Speed of Life (2 page)

I always park behind the gas station, but tonight there's a 1971 red Chevelle SS taking up two spots, one of which is my usual one. Jimmy must've had some overflow and couldn't get it in the shop. I'd be pissed if it were my car. The gas station parking lot isn't safe overnight—​guys in this neighborhood will steal anything not locked up. I back into my second-favorite spot, by the dumpster, and hop out.

“I'm here, I'm here,” I tell Rosa, who's running the register tonight. “Sorry I'm late. I had to take Amber to work.”

She waves me off without saying anything, but I can tell she's annoyed. Her drawn-on eyebrows are all wrinkled. It's getting close to the cut-off time for tonight's big draw, so there's a line of the eternally hopeful and always broke wanting lottery tickets. Because I wasn't here, Rosa had to juggle the gas customers and the lottery regulars, so she's probably been hearing some bitching. I punch in and get my ass over to the counter.

When we finally have a lull, Rosa tells me that Jimmy wants to see me in the office. Probably because it was ten minutes after five when I got here, but whatever. I've worked here since I was fourteen, and about the only thing that would get me fired is if I stole something, which I'd never do and Jimmy knows it. He's had four years to cut me loose for coming in late and he hasn't done it yet, so I doubt it's gonna happen tonight. He does like to give me a hard time, though.

I stick my head out the door and yell at Raul, who's on the pumps, “Boss wants to talk to me. Can you cover lottery if Rosa gets busy?”

“Sí,” he says. “But hurry up.”

When I squeeze past Rosa to get to the office, she offers me a piece of gum, her way of saying sorry for being short with me earlier. I take it and pop it in my mouth. “Thanks.”

Jimmy's door is partly open and he's on the phone, so I hang around in the hallway until he's ready. The schedule's on a clipboard above the time clock, and I flip through it to see if maybe I've got extra garage work next week. At first I think I must be seeing stuff, or not seeing stuff, because after my name, the schedule only shows two shifts. What the hell? Oregon's one of the only states where you can't fill your own tank, so I'm always guaranteed at least three nights working the pumps, plus a day or two in the bays helping Jimmy on the weekends. According to this, I'm not even scheduled to work this Sunday. That can't be right. Almost every Sunday for the past year Jimmy's had me in for training in the body shop. It's the perfect time, because the shop is technically closed, so no one pokes a head in to check up on the cars.

Jimmy hangs up and calls to me. “Crystal, come on in.” I step into the office. He's behind his desk, which is buried under paperwork and coffee cups. “Late again, huh?”

“I had to drop off Amber.”

He nods and then looks over to the corner. “I want you to meet my nephew.” There's a guy, maybe about my age, leaning against the wall. He was standing there so still, I hadn't even noticed him, and I startle a little.

“Uh, hi. I'm Crystal.”

“I've heard a lot about you.” He steps forward and holds out his hand like he wants to shake. Mine are grease-stained. When you work on a car, no matter how much Goop or Lava soap you use when you wash up, you can never get the black out of the creases in your knuckles or from under your nails. Out of habit, I wipe them on my pants first, but that doesn't change anything, so I wave his hand off, laughing a little, embarrassed. He grabs my hand anyway. He's dressed in brand-new jeans and a white polo shirt, and when he takes my hand, I can feel his skin is soft and smooth, just like him.

“David,” he says.

“My sister's kid,” Jimmy explains. “They moved here from Seattle last week.”

“Cool,” I say. “What school are you going to?”

“Jesuit High.”

Figures—​it's obvious he's a private-school kid. I don't know why I asked.

Jimmy comes around his desk and puts his arm around David's shoulder, which is a big stretch. David's gotta be at least six feet tall and Jimmy's lucky if he's five foot five—​he's barely taller than me. As he stands there with his light gray eyes and silver hair, he looks like he couldn't possibly be related to David, who towers over him, his hair shimmery blond, his skin tan and golden from the sun.

“Did you see David's ride?” Jimmy asks. His phone rings again, and he goes to answer it.

“Not sure,” I say.

David smiles. “Red Chevelle?”

“That's your car?” My chin practically hits the linoleum.

“Yep,” he says. “Restored it myself.”

I raise my eyebrows, and David sees the skepticism right away. I mean, the guy can't be more than seventeen or eighteen, and without looking under the hood, I can tell that that car's worth at least thirty-five thousand. If the engine's as nice as the body, probably a lot more. Somebody bought him that car, and I'd put money on it being restored before he got it. He's way too clean and preppy to have fixed it up himself.

“I had it painted in a shop,” he says. “But I did a little of the body work with Uncle Jimmy's help when I came to visit last year.”

News to me. I was here all last summer and I don't remember him. I smile, but it's as fake as this guy's résumé. He's a total poseur, which doesn't really surprise me much, since he has girly hands. Also, he took up two parking spaces. I mean, yeah, you do that at the mall, but not at a garage where space is limited. I see guys like him at car shows all the time. Mommy and Daddy buy them fifty-thousand-dollar cars, they fix one thing on it—​change the air filter, or check their own oil, or something piddling like that—​and suddenly they've restored the whole damn car.

“That's an amazing piece of machinery,” I say, to be polite. After all, he's Jimmy's nephew. I'm actually pretty happy when Rosa yells that she needs me. “I gotta go.”

“See you around, Crystal.”

“Uh, sure.” That's not very likely. We definitely ride in different circles.

It's not until the end of the night when I'm getting ready to punch out, and I'm whining to Rosa about not having my regular shifts next week, that she sets me straight.

“You know why, right?”

“Because I was late again?”

She shakes her head. Her eyes are made up with heavy blue eye shadow, making her look like a cartoon character.

“What, then?”

She gives me a knowing look. “David.”

“What about him?” I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“Jimmy gave him your shifts. You and Raul have to train him.”

“No way.”

She nods, all eight of her gold earrings bouncing up and down.

“No fucking way,” I say louder.

“Way.”

I am so pissed, I make the eleven-minute drive to the Glass Slipper in six flat.

I have to wait twenty minutes for Amber. I'm not in the mood to help her after all, so I sit in the car, steaming. I don't want to go inside when I'm pissed. Our aunt Ruby owns the place, and she lets Amber bring Natalie to work with her, but she expects us to be cheerful and grateful all the time. Which we try to be. It's not like we could afford a babysitter if Amber couldn't take her along.

By the time my sister comes out, carrying a to-go container full of scraps for Bonehead in one hand and lugging Nat's car seat in the other, I'm slamming my fist on the steering wheel. I rant the whole time she buckles Natalie in. “This is bullshit. I've worked my ass off there for four years and now he's giving my shifts to some rich mama's boy?”

“Can you be quiet?” Amber whispers. “Nat's been crying all night, and I finally got her to sleep.”

The rest of the way home I rage under my breath. I drive slower than I want to. It's late and the cops are probably out patrolling. A muscle car is a target for getting pulled over, and we can barely make the insurance payments as it is. Amber doesn't have her license because it would make our premium go up, even if she isn't on the policy.

Bonehead practically yanks his stake out of the ground, he's so happy to see us. He can probably smell all the good things Amber's brought him. He's barking like crazy, and from across the street, we hear Mr. Hendricks yell, “Shut that goddamned dog up!”

Natalie whimpers in her carrier. I rock her while Amber distracts the dog. “Shhh . . . shhh . . . Boy, sit . . . Here, have a T-bone.”

He immediately clamps down on it, dropping to the ground and starting to gnaw. Natalie's whimper has turned into a moan, which makes me afraid she might start wailing, so I run her inside and set her on the table. When her little cries turn into a yawn and I see she's falling back asleep, I grab a can of dog food and go outside.

There isn't any light coming from our house. Gil hung up some towels in the living room window to make it darker for watching TV, and the porch light's burned out, but the streetlight is right in front of us. I can see enough to grab a shovel and clean up some of Bonehead's giant turds. I toss them in the mostly dead hedge.

“What else you got for him?” I ask Amber. I want to go to bed, but I can't until he's eaten. He sleeps in the Mustang and there's no way he's taking food into my car.

“Not much,” she says, tossing Bonehead a bit of burger she saved off someone's plate. He immediately drops the bone and scarfs down the beef, managing to somehow leave the lettuce and pickle. Then Amber gives him a handful of fries and something slithery and brown I don't recognize. Bonehead apparently loves it.

I pop the top on the can of no-name dog food I got at the discount food warehouse, holding my nose the whole time. When I give it to him, he inhales the whole bowl, and Amber goes inside because the smell makes her want to hurl. Not that I love it, but she really does get queasy. When Bonehead is finished eating, I lead him over to the only tree in the yard and wait for him to pee. He knows the routine and does his business. After he gets his steak bone, I open the car door for him so he can scramble over the seat and stretch out in the back. I crack the windows to give him some air. The October days are still kind of sunny and warm, but I'm freezing my ass off out here tonight.

“Don't let anyone steal my car,” I tell him, like I do every night. It's win-win​—​I save money on an alarm system, and he gets to stay out of the rain. In the summer, there are always a few weeks when it's too hot for him to sleep in the car, and if I leave the windows down, he goes wandering off. Next summer, me and Amber will have our own place, and I don't care how small it is as long as it's in a neighborhood safe enough to park the Mustang at night.

When I get inside, I find the usual: Mom's dirty dishes on the table, which she left behind when she realized she was late for her shift at the bakery, and Gil passed out on the couch in front of the TV. Amber's already turned it off and grabbed Nat from the table. I hit the light switch on my way to our room. Thank God Amber's somehow managed to move the baby from her car seat to the crib without waking her. A real miracle.

“Man, I'm beat,” she says, getting into bed.

“Me too. But mostly I'm pissed.”

“Maybe the guy won't know shit about cars,” Amber says.

“I'd put money on it if I had any.” And my confidence in my skills actually makes me feel a little better. But not a lot. Anyone can pump gas, and as long as David's around, those are shifts I'm not getting.

I hand Amber a birth control pill along with a glass of water. I pop one of my own, too, mostly to keep her company, since there is no way I'm having sex with anyone. When Mom heard we'd gone to Planned Parenthood after Nat was born, she'd snorted and said, “Too little, too late, dontcha think?” And then she'd laughed until she choked on the day-old lemon pound cake she was scarfing down.

Maybe it seemed like it was too late to everyone else, but it was the only way to keep Amber safe. Now that we have Natalie, we can't party together, so I'm not there to drag her home when she's too drunk to protect herself. Once she's had a couple of beers, she never can say no. There's also our family history. It's like we're extra fertile or, more likely, extra stupid. Mom had us when she was fifteen; Aunt Ruby had our cousins Jade at seventeen and Topaz at nineteen.

You'd think maybe the next generation would've learned something, but it's like babies are an epidemic in our family. At the end of our freshman year, Jade gave birth to Lapis, then Onyx fifteen months later. And her sister, Topaz, popped out Rocky last Christmas. At least by being a boy he'd avoided one family curse: the “precious stones” name thing. Everyone agreed “Rocky” was close enough.

As I get undressed, I hear Amber munching crackers so she doesn't get nauseous from the pill. I don't need to eat them—​if I go right to sleep, I'm fine, and even saltines cost money. There's a small wad of cash and change on my pillow.

I count it before I get into bed. “This is a lot. You got it all tonight?”

“And last Sunday,” Amber says. “I forgot to get my tips then.”

“I'll put it in the bank after school.”

She's already in bed, her eyes closed. I stick the money in my pillowcase and switch off the lamp. Me and Amber are the only people we know with a bank account. We used to hide our cash in different places in our room, but because we were away at school all day, that left plenty of time for Gil or Mom to search for it. After they'd “borrowed” our savings for the sixth or seventh time, we figured out how to open an account. It's actually not that hard. You just need some ID.

I'm drifting off when Amber yelps from her side of the room. Unfortunately, her bed's only about six feet away from mine, so it's like she's yelling in my ear. “Crap! Crap! Crap!”

I sit up and flick on the lamp. “Shhh, you're gonna wake Natalie.”