Something of a Kind - By Miranda Wheeler Page 0,31

rest of the road was blank – its buildings shifted with the seasons, built up or down with tarps and tents in the rainy seasons, the portables dragged to the edge of the curb in the winter.

When Noah was young, they would clear it in the early summer for a flea market. He couldn’t put a date on when it stopped, but like everything else, the lack of money circulating crushed it. People working in shacks moved throughout the lawns, struggling to support meager income. Locals went into a frenzy right before July, the concept of travelers feeding a starving income – and often families – too much to bear.

Upon seeing Noah and Aly, a few people made a point of staring, others wedging behind their makeshift displays.

“Boy!” Nathaniel hollered, the old man a long time partner with the Locklear businesses, Lee particularly. The two bickered incessantly despite being nearly a decade apart in age. The senior produce a lot of the foods for the town, working directly with the fisheries and what remained of novelty shops. He often filled Yazzie’s To-Go freezer, which had become a surprising flood of revenue for his parents. Noah couldn’t tell if there was a debt to be settled or a complaint to pass on to the elder.

Aly nodded as Noah glanced at her. He assumed it meant she wouldn’t be offended if he mingled.

Recalling the last time he had spoken with the man, Noah shuddered. Though aloof but friendly, Nathaniel was clearly suffering from dementia. His memory was quick as a whip most days, but the guy got nasty fast. Noah had greeted the man, “Hey, Nate! What’s up?” It launched lectures skewing from the inappropriateness of nicknames to bad parenting to people’s fading respect for each other.

Words carefully chosen, he made sure to reach the hearing range of increasing deafness before speaking. “Hello. What can I do for you?”

The man raised his brow, bottom lip dropping. Blinking, he held out his hand to Aly. “Good and fine. The little one, your sister there, what’s ‘er name? Ah, never-mind, ‘ere. You give to ‘er, will you?”

Noah frowned, staring at the handmade dream catcher he placed in Aly’s hands. The navy twine was tightly wrapped around a faux- velvet ring, black and white beading leading to feathers from the beach. “Did Sarah pay for this?”

“My grandson likes ‘er. His gran promised little Kenny she’d make itup for ‘er. The wife does what she wants.” He shrugged, quavering with the effort.

Noah grinned, eyes crinkling with amusement. “Kennedy likes Sarah?”

The boy had been part-time help for years. A year older than his sister, Kennedy never complained about absent paychecks and usually poured them into his own family, filling in the brief shifts Noah took off. The kid was gangly, taller than Owen but a third the mass, with crazy hair Sarah insisted modeled some kid from One Direction.

With his eyes rolling over Aly as though he was noticing her for the first time, Nathaniel made a garbling sound, something akin to a muffled cackle. She beamed politely as he nodded towards her, his stare retracting to draw his mouth to his arm in order to stifle a coughingfit. He muttered, “Aye, you ain’t got no room to talk, boy. Your sister, she’s better off.”

Noah stiffened.

These people are such bigmouths.

“Kennedy’s a good person,” Noah snapped, as if the man wasn’t insulting Aly like she wasn’t standing right there. “If he plays his cards right, they’ll both be just fine.”

“Peculiar fella, your papa is,” Nathaniel continued, sliding a shelf into place. He glanced at Aly, scrutiny traveling along her silhouette. “You ain’t so strange. City folk, no doubt, but…”

“Thanks,” she murmured, fingering a feather of the dream catcher.

“Yeah, yeah,” Nathaniel muttered, waving to announce his departure. He moved slowly, with a hunch and a limp, his stout frame seeming more lean with strain. He kept a dazed smile on his blank face, a blinding contrast to the terrain of wrinkles and shadows.

If only the rest of him wasn’t so hostile.

“We’re all strange.” Noah’s hand gently cupped her elbow. He steered her away from Nathaniel’s quaking back, towards a shack in the next lot. With a nod he greeted his mother’s friend, frail old man with a harsh face and heavy burden. Osh shuttered with each breath, his hands quivering as he rearranged the goods on the front trays.

Without a word, Noah traded a five dollar bill for a waxen paper bag. Pinching the corner, he shook the contents