Ripple by Heather Smith Meloche Page A

satisfaction hits me. My heart beating super-fast. My blood pumping hard. My first interaction with my new town’s police successfully behind me. Like an official initiation into Pineville.
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    The next morning, ten hours after anatomically enhancing Pineville’s deer signs, I’m wiping the sweat from my forehead, grabbing two more clean towels, and waiting for the next car to emerge from the car wash’s dangling cloth ribbons.
    The Suds and Shine in Hallend is a good twenty-minute drive from Pineville, but just because I’ve moved, I don’t want to leave it. For three years now, it’s been a good job, and my boss is super-cool.
    A Toyota Highlander heads out of the chute, and I lunge to dry it before another car pops out.
    â€œIt’s gettin’ colder out,” forty-year-old Hollis, the other dryer on this shift, says.
    â€œCan’t feel the cold now.” I move fast, my arms burning and my back screaming from bending over to dry the tire wells of what had to be 150 vehicles already this morning.
    â€œOh, we’ll feel it soon enough. Winter’s comin’ early this year.” Hollis’s eyebrows rise in his smooth, dark face. The short black hair at his temples is graying. He’s been at this job much longer than me, needs the money even more than I do. He comes from the declining town next door, has four young mouths to feed, three of them under twelve. He’s a good guy and a crazy-hard worker.
    â€œMind if I take my fifteen-minute break now?” I ask Hollis, watching the Highlander drive away.
    â€œGo to it.” Hollis smiles. Like me, he’s happy to have a job, and happy it’s here.
    I head to Tony Ritter’s office, knock on the door decorated with a wood plaque that says “The Boss.”
    â€œYeah,” his voice rumbles. He smiles when he sees me walk into the office. “Jack, what’s up?” He’s dressed in his usual golf jacket and jeans. His Detroit Tigers baseball hat, faded from the sun and sweat, covers his shaggy gray hair. His desk is loaded with receipts and register tape.
    â€œHow’s it going, Tony? I came to ask for a favor.”
    â€œOh, shit. Please don’t tell me you want time off, because I’ve already had three people come in and ask me that today.” He scrapes calloused fingers over his long chin.
    I shake my head. “Just the opposite, actually. I need more shifts if you can give them to me. I hate to ask, but my mom and I just had to leave—”
    He raises his palm. “Uh-uh. Remember my cardinal rule? Idon’t need to know your business as much as no one sure as shit needs to know mine. So keep your sob story to yourself and take a seat, kid. I’ve got spots to fill on my schedule, and your name is going on them.”
    â€œThanks, Tony.” I settle into one of the stiff chairs in front of his desk, relieved. I came and asked him for this job the day after Mom banked her car off the car wash conveyer, stuck it in park halfway through the wash, and got out to stand in the raining suds. She was über-wasted, singing “I Will Survive” at the top of her lungs. I figured I wouldn’t have to say much to Tony about why I wanted money. And he didn’t ask. Just gave me the uniform T-shirt and told me to be there by four the next day. The fact that he still never asks makes him the best boss I’ve ever had. In exchange, I work my ass off for him. I’ve never shown up late, never complain. And like now, I always grab any extra shifts he wants to throw at me to pay for those unopened bills on my counter.
    Once my name is splattered all over the schedule, I get up to leave.
    â€œBefore you get back out to the line,” Tony says, “there’s a cell phone going berserk in the break room. Might want to check to see if it’s yours.”
    Panic cuts through me. But I keep a calm smile.