Some guy with curly red hair, a backwards baseball cap, and total pizza face is hacking at a head of iceberg lettuce with a cleaver, yelling “Ha!” with every slice, dumping the remains into a bin on the sandwich prep station.
I don’t introduce myself, and he doesn’t bother looking up. I put the dishes on the counter and walk out. As the door closes behind me, I hear the sharp smack of the cleaver against the cutting board again, and he yells, “Take that, motherfucka!”
— Chapter 13 —
Knowing I could be warm on a couch at Adam’s place makes it that much colder at the campground. In elementary school they taught us about stranger danger, but what if hypothermia is a possibility, and the stranger has a warm place to stay?
I start my car and let it run with the heat full blast until it’s so warm I can hardly breathe. Then I turn it off and sleep until I wake up shivering again.
That business card in my bag, tucked in the inside pocket so it won’t get lost—the thought of it makes my teeth itch. At least if I was duct taped to a chair in Adam’s basement I’d be warmer than I am now. I think about calling from the pay phone by the bathrooms. Instead, I start the car again. Soon as the air turns warm, I put my hands in front of the vent. Hold them there until I feel like they might burn.
* * *
When I wake up, the campground man, with his flappy hat and ruddy beard, is watching me through a clear spot the sun melted in the ice on the windshield. My heart jolts. I reach over to make sure the door is locked. The guy taps the window, his finger cracked and yellowed. With his other hand, he slaps a piece of paper on the glass, writing side down, so I can read what it says: Car out 9 AM.
His eyes are the exact same grey-blue as the sky behind him.
I nod.
He crumples the paper, jams it in the pocket of his jeans as he walks away.
It’s too cold to even think about using that shower. I run to the bathroom to pee, brush my hair and teeth, and change my bandage. The cut across my knuckles is starting to scab, but it’s still pretty grisly. At least it’s not red and puffy. According to Margo, when she used to check my scraped-up knees, that’s the sign of infection you have to watch for. She knows all that stuff because her mother was a nurse.
I don’t have anything to pack up from the campground, because I’ve slept in my car the whole time, but it’s strange to just go. I feel like I should take something or leave something. Like this was my first home away from the motorhome and there should be a gesture about that. I choose a stone from the fire ring. It’s smooth and grey, charred on one side. It smells like a campfire, and I wish I’d made one while I was here. I drop the stone in the well of the car door and drive away.
* * *
About a mile from downtown, I park my car on a side street, outside a house with a rainbow flag hanging from the front porch. I scoped it out the day before and all the parking spaces close to downtown are pay ones, or else there’s a time limit. But here it’s free, I just have to move to the other side of the street before morning.
Sometimes I get words stuck in my head, circling until they sort themselves out and play in my mind like a song. On the walk into work, I think, Where you gonna stay, where you gonna stay, where you gonna stay whereyougonnastay, over and over in time with my footsteps. I try not to think it, but the second I stop fighting to keep the words from my brain, they sneak back.
* * *
I like working and I’m good at it. I love the order of everything—that there’s a stack of coffee cups right next to the machines, and a bin for silverware, and a station just for sugar and cream. It’s not the same as Margo’s Diner, but it’s familiar. As long as I’m foaming milk or running dishes, I can forget the workday will end. And I’m proud when Carly looks at me in the middle of the afternoon rush and says, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” It’s only my second day.
* * *
Adam doesn’t come in even though he said he was a regular. I wonder if he isn’t—if they don’t actually know him at Decadence and he’s not safe. I wonder if he’s mad I didn’t call. Insulted I’d rather sleep at the campground. I wonder if he even remembers he gave me his number.
My shift is done at three, but the girl who was supposed to take over for me calls at 2:45 to say she has a psych exam and can’t come.
“Rich bitch,” Carly mumbles. “Some people only work because Mommy and Daddy don’t send enough beer money.” She looks at me. Presses her hands together like she’s praying and says, “Please, April, can you stay?”