“Why are you home?” I asked.
Ruby sat on the floor with the TV on too loud. She was supposed to be over at Tate’s. I had really hoped to be able to take a quick shower before he dropped her off. He never just pulled up and expected her to jump out of his truck and come upstairs on her own. He always came upstairs with her. Always. I was looking forward to seeing him.
Ruby shrugged. “Tate didn’t want me at the house.”
“What do you mean?” I thought Tate liked having Ruby around. He had said as much at least once.
“I mean, he said I couldn’t be there. He was kind of a dick about it.”
“Ruby! Language.”
“Fine! He was a total jerk, okay? He yelled at me, and then he drove me home after he promised to buy me a phone if I kept the cast on for another week.” She waved her arm up in the air, cast still very present. “When I reminded him about the bribe, because it totally was a bribe, he told me to forget about it. He’s a jerk. I could have had my cast off today too.”
“He said he would buy you a phone?” That was an expensive bribe. “And you believed him?”
Ruby grunted. She was mad. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to get information out of her.
“Let me take a shower and then I’ll start dinner,” I said.
I had hoped Ruby would have relaxed a bit and been willing to talk to me by the time I had dinner ready. She was possibly worse. She banged dishes and slammed cupboards and drawers while she cleaned the kitchen after we ate.
“Ruby, come on. It can’t be that bad,” I tried to soothe her nerves.
She slammed her bedroom door. “Leave me alone, already!”
It didn’t make sense. She had been disappointed before. My gut twisted. I really hoped she wasn’t getting a crush on Tate. He was nice to her, but big brother nice. I really hoped that’s not what was going on in her head.
I thought about texting Tate to ask what had happened. But I didn’t because I was being very thrifty with the minutes that he had given me. I didn’t want to use them all up. I didn’t want him to think I was taking advantage of him and his generosity.
I slept fitfully all night long. In the morning, she was still huffing and throwing everything around. She slammed the door on her way out. Her bad mood put me in a bad mood.
“Ruby, I need to know. What made you think Tate was going to buy you a phone?” That had been one of a thousand questions that had kept me up all night.
“Because he said he would buy me a phone if I kept the cast one more week for better healing. I’m not making it up, Kenzie. He said it.”
I nodded. “Okay, he said it. But phones aren’t cheap. Maybe he has to wait for his money from the Army.”
“He’s rich, Kenzie.”
“I don’t think so. I know the truck is new, but that was probably just a gift to himself for retiring. You’ve seen his house. Does that look like the house of a rich person?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Not now, it doesn’t. But that would have been a rich family in that house when it was built, right? And it takes money to fix something like that up. And it’s his. He doesn’t have to pay rent on it or anything like that.”
“How would you know?” I asked.
“Because he told me. He told me he was rich.”
“Richer than us. That doesn’t take much,” I corrected.
“No, Kenzie. Rich. Like serious money rich. He talked like a rich person, saying things like ‘money isn’t an issue’ and ‘inherited’. That’s rich person talk. That’s how they talk on TV.”
“If Tate is so rich, then why did he only buy me minutes for my phone and not a whole new phone?” I snapped. I didn’t want to believe that he was some kind of rich guy slumming with us.
Ruby looked exhausted as I kept asking her questions.
“He said you wouldn’t take one if he had.” she sounded quiet, defeated. “Why would you do that? Why would you turn down something like a phone simply because it costs money when he’s got money and I know we don’t?”
Her words were a punch in the gut. Money was something to toss around if you had it, and it was everything if you didn’t. And where those two groups met was a place called control. I never wanted anyone to be able to manipulate and try to control me the way Mac had when he’d so blatantly guided me to mismanage the inheritance money.
I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t have the words to express to Ruby that if I let someone give me an expensive gift, they would somehow own a part of me. Or at least they might think they did. They might expect me to owe them.
It’s what Mac wanted. He promised to take care of us, put a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food in our bellies. I wouldn’t have to worry about rent or a job I hated. We could be financially secure, but I would have to be his wife and everything that entailed. Cooking, cleaning, sleeping with him and having his babies.
The thought of him touching me the way Tate had made me want to puke.
She stared at me for the longest time. I couldn’t answer her. Couldn’t even look at her.
The door slammed shut behind her as she left for school.
When it was my turn to leave, I slammed the door behind me and walked to the car with heavy, tired steps. I tossed my purse onto the passenger seat and tried to start the car. Tried because it wouldn’t start.
“No!” I leaned my head against the steering wheel. “Crap.”
I tried to get the car to start again. It wheezed and strained. I opened the door. The dome light went on, and it binged at me that the door was open with the key in the ignition. At least the battery was still good.
“Start,” I growled. Nothing. That’s when I noticed the car was empty. “Crap, crap, crap.”
I grabbed my bag and rummaged through it to find my phone. I had to take a deep breath to turn it on. I was still so nervous when it came to using the phone. My minutes were precious. Even though Tate had given me a card to cover the cost of his texts, that covered his texts. At least that’s how I budgeted the time. But he had given me that card so long ago, it was about to run out at any moment.
I turned on the phone and checked my minutes. I had five minutes left. Five minutes? I really hoped five minutes would last me the rest of the month. What had happened to all the time that Tate had paid for?
I stared at the phone. Five minutes. I had to be at work in ten minutes, and it was a three-mile walk. I took a deep breath and dialed work. I waited until someone answered the phone.
I blurted out, “This is Kenzie, my phone is about out of minutes. My car is dead. I have to walk to work. I’ll be late. Bye.”
I ended the call and turned the phone off before they had time to say anything else.
Work was everything it always was, greasy food and gross cleanup jobs. Will wasn’t in for half the day, so I was only told I wasn’t doing my job right for four hours instead of eight. No one came to see me. Not Mac—that was good. And not Tate.
I was just more tired and more worn out by the time my workday was over, and I had to walk home. I still had to get the plastic gas can out of the trunk and walk to the gas station so I could get enough gas and then drive the car back to the station and put in the ten dollars’ worth of gas I could afford.
Someone honked as they drove past. I ignored them. Then I was aware that a red truck was driving slowly on the road next to me.
I thought I would have been happy to see Tate. I was wrong. I just stared at him as the passenger side window lowered.
“I didn’t see your car in the lot. I thought you weren’t at work earlier,” he shouted through the now open window.
“I’ve been at work all day. I walked.”
“Why?”
“No gas, no car.” I kept walking.
“You want to get in so I can take you home?”
“Not really,” I told him.
“What’s wrong, Kenzie?”
“Why did you lie to Ruby like that? You really hurt her feelings. She believed you, did what you asked, and then you just brushed her off.”
“What are you talking about? Will you get in?”
I kept walking, and his car rolled next to me slowly.
“The cast. She didn’t want it. But you told her you were going to buy her a phone. She thinks you’re rich or something, and then you told her to forget about it.” Acting like that around a kid wasn’t cool. I hated it when people did it to me, but I expected the worst from people. Ruby still had hope in the world.
“I can afford a phone. I didn’t lie,” he shouted at me from inside the truck.
Maybe I should have climbed in to talk to him, but I didn’t want to be too close to him, didn’t want to get distracted by him while I was angry with him. I stopped walking and just stared at him. He had money.
“Am I just a charity case for you? Someone you can feel better than because you get to come see me at my job while you don’t actually have to work?”
“I don’t understand what you’re upset about. I like you. If I want to see you during the day, I have to go to where you are since you work. And I don’t think of you as some charity case. I can help, so why not let me?”
I shook my head. “No, you’re just like Mac, bothering me at work and showing off your money.”
The engine roared as he accelerated. Then the tires squealed as he slammed on the brakes before backing up to be next to me again.
“You think I’m like Mac? I’m nothing like Mac. You never wanted to fuck him.”
This time, when the truck roared to life, Tate kept driving.
