We make our way to the front of the store to get a flatbed cart to haul everything. Ollie is waiting for us when we return, with several cans already mixed and sitting on the counter. He and Ares transport everything onto the cart, while we wait for the two larger buckets to be mixed.
Olliegoes up anddown the aisle, adding paint trays and stirrers, along withseveral different brushes, rollers, and tape.
“I’ve never painted a room before, is this everything we’ll need?” I gaze over the small mountain of supplies.
Ollie examines his haul, “This should be good, for now at least. We don’t need drop cloths or anything since we’re redoing the floors.”
“What about the ceilings?”
“Shit,” Ollie curses. “Good thing you said something.”
He moseys back down the aisle, grabbing another big bucket. “This one says, ‘white ceiling paint.’ You good with that?”
I look over at Ares expecting him to answer, but he’s looking at me. “It’s fine with me,” I splutter.
“All right, here’s the last one.” The girl lugs a big bucket up to the high counter using both hands. She reaches down and retrieves a couple of long wooden sticks, and places them on top of the bucket. “Careful with this one, the paint isn’tdry yet.” She points to the lid where I see a smudge of soft gray paint sampled across the top.
Ares grabs the handle and loads it onto the flatbed cart, along with all the others. “Thanks.” He nods in the woman’s direction. “Anything else you can think of?”
I look around and an endcap display catches my eye. “We should getsomecleaning supplies, for the bathrooms and kitchen.”
We head farther down the aisle and Ollie grabs a bulk-sized package of paper towels. I add another of toilet paper on top. A few aisles away we find an area with several household cleaners.
Ares reaches for a box of heavy-duty black bags, while I grab a few different bottles of cleaners.
When we’re done, Ollie gives the cart a shove to get it moving and we finally make our way up to the checkout.
I shiver when the double doors open for our exit; it was so warm yesterday. I didn’t bother with a jacket when we left this morning. The sun is already up, but the cool night air hasn’t burned away yet.
Ollie leans his stomach over the high bar of the cart and pushes off with his feet, so he glides through the crosswalk as he heads in the direction of Ares’s SUV. The back hatch flips open as we approach. Ares jerks his chin at me and says, “You can get in, it’s chilly.”
Seeing there isn’t enough room for all three of us to load up the trunk, I agree, sliding into the leather bucket seat in the back. I should have hit the button to start the car first, my butt is freezing on the cold leather.
They make quick work of loading our purchases, and Ollie returns the cart while Ares gets behind the wheel and starts the car. He looks over his shoulder at me. “You have your license, right? Know how to drive?”
“I can drive, but I don’t have a license.”
“Well, we should probably do something about that. You can either wait until you’re eighteen and go take the test, oryou’ll have to take a driver’s training course if you don’t want to wait.” Ollie climbs in the car at the tail end of Ares’s speech.
“I’ve been driving the motor home for years, I don’t really need instruction. I can just wait, I’ll be eighteen in a few months anyway.”
“Did you ever get pulled over when you were driving?” Ollie seems to have gotten the gist of the conversation.
“Once, but the cop didn’t give me a ticket or anything.” I haven’t thought about that in a while.I was only fifteen when it happened. We were driving through Kentucky. The roads there are narrow and hilly, he said I’d crossed the yellow line, which was probably true.
Mom came up from the back when she heard the sirens and noticed the lights.“Don’t worry, just tell the truth. It’ll be fine,” she told me, sitting down in the passenger seatcompletelycalm.
I rolled down my window, heart in my throat, just knowing I would go to jail. “Eveningyoung lady,” the officer greeted me, and glanced over to my mom. “You know why I pulled you over?”
“No, sir.” I turn to look at him briefly, then face the front window again.
“Well, you were drifting over the line quite a bit. Can I see your license and registration?”
I turn to look at my mom, my eyes wide, asking what I should do. She calmly reaches into the glove box and retrieves a small square of paper and a plastic membership card for a library.
“Here you go sir, she hasn’t been drivingverylong. I thought since the traffic was light, it would be a good chance for her to practice.”
He takes the papers from my mother’s outstretched hand and glances down. His eyes narrow. I remember thinking we were both going to be in so much trouble. The library card didn’t even have a picture on it.
