I tried to keep the venom from mine. How could he hide this from me? “Yes. He is. What am I doing with him? Is he starting today?”
“If he can start today, that’d be just fine,” dad said. “Make sure he signed all the papers and show him around. I’ll have to get him a nametag this week.”
A nametag. I couldn’t believe dad wasn’t making me do an interview, or coming back to do the interview himself. The kid was getting a nametag and a job that simply? Or maybe dad had done some questioning yesterday when I wasn’t around.
Dad rambled about needing to pay for his lunch, so I hung up the phone. Taking a deep breath, I tried to smile again as I met the boy’s awaiting stare. “Alright, well, if you can start work today he says that’d be great.”
Dreadlocks nodded.
Wow, you’re going to be an outgoing one, I thought. My legs felt like jelly as I got off my chair. “Ok, well, let’s get started with showing you around. In case you don’t already know, I’m Rose, Cory’s daughter.” I held out a hand.
He stared at my fingers. Inside his jean pockets, his own curled into fists and I withdrew. Awk—ward. He had no intention of doing the professional thing and shaking hands with me. That much was clear.
“Don’t take it personally,” he mumbled.
I just stared. How could one not take that personally? “Ok, um, back here on the computer, this is Race.” I slapped the boy’s broad shoulder. Hard. “Race, say hello, please.”
Race rotated and gave a nod. “What’s up, bro?”
Dreadlocks nodded back. Again, no verbal reply.
“Now if you come back this way, I’ll show you our store room.” I swiveled around.
He followed behind me at a distance. I tried to read the messy signature he’d put on the code of ethics, but it might as well have been a celebrity’s signature: it was totally indecipherable. I was still too nervous to directly ask him his name, though eventually I’d have to. I couldn’t call him Dreadlocks Boy forever… or could I?
In the back, I showed him around the store room and introduced him to Preston and Greg—who was back to work and being considerably quiet today. Both boys waved, and at least Dreadlocks gave a small wave in reply.
All the while I kept asking myself why dad had taken to such a hermit. He had hired some strange people in the past, but at least they had been social, or had some kind of background in mechanics and automobiles. Why had he hired this one and why be so secretive about it?
I ran through the apparel racks out front, the east wall where parts were located, and of course the main floor where the quads and bikes were displayed. My explanations were speedy, mostly because I was growing more unnerved with the minute. He might’ve been pleasant to look at, but that was the only pleasant thing about him. It’s easy for me to pick up on peoples’ auras, whether they are a happy or negative person… It was difficult for me to read this one. All I knew was that he made me feel cold and tense. I didn’t like it.
“Dad usually puts whatever’s new up front. Sometimes it’s quads, sometimes it’s dirt bikes.” I walked along the front row where we were currently displaying both. “Or sometimes he puts quads and bikes up front. It all depends.” Reluctantly, I swirled around to face the boy. “Any questions?”
He was watching the floor now. He shook his head, not even pretending to look at the quads with me.
This made my temper slip. I blurted, “Do you speak or what?”
That gained his attention, and those dusty blue eyes iced over. He shot me a look, hatred pooling behind his pupils. “Yes. I do,” he said clearly. Dangerously. “Do I have to verbally reply to what you say? If you were paying any attention at all you’d see I was listening just fine.”
“S—sorry,” I said, shrinking back. And I was sorry. Frightened even. If it’d been Race who’d snapped back just then, I’d have shoved him off his feet. But I had no desire to threaten this boy, open a can of boss-daughter-whoop-ass. Not one bit.
“Any other questions?” Dreadlocks glared, scanning me up and down. It was like he was searching for weakness, noting my faults.
The sweat clouded my forehead. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
I was saved by the bell. The bell on the front doors jingled, and the sound of dad’s voice hit my ears. “So he looks at me and says, ‘Well, Cory, I’ve never had to use an automatic before!’ Ha!” Dad strolled over and tossed his lunch on the counter.
Thank God. I motioned with a hand for Hayden to follow as I strode over.
“So I told the kid, ‘Look, if you can’t even operate the thing properly, you shouldn’t be out driving it.’ Simple enough.” Dad passed a bag over the counter. “Race, half-pound bacon with Swiss.”
Joe was happily sipping his soda when he caught sight of me. I gave him a wide-eyed look that only he could see, then mouthed the word, help. Slowly, Joe set his drink down on the counter, examining my follower.
“Dad.” I stopped a few feet in front of him.
Dad turned, and a grin lit his face. “Aw! There’s my new worker!” He stepped forward and held out his hand. “Hey there, Hayden! Did Rosie give you the tour or the shop?”
I gaped as Dreadlocks—er—Hayden actually shook dad’s hand, though he withdrew it as fast as he could. Joe’s face went white.
“Yes.” Hayden barely flicked his eyes at me. “She did.”
I gritted my teeth. We are not going to get along. No chance at all of us working together in peace. Long as this one kept his attitude, I’d be keeping my distance. Dad and I were going to have a serious talk about this tonight.
“Excellent, excellent.” Dad bobbed his head, then clapped his hands together. “Alright! Well, lets get you started. I’ll show you the cash register, then we’ll kick Race off the computer and I’ll show you where to order stuff, and uh… yeah. We’ll go from there.” He waved a hand and Hayden obediently followed him around the counter.
“Rose.” Joe’s voice was soft, but his face was the opposite. “Come on back with me to the office, will you?”
I didn’t hesitate.
Once we were in the safety of the back room, Joe exploded. “This is your father’s new employee?! Did you know about this? Who is this kid?”
“An ass,” I snarled. I poured out the whole story in the office, starting from the time Hayden came up to the counter to his frosty final words. “Gah! The steam was practically shooting out the punk’s nostrils for God’s sake! Jeez, I haven’t been that scared of one of dad’s employees since—since… ever!”
“I know, Rose.” Joe was sitting in dad’s chair, unwrapping his lunch. Unlike me, he was calming down already. “And I’ll be keeping tabs on this one. Where’s his papers anyway?”
I flopped into a chair, thinking. “Oh. On the counter out front,” I recalled. “I should’ve read over them I guess, but I didn’t want to give the kid another reason to attack me.”
“Yeah, well, he attacks you again I’ll fire him with or without your father’s say. Did you even see him talking to the kid about an application yesterday? Was I just too busy with customers and missed it?”
“I don’t know. He probably did it while we were both occupied, though I don’t think that was intentional.” Think, being the key word there.
The room fell quiet with the exception of a buzzing ceiling light, the one dad said he was going to fix and kept procrastinating. Why couldn’t he have procrastinated about hiring another employee, too? Joe must’ve felt the tension in the air because he changed subjects. “Are you permanently moved in at your dad’s now?”
I blinked at him. “Sort of.”
“Are you going to stay there?”
My body stiffened as I realized where this subject was going. “I hope so.”
“Are you going to be there? You know, at the—”
“Please don’t make me talk about the wedding.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t want to think about another frustrating subject today.”
“I wasn’t going to make you.” H
e put his hands up in surrender.
I sighed. The subject swap had made me antsy. “I’m gonna go grab some Starbucks,” I decided, getting up. “Back in a bit.”
“Take your time,” he said, tone suggesting it was probably a wise idea.
I snatched my purse from under the counter while dad and Hayden had their backs turned. Dad was showing him how to operate the cash register—bad idea in my opinion. I was about to pass the counter when something caught my eye.
Hayden’s papers sat near the counter’s edge. They were still all together, right where I left them. Untouched. I ran my tongue along my bottom teeth, giving the pair one last look. Neither of them was paying attention to me.
Quick and silent, I swiped the papers and strutted to the door… *
I sat in the car a while after I’d parked at the coffee house. Taking a deep breath after driving like a maniac, I stared at the passing people going in and out of the building. I wondered what they were thinking, what they were feeling. I was pretty sure none of them were feeling as wired as I was all of a sudden.
A tall woman with wavy hair walked into the shop. Maybe it was because of Joe’s words, but I thought suddenly of mom. This woman wasn’t as thin of course, and her eyes weren’t as blue. My mother had been gifted with cobalt eyes.
I lolled my head against the seat. She was also gifted with NCSD. No Common Sense Disorder. Sometimes dad called it SBM. Severe Brain Malfunction. No one knew that I would willingly snap an arm and a leg just to see her say no at the wedding in November. Just to watch her look into that man’s empty-hearted eyes at the end of the aisle and say, “I don’t.” Then maybe I’d see fit to forgive her for her stupidity.
My eyes watered and blurred my vision. I wiped the tears away on the sleeve of my shirt, leaving mascara streaks across both of them. “Nice,” I said aloud. It was probably all over my face, too.
I stretched over to grab my purse for some tissue, then stopped. Reaching underneath, I snatched Hayden’s papers instead. Propping them on the steering wheel, I set aside the code of ethics and went straight for the actual application. His hand writing was difficult to decipher.
I made it through the first line. Hayden O’Conner. No middle name. Date of birth, July 10th, 1991. Same year as me. So he was eighteen, too. Why wasn’t he in school? USA Citizen, yes. Home address, 165 Brelway St. Apartment 308. Los Angeles, CA. Phone number, 323-730-1283. Hmm. Sounded pretty typical. Employment desired, any. Employed now, no. That didn’t surprise me. I didn’t pay attention to his previous employment section, either. Applied here before, no. Education—
I paused. He’d dropped out of school in seventh grade, though he’d written home schooled on the line below and four years after it. I made a face. He probably got kicked out of school. Flipping the page over, I scanned the next set of information, getting a little uptight as I passed over the legal stuff.
Ever been convicted of a crime, yes.
My heart stuttered.
When, five years ago. Why, got into a fight.
I exhaled. At least that record was five or so years old, though he could’ve easily lied anywhere on this page. He didn’t seem like the trustworthy type to me. I read down over his list of references. There were only two. The first one read, Lea Chardon. Relationship, friend/room mate. I didn’t bother with the contact information. The second one read, Drake Versoza. Relationship, friend/room mate. Weren’t family references frowned upon? I wondered if these were the two boys that had been with him yesterday, though Lea sounded odd for a boy name.
I replaced the papers on the passenger seat. The rest of it was just stuff he’d signed for dad. Nothing interesting or that I hadn’t seen before. Taking one last deep breath, I exited the car, thinking my coffee was going to need an extra shot. *
Hey! Where’d you go? You just left this afternoon! And yuck, what kind of kid is this your dad hired?! I tried to have a conversation with him and he just stared at me like I was a loser. I don’t like him. Period. There’s something weird about him. Joe thinks so too. You’d better come back tomorrow.
My nails tapped my desk as I finished reading Race’s Myspace message. That made three of us who thought Hayden was a real piece of work. I wrote back saying I didn’t like him either, that he looked at me like he wanted to eat my flesh and I wasn’t coming to work tomorrow.
I was reading an irritating message from mom, who was trying to persuade me to come to the beach with her this weekend instead of riding in San Bernardino (huh, yeah right) when the front door opened. Dad was home. After typing a speedy reply, I signed off and left the computer.
I leaned against the hallway wall, arms crossed. “Well, hey there!” Dad exclaimed, pulling off his shoes. “How’s the homework coming? You seemed awful intent to get home today after you took off.” I said nothing. I just glared, unblinking. He hated that.
“What?” Dad set his bag on the top shelf of the closet, eyebrows quirked.
“Rosie. What’s the matter?” I pursed my lips. Where to start? “Please tell me you’re not as oblivious as you’re acting. If so, I’m going to be very worried.”
“Well, I try not to be,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Ok, what’s going on, Rose? What’ve I done now?”
“When did Hayden talk to you about getting a job at the shop?”
“Is that what this is about?”
“Yes, dad. It is.”
He looked like a deer in the headlights. “Well, uh, Monday wasn’t it? When his little group was in the shop?” He scratched his head. “While you were in the back I was ringing up Blondie’s stuff. He asked me if I had any job openings. Said his friend was in desperate need of a job, that he knew a lot about motorized vehicles… Hayden came over, we talked a few minutes, and I gave him an application. Now what’s the big deal?”
My eyes were coming out of their sockets by the time he said, ‘I gave him an application’. “The big deal? Dad, do you have SBM?” I spat. “Can you not see the kid is a little bit, well, scary?”
“Oh come on, Rose!” He waved a hand through the air, like that was the silliest thing he’d ever heard. “Aren’t you the one always saying never judge a book by its cover? He’s not as bad as you think, and he knows more about dirt bikes and quads than Preston or Greg or even Race do! The kid’s a smarty. Heck, it only took me five minutes to show him how to do the cash register and make orders online! He was answering phones and taking care of people within the first hour!”
“You mean… he actually answered a phone?” I gaped, remembering how he preferred giving me the silent treatment. Was I the only one? “Using his voice?”
“Uh, the last time I checked, you had to use your voice in order to answer a phone.” Dad chuckled and shut the closet. “Why are you so surprised? You act like I hired a psycho.”
“Dad, the kid’s a jerk!” I tailgated him as he moved to the kitchen. “He wouldn’t look at me, he wouldn’t shake my hand when I introduced myself. I asked him if he ever talked and he gave me a stare so cold it made icicles look hot!”
“Rose, you’re being a drama queen. And he’s a shy boy.” Dad poked around in the fridge. “Let him warm up to you a little.”
“Ugh, Dad!” I was reaching my limit.
When you buy a new budgie or a guinea pig, you let things ‘warm up’. Not when you hire a kid who was a middle school drop out and got into fights.
“Will you listen?! I am trying to tell you something here! The. Kid. Scares. Us!”
This caught his attention. He glanced up from the fridge. “What do you mean, us?”
“Uh, us! As in me, the boys, and Joe all agree!” I waved my hands around. “Something is not right with that kid, dad! We all feel it but you!”
Dad blinked, then spooned some left over Chinese food onto a plate. He didn’t speak as he laid a damp paper towel over the top and stuck it in the microwave. “Alright, Rose,” he said after a minute. “I don’t see a problem with him except that he’s a kid in financial need right now. But
I’ll watch him. If he’s going to be an issue with my employees—or my daughter—I guess… I guess I’ll let him go.”
I clamped my hands to my hips. “You promise?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Ok… Thank you.”
He nodded, not really paying attention. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Did you finish your homework?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He went and plopped down on the sofa. Picking up the remote, he clicked on the television.
I remained in the kitchen. He wasn’t happy with me, I knew. He hated it when people challenged his say, which is probably why Joe and I were the only ones with the guts to do it. Dad—like most men—hated being told he was wrong, and I didn’t usually disagree with him.
But this time… this was an exception.
5) Foe Or Felon
School was a blur the next day. I paid little attention to Mrs. Jansen’s speech on food safety, and I made the mistake of telling Chanel about Hayden. She was all over the subject, desperate for every detail, insisting she was going to come check him out because he sounded so hot. I stopped her, of course, giving her a firm warning to stay away from the shop until I sorted things out.
By last class I had a headache from not eating much and a decision to make: go to work, or go home? Making my way to the parking lot after last bell, I had decided: I was going to drive home. Heck, one day away from the shop. Nobody would miss me, and it would probably be good to unwind. I needed to stop worrying about this kid… even if my gut was telling me not to.
I was about to get into the car when my cell buzzed in the pocket of my cardigan. I pulled it out to discover a text from Race, who was usually one of those people that didn’t text you unless you text him first. I had not texted him recently.
YOU’D BETTER BE ON YOUR WAY I scuffed, deleting the message and found my inbox had another waiting to be read. This one was from Preston—another person who didn’t text me often—and it was sent barely a minute after Race’s.
WE MEAN IT
“Jeez!” I hurled my stuff into the passenger seat. They rarely ever got clingy unless the sole purpose was to be annoying. Maybe something really was out of place. That did it. Home could wait. I couldn’t just leave them there, though why they were depending on my presence to save the situation, I had no clue.
A Taste of Silver Page 5