Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
“Good,” I answer. “He and Mom may come out for Thanksgiving.”
“It’s nice that you think of Nancy as your mom.” Peg’s gaze grows distant. As if she’s dredging up all the regrets she’s tried to forget. “You know I’ve always felt terrible that I couldn’t help when Jennifer died.”
Aunt Peg was a guest of the California Department of Corrections when my mother died so my father had to fend for himself. Working full-time and raising a five-year-old was nearly impossible, as he tells the story. Two years later he met Nancy.
“I know,” I say to soothe her guilt.
Her gaze slides over my features. “You look so much like her…” Her smile is weak and sad. “Anyway…” Clearing her throat, she pokes her head out the window again. “Wheels!”
“I’m comin’, goddamnit. Got myself stuck in the mud!” drifts in through the open back door. Wheels enters, gives me a curt nod. “Alice.”
“Hi, Wheels. You don’t have to––”
“Nonsense.” He pushes the wheelchair to the kitchen sink––now that I take notice I see it’s lower than a regular kitchen sink––and washes his hands. A moment later he’s by my chair and pats his lap. “Let’s see whatcha got.”
I place my injured leg on his jeans-covered lap and watch as he removes the ACE bandage and prods the swollen ankle. In the process I get a bunch of “Hmms” and a few nods.
“Well?” Aunt Peg prompts.
“Not broken. Looks to be severely sprained, however. Grade two…” His gray eyebrows hike up. “Could be six weeks recovery––four, at the very least.”
I’m stunned. And lightheaded. “You’re sure?”
“Yep,” Wheels confirms before he wraps my ankle back up.
I want to cry. What am I going to do about my job? I’ve called out sick for the last three shifts. I can’t stall much longer. “What do I do in the meantime?”
“Stay off of it. Soak it three times a day in Epsom salts. Take arnica––that’ll help. But mostly it’s a matter of time.”
Chapter 7
Alice
“Mr. Howard, it’s only a sprained ankle.”
The thump, thump, thump my crutches make as I follow Mr. Howard, the manager of the Slow Drip, the coffee shop where I work, is the drumroll reminding me that if I don’t get back to work soon I’ll probably go broke and be forced to drop out of my dream school.
“I’ll be off the crutches in a few days,” I add. Granted it’s a lie, a bald-faced lie––diagnosis courtesy of one Artie “Wheels” Webster, former MD––but I’ll say anything to keep this job.
Howard stops short and his hipster haircut, a blond shellacked wave of hair, sways. He takes a good hard look at my injured leg then slips behind the counter and starts cleaning out the multiple coffee machines lined up against the wall.
“I need someone that can actually do physical labor,” he tells me in a flat tone, not bothering to give me his undivided attention as he dumps used coffee grounds into the trash.
A marked heavy pause happens. Instigated by me. Because what’s there to argue? He’s right. How am I supposed to maneuver on crutches behind the bar with three other baristas? Impossible. Not to mention this place is always wall-to-wall packed with customers.
“Let me get your check.” Without waiting for a response, he walks away, toward the back office.
Standing behind the counter at the cash register, Josie, the girl I usually work with, gives me a sympathetic smile as she hands the surfer dude picking up his four megabeverages his change.
“How are you, Alice?”
My entire life is on the precipice of destruction. That’s the ugly truth about poverty. Even when you have a job, you’re only a paycheck away from total annihilation. The anxiety never goes away.
I’m legit about to start hyperventilating when Peg’s words come back to me. “Take life with a grain of sugar, Alice.” It’s a marvel how she always manages to see the glass as half full, despite her personal experiences.
“Wonderful. You?”
“I’m working a double.” Looking put out, she shrugs. Josie’s the type to stand around picking away at her lilac gel nail polish rather than do a minute’s worth of work. I don’t mind Josie. She’s not a bad person. I just won’t miss working with her.
Gaze aimed at someone beyond my shoulder, her eyes stop blinking. She sweeps away a stray corkscrew curl and performs a quick inspection of her nails. That and the fire-engine red flush makes me think it’s a boy she likes.
“Rea, get me an extra large with a triple shot,” an unfamiliar male voice yells over the others. I may not know the voice but I do recognize the name.
With as much nonchalance as I can marshal, which isn’t very much at all, I glance over my shoulder and find Reagan Reynolds parting the crowd in the coffee shop. And he’s headed straight this way.
Necks start snapping in his direction. “Reaaa, great match last weekend,” unfamiliar voices call out.