Page 26 of Good as Gold
Sean steps onto his snowboard.
“Hang on,” I say. “Let’s do another test.”
“Tell her.” He hops, starting his momentum toward the lip.
“Sean!” I yell. “WAIT.”
He turns around to smile at me as a rooster crows nearby.
“WAIT!” I scream.
Then I spring up in bed, sweating and disoriented.
I’m in a trailer—my Uncle Otto’s camper—where I’d taken a much-needed nap.
Or I’d tried to. The dreams just won’t stop. I have them every night, pretty much.
Except for the other night on Zara and Dave’s fold-out couch. I’d lain awake for a while, listening to Leila’s breathing lengthen into sleep. Either she’d soothed me, or the baby didn’t give me enough hours to dream awful things.
Once again, Otto’s damn rooster is crowing at point-blank range, right outside the camper. It’s his favorite hobby, and it woke me up at 4:45 this morning.Er-ah-errr!Er-ah-errr!
At least the rent is free.
I get up and take a quick shower in the trailer’s tiny bathroom. Then I dress in good jeans and a crisp black shirt. Tonight I’m bartending at the Gin Mill with my sister, and my shift starts in an hour.
When I open the trailer door, the rooster is still standing there, giving me that creepy side-eye that chickens have perfected. Like he’s considering attacking me, but he’s still making up his mind.
“Go bother the hens,” I tell him. “They like you more than I do.”
He stares.
I head for my rental car, but before I get there, Otto opens the door to the main house. “Wait up,” he says. “You gotta sign the paperwork.”
“Oh, sure. Oops.” I’d forgotten that he’d asked me to fill out a W9. “Is this really necessary?”
Otto scowls. “Your brother could lose his liquor license if his employees aren’t documented correctly.”
“Okay, fine.” I don’t need anyone blaming me for that. I climb the steps to Otto’s farmhouse and go inside.
It’s just like I remember—high ceilings, loveably creaky wood floors, and furniture that’s faded but interesting.
I lived here for a brief time or two when I was a boy. My father had a bad habit of running out on my mother. If you added up all the places I lived during the first eighteen years of my life, the number is probably over a dozen.
Mom kept moving us into successively crappier accommodations. House to house, then to apartments. Then eventually the trailer park.
Otto offered to permanently move us all in—me and my four siblings, and Mom—but only if Mom agreed never to go back to my father.
She wouldn’t agree to it, and at the time I didn’t blame her. I still don’t. Otto wanted to control her. And he wanted her to admit that she’d made foolish choices. It was a power struggle, and she wouldn’t let him win.
All my siblings are younger than me, and some of them would have made a different choice. We were always crowded. Three kids to a room.
Everyone blames me for leaving Vermont. But they don’t remember that I made their lives easier that way. My senior year, our trailer had bunk beds for me and Damien and a stow-away mattress on the floor for Alec.
Alec got a real bed when I left. But now he’s pissed that I stayed gone. Where is the logic in that?
Otto sits me down at the big wooden dining table and passes me a set of papers. “We still have Sunday dinner here at least once a month. You’ll come this week, yeah?”
“Sounds fun,” I say, uncapping Otto’s pen. I fill out my social security number and sign a liability waiver and an employee questionnaire. “Do I have any felony convictions? No.”
