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“They won’t, because their dad doesn’t want to see them and isn’t making them a priority. And now I’m done listening to your bullshit.” I press End harsher than necessary and grip the steering wheel too tightly.
I give myself a solid minute to curse and let myself feel the overpowering surge of disappointment—another minute to cry. And then I pack it away in a neat little box, slamming the lid on tightly so I can make it through the next part of the day.
I check my reflection in the rearview mirror and groan, wiping my eyes. I look as if I’ve been ridden hard and put away wet. I spent the morning cleaning houses in Waverly with my cousin Stacey’s cleaning service, and it shows. The bags under my eyes have taken up such prominent residence on my face that they deserve their own zip code. Instead of the gym-girlie vibe some people get when they’re exercising, my skin looks blotchy. It screams, “Exercise more if cleaning rentals makes you this winded.” Not to mention, my hair will need half a bottle of dry shampoo.
What I wouldn’t give for a long bath so I could feel human again instead of this paper-thin version. But there isn’t time to wallow. In a move I’ve mastered in the last year, I pull out my kit and birdbath it in my car. The baby wipes will have to do. I change out of my cleaning uniform and into the yellow diner dress for Mel’s. It’s got that vintage look that could be cute if it wasn’t an ugly-ass mustard color that makes my paler skin tone green. It also smells of bacon and fried food. But the mid-thigh length helps bring in tips, so I don’t mind as much as I should.
Next, I fix my face as best I can, knowing that the makeup will help me look less like a zombie. Dry shampoo, a teasing comb, and twin bubble fishtail braids make my hair look decent enough.
After stuffing my bathroom back into my bag ten minutes later, I ignore the tiredness and aching in my feet and take a deep breath.I can do this. I have to do this.
Cutter, the owner and cook, nods at me from the line, too busy with the lunch rush to stop for a hello. I clock in, and Margaret, a Mel’s lifer, stuffs a stack of orders into my hand.
“Afternoon, sugar. Friday rush is on, so get hopping,” she croaks, her pack-a-day raspy voice full of impatience.
After that, it’s nonstop for the next three hours. I deliver food, take orders, and flirt with the old-timer regulars. Before I realize it, Cutter has me sitting at the bar with a plate of food, the rush over.
Mel’s is an institution in Knotty Pines. The diner has been in Cutter’s family for generations, and I’m pretty sure no one has ever updated the menu or the worn-in vinyl booths. But it’s good food served fast, and the jalapeño-egg burger Cutter made me is enough to make me forget about the stiffness in my feet for a moment.
When Trent left, I came home to Crawley. It’s a country town smaller than Knotty Pines, about twenty minutes up the highway. My cousin and sister helped me keep my head. The night Trent told me he was bonded, the girls instructed me to drain the savings account, and they came up to help me pack.
And thank the gods, I listened. Trent put a for sale sign in the front yard the next day, and I hauled ass home. The money I took from our accounts was enough to get me started over in Knotty Pines. I spent two weeks surfing couches between Stacey and Jeanie, the kids all doubling up on sleeping bags, before I got the rental and found the job at Mel’s.
Even though I’m sort of home, I need the distance that living in Knotty Pines gives me. My family loves me. If I’m shoveling shit, they’re right there beside me, making me laugh and hiding the evidence. They work hard and live harder. Spending time in the county jail is common. There’s always too much liquor. Too many bar fights. Moving all the time. I grew up around all that, and that isn’t the life I want for myself or my kids.
Except it looks as though I might need their help again. I pull the paper from my pocket, reading through the letter left wedged in my door this morning by the rental agency. My lease renews in two months, and they’re raising my rent by almost three hundred dollars.
Three hundred dollars might as well be a million.I’m so fucked. I’m behind as it is. I’m working doubles at the diner and cleaning with Stacey four or five days a week. But with the cost of everything, it’s never enough. I need a better job, but I only have a high school diploma and few skills, so my options are limited.
Looking at the letter makes the food I just ate swim in my stomach, all my worries sloshing about until I want to puke.
Margaret taps the paper, her bright pink nails sharp. “Eviction or rent hike?”
“Same difference,” I say, shrugging and folding it back into my pocket.
“What’re ya planning to do? Can’t work no more than you already are.” Her words are as stiff as her teased curls. She never minces words, and though she’s pretty, even at her age, there is a hardness in her weathered face that makes me shudder at my future.
“I’m open to suggestions and gifts from the universe.”
She cracks a smile, reaching behind her to grab the pitcher of sweet tea. She tops up her glass and mine.“You and me both. I’ll keep an ear out for someone looking to rent. You tried those duplexes out on the highway?”
I sigh, grabbing my dishes to bring them to the back. “Not in a while. I’ll call tomorrow.”
In the kitchen, I thank Cutter for the food, and he grunts in acknowledgement.
The tall and lanky sixty-year-old is tougher than he looks, and he looks mean already. His face is lined with pocked scars, and his ink-and-silver hair is braided in one skinny tail down his back. But under the gruff alpha is a giant teddy bear.
“That asshole picking them up here?”
I fall in beside him, washing up and helping with the dinner prep.“Nope. He called this morning and gave me some bullshit.”
The alpha growls, cursing my ex. “We’ll get them babies fed and they can hang out until the dinner rush is over. You’ve earned an early night.”
The damn onions I’m chopping get to me, my throat tight. I nod, and the stoic alpha pats my back before returning to chopping in silence. After I get the salad station done, I move on to rolling silverware and taking care of the few tables with afternoon stragglers.
By four, Ms. Rhea brings in Emmaline, decked out with butterfly wings and a headband with springy antennae. I hug my daughter and listen to her tell me about her day with Ms. Rhea, getting her situated in the back booth of my section where Cutter can keep an eye on her from the kitchen if I get busy.
Ms. Rhea, my neighbor and a retired schoolteacher who watches Emmaline during the week, hesitates by the door, and my stomach fills with dread at the nervous look in her eye.
