“Yeah.”
The Barn is a discount store about twenty minutes outside of Grebe, on the way to Godwit. Get everything and get it cheap, which means I can shop for clothes while she picks up groceries. We get into the sweltering New Yorker and roll the windows all the way down. The car doesn’t start the first time or the second time, either. It doesn’t start until Todd comes out and tells us there’s a trick to it. He jiggles the keys in a way that looks less like trick and more like luck, but it works. The engine roars to life.
“You’ll have to fill her up before you leave town,” he tells us. He stands in the driveway and waves as we pull out. I can tell Mom likes that he does that, sees us off.
“I’ll pay for the gas,” I say. “It’s my trip.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
We have to get gas from Grebe Auto Supplies because it’s the only station in town. It’s right next to Gina’s Pizzeria and there’s something disturbingly appealing about the combined smell of grease and gas. Mom pulls up to the self-serve pump and hands me her credit card.
“You want to do this? I’ll get us something to drink at Deckard’s.”
She heads into the convenience store on the other side of and just a little behind the station. I pump gas, finishing before she does, and wait in the car. The minutes eke by. When I glance back at the convenience store, I can just make her out. She’s only halfway in, talking to Mr. Conway, so that should take forever. Great. Dan Conway. Biggest mouth in town. Bet he’s trying to feel out our new living arrangements and whether marriage is next on Mom’s list even though in his eyes, it probably should’ve come first.
I drum my fingers on my knees and then a Cadillac Escalade EXT pulls up to the self-serve pump next to mine, music blaring. My stomach sinks when I see Alek behind the wheel, Brock playing passenger.
It never feels fair, seeing them after school.
Brock gets out with a credit card—not his—in hand. Alek never pumps his own gas, if he can help it. Alek never does a thing he can get Brock to do for him. I watch him rest his head against the seat and stare at the world through a pair of Ray-Bans. After a second, he leans forward and presses his finger against the inside of the windshield. He pulls his hand away and studies it, frowning. He pokes his head out the window.
“Hey, clean the windshield while you’re at it,” he says. Brock gives him the finger. Alek scans the station before his eyes settle on Gina’s. “You hungry?”
Brock raises his middle finger higher, but when he’s hooked the nozzle back on the pump, he reaches for a filthy squeegee because of course he would. Brock lives one street away from me now I’ve moved, a street where the houses don’t so much resemble chipped and broken teeth, but if you look close enough, you see their foundations are rotting. Brock is the eldest of five in a family that’s no stranger to handouts. Alek got him on the sweet side of high school and that’s the kind of debt you spend your whole life trying to repay, which is exactly why Alek got Brock on the sweet side of high school.
When he finishes, Brock takes the card and heads to Gina’s. Stops when he realizes Alek isn’t coming with him. “You gonna wait there?”
“Fucking hot outside, man.”
Brock gives him a look, but he doesn’t push it. He heads inside without spotting me and I exhale. I might not get so lucky on his way back.
I glance at Deckard’s and Mom’s still cornered by Conway. I get out of the car quick and go in after her. Inside, the AC is cranked and the cold air makes me shiver. My arrival brings the sound of Conway’s gruff voice to an abrupt halt. Mom looks at me. She’s got two unpaid bottles of Coke in her hands.
“Have I been that long?” she asks.
“I’m not going to have time, if we don’t go soon.”
“You’re right.” There’s something grateful in her face that makes me think I should’ve broke this up sooner. Mom turns back to Conway, who is all steely-eyed now that I’m around. “Well, you take care, Dan. It was nice talking to you.”
“You too, Alice.” He smiles at me. His yellow teeth stretch across his pudgy face. His bald spot is barely concealed by his blond comb over. “Hope you’re staying out of trouble, Romy.”
Conway says that to everyone but he doesn’t mean it because if they did, he wouldn’t have anything to talk about. Still, the way he says it to me is different than he’d say it to anyone else. Small town nuance. Something you don’t learn in the city. It’s knowing when hello means go away or when rough night means I know you got drunk again or when yeah, I’d love to see you, it’s just so busy lately means never, never, never. When Conway tells me he hopes I’m staying out of trouble what he means is I am the trouble.
I go back to the car while Mom pays and when I round my side, I notice a word cut through the dirt coating my door.
S L I T
Because “slut” was just too humanizing, I guess. A slit’s not even a person.
Just an opening.
The sun shines off the clean lettering. I slowly face the Escalade. Alek is looking elsewhere, but there’s a small smile on his lips.
I see Mom headed my way out the corner of my eye. I drag my nails through the word until it’s off the car, get inside, and rub my hand on my leg, streaking it with grime.
If Mom notices the Turner boy in his luxury truck, she doesn’t say so and it’s not until we’re on the road, heading out of Grebe that I feel like I can breathe. I watch the farmland roll past and wonder how anyone settles on this place when there’s Godwit only a few hours north and Ibis, which isn’t even a blink to the east, but far enough to feel like another planet.