But Camille makes him feel normal. Boringly normal, in fact.
And I guess it doesn’t hurt that she’s cute, too. She’s slender, with short and choppy black pixie hair that goes in all directions. She’s got a little nose and a permanent smirk on her lips that says “totally over it”, yet has a way of also welcoming you into her self-deprecating cynicism, like you’re instantly accepted into her inner circle without having to prove yourself in any way. She’s also got an older (and slightly less interesting) sister who was once a head cheerleader named Lindsay who happened to be my brother’s prom date way back in the day, funny enough.
Camille is, for lack of a more intelligent phrase, “cool as fuck”.
I really liked Camille. I hope the past year and a half in Europe hasn’t changed her too much.
Somehow, I seriously doubt it.
“Ma, I get it, I understand. I … I just …” comes Bobby’s voice suddenly from the hallway, his quiet tone from earlier traded for something just loud enough to hear. “I just thought that … that Pa was getting more work now, since all of that stuff in Fairview—”
“I know, sweetie,” returns his mama’s voice, full of its usual high-pitched soft molasses and love. “I’m afraid it just still isn’t enough. South Wood is pretty expensive, hon, and—”
“I know, Ma. I told you I’ll transfer somewhere local if—”
“Listen to me, sweetheart. We’re gonna keep you going to that school as long as we can. We just need a little help, alright? Start askin’ around tomorrow, if you can. Put in some applications. I hear the Loves are in need of a dish washer. Or see if Mr. Tucker’s hiring servers at Biggie’s Bites. That’s within walking distance.”
“Walking distance?” Bobby protests. “In this heat??”
A shuffling of clothes indicates a hug.
I bite my lip and glance back down at my phone.
I believe I’m about two more overheard conversations away from earning my official Spruce Eavesdropper Membership Card.
Bobby trudges back into the living room, his mood changed considerably. He plops right back in place next to me on the couch, then just sort of stares at the TV, aloof.
I glance at him. “You alright, bud?” He shrugs. “So what was all that about?” I ask, pretending not to have overheard most of it.
“Nothin’ I didn’t already see comin’,” he answers lamely, then jams a thumb into the remote, turning the volume all the way back up.
I nod with understanding, then throw an arm around my best buddy and pull him against me. “It’ll be alright, my man,” I assure him, rubbing and patting his arm and shoulder with my hand around him. “I’ll take care of ya.”
Bobby lets himself sink against me, giving in to my side-hug as his head rests against my chest. The noise of the TV fills our ears, and nothing more is said. Delilah the cat has gone to sleep, the night noises of horny crickets sing through the long wide window at our backs, and the lazy, slumped pair of us sink even deeper into that hungry old couch, though we both seem to be all out of laughs for the night.
5
BOBBY
“Yes, sir, I’m definitely a team player,” I answer dutifully.
My ass hasn’t been in a job interview since I was sixteen.
“Yes, ma’am, I can work weekends and nights,” I answer with a straight back and a charming smile.
But yeah, I still got it.
“Yes, sir, I am a very fast learner!”
My interview at Country Lovin’ is at a booth table in the back of the restaurant. My interview at the antique shop on 4th and Apricot is in a musty closet I think is supposed to be the manager’s office. My interview at Hadley’s Hardware is done while standing with a man in overalls and a stack of two-by-fours piled like an impromptu desk between us, right in the middle of the store.
“Yes, ma’am, I am at least sixteen years of age.”
That one was with Patsy herself at Patsy’s Pastries & Pies. I should be flattered she asked; I’m always told I have a young face.
With every interview, I’m dismissed with a promise of being called back later. “We just hired a few summer servers,” Billy’s pa tells me after I finish my interview at Biggie’s Bites, which was done in a cramped office off the back of the kitchen, “so I’m not sure if we can squeeze in another just yet, but—”
“I understand,” I tell him, same as I told the man at Hadley’s Hardware, and Timothy Love from Country Lovin’, and Patsy, and the thirty-something with a big brown beard and bigger belly who interviewed me one block down at the antique shop.
I sigh as I come out of the doors of my latest interview—the one with the ten-year-old-trapped-in-a-forty-year-old’s-body at the town arcade who thinks I’m “overqualified for sweeping candy and quarters off of floors”.