Random

Chapter THREE

Henry arrives ten minutes after my call. He drives an old, cartoonishly round blue pickup truck, the engine in perfect condition because that's one of his hobbies. The exterior is a little less polished. Like Henry, who fell off a telephone pole seven years ago when a goose bit his hand. Pretty random.

He broke his back in seven places and hasn't been able to really work since. He says he's lucky to be walking.

Which is one way of looking at it.

I spy the truck and wave. He waves back, waiting for me because it'll be too hard for him to get out, then get back in, and I can see that he has Ginger with him, one of his little dogs. She peeks over the steering wheel with her peach-colored head and black button eyes.

A cop has been asking me questions about what happened. I don't really know what's supposed to come next. "Is it okay if I just leave? My step-dad is here. I'd like to go home."

"I'm sure that's fine. Nothing you can do here."

I take in the scene one more time, the gaping hole, the missing windows. My stomach hurts with the suddenness of the loss. Almost everyone is gone now-the injured whisked off to the hospital or patched up and sent home. Only the police and the reporters and the Wicked Witch are left. I feel like I should say something to her, even if she's plainly hated my guts since I started here. But I kind of feel sorry for her, standing there in her wrecked business. A cigarette burns unnoticed in her hand as I come up. Her black eyes are blank.

"Hey, Tina. I'm really sorry this all happened. I just wanted to tell you that I'm leaving now."

She just looks at me.

"I just thought you should know. I don't know if we can get our checks next week or-"

"I don't care about your fucking check, you stupid little bitch."

I blink at the name-calling. She has other things on her mind, I get that, but this is a pretty important issue to me, too. "I have to pay my rent next Tuesday. I was counting on that check."

She just turns her face away like she can't hear me. For a long second I try to come up with something to say that will sum up how much I've hated her and hate her even more now, but nothing comes. Her shoulders are hunched and skinny and-

I turn away, taking off my apron one last time. I drop it on a broken table as I walk out. One small part of me is already panicking about the rent, but another is saying everything will look better after I get a good lunch in me. Since I moved out, Henry loves to buy me meals at restaurants. Though it's not like we ate together a lot before that, since you can barely find the kitchen in his house. I wouldn't eat in that room if you gave me a million dollars.

"Hey, sweetheart," Henry says as I climb into his truck. A multicolored woven blanket from New Mexico covers the ratty old seat. Ginger dances over on her tiny legs to give me kisses. She's mostly Pomeranian, probably mixed with poodle to give her that pale peach fur. Henry rescues little mixed breeds and currently has six. Or seven. I'm not sure. He started rescuing after my mom died.

"Can we go to Cracker Barrel?" I ask.

"You bet." He takes a minute to peer at me. "How are you doing?"

A fast crush of freakout pours over me all at once, and tears well up in my throat. I stare through the windshield until the emotion goes away. "It was crazy," I say, "but I'm all right, aside from being out of a job."

"Oh, man, I didn't even think about that." He puts the truck into reverse and navigates around a TV van. "You got enough money?"

"I should be okay," I lie. He lives on disability and whatever he can get fixing things, which is to say not that much.