She’s standing next to me just as I manage to swallow down my instinctive response of I hear arson can be fun, because as much as I can use the money she’s offering, this is . . . It’s too much. But as I turn to look at her, all I can see is the way her face is already falling, like she can tell what I want to say.
I’m an asshole.
I let out a breath and look around, trying to convince myself it’s not as bad as it looks. After a moment, I almost believe it. And I don’t know if it’s the look on her face or the fact that I need the money to live, but I find myself holding out my pinkie—first just like I did earlier.
“Like I told you earlier, I’m in,” I say, and link my finger with hers.
Her smile? Is fucking blinding.
So I do the only thing I can. I shrug off my coat and get to work.
Star
I have to hand it to Ash; he is a hard worker. Like, he’s a really hard worker. Actually, that doesn’t even come close to covering it. The guy worked his ass off. And, mercifully, he didn’t complain once.
I had seen the look on his face when he first saw the inside of the house. He’d been floored. And as we’d gone through the garbage in the backyard, I could tell just how disgusted he was. But he’d kept quiet about it. He just . . . worked. Picked up a box of garbage bags, asked me if there was anything he should keep an eye out for, and when I shook my head, he just pulled out a bag and shook it out. Then he started filling it up.
After a few minutes, though, we realized that the garbage bag plan wasn’t the best one. The entire yard was littered with so much stuff, that it just wasn’t feasible to bag it all. So instead, after the first half-dozen bags, we switched methods and started hauling the big stuff into the Dumpster. Waterlogged boxes, huge piles of lawn furniture that had been left out so long it was all broken and faded by the weather. Christmas decorations, most of which were star-themed, which killed me a little bit, were dragged away and dumped. But bit by bit, the piles began to shrink. Hours later, when the sun is just starting to dip, I call it a day and we head inside to wash the worst of the grime off. And that’s an adventure in itself, because it’s not like the bathroom was miraculously spared from the hoard.
Afterward, finally, we step out onto the porch together, and I close the front door behind us and slide the key into the lock.
“Well,” he says, pulling his jacket back on even though it is still really warm outside. “Is it cool if I come back tomorrow?”
I boggle at him. Is this guy serious? I was ready to just hand him a twenty and hope for the best.
“Dude,” I say, so relieved I’m almost ready to cry. “Of course. You worked your butt off. Of course you can come back.”
“So I’ve got the job?” he asks, but I can already see the grin he’s trying to smother as it pulls at the side of his mouth. His eyes meet mine, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Oh, shut up,” I tell him. “You know you do.” And he honestly did. Between the two of us, we must have hauled three or four dozen bags of garbage to the curb, all of them stuffed full to the brim, and put even more than that into the Dumpster. There had just been so much stuff. It had been everywhere, all over the backyard. Bins and boxes, covered with tarps that weren’t doing anything to protect them from the elements. Nearly everything that my mother had stored out there had been destroyed by rain and dirt and god knows what else.
It was heartbreaking. I don’t even know how long things have been like this. Had the stuff she’d been storing back there gotten to that state of disarray and decay while she was still alive? For all I know, it could have been out there for years.
But, together, we’d managed to haul out a good chunk of it. Not a huge amount, not enough for the backyard to be even close to clear enough for me to use it as a sorting area, like my plan had been, but it was still a whole lot better than it had been before. And it was so much more than I could have done in one day on my own. Hell, to be honest, it was more than I could have done on my own in a week.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, and pulls one of his hands out of the pocket and gives me a little wave. “Same time work for you?”
“Are you kidding?” I ask. I know this guy’s been through some shit, but this is ridiculous. “Get in the car, Ash. I’m taking you for dinner.”
“You . . . what?” He’s looking at me like I’ve grown another head. Possibly one that belonged to a lizard. “What are you talking about?”
“Dinner.” I say the word slowly, but I smile to let him know I’m teasing him. “Din-ner. The last meal of the day. I’m buying you dinner.”
“Why?”
“Because you worked really, really hard, dude,” I say, starting to get exasperated. “And you offered to come back. And because we didn’t even stop for lunch. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
“But . . . we had lunch.”
“No,” I say. “We had a couple of crappy bagels that I swiped from the B + B’s breakfast buffet. They were dry and gross. Would not recommend. What I want is a big, greasy cheeseburger. So are you going to get in the car, or are you going to follow me in yours?”
***
It took a lot more cajoling than I expected, but I eventually got Ash into my mother’s old station wagon. I figured that way if it crapped out on me again, I’d have him there with me, at least, until I dropped him back at the house for him to pick up his car.
I don’t think he realized what my plan was until I turned into the diner’s parking lot.
“Uh . . . I don’t think this is a good plan,” he says as I pull into a parking space right by the front door.
But I just turn off the engine and pull the key out of the ignition. “Come on,” I say. “We’re going inside.”
“No,” he snaps, and I kind of jerk in my seat at his tone. I look up at him, and the anger just bleeds right out of his face right in front of me. He sighs and scrubs both of his hands over his face. “Fuck. Sorry,” he says. “It’s not your fault. I just . . . This is a really bad idea. I’m not exactly welcome in there.”
“Look,” I unbuckle my seat belt and turn in my seat to face him straight on. “I heard what they said to you. But the way I figure it, you have two options here. You either hide yourself away until your parole ends and you can start over somewhere else, or you make these people accept you.” He’s not looking at me. He’s just sort of staring off into space. I reach out and hesitantly place my hand on his arm. He doesn’t move.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“I killed someone,” he says. “I got high as fuck and I killed someone.” He squeezes his eyes shut and his head smacks back against the headrest hard enough that it actually looks like it hurts. “And you’re just here. Why are you even here? Why aren’t you just like everyone else?”
“Look, you messed up,” I say. “Bad. I’m not going to pretend like you didn’t. But you’ve served your time, and you’re stuck living here until your parole is up. You’re trying to do the right thing.” I rub my hand against the sleeve of his jacket. “Illegitimi non carborundum.”