Everett leaned closer and read from the screen. “‘The beach in Mendocino isn’t like ours. It’s bigger but rocky and it’s foggy and freezing. Lodging costs a lot here.’” He looked up at me. “I didn’t know that you were still talking to her.”
“I’m not. Watch.” I quickly typed a reply: “What are you doing in California? Are you coming home soon?” I sent it and we both waited for a moment before I shook my head. “She’s going to ignore that. She won’t answer many questions, but especially hard ones. When she was in New Mexico, I asked if she was still with the same guy and she said yes, and then I asked if she’d sold my grandmother’s wedding ring and she didn’t respond. I can’t find it so I’m pretty sure that she did sell it at one point. It belonged to my dad’s mother, not hers, and he had wanted Willow to have it. But he didn’t leave a will so…it doesn’t matter,” I said. “You should be home, sleeping.”
“You, too.” He looked around the lobby. “This pisses me off.”
“It’s not as nice as your house,” I agreed.
“I’m not talking about the motel. I mean all this bullshit with your mother and that lech,” he said.
“I don’t mind much about my mom,” I assured him. “We weren’t ever very close, so I don’t really miss her and I don’t care that she’s gone. It’s like how you are with your parents.”
“It doesn’t upset you. Nothing does,” he said, and I nodded. Then he took my fingers away from my head, where I’d been pressing very hard. “This thing with your cooperating teacherbothers me a lot. He prevented you from getting a job because you weren’t interested in screwing him.”
“No, I don’t think that was it. Or, maybe that wasn’t totally it,” I said. “He really believed that I was bad at teaching. He criticized me all the time, how I was interacting with students, how I lesson-planned, how I…how I did everything.”
“Because he was pissed that you rejected him.”
“Or because I really did a terrible job. But I’m applying to other places, and I’ll do better there.”
“You are?Where?”
I pointed to my laptop on the reception desk. “One district in Kansas is looking for someone immediately. I could get an emergency credential.”
“I thought you were going to stay for your ten-month contract in the cafeteria.”
“I probably will. This is just an idea,” I said. “Before, I was thinking that I had to be in Michigan for Willow, but she doesn’t need me now. She got a job.”
“Really? With no driver’s license or experience?”
“Boyd’s parents hired her,” I explained, and he nodded. “I hope she’ll work hard. Sometimes she needs pushing.”
“That won’t be your problem, though.”
No, it wouldn’t. “You should go home,” I said. I was still unsure about why he’d come at all. “I’m concerned about your sleep schedule.”
“Damn, Zoey. Jesus. You don’t need to worry about me, too.” He looked at the couch. “Maybe I’ll stay until you finish. Because then you’re driving home on those empty roads, and I was thinking about that, too. You should live closer to where you work.”
“Oh, ok. Yes, I’ll find a new place that’s closer. I haven’t spent enough of time lately looking at listings.”
“I don’t mean now,” Everett said. “Did you think that I was telling you to move out?”
I nodded.
“No, that’s not it. I don’t want you to be driving on those empty roads, that’s all I’m saying.”
I wasn’t exactly clear about his message. He didn’t want me to live in his house with him, since it was far away, but he didn’t want me to move either? I was sure about one thing, though. “You shouldn’t stay here tonight. I can’t let you use one of the rooms because the cleaning service quit three weeks ago, and I know for a fact that the owner only made the beds and rehung the towels rather than changing them out for new ones. And the bugs are back, roaches, so it’s very gross.”
“This couch is good.”
“No,” I said, “it’s not. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to get fired tomorrow anyway, so you won’t have to worry about me driving home late anymore, except when I’m at Jannie’s.”
“That’s another—wait a minute, why would you get fired?”
“I already fell asleep a few times,” I admitted. “I got warnings about it and last week, the owner saw me on the camera and came in through the back so that the sliding doors wouldn’t wake me and he could catch me at it. He was very mad. It happened a lot over the summer, after the fire.” The air in my apartment had been so thick with the smell that I’d woken up coughing, and I’d had terrible dreams, too. “Anyway, he said that if it happened again, I was gone.”
“Good.”
“That’s not good,” I disagreed. “I need this job because I have to save to get a place of my own. If I’m going to move to another state, that will be expensive. I’ll fit as much as I can into my car but I’ll have to buy a bunch of new stuff when I get there, and I’ll need gas and at least one new tire.”
