Dodging Trains (16 page)

PAISLEE

R
igita’s become desolate
since Keyon left. I have a small lump of missing in my throat, and it’s familiar, the way I felt right after he moved at sixteen.

My routine rules my days. Up early, breakfast, trot downstairs to the factory, and meet up with Old-Man. I tidy up the break room and make coffee while he preps the before and after chemical baths for the mirrors.

Mack arrives five minutes late every day, which no one comments on. He gets into his gear and takes a glove off to accept the coffee I hold up for him. We have our own mugs now, instead of the paper cups that were here when I started working for Old-Man. It made no sense that we’d take a stab at the rainforest, a stack of paper cups a day, when we could have ceramic mugs in the perfect size and color for each of us.

I press my pink one to my lips. It’s medium-sized against Mack’s enormous, black mug and Old-Man’s small, white one with
BOSS MAN
written in bold across the front.

“I’ve got a new project for us,” Old-Man says this morning, taking a sip of his coffee. Unconsciously, he has perfected “the dry slurp,” which erupts from his mouth with each inhaled swallow. I wonder if he’ll pull the hot liquid too far in and start coughing today. So far, we’re good.

“Hmm?” Mack asks, still sleepy. He’s not a morning person, but he isn’t the grouchy type of not-morning-person either. I’m grateful for that.

“Do you remember Richard Markeston, a self-made man who visited about—” Old-Man scrunches his bushy brows tightly in thought.

“Five months ago,” I help.

“Oh the rich guy who walked around here, inspecting the place like he wanted to buy everything, equipment and all?” Mack chimes in, waking up a little more with each gulp of caffeine.

“That’s the one.” Old-Man nods. “After seeing what we do here, Markeston wants a hall of mirrors in one of his houses. Says he was inspired by the name of the factory.” Old-Man lets outs a small puff that constitutes a laugh.

“Damn!” Mack exclaims, awake now. “Congrats, Old-Man.”

Old-Man shakes his head, overgrown white hair tipping into his eyes. “Well, I need measurements taken, then he needs to accept the offer I give him, so let’s not celebrate until we know for sure.”

“He wants gilded mirrors?” I ask, hoping. I hate it when we have to make regular store mirrors.

Old-Man nods, mouth twitching again beneath his unkempt moustache. I need to schedule a grooming appointment for him. I’ll say it was his friend, the barber himself, who called him in. I’m pretty sure Old-Man knows by now, but he doesn’t object whenever I do it. He goes and gets all fresh and straightened out, his head making me think of manicured hedges afterward.

“Good, because some people are morons,” Mack echoes my thoughts about mirror-making. “They think we’re magicians or something, that we can make normal mirrors look legendary.” The way he says
normal
makes me laugh. Even Old-Man’s quiet puffs turn into a grunted snicker before he refills his coffee.

“Paislee,” Old-Man says. “I’d like to send you there to take the measurements. Can you do that for me?”

I look up, surprised. I recall one other job that required on-site measurements, an irregular wall in a lighthouse a few miles from Rigita, and Old-Man had gone himself.

“Really? I’d love to. Where is it?” I ask.

“In Cal
ceth, Florida.”

“Hey, I’ll go if you’re not up for it,” Mack hurries out then sniffs as if he doesn’t care. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t been on a plane in his entire life. Like me.

“Oh I’m fine, Mack. Thanks though,” I add politely and dream of so many things in the blink of an eye.

“Next week,” Old-Man says.

Later I bathe my first mirror of the day, sliding latex-tipped fingers across the surface and watching glass turn into gold before my eyes. My heart hasn’t stopped thudding all morning. When I take my break, I’ll do an Internet search of Calceth to find out where exactly it is.

Me, Paislee, on a plane? I hear they serve cocktails on flights. I wonder if they’re expensive. Imagine sitting there and having a drink and gazing out the window. In a week, I’ll be flying over the clouds and looking down at those layers of cotton.

Me, Paislee, in the South? It’s winter there, I tell myself in an effort to calm my euphoria. But how bad can a Floridian winter be?

Is Calceth near the water? Can I take my shoes off and walk on the beach? I work with a grin on my face and meet Old-Man’s gaze as he passes me. He’s a solemn man, but today his eyes smile even if the rest of his features remain serious. Idly, I wonder if he has noticed the funk I’ve been in lately. Because clearly Old-Man Win knows he has made my day with his request.

Ha! I’ll be, like, a businesswoman.
Get on a flight and head off to work. Mack keeps sending me looks from his workstation. I bite my lip to suppress the giggle that threatens to escape.

“Wanna lunch together?” he asks with a glint in his stare.

“Naw, I’ll probably just grab a sandwich and do some ‘internettin’,’” I say casually.

“Ah.” The man is instantly sullen. I feel bad for him. Mack has a big family, but I haven’t known him to have a girlfriend.

“Maybe a quick lunch.”

“A quickie-lunch,” he jokes, relieved.

“I should have something upstairs,” I soothe his hurt feelings.

“I like what you have upstairs.” He’s smiling now, and I feel better for making him feel better.

Okay, Mack, we’re good. We’re still friends.

Mom has a late shift,
and I pass by after work. She’s busy serving drinks, so I half-watch a game that’s on while I snack on the burger she’s put in front of me. It’s soccer for some reason. Lots of manicured grass, then muscular thighs running fast and bumping against knee-high socks below.

“Nottingham Forest,” an out-of-place English chap nods out to me. He’s been at Ivy’s a couple of times. Doesn’t know who I am yet, so he hasn’t propositioned me and he isn’t shying away. It’s nice. “Guiseley has nothing on them.”

I nod back, not knowing the slightest thing about soccer. “Go Nottingham Forest.” He grins big and gives me a thumbs-up.

“So, what’s your big news?” Mom asks. “You’re glowing. Did Keyon call?”

Her comment dampens my excitement, and she notices. “Bah, who cares about him. Tell me.” She rubs her hands together like she’s expecting juicy gossip. Then she tops it off with a playful wink.

“Funny lady.” Unconsciously, I mimic her hand-rubbing, because—planes! Florida! “I’m going on a business trip next week.”

“A business trip?” Mom squeals, eyes wider than if I’d told her she’d become a grandmother. “You’re going on a business trip?”

“I’m going on a business trip.”

English Chap raises his glass to us. “To business trips.”

“Where? Why? Is it Old-Man sending you out for something? Mirrors?”

“Yep, and yep. I’m the entrusted employee, and I’ll be having a drink on a plane in exactly”—I stare at my watch—“fourteen million and three seconds.”

“What?”

“No, kidding. But I’ll be off to Florida in five days.”

My mother’s face settles in careful folds, and I have a moment to consider the lines between her brows before she asks, “Is this about your brother?”

“Don’t!”
I yell. “It’s fucking unfair.”

“Paislee, don’t swear,” Mom whispers, clutching my shoulders with bony fingers and holding me back. “John, you could’ve handled this better. I begged you.”

Dad doesn’t reply. He’s busy stuffing the last cardboard box with Cugs’ belongings into the car and slamming the trunk closed. His jaw is set, like he never cared about us, eyes steely as he stomps to the driver’s door and lowers himself into the seat with more care than he takes with our hearts.

He used to love us.

My brother’s tousled head remains infinitely still in the backseat. His neck is bowed, like he can’t stand to watch me while I fight my need to make a run for him from the porch.

“At least sit up front,”
I want to say.

My chest starts to shake—my mind blurs—in seconds, moisture floods eyes, nose, throat, and lungs until I am a sea of liquid salt. “Don’t leave me.”

“Honey, I’m here,” Mom chokes out, her voice as broken as mine. “We’ll manage, you and I. Your father will let you know where they live, and you’ll… You’ll go visit.” She’s crying now, because the two of them waited too long; by now, my dad hates her so much he can’t stand the sight of her.

I look like Mom—I don’t look like Cugs or him. I
am
Mom to my dad, the reminder of a marriage gone horribly wrong. He won’t, won’t want me around.

He’ll never call me.

“Cugs!” I shout. Shake Mom off my shoulders and plunge down the two steps to the Chevy. Dad revs the motor, but I rip the back door open and jump in, assaulting my brother.

He’s so little, so, so little today. He’s all hunched shoulders, sadness, and pain, and when I force my wet face in against his cheek, his chest shudders with bottled-up emotions.

“Cugs,” I mumble. I’m beyond caring that I’ll upset him even more. “Please call us. Mom and I, we—”

“Paislee.” Dad’s voice is a whip. “Get. Out. Of the car.”

“Don’t talk to my daughter like that!” Mom shrieks, and they’re at it, at it again and again and again and again.

I stare into Cugs’ eyes—Dad’s eyes—only there’s pain in Cugs’. He’s scared, and his arms close around me and hold me like he doesn’t want to leave me either.

“You’ll be okay,” I whisper while Dad drags me out and Mom shouts obscenities at Dad from behind. “Call me. Just call.”

His nod is almost imperceptible. I see it though, like I see everything about Cugs. “I love you, little rat,” I say to him as Dad slams the door shut between us. I hold his gaze beneath that tousled, early-morning hair.

He bobs again. Our father wriggles back into the front seat. Shuts us out of their world forever with the slam of another door. He takes the time to turn on the music, and the song will always remind me of them leaving.
Edelweiss.
Dad and his stupid, old-time songs.
Edelweiss.

“Hello?”
Mom says, waving. “Did you slip into a film clip?”