over my optimism. “We need a place to live,” I say. “You know Margret is risking her job letting you stay there that long. You’re supposed to leave the home when you turn eighteen. You’d feel like shit if you got Margret fired.”
Margret is the manager of the group home. She’s always been really nice to us, probably because we’re two of the only group home kids who aren’t constantly in trouble with the law.
“Yeah, I know,” Riley says with a sigh. “We really need better jobs, though. I’ve been talking with her and she tells me about all these unexpected bullshit bills that happen when you don’t think about it. Li
ke if you get sick and go to the doctor and it’s two hundred dollars for antibiotics, or you need some expensive suit for a job interview.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say. “We’ll babysit or walk dogs or something. Let’s spend the rest of the day going around and seeing if anyone is hiring.”
“We know nobody is hiring, Cara. We check all the time.”
“Maybe someone quit today,” I say, smiling in an attempt to make myself feel better. “Maybe two full time employees just up and walked out of Garlands Grocery. Let’s go check.”
She laughs. “Fine, we’ll swing by and ask if they’re hiring. But that’s all. One place, and then we have to forget about it for the rest of the day. We have better things to do.”
“There is nothing better than looking for a job,” I argue.
“Yes there is. We can worry about our futures tomorrow. But today, it’s your birthday and we’re going to celebrate. Now open your front door because I’m here.”
The line goes dead just as there’s an impatient knock on the door. I take a deep breath and imagine locking all of my worries up in a safe to open later. She’s right, after all. It’s my birthday. I should have some fun, even if it feels impossible.
Chapter 3
Riley Winters was given the unfortunate nickname of Mickey Winters when we were in seventh grade. As a twelve year old, she was only five feet tall with brown scraggly hair and a tiny little mouse-like face. Not that I would ever admit it to her, but Riley is kind of mouse-ish. She’s soft spoken and petite. The assholes at school called her Mickey for Mickey Mouse, and made fun of her relentlessly. Margret told her it was because they were flirting with her, but even now I’m not so sure that was the case.
At the start of eighth grade, Riley dawned a pair of black combat boots she found at the army surplus store and threatened to kick anyone’s ass if they called her anything but her real name from then on. She was still picked on a few times, but not nearly as much. That year we learned that bullies stop bulling people who stand up for themselves.
Now, she’s a legal adult and still looks like that tiny girl from junior high. Riley’s hair has gotten a little better, though. Today she’s swept it up into a messy ponytail, with little fringes hanging down to frame her face. She’s wearing those same combat boots, paired with a black mini skirt and a long flowy tank top she pulled from the clearance bin at the Shop n’ Surf.
The only thing missing from my best friend’s face are her signature high-arched eyebrows.
“Give me a sec,” she says, holding up her purse. She turns to the right where a little mirror hangs above the key rack next to the front door. She leans forward, then drags her eye pencil across her brows, expertly making sharp lines around the neatly plucked hairs that still remain. When she’s done, she nods once into the mirror, caps her pencil and then turns to me. Her lips split into a devious grin.
“Happy birthday, Cara!”
I roll my eyes because this is not some fancy event to celebrate, but Riley crushes me into a hug anyway. I’m taller than she is (I mean who isn’t?) but I hug her back.
“You are going to be so psyched for what I have planned,” she says, wiggling her newly drawn on eyebrows at me.
“Riley,” I say, giving her a look. “You can’t spend any money. I meant it when I said it last week but I really mean it now. We need every dime we have, so no spending anything on me.”
She makes this long drown out sigh, sticking her tongue out like I’ve bored he life out of her. “You done? Because I’d like you to know what I haven’t spent a dime, okay?” She puts her hands on her hips. “And this is still the best gift ever. Even more so because it’s free.”
I eye her skeptically. “So what is it?”
She gives me a once over, dragging her lips to the side of her mouth. “Are you ready to go?”
I glance down at my cut off shorts, flip flops with little rhinestones on them, and the simple black shirt I’ve chosen because it’s a V-neck and fits me well. It makes me feel feminine, unlike those baggy polo shirts we wear to work. “Yes?” I say, hoping she won’t make me change.
“Good,” she says, hooking her arm through mine. “Let’s go.”
We walk the two blocks to the boardwalk and then Riley turns left. “There’s not much down this way,” I say, staring out at the vast stretch of beach, hindered only by a pier amusement park. Most of the places to go in this town are to the right, along the boardwalk and the busy part of the beach.
“There’s one thing,” she says in a sing song.
My brows pull together. The only thing down here is massive. The Sterling Pier, a family fun permanent carnival built out on a pier that overlooks the ocean. It’s massive, lit up and sparkly, the lights on the carnival rides glittering out onto the water below.
It’s also very expensive.
“We can’t afford the pier,” I say, rolling my eyes. I come to a stop on the boardwalk. Ahead of us, people are excitedly walking toward the mammoth of a pier, which Riley and I know from experience charges ten dollars a person just to go inside. One time a couple of years ago, we thought we’d just walk around and pretend to be like normal people who could pay for those things, but we couldn’t even get inside. They make you pay an entry fee, and then all the food and rides cost extra.
Riley’s eyes widen and she stares at me with this expression that tells me she’ll be a terrifying mother someday. “I told you I didn’t spend anything and I meant it. Now trust me. I’m your best friend, after all. I wouldn’t screw you over.”
Hesitating, I start walking again, wondering what the hell she’s up to as she leads us right to the entrance of the pier. It’s been decorated like it’s an old circus, with big plastic awnings decorated like orange and red circus tents, with lines of white lights blinking in a row.
I get nervous as we step forward in line, all the people in front of us handing over their cash and credit cards, when Riley and I don’t have either one of those. When we reach the front, a middle-aged woman with thick black glasses smiles at us.
“Welcome to Sterling Pier,” she says as if she’s said it a million times today. “How many in your party?”
“Two of us,” Riley says, standing confidently. I’m beginning to worry where she’s going to take this, when she says, “I’m Riley Winters. I have two tickets at will call.”
“Sure thing,” the woman says, turning to look under her desk in the ticket booth. She retrieves an envelope with Riley’s name on it, which she slides under the plexiglass to her.
She stamps our hands with a big seashell stamp and then opens the gate for us. “Have a Sterling-tastic day!”
And then we’re inside.
I turn to my best friend once we’re a little way away from the entrance and that woman can’t overhear us, because surely there’s some mistake here. “What the hell was that?” I say, poking her in the arm. “Did you buy these tickets in advance?”
Riley gives me a sneaky smile. “No, ma’am. I meant it when I said free.” She opens the envelope and pulls out the contents. There are two wristbands, red ones that mean you get unlimited rides for the night, and two food vouchers, each valued at fifty dollars.
My eyes bug so hard, they almost fall out of my head. “What is this?” I say, whispering.
“I have a hook up. And I used it for your birthday,” she says, fastening the unlimited rides bracelet around my wrist, and then holding out her arm so I can do the same to hers. “This was all free, I swear.”
“How?”
A small blush rises in her cheeks, making her look vulnerable for the first time in, well, since seventh grade. She glances around and then leans in close to me. “I did a little flirting with this guy who came into the store the other day. His name is Chase. Tall, red hair? You remember him from school?”
I think back but shake my head. “Not really.”
“No one does,” she says with a shrug. “He’s kind of quiet, and keeps to himself. Well, I got to talk
ing to him and he was wearing a nametag from here, and I told him how I wished we could go but had no money and the next thing I know, he’s offering to give me a recoup package.”
“A what?”
“It’s for when someone has bad customer service, or like, their food order is wrong or something. The manager is allowed to give out a free pass and stuff to recoup their losses and beg them to come back to the pier again. He got one for me.” Her eyes flash conspiratorially. “So if you talk to anyone, make sure to say they’re really improving on their service since the last time you were here.” She winks.
I realize I’m smiling like a huge idiot. Spending the evening at a carnival, riding rides and playing games and eating junk food is kind of childish. But that’s what makes it so great. Riley and I never had that kind of childhood. Warm tears sting the back of my eyes. This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.
“I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday,” I say, blinking back tears. “You are seriously the best friend ever.”
Riley grins and tosses her ponytail over her shoulder. “I know it.”
For the next hour, we explore the pier and take in everything it has to offer. It’s narrow but long, stretching out way over the water, where people fish off the end of it. There’s a Ferris wheel, a small roller coaster, and tons of rides, all colorful and blinking with hundreds of lights that spin around and change color as the rides move. In the middle is a large swing set, where all the swings are in a circle and once the thing gets going, it pushes you way out and nearly sideways, where you’re literally swinging over the ocean.