Kasie West - On the Fence

I nodded.

“You’re paying for it.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I don’t think you learned your lesson last time because I paid for your ticket. So, you are paying not only for this ticket, but also the last one, and the extra hundred dollars a month you are going to cost me in insurance.”

“But I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Then find a job.”

“How? Basketball camp starts in about seven weeks, and then there’s school and soccer after that.”

“Dad,” Gage piped in, using his winning smile in my defense this time. “Charlie’s just a little girl. Don’t make her work. She’ll never survive.”

Okay, so that wasn’t exactly the defense I was looking for.

“Gage. Stay out of this,” my dad said.

He saluted. “Yes, officer.”

My dad turned his hard stare on Gage, but just like the rest of us, he couldn’t stay mad at Gage either. So he turned back to me. “Figure it out, because it’s my final decision.” With that, he left the kitchen and went to his room to change. My brothers all stared at me and then, as if they’d counted to three, started laughing at exactly the same time.

“Yeah, it’s so funny,” I said. “As if you’ve never been pulled over before.”

Nathan raised his hand. “Never.” Of course not.

“Twice,” Jerom said.

I looked at Gage. Of all my brothers, he and I were not only the closest but the most alike. “A few times,” he said, “but I always got out of tickets. You gotta act a little more innocent, Charlie. You can’t be belligerent with the cops. They don’t like it.”

“How do you know I was?”

They all laughed again. This round of laughter was cut off by the ringing of a cell phone, from where it sat being charged on the counter. Gage jumped up and slid across the island to answer it before it went to voice mail.

My dad came back, and the change in his clothes seemed to change his demeanor as well. He kissed the top of my head. Maybe this meant he was rethinking the whole job thing. “You should probably start looking first thing tomorrow,” he said. Then he looked at Gage and snapped, “Off the phone.”

I sank down farther in my chair and spooned myself some of Nathan’s pasta creation. My dad said a prayer (being a cop for the last twenty years had put the fear of God in him). Then we all dug in. Dinner in our house was like a race. If you didn’t eat fast, you missed out on seconds. I didn’t feel much like seconds anyway.

I lay on my bed, feet up on the headboard, and threw a tennis ball against the wall over and over. There was a single knock on my door, and then someone I assumed was Gage let himself in. He was the only one who never waited for an answer. I tilted my head back and saw an upside-down version of Gage right before he took a flying leap and landed on my head.

I grunted my disapproval and he rolled off.

“So, a job, huh?”

“Don’t remind me.”

“I think this day should go down in history as the day Dad decreed one of his offspring must seek employment.”

“Seriously. Whatever happened to ‘School is your job’ or ‘Sports can pay for college so I consider that your job’?”

“Apparently, someone by the name of Speed Racer changed that.” He paused and—just like Gage to always see the positive in something (which was one of the only ways we weren’t alike)—said, “Finding a job is way better than getting grounded. If you were grounded, all the indoor air your body isn’t used to breathing would dry out your pores and cause you to wither up and die.”

Okay, maybe not positive , per se, but close to it.

He pushed his bangs off his forehead. “Well, for what it’s worth, I offer you my job-hunting prowess.”

“Which consists of?”

“Accompanying you and pointing to the stores you should pick up applications from, helping you write your name in little boxes. You know, invaluable stuff like that.”

“What would I do without you?”

“It’s too painful to even consider, but it might involve drying pores and withering.”

Icame out of Urban Chic carrying an application and had to wait while Gage finished talking to a redhead and her short friend. I listened to the sound of the ocean, only three blocks away, and took a deep breath of coastal air. Old Town was only ten minutes from our house, but the air tasted different here.

“Did you come to help me or to pick up girls?” After the way the lady behind the register looked at me, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be a future employee of Urban Chic. Perfectly fine with me. There were so many sequins reflecting the fluorescent lighting in that store, I was sure it would produce a massive headache after five minutes.

“I can do both at the same time,” he assured me. “I’m talented like that.”

The only reason I chose Old Town to look for a place of possible employment was because it had so many stores so close together and I wouldn’t have to drive all around town picking up applications. And unlike the mall, hopefully nobody I knew would come around. It was near the beach, so mostly tourists or rich types shopped here. The stores consisted mainly of local owners with local wares—lots of antique shops and vintage clothing stores. And although I liked the feel of the area, what I truly and sincerely hoped was that I wouldn’t be able to find a job. Maybe that was why I stayed in my jeans and T-shirt, my hair pulled up into a ponytail, still wet from my shower.

“Never date a guy whose jeans don’t cover his ankles,” Gage said, pointing to the guy twenty yards ahead. He shuddered.

“But he’d be able to walk through puddles and stuff without even getting his jeans wet. He’s a planner.”

I often wondered why my brothers insisted on making these lists for me. It wasn’t like I had been waiting anxiously on the sidelines for the dating buzzer to sound.

He laughed then steered me to the right. “That looks like a good store.” So far Gage’s employment suggestions had been influenced by whether there was a girl in the vicinity. This store just happened to have an outdoor fountain where a girl and her little sister (maybe?) were throwing spare change into the water.

“Do you think there’s two hundred and sixty-four dollars’ worth of change in there?” I watched the coins ripple the surface. “I could just come here once a week and collect the money out of the fountains.”

“Now you’re thinking creatively,” Gage said. “I could totally get behind that idea.” Then he cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. “My sister ”—he always made sure hot girls knew our relationship—“and I were just trying to guess how much money is in this fountain.”

“A million dollars,” the little girl said.

“See, there you go,” Gage said, looking at me. “Problem solved.”

The dark-haired girl in low-rise jeans playfully hit her sister’s shoulder and batted her eyelashes at Gage with a giggle. Before I hurled, I stepped into the store behind her and looked around.

The store smelled like old people—like books and bread and perfume. It was full of . . . stuff—mirrored boxes, colorful lamps, small dog statues. Did people buy small dog statues?

A girl, her blond hair tipped with pink, stood arranging knickknacks on a shelf.

“Hi. Could I get an application?” I asked.

“Of course.” She walked to the counter and pulled a paper from beneath it. “We’re not really hiring right now, but it doesn’t hurt to try, right?”

“Right.”

She bit her lip. “There’s a store two doors down. A little clothing store owned by a lady named Linda. You should try there. Tell her Skye Lockwood sent you.”