It’s not a clu
“So, I’m thinking it’s a night club or something,” I said as Jack inspected the channels he’d dug in the top of the table. “I mean, the first night I was here, there were, like, lasers coming out of the roof. Last night, it was Christmas lights. Kind of. And I heard music each night.”
Jack focused on his work.
“What is it?” I asked.
Jack’s eyes never left the table and his fingertip ran along a channel, inspecting it for depth and consistency as I blathered on at the other end of the table.
The two of us had risen early—as we had every day since I had arrived—and ate a breakfast of cereal.
I didn’t realize it when I’d had breakfast at Jack’s the first morning, but he liked the same cereal I did.
It didn’t dawn on me until the morning after seeing the Christmas lights at the barn, but it struck me as incredibly lucky.
I wouldn’t have known how to approach food likes and dislikes with Jack.
Not that I didn’t feel like I couldn’t talk to him about not liking the food he had on hand, but it would feel rude to tell him I didn’t like the free food he provided each day.
So far, he was batting a thousand in the food department.
“Come on, Jack?” I pleaded. “If there’s some cool place to go hang out at night, that’d be cool. There’s nothing in this town! A club would be cool. I mean, if it’s all ages and all. Not if it’s only twenty-one and up. That would suck because then that would mean there is something cool here, but—”
Jack looked up at me and held a hand up.
Stop. He was saying. But he wasn’t upset. He was amused.
After it was clear that I wasn’t going to keep blathering on with questions and thoughts about the barn, Jack reached for his back pocket again.
His notepad came into view and he flipped through to find a page to write upon.
I tried to wait patiently, but my thoughts about the cool things that could be going on at the barn had me bouncing on the balls of my feet.
When Jack had finally held the notepad out for me to read, my heart sank.
It’s not a club. It read.
“Then what is it?” I asked desperately. “Like, I don’t know, a missile silo or something? Are they doing strange government experiments or something?”
Jack rolled his eyes and began scribbling again. I waited, still bouncing on the balls of my feet as I waited for more written communication.
Auguste Anderson lives there.
My heart sank further. Jack held a finger up and started writing again.
Artist. But I don’t know anything about the lights. I was in bed.
Jack showed me his last message, then shrugged at me.
“Well, shit.” I kicked at the ground. “Uh, sorry.”
Jack looked amused. He scratched out another message.
Sorry.
“It’s okay,” I said after looking at the message. “It’s not your fault this town is boring. No offense.”
Jack sat the notepad down and began running his finger along the grooves in the table again.
What he was checking for so thoroughly, I wasn’t sure.
In fact, I didn’t even know why he’d cut up the tabletop like he had.
When I looked down at it, it looked like…
an ant farm? Like those plastic ant farms you fill with chunky sand, then add ants, and you can view the way they dig their tunnels through the clear glass sides?
That’s what the top of the table looked like, but without the glass covering to keep anything inside.
“So,” I kicked my toe at the ground again, “what’s the school situation around here? I mean, I guess I’ve been kind of homeschooled by Mom. Is there even a high school here? Or are you going to break out a bigger notepad to teach me more about the three Rs or what?”
Jack looked up at me, a frown on his face. His hands started to move rapidly.
“Jack,” I said, “sign language? I’m rusty. Remember?”
His head fell back and he would have groaned if he was able. Instead, he reached for his notepad and started to scrawl his indistinct block letters again.
Kids around here go to The Pueblo.
“What’s that?” I asked immediately. “The high school or something? I haven’t seen it downtown, so—”
Jack was scribbling again.
It’s the building next to Starbuck’s.
I had to think about the layout of Possibly for a moment before I realized what he was talking about at first.
“The…mosque?” It suddenly dawned on me. “That’s…a school?”
Jack nodded and held his hand up to tilt back and forth.
“Uh, why’s it called The Pueblo?”
Jack shrugged.
“Okay.” I relented. “I mean, it’s a mosque. But whatever. The kids around here go to school there?”
Jack nodded.
“I guess I should go check it out.” I shrugged. “I’ll be going there in a few months.”
A thought that made my cheeks go red suddenly struck me.
“I mean,” I said, “you know, if I’m still here and everything. I mean, yeah. I didn’t mean to—”
Jack stopped me with a shrug and his own reddening cheeks.
I had asked Jack about the school in town, insinuated that I knew I would still be stuck living with him when the school year came around, and assumed he would be okay with that.
I’d also made it clear that I was well aware that Mom wasn’t coming back for me anytime soon.
Of course, that was an assumption as well, but since she hadn’t even sent a text in three days, it was likely I wouldn’t hear from her at all for a long time. Unless I texted or called her first.
If I can get a signal in this town.
Maybe I’ll have to walk back up to the highway?
The fact that I’d made all of my assumptions and insinuations was what had made Jack’s cheeks rosy, too, I’m sure.
Having me around, after being alone for a decade, and allowed his peace and quiet, was probably not ideal for him.
To assume that he would want to continue on with our temporary arrangement, long term, after three days of staying with him was… insane.
Jack and I barely even knew each other. In fact, we were virtually strangers.
My mom had married Jack when I was still a toddler.
Then, when I was six-years-old, before I could really make any solid, long-lasting memories, she had swept me away to live on the road.
I hadn’t seen or talked to Jack in those ten years.
My mom had dumped me off with a stranger, essentially.
A stranger I was now assuming would be pleased as hell to have me hanging around all of the time.
Or, at least, until I was old enough to go off and do my own thing, just like my mom had done.
“Um,” I was kicking the toe of my shoe at the ground again and Jack was inspecting the tabletop awkwardly, “so, what are you doing here?”
Jack shrugged, avoiding my eyes.
“I can help,” I offered. “If you want?”
Jack didn’t respond.
“I don’t really know anything about, uh, carpentry, but I’ll fetch tools or whatever,” I said. “You can teach me something?”
Jack shook his head, still looking down.
“Oh, okay.”
Jack slumped, then reached for his notepad. My fingers played along the edge of the table as I waited for what he had to say.
I work better alone. I have a deadline. Maybe next time.
He wasn’t looking at me as he held the notepad out for me to read.
“Okay.”
Jack slid the pen into the wires of the notepad and stuffed the notepad into his back pocket, still avoiding my gaze. That was the final say in the matter. Jack had made it clear where we stood in regards to his feelings about my presence all day long.
“Got it,” I said, slowly backing away from the table. “Yeah. I’ll leave you to it, man. Maybe I’ll go check out The Pueb—the coffee shop or something?”
Jack nodded, then started, looking as though he’d had a thought.
He reached into his hip pocket and extracted a bill, then held it out to me.
The same twenty bucks I’d returned to him when I had gotten back from getting his smokes at Grandy’s.
Tentatively, I stepped forward and took the bill from him, neither of us meeting each other’s eyes.
I stuffed the bill into my own hip pocket.
“Thanks,” I said. “Um, I’ll be back later?”
Jack nodded, his attention back on the table.
So, I turned and did my best to will away the redness I could still feel burning in my cheeks.
When I rounded the house, out of sight of Jack, I slumped, my shoulders and head falling forward.
At first, I thought I might go check out the barn—where the Andersons lived.
But even that idea couldn’t make me feel better.
So instead, I decided that I really would go check out Starbuck’s.
If a guy in a green screen suit and a pirate ship couldn’t make me forget things—especially with Wyatt roaming around firing his gun—nothing could.
Eventually, I’d find out what was up with the lights at the barn in the middle of the night. But my gut was too twisted up in knots to satisfy my curiosity that morning. If there’s something that’s good for a sour stomach, it’s coffee. Right?