I chopped at one end of the table and Mr. Golden Sunshine set up shop at the other end. He dusted the table with flour, took out a plastic bin of rising dough, and set about forming a pile of dinner rolls as if I wasn’t there.
Seeing some of River’s past had been weird and kind of disturbing. I guess I hadn’t really believed her when she’d said she’d been dark, before—she was so patently amazing now. I frowned, cutting the tops off the turnips. If she was just as flawed and awful as me, why would I believe anything she said? Could someone really get past all that and be a better, completely different person?
And then, Lorenz’s startling admission about the million Lorenz Juniors running around. That was messed up. And Jess here was obviously a train wreck of a person. Reyn was the personification of someone tortured by his past and never really getting over it. Why were any of us even trying? I kept hoping I was done with all the past-reliving, and then something happened that brought it all up again, like a cat eating grass. My past was standing in the middle of the road, waving its arms, screaming Look at me! But why? Why did any of it matter anymore?
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Reyn’s taut, strong forearms as he kneaded dough and shaped rolls expertly. I tried not to think about him kneading or shaping me.
“Hi hi,” said Anne, pushing through the kitchen door. Her fine black hair swung around her cheeks, and she shoved the sleeves of her green sweater up to her elbows. “I’m setting the table—there will be thirteen at dinner because…”
The door pushed open again, and Anne made a ta-da gesture. “My sister is here! Everyone, this is Amy. Amy, this is Jess, Reyn, and Nastasya.”
“Hi,” said Amy with a smile. She was Anne Lite, with slightly younger features, longer, unstyled mink brown hair falling around her shoulders, and a less polished look altogether. Anne was a teacher; Amy seemed like a student still, if that makes sense.
I realized she was really, really pretty, in a fresh, unmade-up way. Why could some women skip makeup and look “fresh and unmade-up,” but when I skipped it, which I did every day, I looked like I’d been embalmed?
“Wow, it smells great in here!” said Amy, taking the stack of plates that Anne handed her.
“Yeah, we rock,” I said, and took a sip of my wine. It left a warm trail all the way down my throat, and I suppressed the urge to gulp it.
Amy smiled, and then I watched as she caught sight of Reyn, and everything went into slow motion.
Her eyes visibly focused on him. Her smile faltered for just a second, then became wider. It occurred to me that even though I didn’t want him, it had been annoying when Nell had, and now Amy seemed to be falling into the vortex of Viking fabulosity. It burned me. No one but me should see how intensely appealing he was, how beautiful, how deadly. Clearly, Amy could.
“Any hopes for dessert?” she asked Reyn, doing everything but batting her eyelashes.
And Reyn, who was taciturn and tortured with me, gave her an easy smile back. I blinked, practically hearing angels sing. Amy was hypnotized and thrilled, staring into his eyes like a stunned rabbit.
“Yes,” he said, throwing a dish towel over one broad shoulder. “Something chocolate.”
“Excellent.” Amy gave us all another smile and pushed through the doorway after Anne. The kitchen seemed smaller without her.
Many dismaying thoughts whirled through my head like trash on an empty street, but what I came up with was: “Chocolate?”
“I’ll think of something,” he said, and I started to feel totally irrationally furious that he would make something chocolate for her.
I turned my back to him and finished chopping the vegetables, pretending that each one was Reyn’s self-confidence and I was whacking it into bits. I gave them all to Jess, ripped off my apron, then stalked out.
I was 459 years old and full of schoolgirl jealousy over someone I didn’t even want.
Crap.
You’ll be interested to hear that the previous scene was the highlight of my week. Yes. It all slid downhill from there, like a Popsicle off a hot car hood.
I headed to work the next morning, knowing that Meriwether was back at school—it was just me and the charm of Old Mac until that afternoon. Mr. MacIntyre was even angrier and more hostile than usual. I wondered if the holiday had pushed him over the edge.
I did my usual worker-elf routine: putting away stock, tidying, sweeping, sorting out the day’s receipts, and keeping a log of checks to go to the bank. MacIntyre’s Drugs: the store that technology forgot.
Mostly I kept well out of Old Mac’s way, and he spoke hardly two words to me all day. At four, Meriwether came in, her pale hair wind-tossed. She smiled, looking genuinely happy to see me, then headed into the back to clock in and drop off her schoolbag. Her own father made her clock in and keep a time card.
I’d saved some restocking so that she and I could work together without Mr. MacIntyre yelling at us. Soon we were settled down in aisle four, unpacking medicated foot powder and arch supports.
“So how was the New Year’s dance?” I whispered. Old Mac was behind his pharmacy counter, and I didn’t want to waken the beast.
“Both good and icky,” said Meriwether, keeping her voice down. “I had a good time, at first. Lowell was there—he’s really nice, and the DJ was good. And I really liked my dress. I couldn’t believe my dad even let me go. So those were all good.”
“What was bad?” I slid packages onto their little metal supports.
Meriwether made a face. “A bunch of kids crashed the dance. And they were drunk, wasted. They made a big scene, and Mr. Daly tried to kick them out, and then they broke up stuff.”
“Oh, bummer,” I said. “They actually broke things?”
“Yeah. Like one of the DJ’s big speakers, and they fell against the food table and the whole thing collapsed, so all the food was ruined. We were all so pissed.”
“That’s awful,” I said, as images of myself doing similar things to similar nice, undeserving people rolled through my head. “Did you know them?”
“A couple of them. They used to go to my school, but they dropped out. A girl named Dray and some guy named Taylor. Some others I didn’t know.”
My hand paused in midair. Dray? The Dray I was trying to fix? I hadn’t seen her in several weeks, but we’d had a really good talk the last time we’d run into each other. She reminded me uncomfortably of me, and if I saved her before she totally self-destructed, I was adding more points to my side of the board, so to speak.
“That’s too bad,” I said. “They used to go to your school?”
“Yeah. Taylor was a senior last year, but he got kicked out for smoking pot, like, two months before graduation. Dray was in my grade. She was such a bitch. But I always thought maybe she had it bad at home, you know? My dad wouldn’t let her mom shop here anymore, because her checks always bounced.” Meriwether looked unhappy. “But still. That doesn’t mean she can come wreck the only dance my dad ever let me go to.”
“Yeah, I know. What a bummer. Do you think you’ll actually go out with Lowell?” What kind of modern kid is named Lowell?
“I don’t know if my dad will let me. But I can see him at school. We could sit together at lunch sometimes.” Her face brightened, and we finished unloading that crate. The sun had gone down outside, and the dark sky looked gray and sullen because of the clouds hanging low over the town.
“What are you doing?” Mr. MacIntyre’s gruff voice almost made me jump. Since his jar-throwing incident, he had been more subdued, as if that had shocked him into trying to repress his anger a little bit. Meriwether didn’t seem to be holding it against him. I wished I could do more to help her situation. I gestured to the empty plastic crates.
“Taking these out back,” I said, doing just that.
When I returned, Meriwether was dusting the shelves. As Meriwether stuffed the feather duster back under the counter, we heard something drop. Frowning, she leaned down and picked it up. It was a small frame
, and her face fell when she looked at the picture in it. I was dying to see what it was but pretended not to notice, in case she wanted to stuff it out of sight again. Instead she came over and held it out to me.
“This was my mom,” she said in a tiny voice.
In the photo, Meriwether was sitting on a green corduroy sofa, smiling at the camera. She seemed about twelve or thirteen, so it must have been right before her mom died. Her mother looked a lot like Meriwether, but older. I mean, a lot like her. As in, Meriwether would be her twin when she was that age. No wonder Old Mac could hardly stand to be around her. Speaking of Old Mac, my jaw almost dropped. I’d never seen him so normal, so healthy. He was smiling hugely, gazing at his wife, his arm across the back of the sofa. I couldn’t believe how happy he seemed—a completely different person.
“This must be your little brother,” I murmured. He, too, looked happy, sitting securely between his father and Meriwether. Where Meriwether was pale and fair, like her mom, her brother had dark hair and eyes, like Old Mac.
“Yeah. That’s Ben,” she barely whispered, her face tragic.
“What the hell is this?!” The roar surprised us both, and I almost dropped the frame. Mr. MacIntyre stood there, all temporary restraint gone, almost shaking with rage. He shot out a hand and yanked the picture from me, scraping my palm. “How dare you! How dare you take this—” He made the mistake of glancing at the picture, and in a cartoon, he would be the figure that someone had punctured, letting his air out with a hiss. Then he recovered, clutching the picture to his chest and slamming his other hand down on the counter.
“Don’t you ever mention his name again!” His voice, huge and incensed, filled the small store. Meriwether, already stretched thin by his tirade, burst into tears. I wanted to snap my hand out, hiss something strong and dark, make him crumple to his knees. Of course I wouldn’t, shouldn’t, but I was taut, vibrating like a string, ready to leap into action. But I was so mad, so mad that he got to yell at her like this, with no one stopping him. So mad that he blamed Meriwether for being alive. My palms tingled with the urge to just—Taser him with magick.
“You quit yelling at her!” I shouted. “It’s not her fault she didn’t die!” It wasn’t what I meant to say, and of the three of us, I’m not sure who was the most shocked. Meriwether abruptly stopped crying and stared at me, and Old Mac went pale. Then his eyes almost bugged out of his head.
Of course I trundled on. Why would I develop discretion now? “She’s all you have left! You guys have each other! Should she have died, too, so that you’d have no one?”
Meriwether hiccuped in the unnatural silence.
“You shut up!” Mr. MacIntyre screamed, and I took a step back at the look on his face. He was winning the Who’s Madder? contest, hands down. Did that stop me? Nope.
“You’re ruining what life you have left!” I yelled back. “Your business is in the toilet because no one wants to deal with you! Your daughter is afraid of you! You seem like a crazy old man! Is that what you want?” This may have been pushing it. A vein throbbed in his temple, and I wondered if he was going to have a stroke. He seemed speechless, so enraged that he literally couldn’t spew hate fast enough.
Finally his mouth opened, and I braced myself.
“You’re fired!” he bellowed. “Fired! Get the hell out of here! I never want to see your face again! And you stay away from my daughter!”
I blinked. Naively, I had not actually expected to get fired. I thought we would all yell for a while, then fume silently for several days, followed by a month of passive-aggression. But fired? Crap. I was supposed to have a job. For my personal growth.
“Fired?” I tried to sound brave.
“Fired!” he shouted again. “Get your stuff and get out!”
“Fine!” I turned and stomped to the back, where I grabbed my coat and my time card. Then I stomped toward the front. “Here!” I said, smacking my time card down on the counter. “You owe me for six days, since before New Year’s!”
“Get out!” he screamed.
I faced Meriwether, who looked like nothing so much as a trembling aspen. “Hang in there,” I told her. “Sorry your dad’s such a bastard.”
Her eyes widened, and Old Mac drew in a furious breath. I stomped outside into the dark, only to remember that I now had to go home and admit I was fired. That I was unable to keep a job that a reasonably bright chimp could do. Ugh.
As soon as I was out of sight of MacIntyre’s Drugs, I slowed down. Stupidly, I had walked in the wrong direction—my car was parked behind me. But there was no way I would walk past that bright picture window again.
I gritted my teeth, angry and agitated. What a terrible scene. He’d actually fired me. And had I also hurt Meriwether with my words? Her face had been bloodless. Crap. I saw that I was in front of Early’s Feed and Farmware, our local general store. I went in.
What was I going to tell River? Everything is a choice. Everything. Including shouting awful things at one’s boss, causing one to get one’s ass fired.
I headed to the candy section, and after some agonized deliberation got some sour apple Now and Laters. Which everyone knows should be called Now or Laters.
I was in the middle of checking out, giving the cashier my money, when I happened to glance toward the back of the store. I saw a familiar flash of green-streaked brown hair. Dray!
The boy was counting out my change, so I couldn’t go over to her, but I tried to catch her eye. Which is why I saw her boosting some batteries, slipping them off their holder and shoving them under her jacket.
My heart fell.
“Miss?” The boy held out my receipt.
“Thanks.” I took it and headed for the exit, going over all the ways this day had sucked. Outside I leaned against the building and unwrapped a Now and Later. It had started to snow; fine white flakes were drifting down, already sticking to the cars parked along the street.
I didn’t have to wait long. Dray came out a few minutes later, walking casually through the doors and then hooking a sharp right and starting to speed up.
“Yo.”
She turned at my voice and saw me. I held out an N and L. She hesitated, not quite stopping.
“It’s sour apple,” I said in a coaxing, singsong voice.
She made a face and took it from my hand.
“How are things?” I asked.
She shrugged, not looking at me. “Fine.”
“Me too. Thanks for asking.”
She shrugged again and put the candy in her mouth.
I decided that quizzing her about her holidays was probably a bad idea. “So… what have you been up to?”
“The usual. Volunteering at church. Reading to the blind.” She chewed with her mouth open slightly, watching the snow fall.
“Have you thought more about getting out of here?” The last time we’d talked, before the holidays, I’d urged her to leave West Lowing in her rearview mirror.
Her heavily rimmed eyes shifted to me. “No. What’s wrong with being here?” Her tone was belligerent. It was like looking into a mirror from six months earlier. Or even from a week ago. Gosh, it must be so rewarding for other people to interact with me.
“I thought you want to get out of here, get away from people who can’t appreciate your inner beauty,” I said. The sour apple tingled in the back of my throat.
She was bored. “I’m fine.” It was like she had taken the online correspondence course called “You Can Be Nasty, Too!”
And just as people dealing with me soon lose their patience, I lost mine.
“Is that why you’re nicking batteries from Early’s?”
She frowned. “Nicking?”
“Stealing.”
She rolled her eyes. Snowflakes were landing on her head and melting against her hair. It was supercold, and I’d just gotten fired and possibly really hurt Meriwether’s feelings.
“Dray, c’mon, we talked,” I said. “I told you that you should get out of this one-Wal-M
art town. Why are you here, stealing stuff?”
“Who are you?” she snapped. “My social worker? What gives you the right to tell me anything?”
Probably a regular person would have realized the truth in her words at this point and backed off. That’s so not me.
“I’m someone you should listen to!” I snapped back. “I know more than you, have done more than you, have been more worse-off than you! I’m more you than you’ll ever be! And you know and I know that this town is going to drag you down! You’re hanging around with losers, doing stupid-ass stuff like crashing school dances and lifting batteries, for God’s sake—and now you’re standing here like everything’s fine? Come on!”
Dray stared at me, furious. “Screw you!” Her voice was loud, and some women leaving Early’s looked over at us. “You’re so together? You have no family, no friends—you’re in rehab at some stupid farm, and you’re working at a freaking drugstore in the middle of East Jesus! And you’re lecturing me? You never even graduated high school! You’re a big joke!”
My mouth opened to defend myself, then shut abruptly. I had no family, I’d left all my friends, I was in a much more serious rehab situation than she knew, I’d actually gotten fired from my pathetic job, and I have not ever actually graduated from any high school, as it turns out.
When you put it that way, maybe I should curl up in a snowbank and not freeze to death.
She sneered at the look on my face. “Truth hurts, huh?”
“That is such a cliché,” I muttered.
“You’re a cliché,” she said coldly. “You’re going around trying to help people, but you’re such a screwup yourself! And you can’t see it!”
“I can see I’m a screwup!” That didn’t come out the way I’d intended.
I totally recognized her mean, defensive face. “Yeah, I bet. Go off and take care of your own problems. Leave me alone.” She turned and headed off into the night.
“Dray!” I yelled, with zero plan for anything to say after that.
Without turning around, she shot me the finger.