“I’m a friend from school. She forgot a homework assignment.”
“Hmmph,” he grunts. “Well, she’s not home, so you should git, too.”
“I don’t want her to get a bad grade. Do you mind if I wait?”
He grunts again. “So long as you keep it down, don’t care what you do.”
“Yessir.”
He grumbles under his breath about fool kids and their fool tasks before disappearing into the side door of what must be a first-floor apartment. This small house with its wood siding and peeling paint doesn’t look like it’d last through the next hurricane season. Again, I’m struck by the incongruence of an Astor Park kid living in this neighborhood, in this type of house.
I settle on the bottom step with the food bag at my side and then I wait. And wait. And wait.
Hours pass. My phone battery gets dangerously low from all the candy I’m crushing. The sun goes down and the crickets start singing. I doze off, waking when the warm autumn air turns chilly. My phone says it’s past midnight.
I tuck my arms close to my side and text her again.
Your food’s cold.
“What food?”
I nearly drop my phone in surprise. “Where the hell did you come from?” I ask Hartley.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
She stalks forward, and I get a whiff of…grease? She’s wearing some type of uniform: black pants, a white short-sleeved shirt that’s wrinkled and wilted, and sturdy black shoes.
“Working?” I guess.
“What? You don’t think this is a fabulous club outfit?” She waves a hand down her side.
“It’s the most fabulous.” I grab her dinner and gesture for her to go up the stairs. “You look dead tired, though. Whatever amazing stuff you did this afternoon and evening must’ve worn you out.”
“Yup.” Sighing, she places a foot on the first step and then looks up the stairs as if the climb is insurmountable.
Good thing I’m here.
I lift her into my arms.
“I can walk,” she says, but the protest is feeble and she’s already looping her arms around my neck to hold on.
“Uh-huh.” The girl hardly weighs a thing. I take the stairs slow, though. It’s the first time she’s let me touch her and I like it. Way too much.
The inside of her apartment is as cramped and depressing as I remember it being. It’s tidy and smells clean, and she’s put a clear vase of daisies on the narrow windowsill, but the flowers do little to de-ugly the place.
Hartley’s gaze follows mine. “I thought a splash of color might help brighten things up,” she says dryly.
“Not sure that’s even remotely possible.” I walk to the small counter and open the microwave door. Wow. I didn’t know microwave models this old still existed. It takes me a second to figure out how to work the stupid thing.
I heat up the burrito while Hartley ducks out to use the bathroom. As I wait for her, I open the cabinets in search of a snack. All I find is a box of crackers. The rest is canned food.
“You finished snooping?” she grumbles from the doorway.
“Nope.” I peek inside the mini fridge—this sad excuse for a kitchen isn’t even big enough for a regular-size fridge—and study the meager selection of staples. Butter, milk, a small carton of orange juice, some veggies, and Tupperware containers full of already-prepared food.
“I cook all my meals for the week on Sunday,” Hartley explains awkwardly. “That way I don’t have to worry about what to eat.”
I pick up one of the clear containers, study it, and place it back. “These are only dinners,” I note.
Hartley shrugs. “Well, yeah. Breakfast is usually a granola bar or some fruit, and I eat lunch at school. On the weekends, I work and there’s usually no time for lunch.”
It clicks now, why she’s always loading her tray at Astor with like four meals. Clearly money is super tight for this girl. She’s struggling. Guilt pricks me as I recall how I scarfed down her entire lunch the other day.
I check the microwave countdown. Twenty more seconds. Plenty of time for me to bite the bullet and ask, “Why aren’t you living with your family?”
Her whole body stiffens. “We…don’t see eye to eye on things,” she replies, and I’m surprised I even got that much out of her.
I want her to elaborate, but, of course, she remains stubbornly silent. I’m not dumb enough to press for details. The microwave beeps. Steam rises from the burrito as I open the little door, and I use a paper towel to pick up the edge of the plate so I don’t burn my hand.
“Let’s give this a minute to cool down,” I suggest.
She looks slightly aggravated, as if the delay is unacceptable to her because it means she has to spend more time with me. I’ve never met a chick who’s less interested in hanging out with me.
Hartley walks over to the sofa and sits down to unlace her shoes. Then she kicks them away as if they committed some heinous crime. She’s silent for a few seconds. When she speaks again, her tone is riddled with defeat. “Why did you bring me food, Easton?”
“I was worried about you.” I grab a knife and fork from the cutlery drawer. Not that she needs an entire drawer—she owns two forks, two knives and two spoons. That’s it. “Why did you ditch school in the middle of the day?”
“My boss texted me,” she admits. “A shift opened up, and I couldn’t say no.”
“How long are these shifts?” I ask, because she left Astor around noon and didn’t get home until midnight. She was gone twelve hours. That seems like a really long shift for a part-time waitress.
“It was a double,” she says. “Doubles suck, but it’s hard for me to get hours. There are two other waitresses with young kids and they need the hours more than I do.”
I think about her bare cupboards and debate the truth of that statement. She does need those hours. Pretty badly.
Or maybe she doesn’t. I mean, I’ve got money. I’m not sure how much this dump costs, but it can’t be even a tenth of my monthly allowance. I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if I parted with some of that cash.
I place her dinner on the coffee table, along with a napkin and a glass of water, and try to think of a way to offer her money without pissing her off. When Hartley doesn’t make a move to pick up her fork, I sit on the other end of the couch and cross my arms.
“Eat,” I order.
She hesitates.
“For God’s sake, I didn’t poison it, dumbass. You’re hungry. Eat.”
It doesn’t take any more coaxing after that. Hartley cuts into the burrito with the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning. She devours nearly half the thing before slowing down a little, proving that she must’ve been starving.
She has a hard time accepting a ten-dollar burrito from me. How am I going to convince her that she should take a few grand?
“How come you don’t tell anyone that you’re working?”
“Because it’s nobody’s business. Yeah, I wait tables at a diner. So what. Why is that something that needs to be spread around school? It’s hardly a big deal.”
Frustration has me leaning forward. I rest my forearms on my knees and study her intently. “Who are you, Hartley?”
Her fork pauses halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean?”