It’s a horse head in the sheets. He’s put asbestos in the sandwich I’m taking to work with me tomorrow. He’s gotten the dental hygienist pregnant. He’s breaking up with me. I’ve won, but he’s still kicking me out of the house. I have five minutes to gather my things before he calls the police.
“I’ll show you the surprise Friday after work.”
I go inside without responding. There’s no way I’m coming home Friday after work.
It’s November second. Friday. “Text me every hour,” Brandy urges. “If I don’t hear from you, I’m going to assume the worst, so Do. Not. Forget.”
It’s just Brandy and Leon with me here today. Zach has quit. He peered into his crystal ball weeks ago and saw the end was nigh, so he already had a new job lined up ready to go. Melissa has today scheduled off, and I bet it’s for a job interview. I’m a moron for not taking any precautionary measures.
The atmosphere is subdued. We’re scouring help wanted ads and promising to refer each other to our new bosses if we find anything good. Morris is a dead town, commercially speaking. Not bad for living in, but you’re going to have to commute to a better town to literally make your living. Half of us are going to end up moving to Beaufort, the next town over, to work at a dog food factory. The other half will move back in with their parents. None of us can decide which camp we’d rather fall into.
Brandy’s very emotional. She’s worried we’re all going to drift apart after this, and she’s probably right. I’ll stay in touch with Brandy, but I’m not sad about letting go of Melissa now that we aren’t friends anymore. Zach will likely move on at an offensive rate and forget any of us ever existed. He’s funny and whip-smart, but he’s also a prick half the time and uses his best qualities to be mean-spirited. He plays keep-away with my purse and will spend hours mimicking everything I say, even if I’m trying to ask him something important. Whenever I leave my phone sitting on the counter unlocked, he sends texts to my mom that say I’ve joined the army or I’m pregnant and don’t know who the father is.
Leon’s expressed an interest in buying the shop from the Howards and turning it into an outdoorsy restaurant. He’ll put a stuffed grizzly bear in the doorway where Homer Elvis used to stand sentry. “If either of you wants a job, I’ll hire you,” he tells us. “I want to get the restaurant up and running by spring.” We nod and say, “Sure, sure,” knowing it won’t happen.
“If I could afford it, I’d take the plunge now and move,” Brandy laments, toying with her choker necklace. “I wouldn’t even take anything with me. I’d just go.”
“When I win the lottery, I’ll buy you an island off the coast of Alaska,” I promise her. “With a guest suite for me to stay in when I visit.”
“Win the lottery as soon as you can, please. Half of my savings dried up this summer when my refrigerator broke and I had to loan my sister money for her school books.”
I lay my head on her shoulder. “You’ll get there. Before you know it, you’ll be shivering in negative-sixty-degree weather, wearing snowshoes and talking to me on the phone while you drive a team of sled dogs to the grocery store.”
“I heard you guys all thought you were going to die on Monday,” Leon announces, transplanting jars of pickled rattlesnake eggs and BBQ weevil larvae into boxes for Mr. Howard to pick up later. Mr. Howard’s going to ferry half the merchandise away to Tenmouth and dramatically clearance the rest. There are fluorescent blue signs stapled to every telephone pole on Langley: GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE. EVERYTHING AT THE JUNK YARD MUST GO! Including the people who’ve made a life here.
“It was a close call,” I sniff.
“Death by jasmine.”
Brandy and I give him questioning looks for knowing my flowers were jasmine, but he shrugs and smiles. Goddamn it, Zach. This is just like him. I wish he were here so I could yell at him for knowing it was jasmine and letting us believe otherwise. Instead he is somewhere else, ensuring his own financial security like a total jerk.
I think about moving to Tenmouth, which would suck. I think about staying in Morris and not being able to find another job, which would