Читать книгу Another Little Piece Of My Heart - Tracey Martin - Страница 8

Chapter Three

The day after we arrive in New Hampshire, I grit my teeth and finish braiding my hair into two pigtails. The ends barely touch my shoulders so it’s not the easiest thing to do, but it makes the orange a little less obnoxious.

In retrospect, I should never have dyed my hair before leaving home, but ever since meeting that blue-haired music store clerk a couple years ago I’d been coveting something funkier than my boring brown. Something that makes me look like as big a misfit as I feel.

Unfortunately, my school had a strict appearance policy. So while some students burned their uniforms at post-graduation parties, Kristen and I picked out hair dye and planned piercings. Of course, that’s all well and good for her. She’s lazing about, enjoying her summer before college. I, on the other hand, now have to go job-hunting while looking like a punked-out Pippi Longstocking.

Brilliance, thy name is Claire.

Still, I’m not too shabby. Plain T-shirt, clean shorts, new zebra-print sneakers—I only have to look presentable enough to find work at a coffee shop or a music store. You know, some place that might appreciate my neon hair.

I survey myself one last time as April storms into the room. She pushes aside the old sheet that separates her half of the attic from mine.

“Have you seen what she’s wearing?”

April points to the far window, which provides a view of my aunt and uncle’s deck. I poke my head outside. Nikki Clay, my dad’s so-called secretary, is stretched out on a lawn chair, wearing the skimpiest bikini I’ve seen outside of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. She has a computer on her lap. My dad sits a couple feet away, rifling through papers and stealing glances at her.

“I still can’t believe he brought her with us,” April says, totally unconcerned with being overheard. “What’s can she possibly be doing for him now that the firm is finished?”

“Do you actually have to ask?”

My sister screams and flops on her cot.

There are few things April and I can bond over. Yet in the past few months, Nikki has brought us together the way no vacations, board games or other enforced family time ever could.

Nothing says sisterly love like trying to destroy a common enemy.

I twirl the gaudy tennis bracelet around my wrist, thinking how silly it looks to go begging for a job while wearing such a thing. “Like we discussed on the drive here, we will take Nikki down this summer, but we need time. So for now, ignore her. Go to the beach, or go exploring, or something. Don’t let Nikki ruin your summer vacation.”

“This is not vacation, no matter how Dad tries to spin it.”

“It’s the beach.”

She rolls onto her side, glaring at me. “Hannah says the ocean here is cold. And it’s not vacation. Vacations are fun. We’re crashing with family because we can’t afford to go somewhere more exciting. Stop pretending to be an optimist.”

I bite my tongue and ignore her. Seriously, what gives her the right to complain about something so trivial when I had to give up my spot in Brown’s freshman class because my college fund was empty and the deadline for financial aid had passed? If anyone has a right to wallow in misery, it’s me.

Trust me, I can wallow with the best of them, too. After I dumped Jared and he wouldn’t return my heartsick calls, I wallowed for three weeks straight. But my future is on the line now. I have no time for wallowing. Instead, I have a plan.

I stomp downstairs, repressing a bout of frustration. Much as I want to, I can’t blame my father—or Nikki—for this mess we’re in. Whatever caused the meltdown that resulted in my dad losing his job, and most of our family fortune with it, it doesn’t sound like it was his fault. The analysts on the boring financial programs he watches are blaming it on his bosses.

I wander into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. In the dining room, my cousins discuss their beach plans for the day. Slipping on my sunglasses, I head outside before they try to lure me into having fun with them.

It’s tempting to give up on job hunting before I begin, especially since I already have two strikes against me, not including the orange hair. One, it’s late in the summer so most openings are probably filled. And two, I’m only around for a month. I’m aware that my odds of finding something are slim, but I can’t stand the thought of sitting around on my butt. Someone has to be the responsible adult around here. While my father scrolls through his phone, hitting up his contacts for jobs and monitoring his remaining investments, one of us has to make some money. My dad won’t talk about the finances in front of me, but it’s clear that even having sold the house, the family bank account is skimpier than Nikki’s thong.

Besides, a job has an allure beyond the gas money my dad can no longer give me—it will get me away from everyone. Even though April and I finally have something in common, I can still only take her in small doses, and the sight of Nikki fills my veins with a murderous rage. She’s almost as maddening as hearing Jared on the radio.

But I did enough reminiscing about Jared on the drive here yesterday. I don’t want to think about him anymore.

I cross the intersection and turn the corner onto the main drag. Before me, Ocean Boulevard seethes with glistening, half-naked humanity.

I don’t know what it is about these sorts of towns, but if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. It’s the kitschy signs and the architecture that looks like it’s waiting for a hurricane to kiss it and bring it to its knees. It’s the peeling paint and the wood that gently creaks with age even if the building is brand-new. It’s the pizza shops, the ice cream parlors and the vendors hawking racks of cheesy T-shirts. And it’s all here in Eliot Beach.

Familiar, cliché and oh so soothing because of it.

I take a deep breath, catching the scents of fried dough and sunblock, and beneath it, the unmistakable aroma of the ocean. It’s a fishy reek, but one that makes me dream of the day when I’ll have nothing better to do than watch the waves roll in for hours, mesmerized by the foam and the way the breakers change color from steely blue to turquoise to black as the sun sweeps across the sky.

It could happen. Especially if I don’t find a job, I’ll have the time. But if I don’t find a job, I won’t feel the peace I’m craving, either.

So I take to the crowded streets, determined despite the lack of Help Wanted signs, but the same refrain meets me everywhere. No one’s hiring. As desperation takes hold, I try the pizza parlors, the ice cream and candy shops, and the tacky souvenir stands, but the answer doesn’t change.

Sweaty and defeated, I collapse on a bench in front of a small grocery store called Milk and Honey that’s just off the main drag. My stomach rumbles as I contemplate my options. It’s been a long time since breakfast.

A sign in the window advertises locally grown peaches and blueberries, so I go in. The place is bigger inside than it appears from the street, but it’s the smallest grocery store I’ve ever seen. If I wave my arms around, I could take down the entire produce section.

I pick out a couple peaches and go to pay, hoping they’ll tide me over for another hour or so. There are three registers, and only one is open, but then I’m the only customer. The cashier’s talking to a guy who must be the manager.

“I can stay till three,” she’s saying as I plunk my peaches on the belt. “But I have to watch my brother when he gets out of camp.”

The manager is short, round and bald. He hits the off button on his phone. “This is the third time this week. I’d fire her when she gets in, but then I’d still be out of luck.” He rubs his eyes. “Only until three?”

I fork over two dollars for the peaches. A grocery store is not high on my list of dream jobs, but life is about snatching opportunities or watching them forever disappear. The dumping-Jared fiasco taught me that.

I clear my throat. “I can stay all day. I need a job.”

“Eh?” The manager assesses me. Damn that orange hair. “You can? You work in a grocery store before?”

“No.”

“Ever work retail at all?”

“No.”

“What grade are you in?”

“I just graduated.”

“Oh.” He nods thoughtfully. “Well then, you’re smart enough to learn it by this afternoon. Congratulations, you’re hired.”

I sigh with a mix of relief and trepidation.

“I’m Ben,” the manager says, holding out a hand to shake. “Welcome aboard. You’ll need to fill out some paperwork for me by tomorrow, but for today, Beth will train you.”

I assume Beth is the cashier. “Mind if I eat my lunch?”

He glances at the peaches and beckons me along. “Enjoy.”

Taking a bite, I follow him to a small office behind the deli-and-seafood counter. “I’m only here for a month. I guess I should have mentioned that. Is it a problem?”

“No, no problem. Everything turns over in mid-August because of school starting. Now let’s see here.” Ben opens a closet and hands me an ugly brown-and-gold blazer like the one Beth is wearing. “Finish eating, then put that on and find Beth. I’ve got to look for the papers you need. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Claire.” My mouth’s full of peach. It’s juicy and good, and I’m making a mess.

“Good, Claire’s a nice name. You can grab a paper towel from the registers to wipe your hands.”

“Okay.”

I meander through the rest of the store on my way to the registers: there’s six aisles of food and paper goods, plus the dairy and frozen-food cases, and another half aisle devoted to books, magazines and beach toys.

I don’t pay much attention to magazines usually, but one photo snags my eye. Jared’s made the cover of Entertainment Weekly. I scowl at his smiling face.

Even after all this time, a hollowness opens in my gut when I see his picture. It’s not because I miss him. All the lies he sings about me have made it clear that dumping him was the best decision I ever made, despite what it felt like at the time. But there’s something else I miss—the happiness. We were insanely happy together, and I haven’t felt that sort of happiness since.

The cover photo is a good one. Jared looks hot with strands of hair falling over his face and a half smile stuck to his lips. Never mind that the critics love his album, I’m convinced that half of Jared’s popularity is simply because he’s good looking.

Lost in these thoughts, I’m only vaguely aware of footsteps approaching until someone addresses me.

“Hey, ’scuse me,” says a guy. “You work here, right? Can you tell me where’s the sunblock?”

Oh yeah, the blazer. Guess I do work here now.

“Uh.” I spin around, certain I saw it during my self-guided tour. Before I can conjure where, though, all words vanish from my mouth. Possibly from my brain.

I’m looking past the guy who was speaking to the person behind him. A person with the same pair of beautiful blue eyes that I’ve just been scowling at. I blink, and my brain argues with me because I totally cannot be seeing what I think I’m seeing. My heart lurches.

Then those blue eyes lock onto my gaze, opening wide with recognition, and an expression of panic spreads across their owner’s familiar face.