When I was done, I dragged out my wallet and set that last five-dollar bill under the plate. With tax, the tip would be less than fifty cents, and I felt cheap. I dug in the coin part for anything more, added a couple of dimes.
Pete watched me closely. “That’s a mighty empty wallet, son.”
I waved my useless debit card, the one linked to my bank account that Dad emptied the day before I turned eighteen. I’d been underage, so it was a joint account. Dad claimed my money was just payback for the years of raising me, but I’d seen a glitter in his eyes and wondered what he knew. Next day, I ran. Pete didn’t need to find out, though. “Modern times. Plastic is the way to go.”
“Oh, sure. Good to know.”
“Doesn’t mean I’d turn down a job,” I said, as Caitlyn came to relieve me of my plate and money. “You think the Bar & Star might be hiring?”
“Not this time of year. Come spring, yeah, they take seasonal hands. If you’re still in these parts and have a good reference, they might hire you, even scrawny as you look.”
“Pete!” Caitlyn took a swipe at the old man’s hair. “Don’t call people scrawny.”
“Well, it’s not like that’s a secret,” Pete protested. “He knows he’s no Hulk Hogan, right, kid? What are you, a buck twenty soaking wet?”
“One-forty, dude,” I told him. I’d grown another inch in the last year, to a respectable five-seven, and put on some muscles with the work.
“Well, excuse the hell out of me.” He grinned. “No worries. Sometimes the scrawny ones can work the big guys under the table. I was always lean myself.”
I could believe that. He looked taller than me, though it was hard to tell sitting down, and what muscle he’d once carried had thinned down to gristle, but he didn’t have the look of a man who’d ever been big.
“I can work,” I told him. “I’m not afraid of any job.” I glanced at Caitlyn, an idea coming to me. “You don’t happen to have, like, a community bulletin board? Someplace work gets posted?”
“Sure. I can give you the link,” she answered.
There went that hope. Because this was 2012, with not many towns as set in their ways as Dover’s Ridge, Colorado, where the general store still had bits of paper pinned to the cork. I was in deep trouble. “Broke my phone,” I lied. “Don’t have a new one yet. You have a library?”
“Nearest one is in Tolberg, twenty-minute drive.”
“Got it.” I managed a smile.
“Are you even eighteen?” Pete peered at me. “You a runaway, kid?”
“Fuck no!” I added, “Excuse me,” because Dad had beaten politeness into me. “I’m eighteen. Here, no lies.” I passed him my driver’s license.
“And three days.” He handed it back. “Happy birthday, kid.”
“Austin, not kid,” I retorted.
“I’m seventy-four. You’re all kids to me. How broke are you?”
“Not that bad,” I lied again. “But if I want to stick around, I’ll need to get a job.”
“Go to San Francisco,” Caitlyn told me, brushing a strand of hair off her face. “Or LA, someplace real. No one sticks around here.”
“Maybe I’ll be the first.” I smiled at her.
“Not interested,” she said, like she’d said it a hundred times before.
“No, I didn’t mean that.” I didn’t dare out myself, but I added, “Bad breakup. I’m not flirting with you, or anybody. I just like this town, what I’ve seen of it.”
Pete snorted. “That license should probably say ‘needs glasses,’ then. Although there’s far worse places, I guess.”
I slid off the stool. “I’m going to walk around some, see more of the sights. Caitlyn, is it okay if I leave my truck in the back of your lot for now?”
“Sure. Been years since we came close to filling that lot. Come on back in if you work up an appetite.”
“Will do.” Not, since nothing on the menu was priced under a dollar.
