Breakaway (15 page)

Before I had a chance to answer, the line shuffled forward and Raine and I were suddenly at the cash register, where a bored-looking woman in a smock and a hairnet didn't even bother to acknowledge us. I handed her my lunch voucher, fighting down the feeling of shame that was rising because I was getting the free lunch, a fact that couldn't possibly escape Raine's notice.

“ID number,” the cashier said. I rattled off the five-digit number that identified me as a freeloader, like an inmate number in a prison.

The woman spent a minute typing in my number and considering the information on the screen in front of her. “This voucher doesn't match your student number,” she said, her tone accusing, like I had been trying to steal the disgusting school lunch. Who would try to steal a lunch if they could afford to buy something better?

“I don't know what to tell you,” I said. “I brought that from home and that's my ID number.”

“Jason Marshall?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, the voucher is supposed to match your account.”

“Like I said,” I said slowly, feeling Raine's eyes carefully studying my expression, “I brought that voucher from home.”

The woman gave an impossibly long sigh, like it was the biggest inconvenience in the world as she looked at the voucher number and typed it slowly into her keyboard, her index finger stabbing the keys one by one. After a long minute she said, looking at me over the rims of her glasses, “This voucher number belongs to a … Sylvia Donaldson. You don't look like a Sylvia to me.”

“Just ring ours in together,” Raine said as she opened her purse and started to dig out some money. “I'll pay for it.”

“No,” I said quickly.

“If you want to pay cash,” the woman said, “it's two-fifty for the lunch.”

“I don't have any cash with me,” I said.

“Jason, just let me pay for it,” Raine said. “You can pay me back tomorrow.”

“I don't want you to pay,” I said, my voice rising with anger.

“Stop being ridiculous,” Raine said, her own anger matching mine. “What? You can't stand the thought of a girl paying for you?”

I couldn't stand the thought of anyone paying for me, much less a girl. Even less Raine.

Now there was a crowd of people behind us, watching our exchange intently as I refused to back down. The cashier still just looked bored, picking at a hangnail as Raine and I continued our standoff.

“Forget it,” I said as I shoved the tray toward the cashier. “Keep your lunch.”

“Jason!” Raine called after me, but I just walked away. A few heads turned at the sound of her voice calling after me but I didn't care. I headed for the exit and didn't look back.

I walked out of the main entrance toward the parking lot, like I was going to the gym, but at the last minute I veered off the paved walkway and picked up the trail that had been beaten by the tread of many feet along the shortcut that would take me out to the main road. Once I was out of sight of the school I started to jog and kept running even after I was breathing hard and had a stitch in my side.

Home was not my destination. It would never occur to me to run home. My feet carried me to Bad Habits, to the kitchen door, which was the only entrance I ever used.

The outer door, a security gate made of iron bars, was shut, but when I tugged on it the door swung outward. I tested the handle of the interior door and it turned freely. As I stepped into the kitchen I almost stumbled over the rubber mats that sat in a pile near the door. Chris was standing in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by tall stacks of boxes, a clipboard in his hand as he checked in inventory.

He didn't ask me what I was doing there in the middle of the day, why I wasn't in school, or why I was out of breath and sweating. One look at my face seemed to be the only answer he needed.

“I want my job back,” I said, still panting. “I want you to give me some shifts.”

He looked back to the invoice on his clipboard and didn't say anything for a minute while I wiped at the sweat on my forehead with my sleeve. Finally, he said, “Bernard's going home to visit his family in Haiti for a few weeks. You can take his shifts while he's gone.”

I nodded in agreement, not even asking what hours it would mean I was working. “And after that?”

“We'll figure it out,” he said. “I've always got someone calling in sick or wanting to take time off. Each time you're late I take away a shift. If you get fired it will be because you fired yourself. Got it?”

I was itching to make a smart comeback but bit down hard and just nodded again. “I know how it works.”

“Good. Finish checking this stuff in and get it loaded in the cold box,” he said, meaning the walk-in cooler at the back of the kitchen. “I've got some errands to run. Anything's missing from the orders just write it down and I'll call them later. And don't forget to clock in.”

After he left me alone in the kitchen I took a minute to get a drink and punch in at the time clock hanging on the wall near the alley doorway. I was glad for the solitude in the kitchen, knowing the bar wouldn't open for another five hours and no one in the world, other than Chris, knew where I was. It would give me some time to get my head straight, try to forget about the humiliation of the scene in the cafeteria.

I looked at the clock on the microwave and there was still thirty minutes until Civics started, when Raine would get to class and sit behind my empty chair for all of sixth period. I spent the next thirty minutes checking in the weekly inventory, distracted every few minutes by looking at the time.

At one fifteen I knew Civics class had started. Raine would be looking at my empty seat, thinking about my lunch voucher. Thinking about how I had tried to use my dead sister's lunch voucher to get a free meal. I hadn't even realized they would know the difference when I took the booklet of vouchers from Sylvia's dresser at home.

“Shit!” I shouted in frustration, forcing my mind to let it go. I started lifting the boxes, two and three at a time, my neck and shoulder muscles aching from the strain of lifting the heavy boxes and loading them into the cold box. When I finished moving the inventory I sat down on one of the kegs in the cold box, savoring the cold air as it lifted the sweat from my skin.

When Chris returned I was still sitting on one of the kegs in the chiller, my elbows rested on my knees. He stood with his shoulder leaned against the doorjamb, watching me but saying nothing.

He spoke first, asking, “You want to tell me what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” I said.

“Uh-huh. Okay,” he said in his gravelly drawl. “You don't want to tell me, it's fine.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“So, what else is new?” he asked. “You want something to eat?”

“Yeah,” I said as I realized suddenly that I really was hungry, had gone all day without anything to eat. And thinking about the fact that I had missed lunch reminded me again of why I had walked out of school. Chris left me alone then, went to fix us both something to eat as I waited for the feeling of humiliation to pass after replaying the scene with the lunch lady in my head.

I thought about how nice it would be if I never had to leave the solitude of the kitchen at Bad Habits, never had to go back out into the world at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mario wasn't at practice Monday or Tuesday and Arturo was just pissed off enough about it that he would probably keep Mario out of the Friday game. We had all just finished dressing for practice on Wednesday when Mario strolled into the locker room.

“Hey, Mario, where've you been?” Chick asked.

“I've been busy,” Mario said.

“You gonna be at the game on Friday?” Jordie asked.

Mario hesitated before saying, “I don't think so.”

“What do you mean, you don't think so?” Jordie asked hotly. “Either you're on the team or you're not. Which one is it?”

Mario's jaw was set in an angry clench as Chick and Jordie waited for his answer. I was tying my laces, ignoring them, because I already knew his answer.

“I'm off the team,” Mario said. “I just came to tell Arturo that I'm done.”

“Son of a bitch!” Jordie said as he slammed the side of his fist into the metal lockers. “You're a real asshole, you know that,” he fumed.

“I don't get what the big deal is,” Mario said. “I just don't want to play anymore, that's all. And I'm tired of Arturo always riding us about grades and stuff. I just want to relax my senior year.”

I noticed that Mario wouldn't even look at Chick, who seemed ready to cry, his face flushed red.

“Yeah, I forgot. You're too busy getting stoned with your loser friends to show up for class or practice,” Jordie said.

“What do you care, Jordie?” Mario asked acidly. “Your new popular girlfriend doesn't approve of you hanging out with us anyway.”

“You keep Cheryl out of it,” Jordie said as he stabbed a finger at Mario. “This has nothing to do with her. It's about you being an unreliable asshole.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mario asked. “How many times have you invited Jaz to go to the country club with you to hang out? Huh?” He didn't stop to wait for an answer. Instead he continued his rant, asking, “How many times have you invited Chick to go with you to your family's beach house for a weekend? Have you introduced him to all of your awesomely cool new friends?”

Jordie was silent, his eyes on the floor as Chick and I both waited to see what he would say.

“That's what I thought,” Mario said when the silence had stretched on for a solid minute. “You know as well as I do that you would be too ashamed to take any of us to the country club with you. You'd never own us as your friends in front of those people. So, what I don't get is why you think I have some obligation to you. The only person you care about is yourself.”

“Man, shut up!” Jordie shouted. “I'm so tired of your shit, Mario. If you don't want to play for the team anymore then just get out of here.”

“Gladly,” Mario said as he shifted his backpack onto one shoulder and turned to leave. Chick was crying by this time. He was muttering to himself as he started to rock from one foot to the other.

“It's okay, Chick,” I said quietly. “It's just a fight, man.”

“Screw Mario,” Jordie said as he shoved dirty clothes into his gym bag. “I'm sick of his shit.” Then Jordie was gone too and Chick and I were alone in the locker room.

Chick was crying for real now, his body shaking as he sniffled and wiped at his eyes.

“Take it easy,” I said to Chick as I stepped closer to him. “It's nothing worth getting upset about.”

“You and Mario are barely speaking to each other,” he said as he gulped air. “Now Jordie and Mario are fighting. Nobody's friends anymore.”

“It's just a fact of life, man,” I said as I put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. “Everybody leaves eventually.”

“Are you going to leave me too?” Chick asked as he lifted his gaze to my face, his eyes desperate.

“Of course not,” I said, but I couldn't muster the emotion Chick wanted me to feel. As I said it, I realized it was an empty promise.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I suppose if I hadn't been fighting my own demons at home and at school I might have noticed sooner that Chick wasn't doing so well. The thing was, he had always been sickly, missed a lot of school and soccer practice because of his health, usually some kind of bad chest cold. A few times I may have noticed that he was unusually scattered and unkempt—his hair unwashed and his clothes wrinkled and stained—but I didn't give it more than a passing thought.

At the time I also wasn't paying much notice to how much Mario was fucking up—skipping class to spend more time getting high with his friends and pissing off his mom and dad, who complained to me about it every time I saw them. Even the way he had blown off Arturo, who he had always treated with a certain amount of respect, would have been troubling if I had really been paying attention. And though Mario and I were drifting apart, I was still tight with his parents, still held honorary big brother status with his little sisters.

Now I was working at least three shifts a week at Bad Habits. Other nights Chris would either take me on as an extra dishwasher when they were expecting a busy shift, like on the nights they had bands play in the small stage area, or I would fill in for someone who wanted a day off or was sick. On the nights I was covering for Bernard or I filled in for one of the other bar-backs, I got tipped out, a share of the tips from whoever was bartending. On the nights I washed dishes, I just got a straight hourly wage—so, of course, I preferred to fill in for a bar-back, but I took whatever shifts I was offered.

After a couple of weeks Chris stopped looking up at the clock every time I walked in. I never gave him any cause to be unhappy, came on time and worked hard. I always got a free shift meal, got served whatever Carmen, the weeknight line cook, offered me. Usually she gave me something healthy, like grilled chicken and vegetables, but sometimes I got lucky and she would give me a burger and fries.

Most of my time was spent over the steaming water at the dishwasher, my hands chapped and red at the end of each shift from scrubbing Carmen's pots and pans to her satisfaction. It was work that didn't really require any thought and my mind tended to wander from one worry to another—usually when I was exhausted by thinking about Sylvia or Mom, I would find myself thinking about Raine, wishing I had never made such a goddamn fool of myself in front of her in the cafeteria. At least since I was working again, I didn't have to worry about lunch vouchers, not that I would ever set foot in the school cafeteria for a meal again.

I wanted to work for more than just the money. I hated going home to the empty apartment or seeing Mom when she was home. At the bar I had friends of a sort—they were the people I had known for a while because most of the people who worked for Chris had worked for him for a long time. He was a good boss, took care of the people who worked for him, and he had a way of inspiring loyalty from them. Don't get me wrong, he could be a total hard-ass and was quick to correct someone's work if they weren't doing it the way he liked, but he had done all their jobs at some point, working his way up and learning the business. It's easier to work for a boss when he's done your job before.