All It Takes

by Sadie Munroe

  Star throws back her head and laughs, and that damn fishing hook sinks into my navel again, tugging me toward her at the sound. I don’t know if it’s the sound of her laugh that does it, or the sight of her dark hair tumbling down her back, or the long pale line of her throat, but either way, I can’t stop myself. I have to touch her. I reach out to snag her hand with my free one again. And she lets me, but then, an instant later, she shoots me a little grin and twists our hands around so that only our pinkies are linked.

  Pinkie swear, I think, and duck my head for a moment, flashing back to our mornings in bed, and how our hands almost seem to gravitate toward each other’s, how our fingers link together in our own little promise, again and again.

  I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to let her go.

  Suddenly Star stops walking, and I jerk to a halt beside her.

  “Shit,” she murmurs. “Not again.”

  My brow furrows, and I glance over at her. She’s staring down the street, toward her mother’s house, face torn between anger and sadness. What the hell?

  I turn to look.

  There, standing at the end of her mother’s driveway, is a couple. Nosy assholes, just like a few weeks ago.

  Star was right. It’s happening again.

  Shit.

  Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m already moving. My legs are pumping and I can feel my jaw clench as I approach the intruders.

  “Hey,” I snap as soon as I get close. What the hell do you people want? The words are on the tip of my tongue along with fuck off, but as soon as the hey is out of my mouth, the couple turns to look at us, and the words die before I can get them out. I recognize them.

  They’re from the diner. The skinny waiter and the pregnant waitress. And judging by the looks on their faces, they aren’t here to start trouble like the stuck-up women in the overpriced tracksuits. In fact, now that we’re closer and I can really see them, they actually look a little . . . scared.

  Oh, fan-fucking-tastic, I think. More people who think I’m going to run them down in the streets. But . . . no. Scared isn’t the right word. More . . . timid. Nervous at the very least.

  “Can I help you?” I say instead, tugging Bruiser to a stop and twisting my hand around so I can link my fingers properly with Star’s.

  “Uh, hi,” the guy says, his gaze darting between me and Star and then finally, after a few passes, back to the pregnant girl beside him. She gives him a wide-eyed look from behind her thick-framed glasses that speaks volumes. He shuffles his feet and clears his throat before turning back to us, sinking his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “I’m York, and this is my sister. Um. Maisie.”

  He jerks his elbow back toward the girl, who raises a hand and waves awkwardly with a murmured “hello.”

  “Um . . . ” I can see how nervous this kid is from here. It’s ridiculous. He’s shaking so bad I could knock him over with a cough. “We were just wondering . . . ” He glances back at his sister, who finally rolls her eyes and tilts her body to look past him, toward us.

  “We were wondering if we could take the sofa.”

  It takes me way longer than it should to figure out what she’s talking about. Then I realize they’re not looking at the house itself, not pointing and laughing and looking down at it like those women had. Instead they’re looking at the sofa that we’d set out on the curb that afternoon.

  “Oh,” I say, and glance back at Star. She’s got her free hand clapped over her mouth, so I can’t see her smile, but it’s shining through clear as day in her eyes. I smile and sink my teeth into my bottom lip, trying to stifle it. The last thing I need is for them to think I’m laughing at them, even though I kind of am. I turn back to Maisie and York, and beside me Bruiser wags his tail so hard I’m sure I’m going to have a bruise on my thigh where it’s thumping over and over. “You want it—” I turn slightly to catch Star’s gaze. She nods and I feel the smile spread across my face as I turn back to Maisie and York. “—it’s all yours.”

  One sofa down. Only five more to go. Maybe this wasn`t going to be as bad as I thought.

  After that, the tension slowly dwindles and then dies, and we stand there talking and laughing together as the sun sinks below the horizon.

  “Look, man,” York says, shifting from foot to foot. I’ve only known this kid for maybe an hour all put together, and I can already tell that he never really settles down. He is always in motion. It is making me fucking dizzy. I want to reach out and grab him by the shoulders and tell him to stay fucking put. “I heard about the shit that went down at the diner when you applied. And what happened to your car. I just wanted to say, you know. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, kid,” I say, taking a drag of my cigarette and ashing it onto the sidewalk. “Not your fault.”

  “Still . . . ” he says, trailing off and bouncing a little bit on the balls of his feet, hands still in his pockets.

  “What my brother is trying to say, and failing,” Maisie says, shooting the kid a dirty look before shaking her head and turning back to me, “is that we’re sorry you were treated that way.”

  “Not super surprised, though,” York adds, helpfully.

  We all turn to look at him, and his eyes widen. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and holds them up in front of him, in defense. “Hey, woah, no. No. Not like that.” He turns to me. “I didn’t mean like you deserved it or anything. Seriously. I just meant that the people at the diner suck, that’s not news. It isn’t shocking that they’d treat you like that. That’s all,” he says, and glares at his sister like way to throw me under the bus, sis.

  I chuckle and take another drag, turning away and blowing the smoke out as far away from the pregnant girl as I can, realizing that smoking in front of her probably isn’t cool. I drop the cigarette onto the ground and stub it out with my toe, hoping that no one notices. I feel like an idiot often enough. No need to draw any more attention to it. Besides, they’re kind enough to take one of the gazillion sofas from the house off our hands—apparently they’re renting a trailer on the other side of town and they need furniture. I don’t want to make things any harder for them. They seem okay in my book.

  Star rolls her eyes at us, and turns to say something to Maisie, who has her hands folded on top of her round belly, and I’m halfway through turning back to York to give him a little shit, just for kicks, when I get a jolt.

  “Wait,” I say, turning around to face Maisie as the idea turns over in my head and clicks neatly into place. “You’re knocked up, right?”

  Jesus, the fucking looks all three of them pin me with. Like you think, dumbass? I wave my hand at her belly and roll my eyes. “Okay, not actually the point,” I say. “I’m not stupid. I know you aren’t hauling around a beach ball under there.” Though, to be honest, it’s starting to look like it. The girl’s kind of tiny and her belly is getting huge. She looks like she’s at risk of tipping over at any minute.

  “What’s your point then?” York says, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Good, I think. Stick up for you sister. God knows I’d do anything to have family do that for me. Pretty sure Star would, too.

  I glance back at Star, and give her a little wink before turning back to the siblings.

  “How would you like some diapers?”

  ***

  “Thank you for this,” York says again, after we’ve unloaded the last of the stuff we brought over for them, settling it all into the trailer. “Seriously. Thank you.”

  “Seriously, kid. Shut up about it. It’s not a big deal,” I tell him and jerk a thumb toward Star just as she disappears into the other bedroom with Maisie to look at some of the baby stuff or some shit. I don’t know. Women. “There was an entire room of this shit at her mom’s place.”

  “Look,” he says, dumping the last box into the trailer’s second bedroom and shutting the doo
r. “It may not be a big deal to you, but it is to us. My sister can barely afford this place as it is. They pay shit at the diner. I have no idea how she’s going to be able to afford this baby, even with me helping her out. So, no. Not gonna shut up about it. ’Cause it means a lot.”

  I can’t help it, I look around the place. It’s kind of a dump, but then, so is the entire trailer park, so for all I know, this one is considered a palace by comparison. Except for my five years away, I’ve spent my entire life in Avenue, and I’ve never set foot in the trailer park before. Everyone pretty much knows it is a shit-hole and stays away.

  My mom would be having kittens if she knew I was here.

  I can’t even imagine trying to raise a kid here.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, where’s the dad?” I say. “I mean, isn’t he going to pitch in?”

  York just sort of boggles his eyes at me, like I’m speaking in fucking Chinese or something. “The dad.” He repeats, like the word doesn’t make sense or something, like he’s trying the words out for the first time, seeing how they feel in his mouth.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m pretty sure your sister didn’t climb on top of herself and get herself pregnant.”

  He scoffs, and I can tell I’ve touched a nerve. “The dad,” he says, like he’s trying to wrap his mind around just how to put his anger into words. I know the feeling. Anger management helped with that. A little. Mostly it just stopped me from taking my anger out on the few possessions I’d been allowed to keep in prison. Destruction wasn’t the most helpful of coping mechanisms, I was told. “The dad is a fucking piss-ant bitch,” he snaps, and I can’t help the smile that image brings up. This kid is pretty creative with the insults. “Maisie won’t even tell me who it is, you know that?” His eyes are wide and I can see the hurt that lingers behind them.

  “Dude, really?” I say, because I’ve seen the lengths this kid will go to for his sister, and the fact that she won’t even tell him who the daddy is, well that’s gotta hurt. “That sucks, man. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not like I’d even care,” he says, throwing his hands out, and wow. This kid has been keeping this bottled up for a long-ass time. He’s pissed. He looks like he’s about to start pacing around the trailer. “But she doesn’t want me to know, which means that either she doesn’t want him to find out she’s pregnant, and she’s afraid I’ll go hit the guy up for child support on her behalf or something. Or—” he scrubs his hands over his face and lets out a sigh. “Or, the guy already knows and doesn’t give a shit, which means he’s the biggest bastard on the planet and she’s afraid I’ll try to kill the guy. Either way, you’re right.”

  I look at him, wondering just what the hell I could be right about. The corner of his mouth quirks up and he shrugs helplessly.

  “It sucks,” he says, and burrows his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunching down again, and all at once I’m struck by how fucking young he is. How young they both are. And he’s right. This really fucking sucks.

  We stand there awkwardly for a minute until the silence gets so fucking loud that the kid apparently can’t stand it anymore. “I’m going to go return the truck,” he says, bouncing on his heels and looking at me like he’s waiting for me to say something. Finally I realize he’s waiting for my permission or say-so or some other dumb shit, so I nod at him and he’s out the door like a flash the second my head stops moving, leaving me standing there in their living room wondering how the hell is this my life?

  But still, it could be worse. I could be living where they are, a kid myself with a baby on the way, stuck living in a shitty trailer on the bad side of Avenue. But they seem to be making the best of it. The trailer is . . . Well, it’s better than I thought it would be, I’ll admit it. On the outside, it looks pretty run down, but compared to the inside, it’s like night and day. The place is neat and tidy, even if it’s barren of pretty much anything personal. I can’t help but wonder just how fast Maisie’s parents kicked her out when she told them about the baby. There are a few warm touches here and there, but nothing that could really identify it as belonging to either her or York. To be honest, it looks like they left in a hell of a hurry. And as nice as they’ve tried to make it, just looking at it causes a pit to form in my stomach. At least my parents packed my shit up for me. At least they didn’t kick me out at eighteen like Maisie’s parents. Yeah, she has her brother, and York apparently doesn’t care that his big sister had gotten herself up the duff, not when he’d followed after her. I don’t know how they did it. At eighteen I was a fucking dumbass. I would have died.

  For the first time since I got out of prison, I realize just how worse off some of the other people in Avenue are than I am. At least I have my stuff. And Bruiser.

  And Star.

  Thank fucking god for Star.

  But even though it makes me sad, the place is decent, for a trailer. There are little blue checkerboard curtains hanging in the windows, a couple of mismatched pillows on the sofa they got from us, and an ultrasound photo taped to the fridge. It’s definitely better than what I’ll have once Star leaves.

  Shit.

  I don’t even want to think about that. Not yet.

  I’m not ready.

  And the really fucked up part? I don’t think I ever will be.

  Shit.

  I shift the stack of boxes I’ve been building, so that the tower of diapers isn’t in the way if Maisie or York need to get at anything in the kitchen. One of the old guys in the trailer park had let them borrow his pickup truck to get the sofa, and we’d been shuttling it back and forth all day, bringing over everything we thought they could need. I settle the last box onto the stack and wipe the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand before heading over to take a seat at the table, listening with half an ear to Star and Maisie chatting away in the back bedroom. Hauling out one of the mismatched chairs I settle in to wait until they’re done, but as I do my eyes catch on the bowl in the middle of the table. It’s filled with cherries, ripe and red and awesome-looking. It’s also absolutely fucking huge. It’s like if someone had asked the freaking big friendly giant if he wanted some cherries, and then had to keep filling the bowl until the fucker said when.

  The door to the trailer jerks open with a clang and York bounds up the stairs. He must catch me staring at it, because he laughs and settles into the seat across from me. “I wouldn’t touch those if I were you, man,” he says, nodding toward the bowl. “They’re Maisie’s. She’s been craving them like mad ever since the start of her pregnancy.”

  “Seriously?” I’ve heard of pickles and ice cream and crap for pregnant women. But cherries?

  He nods, all grave and shit, but his eyes are full of mischief. He reaches out and kind of spins the bowl around, showing off the fruit. Watching it is almost hypnotic. I’m fucking starving. Hauling stuff around all day is hard work.

  “It was all she talked about for ages, man,” he says. “Cherries. She didn’t want anything else, but they were super expensive and the grocery store ones were terrible since they were out of season.”

  “These ones look pretty good,” I say, mouth watering, and he nods.

  “They are. Season just started. But man, it’s not worth it. I tried to steal some the other day, and I swear to god, I thought she was gonna cut me.” He looks up at me and grins. “I’m kinda thinking I might steal some now, and blame it on you, though.”

  “Fuck, throw me under the bus, why don’t you?” I laugh as he spins the bowl around again. “I’d rather not be the focus of a pissed-off pregnant chick, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “And why would I be pissed off?”

  York and I both jerk violently in our chairs at the voice, and I spin around. Maisie’s standing in the hall, hands on her hips, belly sticking out, eyes darting back and forth between me and York, but she doesn’t look mad. Not really. Instead she look like she’s caught half
way between glaring and laughing at us. Star, on the other hand has gone straight to laughter. She’s standing directly behind Maisie and she looks like she’s about to piss herself, she’s trying so hard not to laugh.

  Guess she doesn’t want Maisie pissed at her, either.

  Little Mama’s gonna be a force to be reckoned with, I think, and grin as Maisie steps forward and scoops the gigantic bowl of cherries off the table and cradles it to her chest like a bear protecting her cubs, glaring at each of us in turn as we burst out laughing.

  ***

  It is weird, but after that, cleaning out her mom’s stuff seems to be less of a chore for Star, and more of a treasure-hunt. All of a sudden, it became less about getting rid of stuff, and instead turned into searching for stuff to give to Maisie and York and the baby.

  “York could use this to fix up the trailer.”

  “Oooh, Maisie would like this, don’t you think?”

  “This would be great for the baby,”

  I hear it a thousand different ways about a thousand different things that Star collects and puts aside, and every couple of days we take a new load of stuff out to the trailer park for them. They are always thrilled, and that makes Star grin like a kid at Christmas.

  “You know,” I say, as she drags another box with the word baby scrawled on the top flap across the room, heading for the front porch. “You can’t save everything for York and Maisie. Otherwise their trailer is going to end up looking like this house. Or worse, considering the fact that this place is a hell of a lot bigger than theirs.” I light my smoke and breathe it in, mentally grinning at the thought of their tiny trailer literally bursting at the seams. But Star isn’t laughing.

  Instead, silence fills the space like a balloon, and I look back over my shoulder at Star. She looks absolutely wrecked. “What?” I ask, panicked. “What is it?”