Page 46 of The Alien's Little Sister

Three times, I’ve let it go.

Now here we are. “Talk to me. Tell me a really good story, and finish it by telling me we won’t be here again if I let this go,” I start. In front of me, my mug proclaimsI drink this coffee so you all may live another day.

Jason closes his eyes, his shoulders set in a defeated but somehow still proud line. When he opens his eyes again, he meets my gaze without flinching. “I don’t have a ‘good’ story. I help my mom by picking up my brothers and sisters. You don’t know how much I wish I could tell you that this won’t happen again, but…” His eyes drop. “But I can’t.”

In every line of his body is a weary acceptance. He’s sitting in front of me after he profusely apologized when he came in and found me waiting for him at the time clock. He’s expecting to get fired. And he’s not making excuses or throwing himself on my mercy. He’s clearly ready to take punishment like a man.

But damn. He probably doesn’t know it, but he couldn’t have told me a better story if he’d claimed he was helping seniors and baby ducklings cross North State Street during rush hour.

I toss my pen on my desk and start rattling through drawers, looking for my gum. I don’t smoke, but by God, this is a vice just as bad, because I can’t kick it. I go through four packs a week, or at least I did. In the last twodays,I’ve managed to burn through two packs. That’s a hundred and fifty sticks—each. The outlook for the rest of the week ain’t looking good. Actually, as I come up empty, right now is not looking good either. Gom gosh almighty, I will not make it through this shift if I don’t have something to crush with my jaws in the next thirty seconds.

“All right,” I tell Jason as I drag file folders forward in case any loose sticks dropped out of a pack and are swimming around the back of the drawer. And thank all fuck—some are. I’m ripping off a wrapper, shoving the stick in my mouth, and balling up the crinkly blue foil for a wastebasket dunk when I say, “Here’s what we’ll do. You get into work when you can. You’re late, you’re late. I’ll pay you for whatever time you put in, cover for you when a room needs the hands, and you won’t get cut for showing up after your shift starts.” I hook him with my gaze. “But don’t fuck me over. Don’t mistake my generosity for being a pushover. I ever find out you bullshit me, I’ll ream your ass, then fire you so hard your shoes will be smoking.”

Jason’s blinking fast and looking absolutely earnest when he vows, “I won’t. Sir, I wouldn’t do that.”

I dip my chin and glance down at the desktop to give him a moment to gather himself. “When you’re here, if you’re not busy and you see something that could use doing—like the trash nobody takes out—”

Jason winces, because this is his and Sal’s job. I bust their balls from time to time, but I’m not a prick like I apparently need to be in order to motivate them, so seven times out of ten, I just take out the trash myself because it takes just as much time to call them on the carpet as it does for me to take care of it.

“—then pick it up and do it. I’ll consider it square. Good deal?”

Jason’s voice cracks. “Good deal. Th-thanks.”

I grab my phone. Not because I intended to make a call, but because the kid looks like he’s about to cry, and everyone has their pride. I want to help him, not mortify him. “Get out of here. And if you see Stacy hasn’t left for her lunch break yet, tell her to pick me up some gum. Don’t care what kind as long as I can chew it.”

He must see Stacy, because thirty minutes later, she brings me the brand she knows I like. “You’re such a good kid,” I tell her.

“Remember that the next time I screw up a purchase order,” she teases.

***

The next morning, when Inara and I walk up to the door together, I find a manilla envelope taped to the glass.

“What is that?” Inara asks.

“Don’t know.” An envelope taped to our door where anybody could peel it up and walk off with it? Or rather, an envelope anybody could fill and tape to our door for any shady reason. This isn’t like a delivery FedEx is leaving without a signature. This is an unmarked package left when no one was around, meaning it was done last night after we left or sometime this morning. You could say it’s a weird occurrence. Immediately, I’m on guard.

“Hang on,” I tell Inara. I hand her my keys. “Go sit in the car.”

Inara looks at me then at the envelope. “Are you serious, Matthew?” She frowns. “It’s only a tiny package.”

I move to take her elbow, but before I can do that to steer her back to the car myself, she sighs and sashays where I asked her to go in the first place, her tail twitching in a way that I now know means she’s irritated, but only slightly.

I turn back to the weird package. I peel up the tape, freeing it from the door. I open it with care, trying to touch it as little as possible in case there’s something in here that’s going to require police involvement and print-taking…

But it’s just gum.

Inside of the envelope there are packs and packs of my favorite gum.

I’ve bought a lot of the shit over the years, so I know there must be thirty buck’s worth here.

In amongst the plastic-wrapped cardboard sleeves of chewable goodness is a simple note written on lined notebook paper. In Jason’s messy high schooler scrawl, it reads,Thank You.

I collect a slightly huffy Inara, unruffle her feathers by thanking her for letting me feel safer by keeping herself waiting in the car, shove a stick of gum in her mouth which delights her, and when Jason shows up at the back entrance for his shift—on time today—I don’t call him into the office again. I don’t say a thing.

When I get to my desk, I open up the software that cuts employee paychecks, and I bump Jason’s up, giving him a thirty-cent raise.

CHAPTER 19

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