He shrugs. “I’m trying to find something you’ll actually like. So you’re up next.”
“Yes, I am. And since we’re all into this matching up the career day to our traits I guess I should find a career for you that involves ironing T-shirts or using lots of hair product.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I use very little hair product.” We ride the elevator back down. “So next Saturday, same time?”
I try to mentally picture the calendar on the back counter of the store. I don’t remember if there’s a birthday party written in. “Yeah . . . yes,” I correct myself, giving him a smile to let him know I found his dad’s correction irritating as well. “I think that’ll work.” We wait while the car is brought around. “Oh, and wear your crappiest clothes.”
Chapter 16
I meet Xander on the curb Saturday, trying to avoid the same situation as last week. My mom seems to be buying the “kid from school” routine and until she forces me to introduce him I’m going to stick with it. He turns off the car and gets out before he realizes I’m standing there.
He’s wearing nice jeans, an even nicer T-shirt, and some loafer-type shoes.
I point at his clothes. “Seriously? Didn’t I say the crappiest clothes you have?”
He walks straight up to me. Normally he’s a whole head taller than me, but with him in the gutter and me still on the curb, my eyes are level with his chin.
“Hi to you, too.”
I haven’t seen him for a week. He was traveling for some sort of business stuff with his dad. For a minute I think he’s going to hug me and my breath catches, but then he looks down at his outfit. “These are the crappiest clothes I have.”
I give him a shove, satisfying the urge I had to touch him. “You’re full of crap.” But I know he’s serious. “Okay, we’ll have to make a pit stop on the way there.”
We drive several blocks, and I point to the Salvation Army parking lot. “First stop, new outfit. Come. Let us reclothe you.”
We step inside and the musty smell that only exists in the presence of old furniture greets me. It reminds me of Skye because we spend so much time in places like this. “Shoe size?” I ask.
“Twelve . . . Wait . . . we’re getting shoes here? I don’t know if I can wear shoes other people have worn.”
“I think you just made a philosophical statement. Now suck it up, baby, because it’s that or ruin your pretty shoes.”
“I’m okay with ruining my shoes.”
“Wait. Did I give you a choice? Never mind, you obviously can’t be trusted with choices. We are buying your shoes here.” I drag him to the shoe section. There are only three choices in his size. I pick him out the most hideous ones—high tops with neon laces. Then I put him to work trying on clothes.
While he’s in the dressing room I look through the sweatshirt section. Flipping through the rack, I stop. In between an awful neon orange sweatshirt and a University blue one is a black dress. It has hand-sewn beading, a sweetheart neckline, and cap sleeves. I check the size. It would fit me. I bite my lip and look at the price tag: forty bucks. That’s expensive for a thrift store. But it’s priced right. The dress looks vintage. The best find I’ve ever come across. The fact that it’s hidden between two sweatshirts makes me know someone else has their eye on it, too, hiding it in hopes to come back later. But forty dollars is way beyond my price point. I still haven’t been paid this month and I’m debating whether I’m going to cash my paycheck anyway. My mom can’t afford to pay me. My piddly paycheck won’t make much of a difference to my mom’s debt, but it would make me feel a little better.
“I’m trying not to think about who wore these before,” Xander yells from the dressing room.
“Do you need a tissue or are you going to stop crying? Come out here and let me see.”
I move the next sweatshirt on the rack to cover the black dress. Even if I had forty bucks, where would I ever wear a dress like that anyway? To some fancy event with Xander? I hope I’m not turning into that girl, the one who daydreams about a guy she can never have.
The dressing room curtain slides open and Xander steps out while still buttoning the bottom few buttons of the flannel shirt. “I feel like a dork.”
“It’s good to feel like a dork once in a while. Now you just need a sweatshirt.”
“I have my jacket.”
“You mean your really expensive trench coat? Yeah, not going to work.” I pull a gray one off a hanger next to me and throw it over two racks of clothes to him.
“Okay, I’m going to change back into my clothes now.”
“No. You’re wearing those out of here, boy. Come on, meet me at the register.” I give the dress one last look and then walk away.
The lady at the register gives us the Seriously? look.
“Here,” I say, turning Xander around. I pull the tag for the jeans off the back belt loop. Then I snag the one off the sleeve of the shirt and hand her the sweatshirt and shoes.
“That’ll be fifteen dollars,” she says.
Xander hands her a twenty. “Fifteen bucks? For all this?”
As we walk back to the car Xander is still surprised. “I bought a pair of socks last week for thirty bucks.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot.”
“Thanks.”
“Love your new shoes, by the way.”
He rolls his eyes. “If humiliation is a career, I’m going to tell you right now that I don’t think I’m interested.”
“But you’d be so good at it.”
We pull up to the cemetery and Xander looks at me. “What are we doing here?”
“Exploring our potential.”
“Here?”
“Remember, I’m morbid. Let’s go.” I brought him here for a couple of different reasons. One, because it’s free. I have no money to take him on the equivalent of some fancy photo shoot career day. And two, I honestly think Xander needs to get his hands dirty, relax a little. So far he’s being a good sport, but he has no idea what I have in store for him.
“Hi, Mr. Lockwood,” I say, walking up to the funeral home that’s slightly elevated from the plots. Skye’s dad is so cool. He looks like he should live in the middle of a graveyard with his long white hair and crooked hooked nose. I always wonder if he owns a cemetery because he looks that way or if he looks that way because he owns a cemetery.
“Hey, Caymen.” He holds two shovels. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yep.” I grab the shovels.
“Okay, I got it started for you so that you could get a sense of the dimensions. It’s past that oak tree down there.” He pulls a walkie-talkie from his back pocket and hands it to me. “Let me know if you have any questions.”
I hand Xander a shovel. “Okay.”
“Gravedigger?” he asks as we walk toward the site. “Really? You thought this was a serious option?”
“It’s not just grave digging, Xander. It’s about this whole place. Living a quiet life surrounded by peaceful death.”
“You are morbid.”
Dirt clings to his hair and is smeared across his cheek. But even in his present state his confidence and stiff posture come through. “We’re not going to be buried in here, right?”
“You caught me.”
“You didn’t think I’d do this, did you?”
Never in a million years. “I had my doubts.”
“I wish I would’ve brought some gloves.” He opens one of his hands and I catch the glimpse of a bloody blister on his palm.
I gasp. “Xander!”
“What?”
I grab his hand and study it closer, gingerly touching the broken skin. “You didn’t tell me it was killing your hands.” I had pulled my sweatshirt sleeves down over mine. His sweatshirt was a little on the small side.
“It’s not too bad.”
I unclip the walkie-talkie from the pocket of my jeans. “Mr. Lockwood, I think we’re done.”
“This hole isn’t nearly deep enough,” Xander says.
“I know. I just mean that we’re done.”
There’s a burst of static on the walkie-talkie, then Mr. Lockwood says, “You ready for me to send the tractor?”
“Yes.”
“Wait,” Xander says. “A tractor is going to come dig the rest of this hole?”
“Yeah, they haven’t hand dug graves in years. I just thought it would be fun.”