Page 11 of Electricity

I walked over to the table they’d taken, one red plastic tray in each hand.

“Here you go,” I said, trying to sound the right combination of sincere and sarcastic that would let me keep both my job and my pride. I set the heavier tray of burgers down first, and then leaned in to set the tray of fries further up the table—and felt someone pinch my ass.

“Hey!” I yelped, dropping the tray the last few inches, sending fries bouncing off. I jumped back and rubbed my butt like I could wipe away his—whoever he had been—touch.

“What?” Mason asked.

“What’d you do that for?” Liam turned to look at Danny.

“Do what?” Danny said, the very voice of innocence.

Liam frowned, and then looked at me. “I’m sorry, he’s a douchebag.”

I saw Mason kick him under the table for it.

“No—it’s—” I started apologizing like it’d been my fault, then caught myself. “Yeah, you should be,” I corrected.

Liam nodded, accepting my approbation on behalf of his team, and then I turned—and someone slapped my butt.

I whirled—and just then all the lights in the Shax flickered. “All of you can go fuck off,” I addressed them, each and every one.

“Language!” Burton hollered, from inside the kitchen. It didn’t matter, I had a vision of myself sweeping the full tray of burgers onto their laps, but then Burton got there.

“You can go back into the kitchen now, Jessica McMullen.”

“But…”

“This,” he said, gesturing at the crew and speaking slowly as if I were dumb, “is Redson’s finest.”

“Damn straight,” said Chase, holding his hand up. Mason slapped it.

Pressure built inside me, the kind that threatened to choke out any other sense, my throat tightened, my tongue went numb. I was angry, so angry—everything got shiny again, just as lights dimmed, the storm threatening to take the power out.

“Go empty all the trash cans outside before the power goes,” Burton commanded.

I whipped my head to face him. It was Raj’s turn, I’d done it last week.

He puffed up, sensing my rebellion. “Now.”

If I got fired from this—who knew how long I’d be grounded for—or how I’d ever get another job again. My mom wasn’t like Sarah’s—I didn’t get an allowance. If I didn’t have a job, I’d never have any cash—and we’d be completely dependent on my mom, who was, how should I put this? Fucking unreliable.

“Fine,” I said and stalked outside. I heard Burton apologizing for me behind my back, and the entire team’s harsh laughter.

I picked up water laden trash bags, watching mysterious brown liquids pour out of small tears in them as I attempted to carry them to the dumpster one by one without letting anything from them touch me.

How was I going to keep working here without Lacey?

When, and where, would she get another job?

Would she? Would she even come back to school tomorrow?

Or was her mom packing her room up right now, to send her off to boarding school?

Her room still had posters of horses and kittens, because her mom wouldn’t let her put up the bands she listened to in secret with Sarah and I.

If she was home tonight—and was staying home—how would she be able to go to sleep in her own bed with all those stupid kittens looking down?

I yanked the last trashbag out of the container and knotted it fiercely. Why wasn’t life fair? What was the point of it all when it wasn’t? How were we supposed to go on?

I heard the laughter of the baseball team as they left the Shax, their hoots and hollers, the sound of the doors opening and closing on their fancy trucks as they took off, and threw the last bag of trash into the dumpster angrily, feeling unnamed things spray me as I slammed its lid shut.

I walked in the backdoor of the Shax. The lights of the Shax were dim—we were done for the night and if I was lucky Burton would be hiding inside his office counting tills.

I snuck past his office door and saw Darius scraping the grill with the grill brick and watched him quietly from the doorway.

He was still the most appropriate person to get a ride from, nothing about my math from Friday night had changed.

And he’d actually been with me on Friday night, working, for the most of it.

And yet.

He paused as if finally feeling my presence and looked back at me.

“You look like hell.”

“It’s raining outside.”

“There are these things called coats—” he began.

“I need another ride,” I said, to cut him off.

He looked at me then—not in a gross way, but in a humane way, trust me, I could tell the difference—and possibly saw that I was trapped between pissed off and crying.

“Sure,” he said softly.

“Thanks,” I said, and headed to get the trash out of the bathroom.

By the time I finished running the rest of the trash out, Darius was done with whatever less disgusting in-house chore he’d been assigned, and was waiting in the break room with his army-green coat and backpack.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I said. We ran out in the drizzling rain to his Corolla where I slid into the passenger seat again, ever so glad that Darius didn’t smoke. I mean, not cigarettes at least.

“So what was that about?” he asked, settling in beside me.

To admit what’d happened would be letting him know that it’d bothered me and showing weakness, no matter how legitimate, was often to invite repetition. “Nothing.”

“Really?”

I sighed and looked up at the ceiling of his car.

The fabric in the corner had disconnected from the roof and was starting to sag.

I stifled the urge to reach up and press it back into place.

“One of them pinched my ass,” I admitted.

Because if Darius ever did that, I could throw a lava-hot fry at him.

He made a revolted sound. “Ugggggh. Fucking baseball team. Think they own the school, and everyone in it.”

I twisted toward him, finally feeling understood. “Thank you!”

“This shit is why I’m going to college back in California,” he said and stuck his keys in the ignition.

“I know. Me too,” I agreed emphatically, even though I knew I’d be lucky to manage affording Kansas State.

He twisted the keys, and the Corolla tried to cough to life. It made a wheezing grinding sound, and then almost sighed, as all the interior lights that had turned on went dark.

Darius hit his hand on the steering wheel. “Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The battery’s dead.”

“Maybe you should spend less money on comic books and more money on car maintenance.”

“Says the person bumming a ride,” he said, getting out.

“Where are you going?”

“To go ask Burton for a jump. There’s cables in the trunk—pull them out for me?” He reached for a lever beside his steering wheel and I heard a metallic thunk. Then he stepped out of his car and stalked back into the Shax.

I got out, hunching down so the rain wouldn’t run into my collar, and popped the trunk of his car.

It had a spare tire and a set of jumper cables and a soccer ball.

No duct tape. No tarps. No guns. For all the military-shit and glower, Darius did not have active school shooter status.

I had the cables by the front of the car when Darius returned.

“This happen often?”

“Often enough.”

“How much does a new battery cost?”

“More than I’m currently willing to spend.”

“I thought you had a lot of money.”

“What, from working here?” he said as he leaned in and clamped the jumper cables on.

“No. From the, uh,” I tried to make a hand gesture like I was both holding and lightning bong when I’d never seen one in real life.

He gave me the look that my gestures deserved. “I’ve got overhead.”

“So what now?” I asked. The rain had let up a little, I could safely stand straight now.

“Now, we wait till Burton brings his Kia over.”

I couldn’t decide what’d look weirder, hanging by Darius’s side, or sitting inside his car like I belonged there. And as Burton got out of his car, I realized it wouldn’t have mattered where I waited.

“You two a thing?” he asked, gesturing between us. I couldn’t tell what he found more disturbing, that anyone found a girl as troublesome as me worth dating, or that Darius had netted someone willing to date him, skipping ahead in line.

“No,” Darius and I both said at the same time.

“Huh. Well.” Burton made a confused face at us, then popped the hood of his own car and lassoed the jumper cables over.

Burton’s car might as well’ve been called the Bisonmobile, with the number of bumper stickers for assorted sports factions it had on it.

I’d noticed it in the parking lot before, I just hadn’t put two and two together till now.

He was only a couple years older than us, and clearly he hadn’t moved on.

Darius and Burton both ducked inside their cars and turned on engines, and Darius’s car was having none of it. After five minutes of attempting to get it to turn over, he got out and cursed.

“You have Triple A?” Burton shouted through his window. Darius gave him a look, as he got out.

“Sorry, man. You can leave your car here overnight if you need to.”

“Thanks.”

“Need a ride?” Burton said.

“Nah, I’ll call my uncle.”

“What about you, Jessie?”

The thought of being alone in a car with Burton— “I’ll call my mom. Thanks, though.”

“You’re welcome.” Burton nodded cheerfully at getting the civility he expected from both of us at last. He carefully handed the jumper cables over to me, hopped into his own car, and drove off.

I looked down at the clamps in my hand. They were red and black, and looked like tiny dragon heads, with metal teeth, handle-horns, each with a screw for an eye.

And for a second, holding them, it felt like they were alive. Like they were going to writhe away—and I knew I needed to catch them.

As if I couldn’t help it, I grabbed them harder, touching the skin of my palm to where the metal teeth were. Both hands. On both sides.

Everything went white.

“Jessica? Jessica!”