Page 4 of In Harmony

“Yeah?” Pops said. “But how many more after that? You been doing this shit for years. Turn you soft, is what. I’m not leaving my business to a queer.”

The words bounced off me. I had a dozen girls’ numbers I kept on rotation in my phone, and the idea of him leaving me Pearce Auto Salvage or the Wexx franchise station was laughable. It had no business anymore, unless you counted the occasional stranded traveler who didn’t know better than to go five miles farther up to the shiny, big-name places in Braxton. We lived off Pops’ disability and my pay from the theater. Or rather, he lived and I existed. I didn’t live until I was on stage.

I could take his words. It was his fists I had to watch out for.

More than once, after one of Pops’ tirades that left us both bloody; I’d pushed my old blue Dodge pickup as hard as it could handle along the winding roads out of Harmony, intent on getting out of Indiana once and for all. Then I imagined Pops stuck here, alone, eating cold cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until a bad winter gave him pneumonia. Or maybe he’d dive into a bucket of fried chicken and eat himself into a heart attack. Lay dead and rotting on our shitty couch with no one to check for weeks, if not months.

I turned my damn truck around every time.

That’s what you did for family. Even if your sole family was a piece-of-shit-drunk who didn’t give a damn about you.

“Gimme some more, yeah?” Pops said, as I rose to dump my bowl in the sink.

I poured him a second helping of flakes, then went to get dressed for school.

In my small room—bed, dresser, coffin-sized closet—I put on my best pair of blue jeans, boots, a flannel over my undershirt and my black leather jacket. I dug the wool cap and fingerless gloves Brenda Ford had knitted for me from under a pile of scripts and slipped a pack of my own Winstons from a secret stash Pops didn’t know I had, or else he’d raid it. I stuffed them into the jacket’s inside pocket.

Pops was peering blearily at the wall calendar a salesman had left us after a failed attempt at selling us homeowner’s insurance. “Today’s the eighth?”

“Yeah,” I said, shouldering my backpack.

He turned to me, a glimmer of regret and pain floating in the bloodshot depths of watery eyes.

“Nineteen now?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Isaac?”

I froze, my hand on the door. The seconds stretched.

Happy birthday, son.

“Don’t forget to get the sausage.”

I closed my eyes. “I won’t.”

I went out.

My blue ‘71 Dodge, parked to the side of the trailer, was frozen up. I managed to get it started and left it idling to warm up while I scraped ic

e off the windshield. The dashboard clock said I was late for school. I puffed clouds of curse words in the air. Walking into a class already filled with students was low on my list of favorite things.

I took the icy roads from the scrapyard at the edge of town as fast as I dared, through the main drag and across town to George Mason High School. I slid into a parking space, then walked fast into the building, blowing on my fingers. The warmth inside eased some of my irritation. When I got the hell out of here, I’d move somewhere where it never snowed. Hollywood worked, but I wanted to act on stage more than film. Or I’d hit it big in New York and it could snow all it wanted; I’d keep the heater on in my place all the time and never think twice about the cost.

I strode down the empty hallway and into Mr. Paulson’s first period English class. Thankfully Paulson was a little scatterbrained—he was still organizing himself at his desk and I slipped past him, eyes straight ahead and ignoring my classmates. Intent on the third-row desk where I always sat.

A girl was in my seat.

A breathtakingly beautiful girl in an expensive coat with a fountain of blonde, wavy hair spilling down her back. Sitting in my damn seat.

I stood over her, staring down. It was usually enough to get people the fuck out of my way. But this girl…

She looked up at me with eyes like pale blue topaz and a defiant smirk on her face that belied a sad, heaviness that hung over her. Her gaze darted to the empty desk beside her, and she raised a brow.

“Everything all right, Mr. Pearce?” Mr. Paulson called from the front of the room.

I held the girl’s stare. She stared right back.