With that thought in mind, I pulled the computer closer and reached for the first bill.
“Nolan, is this thing working? Remember that you need to be home by seven to sit with your father while I go to evening services.”
The message continued, but I didn’t bother listening since my battery was nearly dead. I felt numb inside as I got my parents’ old Buick started and on the road to begin the long trek back to Pelican Bay. There was no way I was going to make it home by seven, since it was already six-thirty and I had over an hour’s drive ahead of me.
Mom and church were just going to need to spend some time apart tonight.
I tried to will away my bad attitude, but I couldn’t even find a scrap of optimism left to get me there.
Not surprising, considering the shitty week I’d had. The morning after I’d paid all of my parents’ most crucial bills, I’d done what I’d been avoiding since I’d gotten back to Pelican Bay and had ventured into town. And “town” was exactly what Pelican Bay was. The insular community of just over a thousand people sat along the edge of one of the larger lakes in northern Minnesota, which meant it was a pretty decent draw for tourists.
And the residents of Pelican Bay took full advantage of that fact, even if they did tend to grumble about it a bit.
But one problem with being a town that relied heavily on the buckets of cash that tourists dropped was that you had to rely on the tourist seasons. For Pelican Bay, summer was the busy season, with winter ice fishing offering a little bit of a boost to the economy during the cold months. And while October was cold, it wasn’t quite cold enough for the ice fishermen to make their way north just yet.
Which meant the local businesses were surviving off the meager summer earnings, as well as the little bit of income they received from year-round residents. That meant the jobs just weren’t there, and if someone happened to be hiring, the competition was stiff. Not that that had even mattered in my case.
I’d had high hopes when I’d gone into the local grocery store when I’d discovered they were looking for a cashier. But the second I’d handed over my completed application to the owner, he’d looked over his glasses at me and then read my name off the form.
“You’re Nolan Grainger?”
I’d nodded. “I am.”
“You live over on Waterview road?”
“Um, yes sir, I do,” I’d responded.
He’d tapped the application on the edge of the counter. “You’re the one who ran off to that hoity-toity school, aren’t you?” he’d asked.
“Uh, I went to Juilliard,” I’d responded. “To study music.”
“Right,” the man had said. “I don’t think we’ve got anything you’d be a good fit for,” he’d declared as he’d handed the application back to me.
Desperation had caused me to swallow my pride and I’d said, “Can I ask why? I’m a quick learner and I’ll work really hard. I’m flexible…I can work full or part-time, weekends…whatever.”
The man had sighed and taken off his glasses. “People in California might be okay with what you done out there, but we’ve got values here. I knew what you were like when you used to sit in aisle seven all day.”
I hadn’t been able to keep from looking at the aisle in question. Aisle seven was where they’d kept the small assortment of books for sale. When I’d been a teenager, I’d had a particular fascination with romance novels (still did, actually) but when I’d used my allowance to buy one, my parents had lost it. Not only because I’d been reading what they’d unabashedly called smut, but also because it was something boys just didn’t do. So, I’d sinned twice. My allowance had been immediately revoked, as had my library card, so I hadn’t been able to get my fix that way. Since I hadn’t been willing to give up my stories of unconditional love, scorching passion, and perfect fairytale endings, I’d resorted to telling my parents I was out playing with friends when, in reality, I’d been hunkered down in aisle seven with the latest and greatest romance novel by my favorite author. I’d taken the extra steps to put the book inside the pages of a nature magazine so shoppers wouldn’t see what I was actually reading and report it back to my parents.
Apparently, I hadn’t been fooling anyone.
But I knew what Mr. Scarborough was really talking about. I was just surprised he hadn’t used the term “the incident” like my mother was prone to do. Since I doubted she’d been the one to tell him, I could only suspect she’d made the mistake of telling one of the ladies in her social circle, probably so she could get some sympathy for the actions of her wayward son, and that woman had spread the news around town.