Page 29 of Working with the Scrooge

“Hey! Hi. How’s it going?” she asks. She sounds a bit out of breath, like she’s doing physical labor.

“I’m, uh… I’m good,” I lie.

“Yeah, me, too,” she says sarcastically. I’m not sure why, but her deadpan response pulls a laugh out of me. I didn’t think I was capable of feeling anything but heartache at the moment.

“I’m really okay, just some work drama,” I tell her. Technically, Iwasworking for Kingsley, so it’s not a total lie.

“Mmhm,” Tempest says dubiously. She was always great at reading people. “How about you tell me all about when we meet up for lunch?”

“Oh. I thought you knew, I moved to New York a few months ago, after…”

“After your grandma passed away,” she finishes for me. “I know. I went to the funeral, I just… I felt like I didn’t belong. I wanted to see you, to say something, but it had been a long time since we really hung out, and… I don’t know. I was a coward.”

“I appreciate you coming,” I tell her. It’s a rare moment of vulnerability from my old friend. She never felt like she belonged. Her clothes were out of style or dirty, her shoes were always falling apart, and everyone knew the teachers paid for her to go on our field trips and forged her mom’s signature. It’s not like her mom cared one way or the other. “Plus,” I continue, “you’re literally the last person in the world I would call a coward. Remember when you poured milk over Sammy Garnett’s head in third grade? He was like a foot taller than you and the meanest kid in school!”

“Yeah, well, he deserved it. He called you a bitch!”

“We were nine,” I say with a soft laugh. “I’m pretty sure he called me a wussy, not a bitch.”

“His intention was the same though. To make you feel shitty. So, I decided to make him feel shitty, too.”

We both laugh at the memory. I have countless examples of Tempest standing up for me, for anyone who needed it, really. Even though she was one of the shortest people in our class, she never backed down from a fight, especially if it was to protect someone else. I suppose growing up with a single mom who was either strung-out or out finding her next fix made Tempest tough and independent in a way most kids don’t need to be.

“I actually am in New York City now,” she says, surprising me. “Oh, shit,” she curses under her breath. A whooshing sound comes through on the other end of the line, and then what sounds like a pile of wood or something heavy dropping to the ground.

“Everything okay?”

“Yup! Totally,” she answers far too quickly to be believed. “Definitely didn’t just mess up this shipping order and drop it everywhere.Fuck a duck,” she mutters to herself.

“Are you at work? Wait, you’re in New York? We have so much to talk about!”

“I know, that’s what I’m saying!” We both laugh. “Short answer, yes, I’m in New York. I, uh, well, I needed to get aw– er, I mean I needed a change of pace, you know?”

I heard her slip-up. She needed to get away. My heart hurts thinking about what the last few years have been like for her. I went off to college, but Tempest stayed in our small hometown.

“Yeah, I get that,” I say, instead of calling her out on it.

“Just got a job at the docks a few days ago. I was thinking when I get my first paycheck, I can take you out for lunch or coffee or whatever. You know, start repaying you for all the extra lunches your grandma made me during the school year and all the meals she made sure I had during the summer months.”

A sad, wistful smile curls up one corner of my lips. Grandma did always pack a huge lunch for me to take to school, knowing Tempest likely wouldn’t have one. We also tried having her over several times a week for dinner and sent her home with leftovers.

“There’s no need to repay me, but I would love to catch up.”

“Awesome!” Another crashing sound filters in through the phone, and Tempest curses again. “Better go. Apparently, I can’t multitask.”

“Thanks for calling. Seriously, it will be good to see you,” I tell her.

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Gotta go!”

The line cuts a second later. I hope everything is okay. I can’t picture Tempest working at the docks, but then again, I haven’t really known her for a few years now.

Sighing, I toss my phone on the coffee table and snuggle back down into my blanket and pillow cocoon. That was a great distraction from my current state of affairs, but now the silence is being filled in with more thoughts of what happened tonight.

I’m determined to shut off my brain and not devote any more energy to Kingsley Bowman, but I know I’m full of shit. He’s all I see when I close my eyes. The neighbors upstairs turn their music up, and I groan, knowing it will be another sleepless night.

I blink a few times, feeling a bit drugged. Light shines through my one window, meaning I must have slept through the night. Apparently, getting your heart ripped out and trampled on wears a person out.

My phone beeps, which must have woken me in the first place.I yawn and stretch out my sore muscles, though I’m unsure if the stiffness is from all the physical labor I did yesterday while setting up for the party or from the aching depression overtaking my limbs. Probably both.

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