“Good.” She makes a note on her clipboard and totters away.
“What do you need me to do?” Rodney asks, hands stuffed in the front pocket of his oversized hoodie. I’m wearing a hoodie, too. Now that I think about it, Rodney and I are dressed the same: hoodie, dark jeans, sneakers and matching scowls.
“Everything’s arranged alphabetically.” I nod at the shelves. “Items with the earliest expiry dates go at the front. These boxes are totally random, so you have to go through, check each can, and find the right spot for it.”
“Okay.”
I use my foot to nudge a box in his direction and stick the box cutter on top before turning back to my work. I hear him slice open the tape and the ensuing rattle of cans, otherwise he’s quiet and so am I. When it’s quarter to eight and we’re down to four boxes, I move to the corner to start flattening the cardboard so we can get it recycled. A few minutes later Rodney tosses the last box into the pile and comes to help, tearing and stomping as needed. It’s after eight when we finish, and we’re both covered in dust. My hands are dark with grime and the dirt under my nails reminds me of the stranger, fixing my tire. Still a stranger. No name.
I shake my head. Until today I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that night. He hadn’t left as many marks as I’d thought, and I was more disappointed than I should have been. Without the bruises as proof of the encounter, it could have been a fantasy, a story I concocted on my lonely drive home from prison.
We wash up in the tiny staff bathrooms and Rodney waits while I turn off the lights and check the doors. It’s dark and cold when we exit into the quiet parking lot, my car the only one remaining. The warehouse is in an industrial area, predictably isolated. Desolate, sometimes. No buses come in here, and it’s a ten-minute walk to the nearest Holden Rail, the city’s commuter train system.
“How’d you get here?” I ask.
Rodney didn’t put on a coat, and now he shivers as he huddles deeper into his hoodie, breath hanging in the air. “Rode with Colin.”
I look around, just in case. “He left?”
“Yeah.”
“You need a ride to the train station?”
“Yeah.”
We walk in silence to my car, the February cold especially jarring after the strangely warm day last week. The asphalt is speckled white with frost, the car windows opaque. I pull out my keys and click to open the doors, the taillights flicking on. Rodney gives the car a once-over.
“This is nice.”
“Thanks.”
“Why are you working at a food bank and driving this car?”
“I don’t work. I volunteer.”
“Huh.” I see him notice the scratch on the trunk, but he doesn’t comment.
We get in and wait for the car to heat up, the windows to defrost. I press a button to warm the steering wheel and Rodney snorts.
“What?”
He rolls his eyes.
“Whatever.” The area feels lonely and abandoned as I navigate the empty streets, the tires crunching over salt sprinkled on the roads as a precaution.
“Where do you live?” Rodney asks.
“Downtown.”
“I figured. Where?”
“Does it matter?”
“You afraid I’ll come rob you?”
“I’m afraid you’ll come visit.”
He snickers and rubs a spot on the window, peering outside. “Why you at the Food Bank, then? If you don’t have to be?”
“There are lots of volunteers, not just me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why do you work there?” I ask.
“Cause I have to. Lyla’s my mom’s second cousin and my mom made her give me this job.”
“You couldn’t find something closer to home?”
“I wasn’t exactly looking hard enough.”
I nod. Its remote location was part of what I liked about the Food Bank. Fewer people to interact with. To recognize me.
“I got a brother in prison and a brother in law school,” Rodney says. “I guess this is the middle-ground.”
“The middle of nowhere, maybe.”
“Well. It ain’t prison.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”
Rodney scoffs as I pull into the parking lot at the station. “Like you’d know,” he says, climbing out. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Bye.”
I watch until he disappears inside, wondering if I should hang around until the train comes. I don’t know the frequency of the stops—I’d taken the train a couple of times years ago when I was too drunk to drive and wanted to see how the other half lived, but I don’t remember most of the details. The Carlisle family flew first class and had a driver on the payroll.
There are a few other cars and enough foot traffic that I don’t feel like I’m completely abandoning Rodney when I reverse out of the lot and turn toward home. Because of the spare tire, the car drives a little weird, but only if you’re paying attention. Like the faint bruises and the scratch in the paint, I’d left it on as a tangible reminder of that night. But I know better than to live in the past.
I pass a few darkened car repair shops on my way home, so I watch until I find one that offers twenty-four hour service and pull in. There are no cars in the lot, but I can see a couple on lifts inside the raised garage doors. I park and tug on a wool hat before walking into the small front area. Enough time has passed that people don’t recognize me too much anymore, especially with the dark hair and no makeup, but I still take comfort in my disguises.
The front office is bathed in an orangey glow and smells like cheap cleaning products. A flimsy desk, vending machine, and three plastic chairs occupy most of the floor space, while a middle-aged man with a matching gray moustache and jumpsuit reads a newspaper behind the desk. He folds the paper when I approach.
“Car trouble?” he guesses.
“Flat tire,” I say. “There’s a spare on there now. I need to change it.”
He stands and nods. “Sure. I can help you with that.”
I drive the car into the third bay, which is empty, and open the trunk to show him the busted tire. He leaves to confirm they have a match in stock.
“Got one,” he announces, coming back with a tire hung on his arm. I’ll have to assume it’s the right one; they all look the same to me.
“Great.”
“It’ll only take a few minutes,” he says. “You can wait in the office if you want. It’s warmer in there.”
I stuff my hands in my pockets and retreat to the office, halting halfway through the door. There’s a man at the counter, his back to me. He’s wearing an army green winter coat with jeans and boots, and he turns at the sound of my approach, eyes widening comically when he spots me.
It’s the stranger.
The fucking stranger.
He’s holding a bottle of motor oil from the rack beside him, and now it slips through his fingers and falls to the floor, bouncing twice before landing on its side. For a long, stunned moment all I can do is stare at it.
“Be honest,” he says, eying me warily as he crouches to pick up the oil. “Are you following me? Because I’m flattered, but you’re being a little obvious.”