Free Before My Eyes by Caroline Bock Page B

isn’t it? I mean, if we took turns.
    If Samantha wasn’t there, if it wasn’t my last Friday, my second-to-last shift, I’d go to the front counter. I send mental messages for Trish to return. She’s probably having a snack. She likes to sneak off and eat. In fact, I’ve never seen her eat anything in front of me except an occasional ice cream. I just see the telltale signs on her shirt or around her mouth. But when she eats ice cream, she eats fast, faster than I’ve ever seen anyone eat ice cream, a daze of productivity.
    Peter is rocking forward, toward the counter, and then back on the heels of his oversized work boots. He does this when he’s nervous. And his shoelaces on his left foot are untied. He could trip. I should tell him to tie his shoelaces.
    â€œCan you help me?” says Jackson. “Do you think anyone here can help me?”
    â€œI don’t think he can help you,” says Samantha to Jackson. Her hands rest on her bare hips. I cringe, hearing his words echoed in her mouth. I pummel the side of the ice cream machine as if that’s what’s needed.
    â€œMaybe he can help you, Sammie. Petey, do you want to help Sammie instead of me?”
    He’s the first person I’ve heard call her Sammie.
    Peter tips back and forward on the thick heels of his work boots. He does this when he’s nervous or unsure. He’s smiling now; it’s a confused, eager, sad smile.
    Samantha, a.k.a. Sammie, is laughing.
    Peter doesn’t know what Samantha’s done to make Jackson laugh, but he attempts to laugh, too. Maybe she made a face about Peter helping her. She hasn’t made a face at Peter all summer. She just floated down the line in her different color bikinis. But she never came around with Jackson. This is the first time. She’s been turning up all summer by herself, and I’ve been waiting for the right moment to say something more to her. Now she is laughing with Jackson. She is laughing at Peter, or at me. I need to go forward. I don’t need to be a hero or anything. But I have to go to the front. Do my job. Help Peter. But I can’t. I can’t because I can’t believe what’s happening—Peter is peeing his pants right there in the middle of the Snack Shack. It’s only a dribble, but it’s seeping through the front of his shorts and down his leg toward the untied work boots for everyone—for Jackson and Samantha and me—to see.
    â€œOh my god, Jackson! Look at that! I can’t look! But look at that!”
    â€œI don’t think he can help either of us, Sammie.” Jackson laughs hard.
    Peter is frozen to his spot, more surprised than anything that he has no control over this situation. He looks from Jackson to Samantha to me, with an expression of shock and embarrassment and pain. But something odd happens; Samantha decides somehow that this is an affront to her, as if Peter is doing this on purpose.
    â€œMake him stop,” she says to Jackson.
    â€œOh man, Petey, come one, this is disgusting. Disgusting. Totally. Disgusting,” says Jackson, changing his stance, coming forward in front of Samantha as if she suddenly needed protection.
    â€œHey!” I shout out.
    â€œYou got to clean that up, Cooper,” says Jackson, as if daring me to go on offense.
    Samantha smothers her eyes into Jackson’s chest. “Get it out of here.”
    Peter doesn’t move, and neither do I.
    I don’t know if the “it” is Peter or what—that he made a mistake? That he had an accident? I glance at Samantha and wonder if she’s playacting or if this is for real, this act with Jackson. I want to be able to picture her in her bikini, or even less, without thinking of this. She looks up at Jackson, almost a foot taller than her. Her eyes flit from him to Peter as if this could be a contest. She giggles. His arm snakes around her shoulder.
    â€œPetey. Petey,” says