Page 5 of I'll Catch You
3
Claire
Brynn scramblesinto the back seat and I make sure she’s buckled in before going over to the driver’s side of my beat-up little Toyota. Next to me, Cassie shakes a paper bag of fries toward me and I reach in to grab afew.
“You have to admit that it could be worse,” she says, putting the end of a crinkle-cut into her mouth. I check behind me (of course there’s no other cars in the restaurant parking lot) and take a bite of the seasoned curly fry I pulled out of the bag. For dinner we usually have leftover fries that haven’t made their way from the frier to people’s plates, and because we serve four different kinds of fries, there are four different kinds of fries in thebag.
“You’re absolutely right,” I say, checking my rearview. “We could be stuck with only steakfries.”
The two of us shudder at thethought.
“Not enough surface area for the crunchy bits to form,” Brynn contributes casually from the backseat.
“What’s even the point of steak fries?” Ireply.
There’s a beat of silence. Sometimes Cassie and I get worked up about the little things. Things that don’t matter. Sometimes I think it’s because we don’t want to cry when we confront how many big things are wrong. So we get worked up over the little stuff and then laugh about it. It’s a way to not let the big stuff get usdown.
“You know I agree with you about the fries, but you also know I’m talking about that guy right now,” she says to me, punching the button to turn on the radio. She tunes it to the classic rock station and I roll down my window, pressing my foot to the floor as much as I can while staying safely below the speed limit. With Brynn and Cassie in the car, I won’t speed. Hell, as much as I used to love going on joyrides back in the day, I don’t even speed with just myself in the caranymore.
I clear my throat and toss a glance over at the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a perfect evening and I think the fireflies are going to come out early tonight. Brynn will like that. After a few minutes, we’re arriving at Cassie’s house. She grabs a stack of bills from her pocket and fans it out. It’s mostlysingles.
“I can’t sell,” I say, turning into her driveway. “What would you do formoney?”
“There are other places I could work,” she reminds me. “It’s not like my entire livelihood depends onyou.”
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. But then again, what other establishment would pay you for your entire shift even if you clock outearly?”
“You said yourself that we didn’t have anycustomers!”
“Okay, then what about last week, when you and Mike wanted to slip in a little afternoon you-know-what and you were gone for the rest of theday?”
“Yeah,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. I cut the engine. “You’re right. What can I say? You’re the best boss anyone could ever askfor.
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. Her sarcasm can be saved for another day. I reallyamthe best boss she could ask for. There are other places she could work, but none where she could come and go as she pleases and certainly none that would pay well. The trendier our little part of the island has become, the more high-end boutiques have followed. What we need are jobs that are sustainable and not the kind of gentrification that’s driving people out of our littlecommunity.
That’s why I don’t want to sell, and Cassie knows it. Even though I’d position myself for quite a windfall, what I’d be trading is more valuable than any sum of money. And I don’t mind Cassie making her own hours, being late all the time, and leaving whenever the sun and surf calls to her. She’s family, and I know that if I really called upon her and asked her to take the job more seriously, shewould.
We get out of the car and Cassie helps Brynn out of the back seat. Tonight Cassie’s husband is baby-sitting for me so I can get my one night out a week. I really was too busy to go out with what’s-his-name. I haven’t even thought of him since we said goodbye. I certainly haven’t felt his hand where he touched mine. I haven’t thought about the feeling I got in the bottom of my belly when he looked at me. I haven’t tried to recapture his scent or the spark I felt betweenus.
Brynn runs over and grabs my hand as we start up the stairs to Cassie and Mike’s little house. Mike is already standing at the front door with two glasses of lemonade in his hands. Brynn runs past him to get inside and he puts both of the glasses into my hands so he can wrap his arms around his wife and pull her close. The two of them proceed to mash their mouths against each other’s while I pretend I’m not here, gaze out toward the ocean, and sniff each of the glasses to discern which is for me. One’s got vodka in it, and I know Mike made mine a virgin because I’m going to be driving. I take a sip and then turn back tothem.
“Okay, enough is enough,” I say, putting the glass of spiked lemonade into Cassie’s hand. She takes a sip and a big smile curls on her lips as she plants a peck on Mike’s cheek. These two have been together since they were eighteen and still can’t get their hands off each other, bless them. He pats her on the butt as we all go inside and I make my way through the kitchen to the garagedoor.
I flip the light on and go straight to what I need: my dad’s trusty metal detector. Every Saturday night I go out to the beach and try to unearth hidden gold. Sometimes I find some interesting things, but it’s mostly just bottle caps and pull-tabs. Sometimes randomkeys.
I make my way back inside and find Cassie and Mike in the kitchen, him frying up some chicken cutlets and her packing up a cooler with some beers andsodas.
“Thank you again for this,” I say to Mike as I slip into a chair at thetable.
“If you’d just sell, you’d be able to hire an actual babysitter,” Cassie says, crouched in front of the fridge. I know she’s playing around. There’s no one I’d trust more with Brynn than my cousin-in-law Mike. I’ve known him my whole life. We were friends long before Cassie and he started dating. I was more than happy when they got together. It was a match everyone in our little sleepy town knew was bound to happen before theydid.
“Another offer?” Mike says toward me inquisitively. “Those kind of slowed down there for a minute, didn’tthey?”
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing the elastic from my hair and letting my curls go loose. I’ve learned to love them. Any attempt to flatten them out has been met with failure, so I decided a few years ago to just lean in and embrace them. I thought I saw Peter catching a peek at them. I don’t care if they look messy and wild. They’re what I was born with, which means they’re part ofme.
“The dude who came in today was particularly cute, too,” Cassie says, “and he even asked our girl out on adate.”
“I won’t even ask if you’ll consider it,” Mike chuckles. He’s laughing at both the idea of me selling and the idea of me dating, and his laugh conveys everything he’s been saying to me for the past six months, since the situation with the restaurant got really bad. He thinks I should sell. He thinks I should be a little selfish, that it’s my turn to be happy. He thinks a fat check and having the responsibility off my shoulders will make me happy. I’ve gone along with his assumptions since the first time he sat me down and told me histhoughts.
