“Let’s focus on the current problem.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t know what happened to the money, Libby, but I think you should consider it gone. It sounds like they got into some credit card debt—you’d be amazed at how fast that interest can build up if you don’t pay in full every month. Or they just need it to pay the bills, the mortgage. You said he doesn’t seem to be working . . .”
“No, just coming up with one useless scheme after another, and meanwhile Mom is putting in tons of overtime. I know her income isn’t great, but that’s a lot of money, Jack, to just be gone.”
“Well,” Jack says, sounding uneasy, “he might have put it in the stock market or something. Or lost it in the stock market.”
“That sounds horribly plausible.”
“Again, though, nothing you can do about it if that’s the case.”
“Sure, but—”
“Here’s the thing: none of it changes what you have to do. Seriously. This might sound crazy, but part of what Dad said is true—you need to become more independent. And part of that is learning to detach from them. Everybody has to do that in one way or another, but with our parents, with him especially, it’s really important. Whatever their problem was that they needed the money, that’s not actually your problem.”
“Except it was supposed to be my money. And six months ago it was still there.”
“Yeah, that part sucks. And it does make me worry about them. But wait—what about your own savings account—how much is in it?”
From the time we were old enough to have bank accounts, Mom and Dad made both of us put most of our birthday and Christmas money, plus a portion of any income we made, into our own accounts. I was hoping to save up enough to buy a used car with that money, but obviously that’s not happening. I tell Jack how much I have, and I can almost hear his brain doing the math during the pause that follows.
“Okay,” he says, “that’s not bad, but it won’t be enough. What you need now is to get a job, ASAP.”
He’s right—I could drive myself bananas trying to figure out what’s happened, but even if I do ferret out the truth, chances are I’ll still be tuition-less.
“I can get back into babysitting and ask for some hours at the gift shop at the Inn—they hired me last summer, and again over the holidays.”
“That’s not going to make you enough money in time,” Jack says. “You need a restaurant job. Something with tips. If you can get a serving gig, and then work your butt off and save like crazy, by spring you should be able to save up enough for rent, and then you go full time over the summer—combined with what you’ve got already, that might just get you enough for first year.”
“Then what?”
“You work part time, you work summers, you apply for every possible scholarship you can find for second year, and if you have to, you go part time.”
“That’s a lot of ifs, mights, and should-be-able-tos, Jack.”
“Well, the other option is to just give up. Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“Then go get a job.”
Jack has a way of cutting to the chase, which is one of the reasons I still rely on his advice on the rare occasions he chooses to give it, even though I’m permanently mad at him for leaving, and permanently mad at him for not telling me why.
I hang up, make a list of places to apply, and get to work on my résumé.
4
SHIT DISTURBER’S DAUGHTER
Applying for jobs turns out to be more challenging than expected.
We have a total of three restaurants—and one pub that also serves food— in Pine Ridge, plus two full-service coffee shops. Only one of the coffee shops is worth applying to, though, because the second one is so deliberately low-end that the owner actually named it Just Coffee, with the passive-aggressive message WE AIN’T GOT NO FANCY LATTES HERE on the sign under the name. (And in true small-town petty humor, the nicer coffee shop that this was aimed at then proceeded to rename itself Fancy Lattes.)
So there are exactly five places for me to apply. I am, of course, aware that before his basement “sabbatical,” my dad was in the habit of getting into little kerfuffles all over town, including at some of the places I’m applying, but I can’t afford to be picky. And he hasn’t offended anyone for at least a couple of years now—at least not that I know of. Plus I have to have some faith that people can see that he and I are not the same person.
I start at Fancy Lattes, its dark wood-paneled walls, vintage chandeliers, tin-tiled ceiling, and art from different local artists featured every few weeks making it the only place in town that feels like it might be somewhere else—Paris, maybe, with Picasso coming in to brood and argue about cubism. I hand my résumé over the counter to the owner, Reg, an aging rocker type with long, iron-gray hair and chains hanging from his jeans.
“What’s this?” Reg says, eyes narrowing.
“I wondered if maybe you might be hiring . . . ?”
“You serious?” Reg says.
“Very,” I say.
“Aren’t you Rick Stowe’s kid?”
“Um, yes . . .” I say, wondering why he suddenly looks so annoyed. Should I have bought a coffee first?
“I can’t hire the daughter of the man who boycotted me and then trash-talked me all over town,” Reg says, looking distinctly unfriendly.
“Oh, but . . .” That was a long time ago and I’ve been a customer here many times since. I’d assumed he was over it.
“All about the size of our take-out cups!” Reg says, voice rising. “He stood here, in my place, screaming his stupid head off at me. Then stood out front screaming his head off some more. And now you want a job?”
“Well . . . yes,” I manage to say, despite my fast-warming face and all the people now staring at me.
“No way,” he says, practically shouting. “Hard pass.”
“Oh. Um.” If I could find a way to vanish in a puff of smoke right now, that would be great. As it is, Reg is handing me back my résumé, and all I can do is take it with a mumbled “thank you anyway,” and get out of there as fast as possible.
Out on the street I hustle down the block, hot from embarrassment despite the icy air. I pass Just Coffee, recalling how Dad took his business there after boycotting Fancy Lattes, and briefly consider putting it back on the list of places to apply. But Dad got banned from there eventually, too.