Page 23 of Mountain Grump
I nod as I shove the ribbon back into my pocket. “I’d appreciate that.”
Sandra picks her phone up off the table and taps at the screen a few times. “There.” She sets her phone back down and narrows her eyes at me. “You sure you’re okay?”
I wrap my fingers around my water glass. “Jack’s dead.”
My sister’s face falls. She never met him, but she’s heard me talk about him. “What? How?”
I open my mouth and pause. “I don’t actually know.”
“Did you…?”
I shake my head. “He didn’t die at the house. I just heard about it today.” From his grandkid. Who I agreed to keep an eye on. Who I thought was a boy. But who’s actually a girl, straight from my fantasies, and instead of helping her, I made her fall, then cry.
Not off to a great start.
“I’m sorry.”
I lift a shoulder, not sure what to say.
Jack was someone I saw on occasion.
We didn’t go out to dinner.
Didn’t talk on the phone.
But for the better part of two decades, since I first started working at the park, I’ve spent my summers stopping by his place. Talking shit. Listening to his stories. Having the occasional cup of coffee on his deck.
I exhale. And the weight of his loss settles across my thighs, pressing me into the chair.
I don’t really have friends.
But I think he might’ve been one of them.
And now he’s gone.
Chapter 10
Tilda
Music is playing.
I blink my eyes open, and it takes me a second to remember where I am.
I’m sprawled on the ugly brown couch, with an empty bowl of popcorn and an empty bowl of soup on the low coffee table in front of me.
I groan as I sit upright.
While my soup was heating, I ventured through the living room and decided to open the top drawer of the dresser that the TV is sitting on. And then I grinned. Because it was full of DVDs. Spines up, titles on display, the entire drawer was filled with them.
So was the next drawer and the next… Every drawer. Completely stuffed.
Turning on the TV, I knew there was no cable. Not even the usual over-air channels, or whatever they’re called. And without internet, I couldn’t stream anything. So finding a bunch of DVDs… better than finding gold.
At first glance, they seemed to be in random order. But then I noticed that each drawer had a genre. And within that, each drawer was alphabetized.
Disney. Documentaries. Action Movies. Rom-coms. TV sitcoms. And the bottom drawer… all WWE wrestling videos.
I snorted a laugh when I found those.
