I instead took a left at the spot that Elizabeth took a right, undoubtedly throwing her for a loop and raising her suspicion. I had taken this path many times before, but at the spot where I would have gone straight for another half mile, I instead took a right, came to a gated apartment complex, and dialed Brock.
I hung up when the gate opened on its own, with someone else exiting, but I sat there long enough to see that even the “good parts” of Santa Maria were nothing to brag about. Two homeless people slept just outside the gate, as if planning on panhandling there. One had a half-finished cigarette butt by his side; the other had wrinkled skin from being in the sun far too long. There were also a couple of broken beer bottles, their jagged edges sharp enough to sever an artery, but the homeless were so close to them I almost wondered if they saw it as much a part of the environment as the dust and heavy sun.
I pulled up to the parking spot with Brock’s motorcycle, a little shook by what I had seen, and waited. I wanted to believe that us opening this solar farm around Santa Maria might provide new jobs and uplift the surrounding area, but… well, that wasn’t my world, was it? What was some young white girl who had everything handed to her going to tell this poor, diverse community about making their lives better without sounding like a condescending bitch?
Shit, maybe I needed to stick to my lane. Maybe I needed to be content with having a well-known last name, with being “someone.” Maybe by trying to be “no one,” I was insulting everyone who was no one.
Or…
I looked up. I did a double-take. Brock was coming down the stairs with a lot more energy than I would have pegged him for at a quarter of an hour before eight. He didn’t jog down the stairs, but he definitely didn’t seem like a morning zombie desperate for some coffee. He even smirked and nodded at me when he approached the car.
He was wearing a white shirt, almost like the kind you’d see bankers wearing as undershirts, and dark blue jeans. He could not have looked more non-descriptive if he tried.
“Sup,” he said as he got in the car. “Ready for this?”
“Of course, thanks for doing this,” I said. “Seriously. I appreciate it.”
“Well, like I said, thank me when the job is over and you’re no worse for the wear,” he said. “This town has a way of dragging you down without you realizing. It’s my job to make sure you don’t slip in the mud, however much you can.”
It was too early for me to be getting into that.
“Nice to have your own place, huh?” I said. “Got tired of living with the boys?”
Brock nodded, a gentle snort following.
“I felt… I dunno. Like the Dad in that house, and it got tiresome. I just wanted to be alone and to not have to worry about if Mason was smoking less or if Steele was holding down a job. I like them, but—”
“But you aren’t teenagers on Bernard Street anymore.”
Brock nodded.
“I worry about them,” he said.
“Do you worry about yourself?”
“Why would I?”
“Because you said last time we met, you were debating whether to keep your gas station job instead of coming to work with me.”
Brock shook his head.
“It’s not about where I work,” he said, but his words were slow and calculated. “I’m not going to school. I’m not going to change the world through business. I just want to make sure this town is safe. I don’t need a fucking good job to do that.”
“So… you don’t worry about yourself?”
Brock shook his head.
“I worry about figuring out how the fuck to do what I just said,” he said. “But there is good news. I might have a possibility available to me.”
“Which is?”
He looked at me, smirked, and looked back out the window.
“I’m not counting my chickens before they hatch. Especially when this chicken is hard to pin down.”
“Hey, no secrets!”
But he only laughed at that.
