Was she saying…?
“So, I take the kids in that age group,” she declared.
Yes.
She was saying that.
“Twelve, thirteen years old, one girl is fourteen,” she went on. “They hang at the soda fountain. I have an area in the back for them to do their homework. They also have a TV back there. I give them stuff to do to help out around the store, and when they do, I throw some cash their way. Nothing huge, but enough they know their time and energy isn’t taken for granted. And this surprised me, but they like that the best. Guess it shouldn’t surprise me, though, because anyone likes to feel useful. They also like having cash in their pockets. I also think it makes them feel grown up. Sometimes I come up with fun shit they can do. Or my staff does. Like they play DJ and spin tunes for the shop, shit like that. Sometimes we do field trips.”
She shrugged.
And then she kept talking.
“The Ethiopian restaurant up the way is run by a big family. They pay a couple of local teenagers to clean, bus, do dishes, but the kids also watch a few of the younger ones. They have some space above the restaurant, and since they have a big family, there are lots of people to keep an eye on them. Gina, my fourteen-year-old in group, sometimes she’ll go down and stay with them if they’re busy in the restaurant and there isn’t anyone that can be around for the kids. Not for long, though. They usually have five or more kids, that’s too much for Gina for too long. Those kids also sometimes come here if there are too many of them. And if there’s overflow, or if one of the kids isn’t feeling well, the dry cleaners across the way is run by a couple, and her mom lives with them. She’s too old to work the machines, but she isn’t too old to look after kids and she loves doing it.”
She took another sip.
Jagger stared at her through that sip.
Then she kept going.
“Obviously, to be included, the kids have to behave. They have to do their homework and follow rules. That’s how the Harris boys got kicked. It sucks, but I had to do it. They were messing up the others. Behavior problems sparking through all of them because the Harrises didn’t have their shit together and wouldn’t get it together. Then again, their parents are fucked up, don’t care where their boys are or what they’re doing. This is why I think Mal started acting up and he also had to go. He was stealing. There was backtalk. He was being ugly to the other kids. I worried that something was happening at school. Freya said she wasn’t seeing it. I asked Mal, he wasn’t talking about it. I asked the others, they don’t snitch. I had no choice but to let him go. Now I know those boys are screwing with him.”
She definitely knew that.
“So, I’m at a crossroads,” she continued. “I’d lose his trust if I told his mom, and I need his trust. But his mom needs to know. I have him back now, and I can work on him. And I just have to see where that leads me.”
“So, you’re the village,” he stated.
She tipped her head to the side in a silent, What?
“Any of the parents pay you guys for looking after their kids?”
“That’s the point. They have mouths to feed, roofs to keep over heads, and that’s hard enough. They needed to make decisions that no parent should make. And this lightens the load, sometimes just the worry, because most of the kids were looking out for themselves. But for the others, it lightens it financially and that’s significant.”
Oh, he got it.
“You got all these people to look after their own,” he explained. “You’re the village.”
She was quiet a second.
Then she said, “Everything is monetized, even stuff that shouldn’t be. At least not to the extent it is. Healthcare, childcare. And it’s no skin off my nose to have those kids hang with me for a couple of hours between school and their parents being home. Occasionally, there’s a headache. Martin brought the flu in once, everyone got it, and that was a drag. But when I moved here, I moved into a community. For the most part, folks looked after each other already, but it wasn’t as organized. Now it’s tighter. And it’s appreciated. I can’t say Mal’s mom is a good friend of mine. I can say she saw me and Elijah fighting and she came over that night with a bottle and we hung out and bitched about family stuff. I needed that but didn’t think to reach out to anyone to ask for it. So…”
She was done talking because she said no more.
He wanted to get into her fighting with Elijah.
But they both had days to get on with and they were already into something deep and he suspected that’d only take them deeper.
So Jag stuck with the subject.
“How do you not have problems with a bunch of middle schoolers?”
She surprisingly had a ready answer.
“Because kids know things. You can’t protect them. They know. Every one of them knows they’re either alone in their house and their mom and/or dad is worried about them the entire time. Or they feel like a drain because their folks have to pay someone to watch them and they don’t have the means to do that without everyone feeling it. I can’t say they’re angels twenty-four seven. They’re humans. They have moods. They can act like dicks. I think it was a shock, in the beginning, that they had someone who understood that and didn’t get up in their shit about it. The road was bumpy starting out. Then respect formed. So mostly, now we all get on with it.”
“You do know how fucking cool this is, right?”
Those pretty black eyes shifted to his shoulder.
“No. I know that I had a dad who was clueless, a brother who was pissed off at the world and I needed to step up when I should have been able to be a kid. I don’t blame either of them. It was what it was. But did I want to be doing laundry and cooking food and vacuuming and running interference and making sure my big brother did his homework? No. I wished I had someone to step in and let me be a kid. So these kids get to be kids at school. And they get to be kids after school. And they know someone gives a shit. And then they get to go home and be part of a family. I didn’t have that. No one stepped in for me. I didn’t feel like a part of a family. I felt like I was the only thing holding my family together. It’s not like I’m Mother Teresa. I’m just a good neighbor.”
Oh yeah.
They had a lot to go over when they had more time.
“Right, well, whether you get it or not, it’s fucking cool. And just saying, that’s what my Club is about. We look out for each other. We do all right now, money is good, no one is hurting. But there were times, and when those times came, the brothers and their old ladies had each other’s backs.” He took a sip of his coffee and reiterated, “It is really cool, Archie. More people should think like you. No, not just think like you. Think like you and do something about it.”
She sidestepped the compliment again, and said, “So the universe as we know it is what we think it to be, and things work out with us, I’m gonna be your ‘old lady’?”
“Yup.”
Her lips tipped up, her eyes went hooded and that was how she shared her approval of that before she sipped more coffee.
“Now, back to the subject, the Harris brothers,” he prompted.
She gave a nod.
“Their parents suck. I’m no counselor, I don’t have years under my belt dealing with kids, but I talked with Freya and I tried a number of different ways to get through to them, and nothing worked. I’m not going to go so far as say they’re bad seeds. Especially Allan, he’s mostly a good kid, but he sticks to Aaron like glue, to his detriment. But dealing with them is beyond my scope.”