Radical (7 page)

The alert dings again. Customer. I move over to the intercom so I can turn on the pump if it’s a regular who wants to pay cash.

The oldest piece-of-shit station wagon I’ve ever seen actually running is parked at pump two. Old wood panels and so much rust and primer and splotchy paint, I have no idea what color it’s supposed to be. But next to it is a girl. Dark hair, dark sunglasses, red T. She pushes her sunglasses into her hair and leans over to pop the hood. Perfect-fitting jeans. Denim faded in all the best ways. Even better from the front. I watch her walk across the lot.

“Bex.” Uncle Skip waits for me to look at him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Whatever.

“Just forget I said anything, okay?”

“Sure.”

She blocks the sun through the door for a moment, and then she’s inside, blinking in the dimness, looking around. “Oil?” she asks.

“Shelf,” Uncle Skip and I say in unison, both pointing.

“Well, I’m going to run into town and get the parts, then,” Uncle Skip says.

“Yeah.”

The girl ducks down to look at containers of oil. Uncle Skip’s keys jangle. I look at him.

“Mike’s in back if you need him,” he says.

“Sure.”

She’s got some oil and is moving toward the drink case.

Maybe she’ll need help. I stand up a little taller.

She has the oil in the crook of her arm, a bottle of something in one hand, and a bag of sunflower seeds in her other hand.

She looks up. Dark eyes. A birthmark near her jaw. One corner of her mouth turns up, and I slouch against the counter, playing it cool, waiting to see if I get a smile.

She puts the oil on the counter and digs her hand into her jeans pocket, looking for cash, smiling up at me while she does.

I’m free to look, and she takes her time.

She can dig all day as far as I’m concerned. Her breasts push in, her T caught between them, lifting her shirt. Her waistband’s fraying above the button, soft threads begging to be touched against soft belly.

“Anything else?” I try to sound cool.

“Yeah,” she says. She counts her money. “Twelve, no, thirteen, on pump two.” Her voice is like honey.

She can have twenty dollars on the house. She looks older than me but not by much. She has to be at least sixteen to drive alone, but I doubt she’s much more than eighteen. Straight girls sometimes think I’m younger than I am. Queer girls usually get me on sight. Not that I see a lot of queer girls out this way. Or any, really.

She sorts through the lollipops in the bin on the counter.

I would sell her anything. Even some of the local booze Uncle Skip doesn’t know I know he has in back. But I stop myself from telling her that.

“Um.” She doesn’t laugh, but it’s close. She’s staring at me, at my face. She has a great smile. Her lollipop’s already on the counter next to the rest.

“Sorry.” But I’m not. Is she actually flirting with me, or just being friendly? Or does she think I’m acting weird? I ring up the oil. “And . . . thirteen dollars in gas?”

“Yup,” she says, playing with the pens in the cup on the counter, trying to look so cool.

I take her money. Count out her change. Hope I got it right.

When I hand it to her, my fingers touch her skin and I drop the coins.

She laughs and covers her mouth with her balled-up hand.

“Sorry,” I mumble. I can’t get the dime off the counter. It slides. My nails are too short to get under it. “Sorry.”

She laughs harder and leans over, pushing my hand in an exaggerated way.

“Ha! I’ve got it,” she says, jumping back with the dime pinched between her fingers.

She smells good, like oranges and something spicy. Her lips look soft, not bare but none of that thick, sticky gloss.

“You need any help with that?”

Her eyes crinkle, confused, and I point at the oil. “Ah, no,” she says. “
This
I can handle all on my own. But thanks.” She gathers up her stuff and swings toward the door. One more look over her shoulder. I want to freeze that look for later.

Outside she gasses up and then uncaps the bottle of oil and pours it in, bending over, her shirt pulling tight across her back.

She tosses the empty bottle into the trash, replaces the cap where she poured in the oil, turns it tight, then a little more for sure, and then closes the hood. She wipes her hands down her thighs. I watch her get into the wagon and then pull away.

One taillight blinks into the turn.

The afternoon is so slow, I have plenty of time to think about her — if she was just passing through, and where she might be staying, since she didn’t sound local. And if she was actually, seriously flirting with me.

“Hiya, Bex,” Mr. Henderson says, coming in carrying his wife’s old vacuum cleaner. “Mary says it’s got that smell again, the burnt-rubber smell, and is hardly sucking up anything. Can you take a look at it?”

“Sure. I’ll take a look now. Want me to call when I’m done?”

“Nah, I’ll be here Wednesday, and she can live two days without vacuuming.”

I check with Mike, and then pull the folding table out from the back so I have room to work. As soon as I’ve got it pulled apart, I can see the issue. I call Mr. Henderson, and then get Mike’s okay to order the new belt and another part that is looking ready to go. Then I put it mostly back together and store it in back until the parts arrive. Mr. Henderson will reimburse us for the parts, and then we’ll go through our usual dance of him offering me money in addition to the brownies from Mrs. Henderson, and I’ll decline, and he’ll eventually shove it into my hand. Much less than a pro would charge, but fun money for me. I always use the repair money for a splurge.

At five thirty, Uncle Skip turns off the pumps and locks the door. But he has a few things to do, so I snag some more computer time.

I run another search on Clearview. Not much online, not even a website yet. Just a few hits on land auction and public notices. I watch a few videos of tactical courses and competitions, thinking about what Dad might build for them. He should make sure they can reconfigure regularly or the course will lose effectiveness. And if he does an indoor course, he should do more than the boxy rooms most of these courses use. He should make one at least that looks like what we would see. Farmhouses and trailers and schools and warehouses. Stores, with glass and shelves and crazy sight lines. Factories. How much land do they have?

Not that he’s asked what I think.

I check out the dykes who hike site. I like to read their trail reports, but I don’t post there. Too crunchy and liberal. And the queer sites are even worse. A lot of the teens are obsessed with proms and GSAs, school stuff. And they’re going out, to clubs and on dates. I don’t get that stuff, and they’d never get me. But I can’t stop myself from reading, even if I don’t post. I feel like I know some of them. I like the pictures. One girl in particular is always posting pics of her and her friends. I like to look at those. I
really
like the one she posted today. But every time there’s a shooting in the news — so, like, every week — doesn’t matter the circumstances, every thread on every site becomes about how guns are bad and people who disagree with them are bad or crazy, too.

I clear the browser history, and then sign in to YouTube and check my videos. There are some more comments. Most of them junk and assholes, guys who only want to see a girl shoot if she’s Militia Babe Barbie in Daisy Dukes and a threadbare tank, showing off her boobs. A few of the regulars left encouraging comments. BigBob critiques my grip, like always, but he does it with love. The video of the pipe bomb is up to two thousand likes. The girl in the Philippines has a new video up. She’s getting good. The sidebar shows a new video labeled “Urban Bugout Simulation.” I click on it, but before the intro ad even finishes, my phone buzzes with a text.

You around?
Boyd. Haven’t heard from him in a while.

I text back,
Yes but leaving soon
.

ETA 3
.

In back
.

I pick up the trash that was waiting to go out with us and head for the door.

“Where you going?” Uncle Skip asks from his office.

“Taking the trash out. There’s two trips’ worth.”

“I’ll be ready in about ten minutes.”

“Okay.”

I close the door behind me and take the trash over to the Dumpster, pulling open the gate to heave it in just as Boyd’s car pulls up.

“Hey,” he says, not even bothering to shut it off.

“What’s up?” I ask, because this doesn’t feel like he’s just dropping by to chat.

“Not much,” he says, but he’s looking around, squinting. Boyd, his brother Willie, and his dad used to be part of the deep-camping crew. But then his parents got divorced and his dad moved away. Boyd came with us on his own once, but then he stopped.

He’s still looking around, like he’s watching for an attack. More paranoid than usual.

“I heard about Willie,” I say. “Sorry.” I knew Willie was messed up, but I didn’t think he was stupid enough to start cooking meth.

Boyd shrugs. “Bound to happen. Listen.” He clears his throat. “I’m thinking of taking off for a while. Going out to Montana to see my dad, maybe see if he can get me a job.” He looks away from me. “I need to get out of here for a while.” I can imagine things are shitty at home without Willie around to run interference with his mom’s boyfriend. “But I need cash.”

I like Boyd. And he’s always been good about helping me out and not charging a crazy markup when I need ammo on the sly. But I’m not just giving him money. I’m starting to shake my head when he says, “You still interested in a Bobcat?”

“You serious?” I ask, already picturing how the subcompact pistol fits in my hand.

“Willie’s not going to be using his, and I can’t leave it behind.” Not with his younger brothers still at home and his mom a mess. “You always loved to shoot mine, so I thought maybe you’d want it.”

Dad would kill me, but . . . “How much?”

We haggle for a while and then arrange a time for him to come by. He’ll get his quick cash, less than he’d get from a proper dealer, but he knows me and can trust me and I won’t be recording the sale anywhere. I’ll get the Bobcat, holster, and whatever he’s not taking of his ammo, mostly .22s, the ones the Bobcat likes best, but some .44 VOR-TX as a bonus, because he’s not going to find many buyers for those. All in all, I got the better deal.

He’s barely out of the lot, and I’m already nervous, thinking about where I’ll hide the Bobcat and extra ammo, especially the .44s — Dad will know he didn’t buy those. Dad would kill me for real. I almost call Boyd to tell him I’ve changed my mind. But I don’t. I want that Bobcat.

I go back to the office, but Uncle Skip is shutting down his computer and packing up. He’s already turned off the lights and computer out front. “You ready?” Uncle Skip asks, but he seems weird.

It’s normal for him to be quiet. Sometime we don’t talk at all in the truck. But today it’s like I can hear him trying not to talk.

“You know,” he finally says, trying to be all casual, “those guys who are always obsessing over the doomsday scenarios, you know most of them aren’t playing with a full deck, right? It’s fear talking. Paranoia.” He glances at me before turning. “It’s not real.”

Crap. I must have left the video up.

“No wonder you’re freaked out all the time,” he says, sighing like I’m not even here.

“I’m
not
freaked out.” He looks at me. “I’m focused.”

“Those videos, those men —”

“Not just men.”

“People,” he corrects. “All those people, posting those videos . . .” He seems to try to figure out what to say and then gives up. “Nothing is going to happen, Bex.”

I wonder how many times in history people have said that, right before the shit hit the fan.

“Something always happens.” I look at him, wanting him to understand. “You can choose to be ready or not.”

There are a million things I could be doing right now that would be more useful — or more entertaining — than sitting at the table, eating some cereal, with a stupid book open randomly next to me. Every other bite, I turn the page. In between, I survey Mom and Dad when they’re not looking. They’re very lovey this morning. I wish they’d stop. And leave. Mark will probably sleep half the day. Uncle Skip went to the station. Just Mom and Dad to go. Then I can get down to business.

Mom taps the open book. I guess I haven’t turned a page in a while. “I expect you to be further along by the time we get home. Your aunt Lorraine is going to send me the links for the quizzes that go along with the summer reading list.”

“Can’t wait,” I say. Like I’m taking any quizzes or working my way through the eleventh-grade summer reading list for a school I have no intention of going to.

“I’m sure Hannah would be happy to talk about the books if you have any questions. Or she might have some ideas about which books were most helpful in her classes.”

Mom’s smile is so hopeful. She thinks she has me snowed, that I don’t know she’s been plotting to dump me with Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Nathan. Within weeks, if I’m not careful.

Aunt Lorraine always looks at me like I’m defective or will get dirt on her furniture. Mom used to defend me. Now she just wants me to be like Hannah.