Free The Big Sister - Part One by Lexie Ray Page B

vanilla couldn’t find their way to my fingers. Ice cream was good for the soul. I’d have to remember that the next time I drew out a budget for our remaining pennies.
     
    We all three of us jammed into a booth — even Jennet with her enormous corncob costume — and I think I was as surprised as Luke when instant sleep found him and he jammed his face into Jennet’s side.
     
    “I’ve never seen him do that with anyone before,” I said, my mouth agape as he snored softly, a crusty chocolate moustache darkening his upper lip. Of course, we’d never been close enough to anyone to allow for such a situation, but my gut knew that Jennet was different.
     
    “Something about being Corn Queen makes me super trustworthy,” she said, smiling fondly at my brother. “I think it has to do with me looking so ridiculous. Nothing else can compare — even things you’re afraid will catch up with you.”
     
    Succumbing to the same spell Jennet had cast over Luke, I told her everything, right there in that snack shop. Every gory detail. Our stories poured out of my mouth as if I’d been drowning and Jennet had hauled me to shore and was pumping the water from my lungs. I wouldn’t have been able to stop talking if I’d tried.
     
    “We’re looking for a place to live,” I summed up, even though I was pretty sure that was what I’d started with. “But I don’t have any hope of making rent without getting a job. I have a couple leads on some jobs, but I don’t know what to do about looking after Luke. He’ll be in school, of course, once we get the place. But who’ll pick him up? Who’ll help him with his homework if I’m at work?”
     
    “Well, the solution’s right in front of you,” Jennet said, nodding sagely. “You two are going to come home with me.”
     
    I blinked at the costumed woman sitting across the table from me, stunned. How had she arrived at that solution? We didn’t even know each other’s names. My brother and I were just two strangers who’d broken down into tears on the sidewalk at Jennet’s place of work. Why in the world would she want to help us more than she already had?
     
    “That’s very kind of you,” I began, but Jennet cut me off with a slash of her hand.
     
    “Save your platitudes,” she said, “and save your breath. You’re dead on your feet. I saw it the moment I saw you two drifting my way. Don’t you believe that things happen for a reason?”
     
    Did I? So many bad things had happened in my life — losing my parents, losing my brother, and the cost of regaining him — that I hesitated to think that things happened for a reason. What reason could there possibly be for the bad things?
     
    “I don’t know what I believe,” I confessed. “We’ve been through so much.”
     
    “And now you’re here,” Jennet said, nodding to herself. “I’m not saying that everything that’s happened has led you to me, but here you are. You need help. You’ve said so, though not in those exact words. And it just so happens that I can give you help.”
     
    “You’ve given us ice cream, and you’ve let me bend your ear,” I said. “Really, I think that’s what we needed. Just a chance to rest and recharge. You don’t have to do anything else.”
     
    “Yes, but I want to.” Jennet’s cheerfulness was relentless, and bit by bit, she was using it to break me down. “What’s more than that, I can. I own my own apartment. It’s a three-bedroom joint not far from here. This isn’t the swankiest section of Miami, but you could do worse. I act as a landlady and take on roommates as tenants for extra cash. Being Corn Queen is pretty fabulous, but it doesn’t pay great. I had to evict a roommate a couple months back and never got around to replacing him, and my current roommate is getting ready to move out of town. See what’s happening here? The universe is aligning. It put me in your path.”
     
    I laughed shortly. “It sounds too good to be