I laugh and pull away. Last night I lay awake, wondering if I could sneak into Andrew’s room. Thinking how awful it would be to get caught. Dr. R. just gave me a job, and Mrs. R. has been taking care of me for years. And it’s not how I want Matt to find out. He’s going to get suspicious sooner or later, and I’d rather the news come in a kinder way than him walking in on me and his brother together.
Andrew bumps my shoulder as we walk up the hill toward the crowded square, but doesn’t take my hand again. I pretend it doesn’t feel a little empty.
MATT
Autumn never really hits Big Springs until October, but I always forget and assume September mornings will be cool. By ten, I’m sweating through my T-shirt and wishing I’d worn shorts, not to mention a hat or something. Cruz mans the booth with me, calling out to passersby like a circus barker, so all I have to do is make change and friendly small talk.
Until my brother walks up with my best friend. I’m jealous, but they’re bound to hang out more when I’m constantly doing school stuff. At least they seem to be just friends. If they had a thing going on, they would touch more, like Asha and Spencer, or make weird inside jokes like Nathan and Eliza. Raychel and Andrew just tease each other and make fun of me, like always.
“Matthew,” he says, gesturing grandly at the table. “Give us two of your finest water bottles.” I roll my eyes in disbelief when Raychel laughs. He ignores me and fist-bumps Cruz. “What’s up, dude.”
“Not much,” Cruz says. “You busy later? Got a delivery from a friend over in Newton County.”
A lot of the weed in this area comes from Mexico, but the rural areas east of us make their homegrown contributions. “I got plans,” Andrew says. “How long y’all stuck here?”
“All day,” I say. He already knows this. “Are you coming over for dinner?” I ask Raych.
She frowns. “I told my mom I’d eat with her tonight.”
Frustrated, I drop the change I’m making for my brother. She kneels down to help me pick it up. “We could hike tomorrow?” she suggests.
“I can’t. That Cal 3 class is kicking my ass and I’ve got to catch up.”
“I’ll come over and do homework with you,” she says.
That’s not what I want. I want to do fun things with her, and goof off. But it’s better than nothing. “Okay,” I say, standing up and handing her the rest of the change. “That’d be good.”
She gives me a hug, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch her walk away with Andrew.
RAYCHEL
I assume we’re going home after the market, but Andrew suggests we go to the park and climb on the castle.
I’m glad Matt can’t hike tomorrow. It’s too hot to even walk the mile trail around the park, but the castle is surrounded by shade trees. The base is made of stacked sandstone, perfect for climbing. Short plaster towers stretch up into fanciful shapes, some covered in tile mosaics, others adorned with gargoyle faces. The creek that bisects the park runs under a decorative concrete bridge, pooling into a half moat full of lily pads. It’s not a majestic or awe-inspiring structure, but it’s funky and weird and one of the things I like about our town. “You know,” I tell Andrew, dipping my feet in the pond, “if I hadn’t grown up here, Big Springs would be a great place for college.”
“It’s not that bad.” He sits beside me on the bridge, our legs brushing. “I mean, it feels small sometimes, but it’s really not.”
“I guess.” Our area has the same population as Albuquerque or Tucson, a fact I know thanks to all the university recruiting stuff. “It’s not the size that bothers me,” I tell him. “It’s the people.” The university’s influence keeps Big Springs from being a Southern stereotype. But Dr. and Mrs. R. are always talking about the constant tensions between the academics, the hippies that moved in during the “back to the land” movement in the sixties and seventies, the yuppies that move here from the coasts to work for Walmart corporate, and the church conservative good ’ole boys who are more like the rest of the state. “I don’t have the money or the connections to matter here, and I’m neither redneck nor crunchy enough to fit in otherwise.”
“You’ve thought about this way too much.” He splashes a little water on my thigh. “Come on, it’s not that bad. We have awesome hiking, good local music, decent museums, sports teams that win every once in a while…” I laugh, because we almost never win, and he goes on. “I want to go to Duke, but if I have to stay here, it’s not the end of the world.” When I don’t agree, he bumps our feet together. “Living on campus would be way different from living at home.”
I don’t point out that paying for room and board here might still prove a challenge. “I guess it’s not the place I want to escape,” I say. “It’s my place in this place.”
He laughs.
“Seriously!” I say, splashing him back. “I could become president and this town would still think of me as ‘that girl whose mom’s a janitor.’” That slutty girl whose mom’s a janitor, I add mentally.
“Hey, screw what they think,” he says. His payback splash starts a war and we both end up in the pond.
*
Later, I get Andrew to stop by the grocery store on our way to my house. Mom has been apologizing in her own way for not telling me about our financial situation—braiding my hair, packing my lunch, offering me lots of rides. I want to make an effort, so I decide to use my last Pharm-Co paycheck on groceries and surprise her with dinner. Or at least side dishes. I’m not above turning my effort into a ploy to get her to make me chicken fried steak.
But when Andrew drops me off, I find her crying on the couch. “Mom? Are you okay?” I drop the grocery bags, rush over, and put an arm around her. “What happened?” My mind races through the possibilities: She’s sick. She’s been fired. Her boyfriend dumped her.
Not on the list is, “We might get evicted.”
I start to drop my arm, but she’s crying so hard that I can’t let go.
“I’ve used up my emergency money,” she says.
“All of it?” I croak.
She nods her head miserably.
I drop my hands to my lap. I know what this means. She needs my college money. And if I pay the rent on the duplex, I’m resigning myself to at least another year in it—even the cheapest dorm in Big Springs is six thousand dollars a year, and meal plans are another four. For somewhere like Vanderbilt or Northwestern, it’s closer to fifteen. Fifteen thousand dollars. Per year. I can barely make half of that in twelve months. Unless I quit school and work full time, which kind of defeats the purpose.
Defeated. Before I even start.
But there’s no choice. “It’s okay,” I force myself to say. “Just use what’s in my account.” Standing up, I point to the groceries. “And put that food away,” I tell her. “It’ll go bad.”
I walk to my room and go straight to bed.
MATT
As it turns out, I don’t even get boring homework time with Raychel.
I call Sunday, but she doesn’t answer, texting back later to say she’s not feeling well. Andrew tries too, but she tells him the same thing.