Amelia comes back to the counter and plunks down a few crumpled bills and some coins.
“You here alone again?” she asks, mouth still nearly full of hot dog. “That’s not safe. Anyone could come in here and hold you at gunpoint, or something,”
I shrug in answer. The owner’s son is supposed to work with me in the afternoons but he only shows up when he feels like it. And it isn’t a blue moon tonight, so I’m on my own. And I’m not scared of armed robbery. Even someone from the Gulch wouldn’t bother with the tiny amount of money in the register, and I wouldn’t be afraid even if they did.
You have to value your life to be afraid of losing it.
Amelia pays and even drops her change in the tip jar that no one else ever seems to notice is there. I’m handing her a receipt when the bell dings above the door.
I look up to see Jake Tully walk into the Gas and Sip.
Amelia catches sight of my jaw-dropped expression and follows the direction of my gaze. When she glances back at me, a mischievous smile teases along her lips.
“And who are you?” she drawls, leaning back on the counter. Despite the too long and too loose dress and a face that is entirely free of makeup, Amelia has all the confidence of a model walking down the catwalk. “I know all the boys around here.”
“I’m Jake,” he says, an open smile on his face. “I just moved here from Los Angeles. What’s your name?”
“Amelia,” she purrs, batting at his shoulder like a playful kitten. “Well, aren’t you just a big piece of man meat.”
She always acts like this. Only people like me, who pay attention, realize it’s an act. These moments when she manages to get away from her family, as brief as they are, bring out the urge in her to act out. If her father were to walk through the door, God forbid, Amelia would immediately revert to the shy and retiring pastor’s daughter that she has to be during every other moment in her life. I wonder if Jake notices the unease in her narrowed eyes.
It makes me wonder what goes on behind the closed doors of the Makepeace house.
But for right now, I find myself staring at Jake in fascination. Everything about him seems genuine, uncomplicated, and I have no idea what to make of it. No one around here behaves like this, walking around introducing themselves and acting like they don’t have anything to hide.
He seems so…normal.
Like someone who isn’t doomed.
It’s weird.
Jake doesn’t seem surprised to see me standing behind the counter, which is noteworthy because I never told him I work here. Or where I live, for that matter.
People who don’t live in the Gulch, don’t hang around here just for fun.
Catching me watching him, Jake’s smile widens. He gestures behind me to the wall of tobacco products locked up in a case. “I need a pack of Newports.”
I wrinkle my nose as I turn to unlock the case. Smoking might be the most disgusting habit I can think of, aside from maybe taking dumps in public spaces.
“They’re not for me,” he adds, obviously reading the expression on my face. “I’m making an art project about consumerism under late stage capitalism. How the things we consume to relieve ourselves of the stress of society lead to even more anxiety that keeps up beholden to our own oppression. We’re all cogs in the machine.”
Grandpa would have said that Jake sounds like a damn hippy. I have no idea what I would say if I had a voice, even mentally I’m at a loss for words.
“Sorry,” Jake murmurs with a small shrug. “That was a little much.”
“You’re an artist, huh?” Amelia sidles closer with half of a hotdog still in her hand. “That’s cool. Most of the guys around here want to be drug dealers when they grow up.” She catches the expression on my face, and her eyes widen. “But you don’t live around here, do you?”
“Not exactly, my family bought a house off El Dorado, I think you guys call that area…”
“The Bluffs,” Amelia finishes, the curiosity on her face shifting to something more wary, although it doesn’t stop her from asking questions. “What brings you all the way out here? You had to drive by a Whole Foods and the Rite Aid.”
Jake blushes. He actually blushes. “I was just driving.”
“And you thought you’d stop here? At this crappy little convenience store that doesn’t even have a gas station attached because the pumps stopped working years ago and the owner never bothered to get them fixed. The parking lot is so wrecked that grass is growing through the pavement. They really should call it the Keep Walking and Sip.”
He holds up the pack of cigarettes that I just placed on the counter. “They don’t sell Newports at the Whole Foods.”
She leans forward to rest her elbow on the counter, her chin propped up on her hand. It’s as close to him as she can possibly get without climbing into his lap. “Still seems like a long way to go.”
But Jake just shakes his head with a rueful laugh. “You sure are persistent.”
It’s a weird sensation to not be part of a conversation that is clearly for my benefit. Amelia obviously wants to assuage her curiosity, but she is making a choice to hold this little interrogation here at the counter
And it’s an even stranger realization that someone can be your closest friend when they never hear your voice.
I ring up the cigarettes and loudly tap the display before Amelia can say anything else. As much as I
