A dark thrill, a sort of giddy misgiving, rolled through me.
I pulled up his number on the phone but instead of calling him, I texted.
I got the charger, I wrote. Thank you. So much.
I deleted the so much. No need to go overboard.
You’re welcome, he wrote back.
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and waited for him to say more. But the screen stayed the same.
Either write something or put it down, I told myself. Because this is ridiculous.
In the end I put the phone back in the drawer and shut it.
But I thought about it—about Dylan—for the rest of the night.
“Hey Kevin,” I said, walking into the office a week later. Kevin sat directly in the path of the rattling air conditioner in the window, playing computer solitaire. “I’m going to need more garbage bags and a new rake.”
“There isn’t a rake in the shed?”
“There is, but it’s broken.”
“You can’t fix it?”
And I thought I was cheap.
“Nope.”
“A shovel won’t work?”
I sighed. “No. Kevin. I really need a rake. And some hedge trimmers. Heavy-duty ones.”
“Why?”
“I’m going after the kudzu.”
Kevin nodded, impressed maybe by my antagonistic nature toward the creepy mummy plant.
“I’ll get that for you tomorrow,” he said. “You done real good out there. Most people don’t get past the flies and the garbage.”
“Well, I figure the garbage had to be the worst part.” And it had been disgusting, but I did it. I shoveled it. Bagged it and cleared it.
“Amen to that,” Kevin said. “And here.”
He slid the key to the shed across the counter.
“You saying I’m not unsavory?” I asked, smiling.
“That’s what I’m saying. And take the day off. Too hot to work anyways.”
“But…” We don’t talk about money. That had been one of Hoyt’s rules. About how much we got. Or what we need. We don’t say a word about any of it. It’s low. Vulgar.
Those rules wouldn’t get me very far in the outside world. I would starve to death trying not to be vulgar.
“I need the money.”
Kevin leaned his heft back in his office chair, which squealed against the weight.
“I’m paying you a salary,” he said. “Just make it up another day.”
I’d worked on the farm my entire life and not once did it earn me a penny. All my money I had to ask for, from Mom and then from Hoyt.
Until I took that three grand from Hoyt’s safe.
Back wages, I’d told myself.
“Now, go on.” Kevin shooed me out the door. “Take a day off.”
“You sure?” I asked. “Because if there’s anything else that needs—”
“No. Nothing else needs doing. Now go.”
Still, I lingered at the door. It’s not that there weren’t a thousand things I needed to get done, but all of them meant leaving the trailer park. This small island of safety. Of work.
I totally tore my life up by the roots and now I was too scared to actually live it.
“Were there any other packages delivered for me?” I asked.
Every night I looked at that phone and thought about calling Dylan. About texting him. Every night I chickened out. Or resisted, like that was a virtue.
“Nope. You gonna stand around here all day?”
“Nope,” I said, pushing the door open and making the bell overhead jingle. “I’m leaving.”
I would go twenty miles into town to get some groceries, because that’s what normal people did when they ran out of gas station food and dish soap. And then I would see if there was a library with an internet connection so I could check on the news from Oklahoma.
Woman Runs Away, I imagined the headlines. Though considering Hoyt, the headline should undoubtedly be more like Lying Wife Runs Out on Husband, Leaving Him No One to Smack Around on the Fifth Day in a Row Without Rain.
Heading back to my trailer I saw Ben in his garden, curling the delicate stems of peas up twine runners tied to the top tier of his fence.