Free Douse (Book One: At the Edge of a Hurricane) by June Hydra Page A

comes out, I say to him,
“I’m getting a part-time job.”
    “What?
You’re going to actually start working now?”
    I
slap his shoulder. “No. I mean I want to get a real job again.”
    To
avoid my parents, I used to work at a grocery store. I’d work all sorts
of crazy hours to get away from them—I’d request night shifts even if my employers couldn’t or didn’t want to.
    Thirteen
was when I’d started my first business. I would help pluck weeds or mow
lawns. “Guy” stuff.
    “Where
would you even work?” Caddy’s asking. “I don’t get it.
Where would you work with your Bachelor’s in Business? You need to
specialize if you want to get a decently paying job.”
    “I
just want some normality in our life. I mean, don’t you feel weird
hanging around college campuses when, well, I’m out, and you’re
almost out. It’s like we should be moving on. Doing other stuff. Bigger
more important stuff with our lives. Travelling or something. Helping
people.”
    “So
idealistic.”
    “Don’t
you feel that way at all?”
    “I
do. But at the this moment in time, with the money we’re pulling
in…”
    “It’s
good but—”
    “Patience,”
Caddy says at the car. “It’s not realistic. Yet. You just need a
bit of patience.”
    So
we hop into the car, blasting the stupid dad rock tunes again. I put my hand
against the passenger door glass.
    Making
life choices is kind of like touching the glass. You can see the outside. You
can even roll down the windows. But when the car’s got momentum, there
isn’t really anything you can do besides ride along, and wait for a
stopping point.
    Patience,
I guess, is Caddy’s virtue, his blessing to me.

CHAPTER 9
    Besides
cooking, there is one grand skill Piranha possesses.
    She
is absolutely neurotic about the English language—what’s more
American than English?
    Caddy
and I watch her bang out the first paper in two hours flat. It’s a rough
copy, but good enough to sail to the kingdom of B’s. We proofread her
work, and where needed, add in our own flairs. Swap word choices out, delete
adverbs, add adverbs, change adjectives, gussy up the styling, strip the
styling down. She couldn’t give a speech to save her life, no sir, but on
paper she’s gold.
    Her
favorite topics are the ones related to Civil Right’s in the United States. If she can even tangentially relate the given topics back to the Civil
Right’s, she will, she will. Lo and behold, Video Games and Today’s
Current Youth becomes Video Games and Today’s Current Youth with a Tie-in
to Rosa Parks.
    Caddy
brews coffee in the kitchen. I sit myself atop the countertops, browsing my
text messages. Bishop hasn’t sent any today, and I don’t want to be
the first to contact.
    “It’s
the cheating,” I say. “It’s eating at me.”
    “Then
tell him if you want. You’re at date three and beyond now. Go tell him,
girl.”
    “Like
that’s so easy.”
    “It
is. You take your mouth, open it. Then use these magical things call vocal
chords.”
    “You’re
not in my position. He’s a good guy. Good boy from the country. Then
you’re telling me to just blurt out that, wow, I’m a bad girl. Look
at me, I help people cheat in school.”
    “You’re
being so melodramatic,” Caddy says, pouring coffee into three separate
mugs. He drops several sugar cubes in the one for Piranha. She’ll need it
with the backlog of work we have. “What kind of relationships do you want
in your life? One’s built on honesty or lies?”
    “I
don’t exactly have the best track record for honesty.”
    Even
working those part-time jobs meant I had to lie. I was at friends’ houses
or at an after-school club, cheerleading, debate, but not at Mom and
Dad’s.
    “I’m
a liar.”
    “No,
you’re a good girl who’s just trapped in bad circumstances. Anybody
would do what you do. But we can change. Patience, remember?”
    With
the coffees done, we return back to Piranha’s room. Her fingers rap the
keyboard in