Chapter 4 #3
“It is missing,” I confirmed. “It used to be ‘Walter’s Café,’ but nobody used the whole name so when the sign broke a few years ago, we left it.
” Also, new signs were very expensive, which I knew because I had priced them out.
“I guess that I always had to be efficient, like you said. It wasn’t only from working there, though, because I also had to do it at home.
My parents were really busy so we took care of a lot on our own. ”
“My older sister used to watch us. She also used to try to try to hit us with a wooden spoon if we annoyed her, so we developed speed and agility. That’s how I got good at scrambling out of the pocket when I was a quarterback and my other two sisters ran track in high school. It worked out in the end.”
“My brother wasn’t in charge of us,” I said. “Good thing, because he would have been terrible at it.”
“Not quick enough with the spoon?” he suggested, but I shook my head.
“Max is into Max. When I was a kid, I thought it made sense because he was so awesome. Everyone was into him, including me. I worshipped him. He was the smartest kid in the school until about eighth grade.”
“Then what happened?”
I shrugged. “I guess other people caught up a little. He had been better at sports, too, really good at baseball. He was taller and stronger than all the other players.”
“That helps.”
“It did, until they also grew,” I answered.
“Then he lost that advantage. But my dad was still sure that he was going to make it big, either in baseball or running Wall Street. Maybe expanding the restaurant into a multi-state chain. Something. Today, we heard Max’s latest idea.
” I explained how my brother was planning to capitalize on our tourist season by offering near-death experiences to them.
Like, one day they’d eat fudge and go to the beach, and the next, they’d be entombed in an abandoned grain silo that he’d set on fire.
Shane looked horrified. “Adventure tourism? Is that why people come to northern Michigan?”
“Maybe ziplining, but this is so dangerous. Who would ever give him money for it?” No one would besides my parents. “My sister said that Max took an online sales course, which she could hear through the wall. They taught people to believe that they were their own guarantee of success.”
“Does he have another job, a fallback?” he asked.
“He works at the restaurant sometimes.”
He continued to frown and he had more questions. “You said that you live with your family, but do all y’all live at home? You, your brother, and your sister?”
“Yes, we’re all still there. I know that probably seems weird and stunted to you.” It must have. It seemed weird to me and it was my own life. “We don’t get paid much so that makes it hard to move out.”
“What?” He leaned back in his chair and stared. “What do you mean? You must get at least the minimum wage.”
“No, and we don’t keep track of hours. It’s a family business.” Damn, I sounded just like my mom. “We’re there helping out because we’re family.”
“But you just said that your brother only works ‘sometimes’ and before, you told me that your sister isn’t around much, either. That leaves you and you don’t get paid. Good golly. Some people would call that wage theft.”
“I’m choosing to do it,” I argued back. “If I didn’t, the restaurant would probably fail. No, it would definitely fail. It’s too much for just my parents and it mostly falls on my mom, anyway. I think she’d crumble. It’s a family business,” I said again.
“And it’s doing so poorly that they can’t afford to pay you what you deserve?” He sounded very skeptical.
“Most restaurants don’t make much money. We’re out in the boondocks doing the best we can.”
“It doesn’t seem fair, though. You work hard.”
“I don’t pay rent and I hardly ever buy groceries,” I offered. “When my mom needs to borrow my credit card, she pays me back.”
“But your siblings probably get those same advantages,” Shane said. “And you’re the only one putting in the hours.”
“It’s how we do things,” I said shortly.
He was momentarily distracted by the arrival of his appetizer. When he started to question me again, I avoided it by asking him a different one.
“What about your career path? It’s not what you thought you would do, but are you happy with it? Is your family?”
He only answered the last part. “They’re not thrilled,” he said.
“My dad would be glad if I came home and worked in his insurance office, and I can do that if…you know, if this doesn’t work out.
” He sipped from his glass of water with a little twist of organic lemon.
“My mom would like me to live closer, no matter what I’m doing. She wants to be able to help out.”
“With what?”
“Everything.” He smiled. “She has plans for us and so far, only my oldest sister Nora is toeing the line. She has a solid career, retirement savings, a good marriage, and two kids. The rest of us have been flying below the radar but our mom could crack down at any time to enforce more adulthood on us.”
“Does she use a wooden spoon?” I guessed.
“Her weapon is guilt. None of us want to make her unhappy.”
I thought about what his parents might have expected for him and how those dreams could have included a professional football career, one in which he made enough money to set himself up for life.
It was really too bad that it hadn’t worked out.
My parents were very sorry about Max’s lack of success, particularly my dad.
He had really believed that his son would be somebody important, somebody rich.
But maybe he had bet on the wrong kid. Maybe I was the one who could turn all our fortunes around…
“Molly?”
“Let’s look at some of the rental listings I saved. We can go see them after we finish dinner,” I said.
We did do that after we left the restaurant. “This whole area will get more crowded as the tourist season approaches,” I warned after he shook his head at yet another building. “It would be better to sign a lease now.”
“A year lease. I’ll probably be here for that long,” he considered. It sounded like he wasn’t totally sure, though.
“Is moving a possibility? Are you going to get traded—no, not traded. Would you get hired away?”
“My goal is to stay and get promoted within the Woodsmen organization but football employment is fluid, both for the players and for the coaching staff. And for the scouts,” he added. “I may end up going elsewhere.”
“Wow.” I thought about that for a moment. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“You wouldn’t want to?”
“No, I wouldn’t mind going other places,” I said. “I just can’t imagine it. I’ve always been here, except for one week. In high school, we took a trip to Washington, DC.”
“What would your family do without you?”
That was the problem, wasn’t it?
“I’m a little worried about the rent on this one,” he said, squinting as he looked through the window at an apartment building. Then he looked up at the sky. “It’s getting late.”
“Do you have a curfew? It’s getting darker because it’s winter and the sun sets early here. Summer days are so long, it’s like they never end.”
“I can’t wait.” He sat back in his seat but didn’t drive us away. “How many more are on the list?”
I checked. “Two. Do you actually need to get back and sleep or something? What time are you leaving tomorrow?”
“As soon as it gets light. Let’s visit the other places.”
We did, but by the time we returned to his new home of the hotel, the shadows had lengthened a lot. Shane drove us even more slowly than usual into the parking lot and stopped next to my car, and then I watched as he breathed out and slouched back against his seat.
“We’re here,” he announced.
“Yes, thank goodness we made it before seven o’clock. What do you think? Could you live in any of those places?”
“My standards are low. You saw my last house,” he pointed out and I nodded. It had been a pit. “The problem is money. I’m really trying to save.”
“You have a long time before you retire, a lot of years.”
“Yeah.” He sounded unconvinced. “Maybe the third one…I don’t know.”
“Think about it. I can help you move in when you get back from Ohio,” I told him, and started to get out.
“Hey, Molly,” he said.
I stopped with the door handle pulled back. “What?”
“Thanks for helping me today. It was nice that you came over.”
I thought of how he’d let me cry in this truck and blow my nose into his T-shirt. “Sure. I was glad to do it.”
“I’ll send you pictures of Columbus. It will be like you’re visiting there yourself.”
“I’ll look forward to that, for sure,” I answered and he smiled.
“I’ll see you soon.”
It sounded a little like a question.
“Yes, you will,” I answered. I would look forward to seeing him, too.