“Well?” Ranger squeezed tighter in an attempt to make me bend to his will.
I gasped quietly, unwilling to give in. After a few more seconds of our impasse, I tried pulling away. Useless. He continued the iron shackle routine even with Ms. Norma staring at us, confused. An unconcerned Ranger gave her a jovial wave with his unoccupied hand. A throb pulsed inside my wrist, but I flatly refused to speak. Didn’t even care if my hand withered up from lack of circulation and fell to the floor.
“You’re just gonna quit on me then, huh?” He laughed sharply. “Didn’t take you for a quitter, Glasses. But I guess I was wrong about you— again. You have absolutely zero potential.”
I still refused to meet his eye.
“Pathetic!” Ranger flung my hand away and abruptly stood, threatening as a skyscraper in a sandbox. He scooped up the last remaining bill and slipped it into his back pocket. “I was going to leave a dollar—not that you deserve it, but I do like to give back . . . And you definitely strike me as a charity case,” he sneered.
I tried hard not to flinch when he leaned over to whisper, “So here’s your tip instead: Get yourself a tailor. Your ill-fitting uniform’s gonna cost you more tips than you can make here.”
With that parting shot, Ranger plucked the cherry from the ice cream and popped it into his mouth. Something about the way he looked at me made me catch my breath. But he didn’t say anything more, just pushed passed me to leave. He started to bypass an oncoming, smiling Norma and changed his mind midstride.
“Thanks for the free meal,” Ranger grinned. “It was e-Normas-ly kind of you.” A follow up wink and he barreled through the door, the abused bell shrieking after him.
Ms. Norma got caught out in the aisle, turning two shades of pink and quivering with the eleventh-hour realization that she might’ve been had. She one-eightied, once again, and bustled away at the same time Baseball Cap took his stand. I took back full plates to pass the awkward moment. A cleared throat indicated some sort of apology was to take place.
“Save it,” I said, halting him palm up. I stared at him through foggy glasses, with tear-stained cheeks, and grease-stained clothing, but with all the pride bred into me as a Connelly. “I don’t want or need your pity.”
Before he could say anything, I escaped and fled through the same swinging doors as Ms. Norma.
4
DON’T BITE THE HAND
THAT FEEDS YOU
Shoulders slumped and sniffling, I sped home with a tinfoil-covered dish full of Norma’s meatloaf for the boys rolling around the back— her idea of an apology. I wondered if actually feeding it to them could be considered child abuse. I feared I was failing them and sniffed again, letting it all out before facing my father. Daddy would have zero sympathy for me crying over a couple of guys hassling me. This would only conjure another lecture. And I didn’t think I could take another lecture tonight. Plus, he didn’t really want me working outside the home, even though the money sure was useful. I’d barely talked him into letting me work there weekends so didn’t want to give him an excuse to make me quit.
I auto-drove down the packed dirt road, stopping at our mailbox, which was cemented into a bald tire by the side of the road. This was the only marker that let people know where we lived. You couldn’t see our house from the road, not just because it was a long, low thing, but also because it was too far away. You’d have to drive past the Keep Out! sign nailed to the fence post and follow the tractor tracks two miles, snaking your way through rotting pasture to find it.
I remembered riding my bike determinedly down that bumpy road to retrieve our mail, Blue following closely at my heels as a frisky puppy. A happier time for our family, to be sure.
I sniffed again, noticing I was too stopped up to really appreciate the aroma wafting over from the backseat—a bright light in an otherwise dark night. I quickly sorted through the junk mail, bills, and requisite weekly church bulletin to what I was saving for last. When my fingers registered what it was, my heart sank at once. I glared at the thick, expensive envelope embossed with a roaring lion symbol.
Another one. Can’t these people take a hint?
A flicker of anger at Andrew’s well-meaning teachers flared in my chest. For once, Daddy was completely justified in the raucous he threw at the school when he found out. “Busy bodies that had no business interfering,” Daddy had said, and I agreed. Last year they had sent some of his creative writing samples and standardized test scores to a few exalted boarding schools without our knowledge. Each had accepted him promptly. All were firmly and impolitely rejected by Daddy, who was furious at the intimation that Andrew would be better off at a boarding school than home with us. Andrew was his pride and joy; there was no way he was going to part with him. And he promised Mama he would never send any of us away to special schools, which sounded plain crazy at the time.
Where would we possibly go?
I guess she had more than an inkling of his academic giftedness early on. Actually, we were all pretty good at school stuff (I filed the understatement under inbred modesty). Andrew just happened to be exceptional . . . at everything, really. Is that why she yanked him out of kindergarten overnight? That made a lot of sense, because overprotectiveness was the one parenting ideal both my parents could get behind.
I pondered our family situation further as I bumped my way to our house, slowing to a crawl over the more serious potholes. I guess it was a big deal to be so sought after that schools were willing to throw in free room-and-board, in addition to tuition. That was just it though—it was too generous. I mean I knew Drewy was gifted, but surely there were plenty of other academically-abled-fish-in-the-sea who were more willing to bite? Well no matter mind, this elite academy would eventually give up when they continued to get no response from us. Maybe I should just tell them we already accepted another offer?
Lying was never a good option for me though. I was terrible at it and made all the rooky mistakes: stuttering, looking away, adding random, unnecessary details to avoid actually having to say the lie out right. Mama always busted me right away the few times I tried to get away with deceiving her. She told me to scratch attorney or spy off my list of future occupations.
A picture of her flashed unbidden in my mind. I usually tried to repress the memories because they were still too painful to think about. Since I’d already broken down a few times tonight, I figured one more time would just be an encore. Closing my eyes, I allowed myself to really see her, as she was when she was healthy, smiling at me like I was the best thing she’d seen all day. She was half Cherokee and beautiful in a way that was unique—like an exotic flower blooming amongst a bed of drooping roses.
I remembered how proud I was that she was my mother, how everyone seemed to be especially nice to her. She was light personified. Love radiated from her like heat from a flickering fireplace on a cold day. That feeling a child has, and takes for granted, of being cared for vanished right along with her. Her light snuffed out forever. Ashes all that was left. I shivered as the lonely feeling I’d grown accustomed to permeated my whole being.
I cut off the overheated engine and sat for a while in the dark, listening to the engine tick down. The buzzing insects in my ear were a comfort, almost like friends, or at least friends’ watered-down cousins—acquaintances. Blue’s shrill bark echoed in the dark, welcoming me home and alerting Daddy to my arrival.