again, Vikram’s rent check would come in…when? Friday.
“I’ll drop off a check this weekend. Saturday, since we’ll be over for the meet anyway.”
“Um, okay,” Leanne said. “Maybe you could bring the check for August then, too? I mean, since Saturday’s the second.”
Pushy little thing! “Thanks for letting me know, Leanne. I’ll see you this weekend.” Thanks for letting me know? Rachel wondered if she should have been apologetic. But she didn’t feel apologetic. She felt furious. “Fuck,” she said quietly, to the yellow sundress in front of her. There was a pair of ducks appliquéd on its front.
She tried Bob, first at home, then on his cell. Melissa answeredat home but rushed off the phone when Mrs. Simmonds honked outside, waiting to pick her up.
A customer came in and browsed the Boys Winter section. He picked up a pair of ski boots that they’d had out for over a year and weighed them in one hand, contemplating. Rachel quickly went to the back and turned on the air. She straightened up the counter and then covertly dialed Citibank, but then hung up when the automated menu options proved overwhelming. She marked up three new items, including the duck dress, and arranged them on various racks. All the while, her eyes burned and her throat ached. Leanne worked for Deb Towney, who lived in Butterfield but was close with at least three of Rachel’s friends. She supposed she should feel lucky that it hadn’t been Deb who had called—although—what if Deb had specifically asked Leanne to call? Had said, Oh, would you? I really can’t. It would be so awkward for her. Aghast, Rachel stood at the front window, replaying this imagined moment over and over, unable to stop. Finally, the ski-boot man came to the register and purchased a pair of high-tech mittens in neon green, which she wrote up quickly and in silence. He was mildly startled when Rachel gathered her purse and keys and left the store with him, flipping the sign to closed on the way out.
Until this year, working at Hand Me Down had been a kind of hobby. The owner was a friend of Rachel’s, and filling in once or twice a week while the girls were at school hadn’t been strenuous—had been fun, even. But the endless medical bills and Bob’s leave had gradually increased her hours at the store, until she was now more-or-less working there full-time. Which she should be grateful about, probably. At least it’s not the Gap, she told herself. For some reason, working at a consignment store—which featuredthe lightly used outfits of her friends’ children—was a world better than selling new retail at some bright-and-shiny chain, in one of the anonymous shopping centers near Mount Morris.
That the new coffee place on Tremont was called The Grind had almost ceased to bother Rachel, although she still felt there was something vaguely inappropriate either about the name or the fact that she went there every day. And why the relentless dim lighting, the throbbing club music? Why, at ten minutes to eleven in the morning? Winnie refused to meet there for their regular coffee or lunch get-togethers—regular until recently, that is. It had been several weeks since Rachel had seen or talked to her mother, though her pain over this was dwarfed by the more immediate humiliation of the bounced check. She ordered a half tea, half lemonade, declined an extra “flavor shot,” and obediently stepped over to the pickup counter.
She idly glanced at the three people crowded into the one back booth, their papers scattered across the table.
Then the man said, “Ray?”
She turned, face already arranged in a half smile for whoever it was. But it was Bob, in a Waugatuck Girls Diving baseball cap, sitting there at The Grind with two mother-hen types.
“Your hat,” Rachel said stupidly, gesturing vaguely. Without it, his pale, bare head stood out—he’d stuck with shaving himself bald, after all the surgeries, and liked to say he rocked that
“I’ll drop off a check this weekend. Saturday, since we’ll be over for the meet anyway.”
“Um, okay,” Leanne said. “Maybe you could bring the check for August then, too? I mean, since Saturday’s the second.”
Pushy little thing! “Thanks for letting me know, Leanne. I’ll see you this weekend.” Thanks for letting me know? Rachel wondered if she should have been apologetic. But she didn’t feel apologetic. She felt furious. “Fuck,” she said quietly, to the yellow sundress in front of her. There was a pair of ducks appliquéd on its front.
She tried Bob, first at home, then on his cell. Melissa answeredat home but rushed off the phone when Mrs. Simmonds honked outside, waiting to pick her up.
A customer came in and browsed the Boys Winter section. He picked up a pair of ski boots that they’d had out for over a year and weighed them in one hand, contemplating. Rachel quickly went to the back and turned on the air. She straightened up the counter and then covertly dialed Citibank, but then hung up when the automated menu options proved overwhelming. She marked up three new items, including the duck dress, and arranged them on various racks. All the while, her eyes burned and her throat ached. Leanne worked for Deb Towney, who lived in Butterfield but was close with at least three of Rachel’s friends. She supposed she should feel lucky that it hadn’t been Deb who had called—although—what if Deb had specifically asked Leanne to call? Had said, Oh, would you? I really can’t. It would be so awkward for her. Aghast, Rachel stood at the front window, replaying this imagined moment over and over, unable to stop. Finally, the ski-boot man came to the register and purchased a pair of high-tech mittens in neon green, which she wrote up quickly and in silence. He was mildly startled when Rachel gathered her purse and keys and left the store with him, flipping the sign to closed on the way out.
Until this year, working at Hand Me Down had been a kind of hobby. The owner was a friend of Rachel’s, and filling in once or twice a week while the girls were at school hadn’t been strenuous—had been fun, even. But the endless medical bills and Bob’s leave had gradually increased her hours at the store, until she was now more-or-less working there full-time. Which she should be grateful about, probably. At least it’s not the Gap, she told herself. For some reason, working at a consignment store—which featuredthe lightly used outfits of her friends’ children—was a world better than selling new retail at some bright-and-shiny chain, in one of the anonymous shopping centers near Mount Morris.
That the new coffee place on Tremont was called The Grind had almost ceased to bother Rachel, although she still felt there was something vaguely inappropriate either about the name or the fact that she went there every day. And why the relentless dim lighting, the throbbing club music? Why, at ten minutes to eleven in the morning? Winnie refused to meet there for their regular coffee or lunch get-togethers—regular until recently, that is. It had been several weeks since Rachel had seen or talked to her mother, though her pain over this was dwarfed by the more immediate humiliation of the bounced check. She ordered a half tea, half lemonade, declined an extra “flavor shot,” and obediently stepped over to the pickup counter.
She idly glanced at the three people crowded into the one back booth, their papers scattered across the table.
Then the man said, “Ray?”
She turned, face already arranged in a half smile for whoever it was. But it was Bob, in a Waugatuck Girls Diving baseball cap, sitting there at The Grind with two mother-hen types.
“Your hat,” Rachel said stupidly, gesturing vaguely. Without it, his pale, bare head stood out—he’d stuck with shaving himself bald, after all the surgeries, and liked to say he rocked that
Similar Books
