I enter the Gas and Sip just in time for an orange apron to be tossed in my face that I catch on reflex. Kathy, who works the early shift on the same days I do, isn’t trying to be rude, but she has four kids to get back to and a babysitter who charges for every minute she runs late. That woman is pretty much always in a hurry.
The wooden bowl on the counter next to me has half a bunch of brown spotted bananas and a few apples, which likely accounts for the entirety of the fresh produce available in the Gulch.
Everyone who lives in the Gulch filters through here. I know all of them by sight and most by name. From the drug dealers who think nobody knows about the stash houses they have along the train tracks to the migrant families who work the fields in the rural part of the county an hour away but live here because it’s the only place with houses they can afford. I know all the kids with reddened skin and pinched faces from living too close to the abandoned gold mine, because chronic exposure to heavy metals in the dirt leaves a visible mark.
Splashing water hits the window at the front of the store which is so close to the street that only the sidewalk separates the door from the cars speeding down the road.
“Fuckers!”
Amelia Makepeace slams into the store, soaking wet and fuming. Her long-waisted, ankle-length dress has a muddy stain down the front, and the blue checkered fabric is heavy from street water so it tangles around her legs as she tries to kick it away. She dresses like something out of Little House on the Prairie, but judging from the way she acts, that isn’t by choice.
“God, people drive like they have their heads up their assholes.”
It isn’t raining outside anymore, but there is almost always water in the streets that pools in the deep potholes that never get repaired. When a car drives too fast down the road, like all of them do, whoever happens to be on the sidewalk at the time is going to get soaked.
The Makepeaces don’t let Amelia drive, even though she is more than old enough to get her license. I’m not sure if it’s a financial thing or something to do with their beliefs.
For obvious reasons, I can’t exactly ask.
Not that I should be throwing stones. I have a license but no ability to use it, because Grandpa’s ancient Buick broke down over a year ago and there isn’t any money to get it fixed.
Amelia’s father is the preacher at the tiny little church in the Gulch, although you’d never know it from listening to her. She is a chain-smoking, curse spitting dynamo, but only when her parents are out of earshot. She doesn’t attend Deception High, so I can only assume they homeschool her, but we see each other around town all the time.
I get the feeling she saves up all the snarky things she isn’t allowed to say at home and then unleashes them all at once the moment that she leaves the house. She curses like a sailor and doesn’t seem to fear the consequences when word of it inevitably gets back to her father. Whatever punishment she gets is something she clearly is willing to deal with if it means she can be herself.
That only makes me like her more.
The Makepeaces have a dozen children, although it’s difficult for me to remember which of them are adopted and which aren’t. She likes to say that her parents found her by answering a classified ad while on a mission trip to Korea, but I assume that’s a joke. Amelia is the oldest girl, but the youngest Makepeace kid is still in diapers. Every Sunday, I see them walking past my house and down the dusky road toward the little church house. Amelia is always out front like a mother duck who wouldn’t mind so much if one of her mismatched ducklings wandered away.
She is one of the few people who also understands what it’s like to stand out like a sore thumb in this town.
I gesture at the roll of shop towels at the end of the counter that we use to clean up food spills, but she waves me away.
“It’ll dry on its own,” she gripes. “And there’s no getting this stain out.”
Amelia is one of the few people in the Gulch who won’t comment on the fact that I never speak, if she notices at all. Sometimes, I wonder if she has even figured out that I never hold up my end of the conversation. Typically, she says enough for the both of us, which I appreciate. Most people treat me like a circus freak or make a game out of trying to get me to slip up, like tourists who try to make the guards at Buckingham Palace break their forced silence.
Because most people are assholes.
Amelia just prattles on like she’s happy just to have someone listening.
“Are there any hot dogs left?”
She doesn’t bother to wait for a response and heads for the machine where pale hot dogs spin on rollers, beads of sweat dripping off them to sizzle on the heating element underneath. The smell of it used to bother me on the days when I came to work hungry. Even with my employee discount, it’s an indulgence I can rarely afford.
Now I barely think of the things as food. Imagining the slurried flesh being forced into casings of skin helps it seem less appetizing. I watch her slather a bun with mustard and take a gigantic bite in a detached way. When I think about my empty stomach, I try to imagine that the gnawing feeling at the pit of my belly is a superpower. Other people need sustenance to live, but I gain strength from the emptiness.
Sometimes, I almost believe it.
Amelia doesn’t
