“No,” Julius said. “I can’t open the gate because you aren’t residents here anymore. You haven’t paid in months.”
My mouth suddenly felt dry. “What? No,” I said. “We’re on autopay.”
“Your card got declined three months in a row. Look, talk to your dad about this. I’m going back to sleep.”
There was a click, and the speaker went silent. I looked at Dad, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. I felt a rush of nausea; he had known this was going to happen.
We climbed into the RV soaking wet and toweled off in silence. He hadn’t paid our fucking rent in three months. I was so angry, my whole body was trembling. Why hadn’t he told me? I considered asking him, but what was the point?
When we were back in our seats, Dad put the bus in gear and pulled onto the highway.
“Walmart?” I asked, trying to keep the contempt out of my voice. He nodded. “Okay. But let’s go to the one on Twenty-Seven.”
“Coldwater is closer.”
“Dad, please.”
“We need to conserve fuel.”
“It’s Friday night. People from Eastside will be hanging out at the one on Coldwater.”
“We don’t need to go inside.”
I tried to sound calm. “What if they recognize the RV?”
“Ellie, we—”
“I don’t want to see anybody right now!” My voice was a squeak.
Dad fell silent, gripping the wheel with both hands. Finally, he said, “All right.” It was almost a whisper.
When we reached State Route 27, Dad turned south, but it didn’t ease the tension in my chest. I looked over at him. His grip on the wheel was white knuckled.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“Well. The cards are maxed, obviously.”
I blew out a breath.
“But we still have cash.”
“How much?”
He hesitated. “About four hundred dollars.”
“But that’s—I thought the gig tonight was supposed to pay eight?”
Dad stiffened. “They called back after the initial booking, and I . . . I had to renegotiate.”
“You can’t just do that!” I said, my fists tight and white. “It lowers our quote for the next one!”
“No one will find out.”
“Yes, they will!” I was shouting at him now. “People talk! On Facebook, on Yelp. Once you drop your price, it’s impossible to raise it again. We’ve talked about this!” Dad said nothing, only adjusted his grip on the wheel and stared out into the storm. “I was going to use some of that eight hundred for Facebook ads! I haven’t placed one in months. We’re . . .” My voice had risen to a shriek. “How will we get gas? How will we buy groceries? You just—”
“We still have half a tank of diesel.”
I wanted to cry. To scream. Instead, I closed my eyes and put my head back against the headrest. A heaviness threatened to settle in on me. I sank into the seat and let it.
“An opportunity will present itself,” Dad said. “It always does.”
I didn’t respond, just turned to stare out at the flat Indiana darkness and tried to hope he was right.
After a long time, Dad cleared his throat. It was one of his tells; it meant he was about to broach a tender subject.
“Are you feeling all right, Ellie?”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s just . . . Your moods have been a bit darker lately. I wonder—”
“Forgive me if I’m having trouble adjusting to being homeless.”
The words flew out like spit, and I couldn’t take them back. Dad was silent for the rest of the ride.
By the time we parked in the far corner of the Walmart lot, the rain had stopped. Dad cut the engine and hit the switch to expand the RV’s pop-outs. I watched as our narrow living room widened by two feet on each side. Once, the extra space had felt luxurious. Now it just felt like a bigger coffin. While I went in back to wash my face, Dad folded out the couch and closed his eyes.
I lay awake in bed, staring at the sagging fabric on the ceiling, the chorus of that goddamned Rihanna song playing over and over in my head. Sometimes it was like Dad was the child and I was the parent. Except I didn’t get to make any decisions; I just had to bear the consequences. He danced through life, chasing his dream of performing, never realizing the cost to the people around him. The cost to me.
I turned over and buried my face in the pillow. He’d said my moods had been darker lately, and he was right. Was I being too hard on him? Maybe the encroaching gray was distorting my perceptions, making everything seem worse than it was. But we’d just been evicted; how could it get worse than that?
Still, my conscience nagged. I hated this feeling, hated never knowing if I was right or if I was just being crazy. Maybe I shouldn’t have snapped at Dad. Maybe he had just been trying to protect me from bad news. And if he’d told me we were behind on rent, was there anything I could’ve done about it? I didn’t know. But we only had each other now, and we couldn’t afford to fight.
Reluctantly, I got up and opened the accordion door, thinking I might apologize, or at least try to make peace—but the old man was passed out, snoring like a lumberjack. I guessed I couldn’t have hurt his feelings too badly.
The rain had stopped, so I pulled on a hoodie, snagged two hundred-dollar bills from the cash box under the driver’s seat, and stepped out into the cool October air.
I had practically grown up at Walmart. Most locations allowed RV parking, and I’d spent the night in hundreds of them from San Diego to Hartford. At night, every Walmart parking lot looked the same—an asphalt sea illuminated by moth-riddled, flickering arc sodiums mounted high on corroding masts. And, as you neared the building, the windows glowed with an eerie fluorescence like something from a horror movie. On this particular occasion, the effect was amplified by the garish display of Halloween decorations in the window: fake spiderwebs, black and orange streamers, a toilet-paper mummy.
I grabbed a cart and headed for the canned-food aisle. Tuna. Peas. Fruit cocktail. I wanted to load up on fresh fruit and leafy greens for Dad’s heart—but they wouldn’t keep, and I wasn’t sure how long this food would have to last. On the pet aisle, I threw in a bag of birdseed for the doves. I hit the dry-goods section and grabbed a box of spaghetti, two pounds of coffee, and a canister of generic instant oats. I found the magical bread Liam had used for the ultimate PB&J, but it cost six dollars a loaf, so I settled for the store brand instead. I did splurge on fancy peanut butter, though. I would probably regret it.
On my way toward the front of the store, I passed a guy wearing three sweatshirts and a filthy beanie. He reeked like old shoes and muttered to himself as he shuffled down the aisle. Walmart at two a.m. contains no moms with infants or dads towing toddlers; it’s mostly the poor and the homeless, and I guessed I belonged with them. The realization weighed on me like a lead X-ray vest. Would I ever have a normal life? Shop at a normal store with a credit card and buy whatever I wanted?
I found the prepaid phone kiosk and reached for a ten-dollar card but hesitated with my hand halfway to the rack. My account was completely empty—the prank caller had burned up my last minute. Also, we had zero bookings on the horizon, so I didn’t know when we’d get paid again. Should I spend the money now, or save it for food and diesel? I considered: recharge cards had to be activated at the register, so they couldn’t be stolen, whereas gas and groceries could.