another two hundred dollars, he could buy them on his own. “No, just the razor.”
“Anything else?” Dennis asked, putting the box into a brown-and-white paper bag.
“Yes, but I’ll get it myself and come back.” Allison unzipped the top of her bag, then said the words that would guarantee Dennis wouldn’t try to extend the conversation when she returned. “I need some tampons.”
She ducked into an aisle before Dennis could turn red and start stammering. He hadn’t mastered the art of the poker face when it came to feminine hygiene products.
At least Mugg’s Pharmacy was empty. Tinny music piped through the speakers as Allison worked her way to the back of the store. She grabbed a box of Tampax, then moved farther down the aisle to find what she’d really come for.
Early pregnancy test
Results in five minutes!
Accurate within two weeks of conception
Allison said a silent prayer of thanks that Mr. Mugg was too old-fashioned to install security cameras, before she plucked a pregnancy test off the shelf and dropping it into her bag. Then she turned, and froze.
“Well, well, well.” Anders was standing a few feet from her, with a smirk that left no doubt he’d seen exactly what she was about to shoplift. “What do we have here?”
A persistent ringing wakes me up Saturday morning. My room is stuffy and hot, and I push aside the tangle of sheets weighing me down before reaching for the floor to pick up my phone. Efram is gone, probably working an early shift at the pool. I’m not due at The Sevens until noon, so even though it’s past ten I don’t need to get up for another hour. And wouldn’t have, if it weren’t for…Oh hell.
My dad. I want to let it go to voice mail, but I can’t. I know why he’s calling. “Hey, Dad,” I say, heaving myself into a sitting position. “How was bankruptcy court?”
“Postponed,” he says.
“Sorry, what?”
“Your mom and I need a little more time to finish the restructuring plan we’re proposing. So we asked the trustee for an extension until next week, and he said yes.”
“Okay,” I say cautiously. “Is that good or bad?”
“It’s good. Gives us a better shot at hanging on to Empire.”
Empire is Empire Billiards, named after my mother’s favorite movie, Empire Records. My parents bought it when I was too young to remember what life was like before Empire became the family business. My first memory of it is the two-year anniversary when I was five; my dad carried my mother through the door with me trailing behind, into what felt like the biggest party I’d ever seen. Even though, looking back on it more than ten years later, it was probably just our relatives, a few of the construction workers and plumbers who’d become Empire regulars, and a lot of balloons.
It didn’t matter. I loved that place. It felt magical to me; someplace where I could learn a new game and where grown-ups were always happy. It took a lot of years for me to recognize how much of that good mood came from the bottles behind the bar, and how many times the bartender, Enzo, diplomatically cut off regulars when they’d had too much. But nothing ever got out of hand at Empire. It was my dark, musty, sticky-floored second home.
“Jonah?” Dad’s voice yanks me back into the present. “You still there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You said you’ll have a better shot at hanging on to Empire. But it’s not a sure thing, right?”
“None of this is for sure. We’re doing the best we can.”
I had prepared myself, when I worked the late shift at Empire the night before I left for Gull Cove, that it might be shut down by the time I got home. I thought I was ready. But every time one of my parents calls with an update, I get hit with the same stomach-curdling mix of resentment and anxiety. Nothing ever seems to get resolved; it’s always delays, and meetings with creditors, and a bunch of legal terms I don’t understand. It’s death by a thousand cuts, and even though I told my parents I wanted them to keep me in the loop, I’m starting to wish they’d spare me the details.
“But you’re still open, right?” I ask.
“We are,” Dad says. “We’ve been working on a few different ways to cut costs.” Something about the way he clears his throat makes me positive I’m not going to like whatever he says next. “We had to