Running on Empty (3 page)

Kyle shook his head. “Wish I could, but airfare’s a bitch. I already maxed out my MasterCard, and no way will Selena fly standby.”

Ethan nodded. Looking out the window at the sailboat carving the blue water of the Arm, he imagined the moment frozen in his mind like a video on pause, the Standby command blinking in the lower corner of an imaginary screen. Except, of course, the moment wasn’t really frozen. Sails snapped and billowed, a gleaming bow sliced the waves, gulls circled and swooped overhead. Nothing stayed the same. No one waited for anything anymore. No one except Ethan Palmer.

“Where
were
you today?” called Allie as she sprinted down the walkway in front of John C. Miles High. The dismissal bell had just rung so Ethan had no fear of being seen by administrators amid the throng that poured out of the building and flowed toward the street.

As it always did when he saw Allie, Ethan’s heart two-stepped in his chest. Her long red hair caught the sun as it rippled in waves over her shoulders, fluid movement matched by every part of the willowy body coming toward him. It was obvious to anyone seeing her walk—even those seeing her for the first time—that Alexis Fontaine was a dancer. Having taken ballet since she was four, the girl lived to dance, and she’d moved on to jazz and alternative forms that made Ethan’s pulse race whenever he saw her perform.

And made him wonder what this amazingly beautiful, talented girl ever saw in him.

Okay, he knew he wasn’t a troll. At five eleven, he was in good shape, and the big bucks his old man had spent on orthodontics when he was in junior high had paid off—as Allie
told him soon after they met, he had a “thousand-kilowatt smile.” But no way was he in her league. For one thing, when it came to dancing, he was one of those shuffle-on-the-spot guys. And where she was passionate about everything she did, he was interested in almost nothing, always doing just enough to get by. Mr. Rahib, the senior-high guidance counsellor who had met with Ethan a couple times already this year, had described him as “unfocused,” but Ethan suspected what the guy
really
wanted to say was “lazy.” Ethan, on the other hand, preferred to think of himself as “unmotivated.” There were only two things that ever got him excited, one of them his dream of restoring his own Cobra. The other was coming toward him now.

Dropping her bookbag on the grass, Allie slid into Ethan’s arms and kissed him while a mass of bodies rivered around them.

“Missed you,” he said when he finally released her, reaching down and picking up her bag.

“You missed more than that,” she said, her face flushed as they continued toward the street. “Beaker gave a quiz.”

Ethan shrugged. Mr. Becker, their physics teacher, was pathologically fond of pop quizzes, so it was actually more surprising when he
didn’t
give one. Ethan imagined him standing at the front of the physics lab that day, his scrawny hands just itching to pass out the papers. The guy was so thin that, in profile, he looked more like a test tube than a teacher, an observation made by a student that had resulted in his unfortunate nickname.

“I had the flu,” Ethan told Allie, holding up a sheet of monogrammed stationery he’d taken from his father’s study after Kyle and Pete dropped him off at his house. On it was an excuse neatly penned in what Moore-or-Less would assume was Jack Palmer’s handwriting when he gave it to her tomorrow.

A shadow passed over Allie’s face. “One of these days, Ethan,
you’re going to get caught.” The concern in her voice was real, and just one more thing he loved about her.

“It’s never failed me before,” he said. After all, he’d been using his father’s stationery for the same purpose since junior high.

“At least Ms. Moore won’t be there when you pass it in tomorrow,” said Allie. “Her sub won’t care if it’s real or not.”

“Three-day weekend, huh?
Please
tell me she’s not going back to that museum to load up.” Their English teacher, Ms. Moore—Seth had dubbed her Moore-or-Less the first day of classes—had spent a week in New York City that summer, and she was forever bringing in stuff she’d bought at the gift shop during her visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Last week, she’d perched a miniature model of Rodin’s
The Thinker
on top of her filing cabinet, and this week she’d brought in a print of a painting called
Freedom from Want
that showed a picture-perfect family all set to scarf down Thanksgiving dinner. Christ.

Allie grinned. “Conference. She told us today she’s been looking forward to it for months.”

“At least
someone’s
getting what they want,” Ethan muttered.

“Why? Something wrong?”

His arm around her, he led her to a bench that the Public Works department had given up trying to keep painted green. Anonymous artists in the area considered it their own personal canvas, so it changed two or three times a week. Today it was a fluorescent purple covered with black and white spackles. Seen up close, the spackles appeared random, but from several metres back they formed a face that was surprisingly three-dimensional, reminding Ethan of the dots in newspaper photographs that blended into images. Future anonymous artists would have a hard time topping that.

They sat down and, as the crowd flowed past them, Allie listened while Ethan told her what had happened that morning
with his father. “No chance Pete’s brother will wait for the money?” she asked when he finished.

Ethan shook his head. “He already called Filthy. The guy couldn’t wait to get his hands on it. He’s picking it up tonight.”

“And you really think your dad won’t change his mind?”

“Every action has a consequence.”

She groaned. “He used that one, huh?” Then, brightening, she said, “Doesn’t matter. I can borrow one of my parents’ cars when we need it.”

“I don’t
want
us to have to borrow a car,” he snapped, his tone harsher than he’d intended. Seeing her wounded expression, he squeezed her hand. “Sorry. It’s my old man I’m pissed at, not you.” They sat in silence for a few moments as the stream of students thinned to a trickle.

“Maybe,” she said hopefully, “your dad will have second thoughts. Maybe if you talk to him about it, explain how important it is.”

He turned and looked down the street, watched as vehicles approached the four-way stop, everyone taking turns, obeying the rules. “My dad isn’t like your parents, Allie. I can’t talk to him.”

“You talk to
me
,” she reminded him.

Ethan smiled. “You
hear
me. You actually listen to what I have to say.” He gently slid his fingertips along the curve of her jaw, leaning in to kiss her.

Glancing at the watch on his wrist, Allie gasped, “Jeez! I’m gonna be late!” She jumped up and grabbed her bag. “Ingrid will freak.” Ingrid Wolff—whose thick German accent and severe demeanour had generated among her dancers a variety of nicknames, one of them “Ingrid the She-Wolf”—expected nothing less than perfection from her troupe, and that included arriving at her after-school dance classes on time. “Talk to you tonight,” Allie called over her shoulder as she sprinted off.

“If I had a
car
,” Ethan called after her, “I could’ve
driven
you,” but Allie just waved and kept running.

Ethan jammed his hands into his pockets, kicking at a stone on the sidewalk as he headed toward his bus stop. “If I had a car,” he murmured, then thought of what Allie had said:
Maybe your dad will have second thoughts
.

Although Allie had met his father, she really had no idea what it was like being Jack Palmer’s son. Her own parents actually gave a damn about their two kids, and Ethan enjoyed watching the way all four carried on with each other, her dad teasing both his daughters non-stop about one thing or another, her mom constantly trying to force food into them. Sure, they nagged the girls and gave them a hard time if Allie or Bethany ever let things slide, but the Fontaines never tried to make their daughters’ lapses appear more than they were, never tried to engrave those moments with guilt, make them towering monuments of failure.

What Ethan found most surprising about Allie’s family was how much they
talked
. The first time he’d been to their house, he was immediately struck by the sheer volume of conversation he heard during the couple hours he was there: talk about school, work, friends, politics, the price of food, even goddamn global warming.

Allie talked to her parents about personal things, too, like her decision to have sex when she met the right boy. She’d told Ethan about having that conversation with them last spring before the Fontaines had moved to Halifax, before she and Ethan got together, and he wasn’t surprised to hear her parents weren’t thrilled by her decision. What
had
surprised him, though, was how they talked to Allie about that choice, frankly discussing birth control and STDs, then arranged to have Allie meet with a doctor to learn more about her options.

Ethan wondered what it would be like to have that kind of relationship with his own father. He’d forgotten the last time
the two of them had enjoyed each other’s company, had actually talked without tiptoeing around conversational land mines. They spoke, of course, but mostly just to pass on information. Or, in his father’s case, to criticize and hand out ultimatums.

On one of the walls in his father’s study was a collection of framed photos of Raye and Ethan taken each year for the Palmer family’s Christmas card. All of them had been shot by a well-known Halifax photographer, and on the rare occasions when Ethan went into that room, he’d find himself standing in front of the photo taken four years ago in Point Pleasant Park. Nine years old at the time, Raye was grinning widely at the camera, a gap in her smile showing where the last of her baby teeth had been. Ethan, however, always focused on another gap in the photo, the physical distance between him and his sister that showed how pissed off he’d been at that moment. He’d argued all morning with his father before meeting the photographer at the park, because he’d wanted to compete that day in a regional skateboarding competition in Moncton. “I can get a ride there with one of my friends,” he’d explained, but Jack Palmer had booked the photographer months earlier and refused to postpone the session. His old man’s Final Word On The Matter—”She’s a very important person”—only reaffirmed what Ethan already knew: anything that might be important to
him
wasn’t worth a damn in his father’s eyes.

That had been the last of their Christmas photos.

There were other pictures in the study, though. The opposite wall—Ethan called it his old man’s “glory wall”—was covered with photos of Jack Palmer: valedictorian when he graduated with his bachelor of business administration degree, valedictorian again when he graduated with his law degree, the day he became the youngest attorney ever to make associate at Fisher, McBurney, and Hicks. Other frames contained prints of photos and articles that had appeared in
The Chronicle Herald
,
showing his father winning case after case for his firm. In fact, his litigation record was flawless—every one of his clients had received a favourable verdict. To everyone else, Jack Palmer was perfect. To Ethan, that perfection was a pain in the ass. Who could live up to it? Not Ethan, that’s for sure, which was probably part of the reason he fought so much with his old man. A classic case of oil and water. But as ugly as oil slicks might be, at least they floated on top, right?

Standing now at his bus stop, he regretted having snapped at Allie, but he could tell that even she didn’t fully understand his dream of owning his own car. What had she said to him?
Doesn’t matter
. How could it
not
matter? But, then, how could he possibly explain it to a person who didn’t begin and end every day in a power struggle with her parents? And how could she—or anyone else, for that matter—possibly understand how important it was that he own a Mustang? And not just any Mustang. A 1996 Cobra SVT.

Ethan cursed, then cursed again. He wondered what advice Ann Almighty might have given him at that moment, and he recalled something his father had often told him and Raye when they were little. Something his grandmother was supposed to have told her own children time and time again:
Make every obstacle an opportunity
. Ethan was pretty sure that this was revisionist history—he doubted the simple woman standing by the sheets in the photograph above their mantel had ever used those words. She probably said something more along the lines of
When life gives you lemons
,
make lemonade
, but maybe there was some truth in it after all. Ethan just had to see the loss of the Cobra as less obstacle and more opportunity. Opportunity for
what
he had no idea, but he damned sure was going to find out.

No matter how many times he entered the building that housed the Harbourside Pool, Ethan was always overwhelmed by the smell of chlorine. It was like an invisible fog forcing its way up his nose and down his throat, and he could taste it on his tongue like copper for the first ten minutes he was inside. Which proved you could get used to pretty much anything—except having to turn over all your savings to your old man.

The estimate for the repairs to the Volvo was even higher than expected, so as soon as the work was done, not only would he have nothing in his bank account, he’d owe his father almost three hundred bucks. Ethan had asked him about getting a second estimate but, sitting in his study, Jack Palmer had shaken his head and said he was too busy, adding, “Time is money.” The
Time Is Money
lecture was one Ethan had heard almost as often as the
Every Action Has A Consequence
speech, so he’d been prepared for it and offered to take the Volvo himself to a couple other repair shops to see what they’d charge. But his father had leaned forward, steepling his fingers over his desk, and told him no. “You gave up the privilege of driving that car,” he said, “when your recklessness caused the damage in the first place.”

Ethan had been livid. “You’re saying I can’t even take it to get another
estimate?
That’s not fair!”

“Life isn’t always fair, Ethan. It’s about time you learned that.”

Ethan had caught himself a split-second before causing a
whole lot more damage, reining in his rage before punching a hole in Jack Palmer’s glory wall. And it wasn’t just because he didn’t want to have to pay for more repairs. He wasn’t about to give his father the satisfaction of seeing him lose it. Instead, he’d mustered up an actual smile, one of his thousand-kilowatts, and said, “Gee, thanks.” Later, though, in the home gym above the garage, he’d pounded the shit out of the speed bag until he was soaked with sweat, his knuckles raw from connecting with the leather again and again.

His old man was right about one thing, though—time
was
money. It wouldn’t do him any good sitting around moaning about not having any cash, which was why he’d come to the Harbourside Pool after school today to see Hank Freyer about picking up some more hours. He’d heard earlier in the week from one of the full-time lifeguards that the pool might be hiring another part-timer, and Ethan was hoping that Freyer might spread any extra work around in-house instead of taking on someone new. And if so, Ethan wanted to make sure he was at the head of the line when those hours were divvied up.

He found the pool office door open and the manager at his desk, the phone wedged between his chin and his shoulder. A bundle of nervous energy, Freyer was never motionless. As he spoke, he plucked paper clips from a container on his desk and linked them together in a chain. Glancing up, he beckoned Ethan in and pointed to a chair while he continued, “I know, Sam. We’ve been all through this—” He paused as the person on the other end of the line spoke for a bit. Then, “So there’s nothing I can do?” Freyer listened again, shaking his head as he began dismantling the chain, dropping each clip into the container one at a time. Finally he said, “Well, thanks for the heads-up. Talk to you later.”

He hung up the receiver and leaned back in his chair, his fingers drumming the armrests in an erratic tempo. “I don’t
have you on the schedule this afternoon, Ethan. What brings you in?”

“I heard there might be some changes in hours coming up, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Freyer raised his eyebrows. “News travels fast. I just found out for sure myself.”

“I really need the work,” said Ethan, “so if there’s anything you can do to give me more shifts, I’d really appreciate it.”

“More shifts?” Freyer looked confused.

“Yeah, I could use the money.”

“I thought you said you knew about the changes,” said Freyer.

“Just that you might be hiring another part-timer.”

Comprehension surfaced in Freyer’s eyes. “What you heard is old news. We’re not hiring now.”

“What other news
is
there?” asked Ethan.

Freyer looked at him for a moment, seemed to consider something, then leaned forward over his desk. “I guess it won’t make any difference if I tell you now. Everyone’s going to hear about it soon enough anyway.”

“Hear what?”

Freyer sighed. “With the increase in fuel prices, heating costs have blown our operating budget and we have to cut back on some of the programs we’re offering. Early registrations for the next beginners group are down anyway, so we’re not going to schedule that session until later in the winter.”

“But that means—”

“—we’ll have to cut your Wednesday-evening shift,” finished Freyer. “And after that call,” he nodded at the phone, “I’m pretty sure your Saturday mom-and-tot swim will be going, too.”

Ethan stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Sorry, Ethan. I don’t like it any better than you, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Only so many dollars to go around.” For an odd moment, Ethan expected the manager to recite
Time
is money
and
Every action has a consequence
, but Freyer just shook his head. “I know this is probably small consolation, but you’re not the only one losing shifts. All the part-timers are. If we’re lucky enough to find other funding somewhere, I hope to give everybody their hours back, but in this economy that isn’t likely. If it’s okay with you, though, I’d like to break the news to the others myself.”

Dazed, Ethan nodded. “Yeah, sure.” He got up and moved toward the door.

“Everything solid with you, Ethan?” asked Freyer.

Ethan turned. “Solid?”

Freyer looked embarrassed. “You said you needed the money. There’s so much in the news lately about companies cutting back, people losing their jobs. Your dad’s okay, right?”

“Haven’t you heard?” asked Ethan. “He’s perfect.”

Ethan lay on his bed scrolling through car ads on his laptop, wasting time until Allie got home from shopping with her mother and sister. He’d head over to her place as soon as she called.

Besides wasting time, he was also listening to Raye, across the hall, play an old Deep Purple classic, “Smoke on the Water,” and he was impressed by how good she was getting. Her performance was even more enjoyable if he imagined their father in his study trying to work. Jack had told Raye over and over that it would be better if she practised when she got home from school, but she said she preferred playing in the evening after she finished her homework. Ethan, though, had wondered lately if she did it just to annoy him. “Even the powerless,” his Global Geography teacher once told the class, “find ways to rebel against authority using everyday forms of resistance. For example, farmers in
poor countries without the economic means to increase their property might plow an additional few centimetres of field each year until, several years later, they’re farming a much larger area.” Ethan liked to think that his sister was plowing her own field each night with Winnipeg Joe’s borrowed bass.

Suddenly, the music across the hall stopped, and a moment later the door opened. Raye entered, crossing the room and flopping into the chair beside his desk.

“Surfing porn?” she asked as he closed his laptop.

“Ever heard of knocking?”

“Knocking’s for losers,” she replied and, recognizing the comment he’d made about public transit, Ethan had to chuckle. Raye lolled back in the chair so her head was nearly upside down.

“Pen explode under your chin?” he asked, nodding at the ink marks on his sister’s neck.

“Jazz.”

Ethan figured as much. Raye’s friend Jasmine had decided she wanted to be a tattoo artist, and she liked to practise new designs on whoever would let her—which meant that Raye had been coming home a lot lately with strange symbols drawn on her skin. Their father had freaked the first time until Raye had shown him they scrubbed off, but he still didn’t like the idea of his daughter being, as he put it, “covered in cartoons,” to which Raye had responded, “One day when Jazz is famous, you’ll wish she hadn’t used washable ink.” This dogged support of her friend was just one more thing that Ethan loved about his sister—although he’d never tell
her
that, of course.

“What’s this one supposed to be?” he asked.

Raye got up and stood by the bed, raising her chin so Ethan could better view the design. “A dragon. See how it’s clutching a woman in its claws?”

“That’s a woman? Looks more like a squirrel.”

“I’m ticklish. I squirmed when Jazz was doing that part.”

“Who’s the woman?”

“It’s
all
women.”

“I don’t get it.”

She sighed. “The dragon’s a symbol of misogynistic societal attitudes.”

“Deep.”

Raye cuffed him, her open palm connecting with the side of his head, which was still tender from his encounter with the Cobra’s door frame.

“Hey! What was
that
for?” he demanded.

“I know sarcasm when I hear it,” said Raye, returning to the chair.

He grinned in spite of himself. The fact that Raye took crap from nobody, including himself, was yet another of the things he admired about her—and, of course, another of the things he’d never tell her. “So,” he asked, “who came up with the dragon?”

“Jazz says it represents male hatred toward women. See how all those pointy parts look menacing?”

“Not to mention phallic,” observed Ethan, grinning again.

“Yeah, that too,” smiled Raye. “Hey, speaking of phallic symbols, what’s happening with the Mustang?”

His grin faded. “It’s
not
happening.” He told her about Kyle’s decision to sell the car to Filthy LaFarge.

“Bummer,” said Raye, and he could tell she really meant it. “What’ll you do now?”

Ethan pointed to his laptop. “I found another one in the north end that’s in pretty rough shape, but I could do a lot of the work on it myself.”

“With Pete’s help,” she said. It was no secret that Raye once had a crush on Ethan’s best friend, and one of his many attributes that Raye used to gush about—despite Ethan’s efforts to ignore her—was Pete’s extraordinary mechanical ability. She was right, though. The guy barely passed math each year, but he
could dismantle anything from a toaster to a transfer truck and put it back together so it worked better than ever. He was a good guy, too, always taking the time to answer Raye’s questions even when he had his head under a car hood.

“Yeah, with Pete’s help,” Ethan agreed. He was glad Raye’s crush on Pete had passed. Lately, he’d begun feeling protective of her, although she’d split a gut—and probably his lip—if she heard him say it. “The problem,” he continued, “is coming up with the cash. My bank account just took a shit-kicking, remember?”

“Every action has a consequence,” she said, completely deadpan, and Ethan threw a pillow at her. She ducked it easily.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a moment. Then, “I’ve got some money you can borrow,” she said.

This surprised him. “How much?”

“Over four hundred bucks.”

Ethan whistled. “All that from babysitting?”

She nodded. “Been saving for my guitar. Winnipeg says he’s got a second-hand bass coming in soon that’s perfect for me, but I don’t really need it. He’ll let me use his loaner as long as I want.”

Ethan was touched by her offer. “Thanks, Raye, but it’s not nearly enough.” He told her what had happened to his job at the pool. “So I guess my car plans are officially on hold,” he finished.

“Ever think about working somewhere else?”

“You expanding your babysitting syndicate?”

She grinned. “Don’t knock it. Money’s good. The Croziers and the Sturks usually stay out the latest, but the Applegates tip the best.”

“They’d
have
to, to make up for those monsters.” The Applegate twins, boys who’d just turned eight, were known throughout Cathedral Estates for terrorizing sitters and had
gone through half a dozen before their parents began hiring Raye. There were even rumours they’d tried to set one poor girl on fire, but Ethan suspected the boys started that story themselves. They’d met their match in Raye, though. No pun intended.

“Seriously,” she said, “have you thought about getting another job?”

“None of the other pools are hiring. I already checked.”

“What about waiting tables?”

“What about it?”

“Remember me talking about Jazz’s sister, Sapphire?”

“The drama student at Dalhousie?”

“Yeah. She works part-time as a server downtown. Makes a ton in tips.”

“A ton, huh?” He didn’t try to hide his skepticism.

“No, really. Jazz says on some nights she makes over four hundred bucks.”

Ethan’s eyes widened. “Where’s she work?”

“Carruthers.”

“Yeah, but Carruthers is really upscale. And they serve liquor, which I can’t.”

“There’s lots of restaurants in the city. Must be a few that need servers. Something to think about, anyway.” She got up. “Big French assignment due on Monday. Have to go conjugate me some verbs.”

“Jeez, it’s Friday night. You’ve got all weekend.” But he knew it was pointless to remind her. She was the polar opposite of Ethan—she took school seriously and put a hundred per cent into every assignment. And never at the last moment.

Moving to the doorway, she said, “Wouldn’t hurt
you
to crack a book now and then, Ethan Palmer.”

He laughed at her near-perfect impression of their father, who had made that very comment to him many times. Ethan flipped
her the finger and she grinned at him, then went out and closed the door behind her.

He opened his laptop and slid his finger across the touchpad to wake up the processor. Watching the car ads fill the screen again, he thought about Jazz’s sister.
She makes a ton in tips
.

Ethan stared at the screen a moment longer, then clicked on his browser’s search bar, typed
serving jobs in halifax
, and hit Enter.