“Plain coffee, then,” she says with a wink. “You’re getting old, Cammy. No fun these days!”
He grumbles something about having too much fun last night, and Aunt Jeanne nods in her slightly amused way. Clearly, she can tell he’s riding the struggle bus this morning. Maybe he really is getting old. Thirty is a bitch so far.
She shuffles the mess of boxes and papers on her tiny kitchen counter in search of her coffee maker. Cameron picks up the paperback sitting on top of a pile of junk that has nearly buried her rickety little desk, an ancient desktop computer humming somewhere beneath the heap. The book is a romance, one of those ones with a shirtless muscled guy on the front. He tosses it back down, causing a stack of piled-up crap to cascade to the carpet.
When did she get like this? The collecting, as she calls it. She was never like this when he was growing up. Sometimes Cameron passes through their old neighborhood back in Modesto, the two-bedroom house where she raised him. That house was always clean. A few years back, she sold it to help pay off the medical bills from the summer before. Turns out, getting knocked out in the parking lot of Dell’s Saloon costs a fortune, and it wasn’t even Aunt Jeanne’s fault. Some asshole guys from out of town were making trouble, and she was just trying to get everyone to simmer down. Somehow, she took a punch to the side of her head and ended up flat on the pavement. A bad concussion, a shattered hip, months of physical and occupational therapy. Cameron had ditched a decent job with a restoration company, one that could’ve led to an apprenticeship, to care for her, sleeping on her couch so she’d remember her meds and driving her to and from the brain-injury specialist in Stockton. Every afternoon, he met the mailman on the porch, opening the door quietly so she wouldn’t notice. His pathetic savings account held off the collectors for a little while.
When Aunt Jeanne finally sold the house, she had just turned fifty-two, the age requirement for Welina residents. For reasons that still baffle Cameron, instead of getting a regular apartment or something, she decided to use the small amount of cash left over to buy this trailer and move out here. Was that when the collecting started? Is this dump of a trailer park causing it?
Still railing about how Sissy Baker has had it out for her since the misunderstanding at the Welina potluck last summer （Cameron doesn’t ask for details）， she sets down two steaming mugs on the coffee table and motions for him to sit next to her on the sofa.
“So how’s work been?”
Cameron shrugs.
“You got canned again, didn’t you?”
He doesn’t answer.
Aunt Jeanne’s eyes narrow. “Cammy! You know I pulled strings down at the county office to get you on that project.” Aunt Jeanne still works part-time at the reception desk at the county office. She’s been there for years. Of course, she knows everyone. And yeah, the project was a big one. An office park on the outskirts of town. Still didn’t matter: ten measly minutes late on his second day, and the asshole foreman told him to pack it. Was it Cameron’s fault the foreman had zero capacity for empathy?
“It’s not like I asked you to pull any strings,” he mutters, then explains what happened.
“So you screwed up. Royally. Now what?”
Cameron’s mouth twists into a pout. Aunt Jeanne is supposed to be on his side. A loaded silence sits between them; she takes a sip of coffee. Her mug is covered in dancing cartoon frogs with bright red lettering: WHO LET THE FROGS OUT? He shakes his head and tries to change the subject. “I like your new flag. The one outside.”
“Do you?” Her face brightens the tiniest bit. “I got it from one of those catalogs. Mail order.”
Cameron nods, not surprised.
“How’s Katie?” she asks.
“Katie’s fine,” Cameron says, his voice breezy. Actually, he hasn’t seen his girlfriend since he kissed her goodbye when she left for work yesterday morning. She was supposed to come see Moth Sausage play, but apparently she was too tired to come out, then he ended up staying out later than planned and crashing at Brad’s. But, of course, she’s fine. Katie’s the type of girl who’s never in trouble, always fine.
“She’s a good catch for you.”
“Yeah, she’s great.”
“I just want you to be happy.”
“I’m happy.”
“And it would be nice if you could hang on to a job for more than two days.”
Great, this again. Cameron scowls, rubbing a hand across his face. His eyeballs are pounding. He should probably drink some water.