Page 4

Two

My mom gets home from work the next morning around the time I’m finishing up a chocolate Pop-Tart and washing it down with a glass of water. It used to be a glass of whole milk, but then she stopped buying dairy to prolong our lives or something annoying like that, and milk substitutes just aren’tmilkyenough for me.

“I see you’re still eating the devil’s breakfast even though we have perfectly good bread and eggs here,” she says, her eyes puffy with exhaustion. She slips out of her sneakers and takes the baking soda from the fridge, sprinkling some in each shoe.

“Whole-grain bread,” I say with disgust. “You know, I have more of a chance of dying from undercooked eggs than a bag of pure sugar.”

“I’d like to see the study on that.”

I take my dishes to the dishwasher, practically tripping over Bagel as he begs for scraps, but can’t find empty spaces to slotthem. By the time I’m done loading a detergent tab into the dishwasher, my mom has moved from guzzling a bottle of water by the refrigerator to lying down on the couch in the living room.

“No,” I say, jiggling her foot. “Don’t lie down. You’ll fall asleep.”

“What’s wrong with that?” she mumbles into the cushion.

“You’re not in bed.” I grab her other foot—noticing that her socks don’t match—and shake her a little more. “Up. Mom. Seriously.”

“You’re so bossy.”

“It’s darker in your bedroom anyway.”

She shuffles to the bathroom and starts washing her face with the door open.

I lean against the frame. “Did you talk to your boss?”

Water drips down her face when she looks at me. “I’m next in line for a switch back to day shift, but unless someone leaves, I’m probably stuck for a while. No one will switch from days to nights.”

“You did. For the pay raise. Aren’t there any suckers you can strong-arm into it?”

She pats her face dry and loads her toothbrush with toothpaste. “No, sadly,Iwas the only sucker.” With white foam dripping over her bottom lip, she asks, “It’s not that bad, right? If I switch, I’ll lose the shift-difference and the promotion. I’ll probably have to get a part-time job, and I’ll see you even less then.”

Just before my grandma died, my mom switched from day tonight shift for a raise. At the time, I wasn’t alone and taking care of myself; I had my grandma and the switch made sense financially. Without my grandma selling her paintings or teaching art classes, we don’t have enough income to pay the bills... not without scraping the bottom of the barrel. So now we share a car, having sold my grandma’s last month, and I see her when I’m rushing out the door to school or to work and she’s just getting in. Sometimes I see her for a little while after school, if I don’t have cheerleading practice or plans with my friends, but those days are rare.

“Once cheerleading is over, I’ll look for another job, work after school.” There’s no reason she should be the only one making the whole-grain dough. I spend money, so I should earn money.

“No, Saine, you don’t have to do that.” She gargles some water and spits. “We’re fine.”

I push away from the door frame to let her pass, knowing I’ll just have to bring this up again when she’s not about to pass out. “Okay. I’ll see you later. Car keys?”

She closes the blackout curtains in her room and the little dust motes floating in the air vanish. “On the hook. Where I expect them to be when you come home later.”

“I don’t know, I think throwing them on the counter so they get lost under bills is more fun.”

She settles into bed, putting a mask over her eyes. “Oh yeah, especially when I’m running late.”

“Love you,” I say, closing the door gently.

“Love you,” she says back, nearly asleep already.

In fairness, it’s a little weird that I work at a college while still in high school. Also weird is that Holden’s dad is the one who helped get me the job. I applied online and my application only made it through to the second round because apparently Mr. Michaels, professor of public relations, recognized my name—hard not to—and suggested they give me a shot. He probably felt pretty stupid telling them to hire me when I showed up like:Yeah, so, I can only work some weekends.

It ended up being fine, though, because none of the actual students wanted to work weekends, especially not the 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. shift Saturday mornings, and I can rent out the equipment to myself. I was never explicitly told that Icould, but to work here, I need a school ID, and to sign out the equipment, I need a school ID. I did the math.

Victor Okafor, a sophomore with flawless brown skin and a buzzed head, stomps down the steps leading to several computer labs and stops in front of my desk. “I need a camera.”

I fight the urge to be prickly by rolling out my neck. “What kind?”

He leans against the desk. “One of the Panasonics.”