Pick-me-up (23 page)

“What are you doing?!”  Katelyn made no
attempt to hide her disgust from her voice.  

Her dad looked over his display of tools and
stated the obvious, “Why, I’m having a sale.”  He turned to
Russ, “I’ve got so much shit I don’t use, I might as well get
something for it.”  

Katelyn yelled to his back as he walked back
to the shed.  “But it’s March!  No one has garage sales
in March.”  He ignored her.

“Did you fix the car?” Katelyn yelled.
 He continued to ignore her, disappearing into the shed.
 “Arhh,” she yelled and she stomped into the house.  

Inside she threw her bag on the kitchen table
and rounded the corner to see her cousin Ryan atop a mound of
cushions on the living room floor.  Beside him was Colton.
 The two were duking it out in a boxing video game on the TV.
 Colton was having a hard time staying on his knees and looked
to be strangling the controller with his fists.  Ryan was
smiling and messing with the kid, totally kicking down Colton’s
character.  “Say mercy.  Say mercy.  Say mercy,” he
kept repeating.

“Screw you,” Colton said without being
punished.  So, he quickly added, “Kiss my ass, fartface.”

“Hey,” Katelyn warned.  Colton gave her
a one second surprised look before he went back to losing the game.
 

She wouldn’t fight it.  “Hey, Ryan.”

“Hey, Kate.”  Ryan didn’t turn from the
screen.  She let them duke it out while she opened her web
page to check for messages or posts.  Nothing from Tim.
 His text while she was at school said he was going to go work
on his friend’s car again tonight.  She called his cell.
 The voice mail message picked up after only three rings.
 Katelyn didn’t leave a message.  

Where are the kids? Katelyn suddenly
panicked. She forgot about Kayla and Jacob, and, if Colton was
here, Sierra likely was too.

She turned to Ryan quickly.  “Where are
the kids?”

He turned and his face thought through the
question.  “What?  Oh, um, they were out here.  Try
Brianna’s room.”  He turned back to the screen.  “Let’s
go again, boy.”

Katelyn walked quickly down the hall and
slowed quietly when she reached the cracked open door of Brianna’s
room.  She listened as she peered in.  She heard Jacob
before she saw him banging the heat register grill against the
floor, lifting the dirty metal to his mouth to taste it and then
slamming it up and down again.  Katelyn was about to go in,
but heard Kayla complain.  “When do I get to be the teacher?
 Sierra, you said--”  Kayla didn’t get to finish her
whine.  

“Stop,” Sierra’s voice was more assertive
than Katelyn had ever heard it.  “You will have extra homework
if you say that.”

Katelyn tried not to laugh.  She pushed
open the door.  “What are you guys doing?”  She took the
register grate from Jacob and stuffed it back into the hole in the
floor.  She picked him up and put a new toy in his hands to
stop his squirming.  

Kayla immediately pleaded her case.  “It
was my idea, and Sierra won’t let me be the teacher.”  She
turned to Sierra, “She’s a bad teacher!”

Sierra threw her pencil to the bed and
pointed out the door.  “That’s it.  Go to the principal.
 You are bad.”

“I quit!”  Kayla crossed her arms and
hung her head.  

Papers littered the floor, and Katelyn set
Jacob down so she could pick them up.  “If you two knew how
long you’d have to be in school, you’d be playing a better game.”
The papers were from Brianna’s folder, some marked with scores and
some incomplete.  The grades on the completed papers were
poor.  “See how hard it is?  There’s tests, too.”
 Katelyn held up a paper marked “40%” for the kids, but they
had moved away.  Sierra went to Brianna’s computer and opened
a game.  Kayla sat on the edge of the bed.

“What do the tests do?”  Kayla always
seemed to be fascinated with school.

“Nothing, you have to answer a lot of
questions so they can see how smart you are.”

Katelyn had Kayla’s full attention now.
 “Are you smart?”

A laugh escaped Katelyn’s throat and then she
thought about the question.  Katelyn never considered herself
dumb.  But, she sure felt dumb when she took those tests.
 School tested for the wrong kind of smart.  

“What do you guys want for dinner?”  She
asked as she picked up Jacob and walked to the door.

“Mac and Cheese!”  Kayla yelled, excited
now, school easily forgotten.  

“Sierra, Mac and Cheese?”

Without turning from the screen, Sierra
mumbled, “Whatever.”

Sierra’s lack of interest momentarily
bothered Katelyn.  Sierra was a laid back kid, so Katelyn
didn’t expect an attitude from her.  Katelyn waited for Sierra
to at least turn and give her a familiar look.  Sierra ignored
her on purpose.   

Sierra was eight years old.  When did
this start? Katelyn thought.  

Katelyn made it to the living room in time to
see Colton lose his temper at losing the video game.  He threw
the controller to the ground and stood to repeatedly kick the
cushions under Ryan’s back.  Ryan shielded himself with one
arm while he laughed.  “Sore Loser!”

Colton ran outside without a coat.  

“Why are they here?”  Katelyn asked,
referring to Colton and Sierra.  

Ryan shrugged.  “Iuhno. Jodi dropped
them off with your dad before I got here.”  Ryan got up and
followed her into the kitchen.

Katelyn set Jacob down on the floor to play
with pots and pans.  He was able to take a few steps but
plopped down and resorted back to crawling away from the room.
  She began reading the dinner package and then decided
to take a few more boxes down from the cupboard.  If Ryan was
hanging out, they’d need more.  “Want dinner?”

He looked at the package.  “Sure.”
 

“I think you have time.  Dad’s trying to
sell Russ pretty much the contents of the shed.”

Ryan snorted, “Good luck, unless it says Bud
Light on it, he ain’t buyin’.”

Katelyn rolled her eyes and switched topics.
 “So, are you gonna come back to school here?”

“To hell with school.  Dad ain’t
enrolled me yet and isn’t going to make me go.  Grandma’s fit
to be tied, though.  Says I ain’t welcome under her roof if I
ain’t in school.  Hell, I’m 16, almost 17, now.  I don’t
have ta.”

Katelyn poured water into the pan.
 “What are you gonna do?”

Ryan shrugged.  “Iuhnno.”  

“I wish you’d come back; there’s no one to
hang out with there.”

Ryan gave her a look that said “Hell no” and
held up his hand as a warning for her not to try push him.
  “You’re 16 this summer, right?  You gonna stick it
out.”

Katelyn turned to him with a puzzled
expression.  “Yeah.”  Dropping out wasn’t anything that
had ever been in her plans.  Sure, she didn’t like school, but
it was expected of her.  Her sisters didn’t stay in, but . .
.
but what? What makes me different?
 Katelyn searched
for the real answer.  Sure, her parents were different.
 In fact, they were like a whole different family since her
dad was not her older sisters’ dad.  Besides, her mom was
always in her face about school.  Then, there was the obvious
reason: Katelyn wasn’t pregnant like Jodi had been.  As for
Jen, well, school was just another thing she hated about life.
 No one was going to tell her what to do. Jen didn’t get
pregnant with Kayla until after she stopped going to school.

Ryan had searched through the cupboards and
now chomped from a bag of chips.  “I wouldn’t ever get enough
credits anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

He laughed and Katelyn turned so she didn’t
have to look at the partially chewed mush in his mouth.  “I
think I only passed two classes.  I’d have to frickin’ start
over as a Freshman in order to get enough credits to graduate.”

So she wouldn’t appear stupid, Katelyn didn’t
ask how many credits she needed.  She mentally calculated how
many classes she’d already failed versus how many she’d passed.
 She frowned.  She ended up failing science and PE second
quarter.  Third quarter was finishing this week, and science
didn’t look good again.  

“Where’s Tim?” Ryan switched topics.
 

Making a point not to show she was bothered,
Katelyn replied, “He’s in Ames working on a friend’s car.”

“What kind?”

Katelyn shrugged and averted her eyes.
 Tim hadn’t ever mentioned the car.  Questions started to
pop up in her head.  She’d never met the friend either.
 Someone named Travis, a guy from work or something.  Did
he feed her an excuse?  

The water for the noodles hadn’t boiled yet.
 Katelyn didn’t have anything to keep her occupied.  She
swirled her tongue around its piercing and absentmindedly turned
the circle pendant hanging from her neck.  

“Is Tim still working at the garage?”

Katelyn nodded.  Now that she thought
about it, Tim hadn’t been telling her any stories about bitchy
customers lately.  He would tell me if he quit, she reassured
herself.  But, he didn’t tell her about quitting the
alternative school.  Katelyn frowned.  

“You think he could get me on there?”

Katelyn shrugged again and avoided looking at
him by getting the butter and milk out of the refrigerator.
 “Maybe.”  Ryan was one of the most irresponsible people
she knew.  There was a fat chance of his getting hired.
 Tim may have a record, but he could fix anything with wheels.
 She wasn’t sure Ryan would ever finish any job.  Katelyn
loved her cousin, but she wouldn’t hire him.

“Next week is Spring Break.  Are you
going to be around?”  Katelyn barely finished her question
when the side door opened and Russ walked right past Katelyn like
she wasn’t there.  She moved out of the way to avoid getting
hit.  Her dad followed close behind.  

Russ threw his can in the garbage and gave
Ryan a hard look.  “We’re leavin’.”

Ryan didn’t question him, but turned to grab
his coat off the back of a chair.  Russ turned to leave, but
her dad blocked the way to the door.  “Hey, man, I was just
askin’ a favor.  Don’t take it wrong.”

Russ halted in front of her dad, which was
comical because he could easily plow her dad over if he wanted to.
 Russ towered a foot taller than him.  “That’s fucked up,
Brian.  Don’t drag me into that shit.”  Russ pushed her
dad out of the way as he walked out the door.  Ryan waited
until her dad followed Russ out the door.  Ryan gave Katelyn a
sympathetic look and left.

Dread and panic crept over Katelyn.  The
water had started to boil.  She had to finish making dinner.
 The kids needed to eat.  She was stuck in the kitchen,
in the open, and there wasn’t a working car for her dad to escape
with.  Katelyn didn’t know what her dad did to piss Russ off,
but Russ didn’t shake easily.  She did know that she’d get to
hear enough of her dad’s side of the story, though, unless she
could escape being his audience.  

Katelyn had an idea and quickly retrieved her
bag from the counter.  After checking each pocket, she
slumped.  She had left her MP3 player at Tim’s over the
weekend.  So much for acting like she couldn’t hear him.
 That had worked before.  

The water boiled over onto the stove.
 Katelyn quickly went back to task and dumped in the pasta.
 The door opened behind her and she braced herself.

“Mother fucker.  Mother fucker.”
 She heard the door slam and her dad’s stomping around behind
her.  “Jesus, see if I ever help that fucker again.”  He
continued to swear, but Katelyn didn’t turn.  The sooner she
finished the dinner, the faster she could get away from him.
 

By the time she had the kids to the table,
her dad had quit yelling about Russ.  Instead, he was walking
from room to room counting off every mess in the house.
 Sierra refused to come out of Brianna’s room, so Katelyn just
left her.  Let her pull an attitude.  I don’t deserve it.
 I’m not her mother, Katelyn thought.  

Jacob ate some cereal and made a royal mess
out of his mac and cheese.  Katelyn set him down without
washing his face or hands.  He tore off to the living room to
play with the controllers left on the ground.  Colton was
helping himself to another plate, and Kayla looked content
scribbling on some papers left on the table.  Katelyn took the
opportunity to dive into her room for a few minutes of silence.
 

She plopped on her bed and closed her eyes
for a good minute.  It was still light outside, but the
shadows stretched across her room promising darkness soon.
 She grabbed her phone from her pocket.  “Call me.
 I need u.”

The house almost seemed peaceful while she
waited for Tim’s ring tone.  Instead, the cell vibrated with a
text.

“Busy.  What’s up”

All of her patience left and she filled with
anger.  “Call” was all she sent in response.  Katelyn bit
at her nail.  Finally, the phone rang.  

“What’s going on?” he asked, obviously
bothered.

“Where are you?”

“Working on Travis’ car.”  Katelyn
listened closely to try hear any background noises.  He
sounded like he was in a small room.  His voice echoed like it
would off bathroom walls.  “What do you want?”

After a crappy day at school with a new
detention for being late this morning, walking home from school,
getting dumped with kids, and dealing with her dad, she really
needed Tim.  Katelyn couldn’t help keep the hurt from her
voice.  “Dad’s freaking out.”  And then she admitted
aloud what she’d been scared to think, “I think he’s tweakin’.”

Tim stayed silent on the other end.

“Are you there?” she finally asked.

It was silent for another moment.
 “Yeah.”  And nothing more.

Tears welled in Katelyn’s eyes and she bit
her lip.  Her face flushed with anger and an overwhelming
sadness.  A couple tears spilled and rolled over her cheeks.
 She wiped them away with her free hand, but they were quickly
replaced.  Katelyn didn’t trust her voice and tried to keep
her breathing from turning into a sob.