“I’ll do it,” I replied, making a snap decision after avoiding conversation about it a few times. I wouldn’t have said I was the kind of person to do a lot of charity work or community volunteering, but even I could see the need around the area. One more thing the pandemic had brought.
“Great.”
“How long do you think we’ll be there?” I asked.
“Not sure, but Ashley and I are getting to Watch Hill Community Church around nine just in case they need help with setup.”
I thought about it. Not like I have much going on these days anyway. “I can be there at nine thirty.”
“Thanks for doing this. It means a lot.” Kyle brushed his hands on his jeans and focused on the new cannisters of weatherizing stain. “I was thinking we could work on this today, but frankly, I need a break.”
“Why don’t you let me handle it out here? I’m sure Tyler could use some help inside.”
“You’re right. Sounds good.” He smiled again. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Kyle gave me another nod, then left the construction site, leaving me alone once again. I had to admit, I was proud of what we’d done together. There was a certain satisfaction that came from seeing an idea become a reality. Unexpectedly, helping my friend with his pizza parlor had become a bright spot in my life. It had given me a sense of purpose during a time when nothing else felt normal. And while I wasn’t always a joiner, I also sensed that giving back at the food drive would feel good too.
Maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad year going forward, after all.
TWO KENDRA
Humbled—that was probably a good word to use for the current state of my life. Humbled and hungry. A bad combination.
Still, I supposed there were worse ways to reach rock bottom.
And rock bottom meant right where I was—in the car line outside Watch Hill Community Church, one of several dozen waiting for my share of a massive food giveaway organized by the leadership of the church. For the first time in my life, I was going to take food from a volunteer, a person who would hand me a box of whatever canned goods someone more fortunate had managed to cobble together in an act of charity.
Talk about humiliating.
Still, I needed the help. Rather, we needed the help—my father and I. That fact couldn’t be denied—over the last few months I’d woken up many days and wondered how we were going to make it. I pulled the car forward one length and regarded my dad, who sat in the passenger seat next to me. “Lots more people here than I expected.”
“Me too.”
He kept his eyes on the line in front of us. Several hundred feet ahead a large blue tent marked the place where we’d receive the handout. The volunteers scrambling in and out of the pick-up spot reminded me of cheerful ants, all of them working hard in bright orange T-shirts.
“This isn’t the man I wanted to be, Kendra,” he said after a few more minutes, and a few more creeping car lengths. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“This all feels so strange.”
“I know, Dad.” I sighed. “I know.”
“We’re only doing this once,” he said, a hint of forceful resolve in his voice. “One time. That’s it, okay?”
“Okay.”
I gave him the reply that he wanted, even though I couldn’t be sure I’d be able to hold us to that promise. The reality of our situation hit me in the face every morning when I woke hungry—stressed—a cold reminder that we had few options left. I need to find steady work. Soon. We can’t live like this much longer.
“I don’t think they’re taking names,” I added as I watched the volunteers handing out the food. “We don’t have to tell them who we are.”
“Good, because I wouldn’t.”
I inched the car closer to the distribution center. Three cars between us and the box the local newscast promised would be enough to get two people through two weeks. While I knew the money in Dad’s checking account could have covered that, it would still be nice to give his disability check and my meager earnings as a part-time delivery driver for FoodSwap a break. Any margin between us and abject poverty was a good thing.
“I posted my résumé on a couple of new message boards this morning while you were asleep,” I told him when there was one car left to the front of the line. “Fingers crossed someone is looking for a hip-hop teacher.”
“Someone is.”
“I hope.”
“That’s all we can do.”
I sighed again. It was hard to remain hopeful and getting harder each week. I might have invested more than twenty years into my dancing career, working on it every day since I was five, but the last year or so had done nothing but prove it was just a stupid dream for a life I would never lead. It didn’t matter I’d been this close to landing a job as a featured dancer for American Dance Company’s modern dance troupe. It didn’t matter I had been this close to finally getting the roles I wanted in one of the most prestigious companies in the world. It didn’t matter I had been this close to living the life I wanted.
It didn’t matter.
The pandemic had forced American Dance Company to close indefinitely, throwing all their performers out of work. New York City’s rolling restaurant closures made my backup income dry up too, and Dad’s health had gotten worse in my absence.
All of that brewed together forced me to move back home. I thought I’d have
