Hang in there

The only sound was the breath of the fan in the corner and the muffled voices of the radio, sounds that whirred and hissed inside your brain until there was nothing left inside it. The scent of dried roses and an old bag of Cheez-Its made the musty air that much more hot and dry, and the breeze from the electric fan stopped at two feet and never made its way into the rest of the room. 

Jody popped half a stick of spearmint gum onto her tongue, chewing it right where the gap in her mouth was from her last lost tooth. It hurt, but who cared? It was August, and the world kept going with no one really noticing it. Eighteen days till school started, seven hours, 39 minutes. Jody pulled a yellow Post-it note from a stack on her desk and flopped onto her bed, thinking for a minute before writing: “never until the sun reaches the tips of my toes” and “sleek.” The last one was a word she had been thinking about recently, and she thought it was a good word to describe the sound her fingernail made when it rolled across corduroy. The first one was another random sentence to join the orchestra of Post-it notes that were stuck to the wall above her bed, sentences she thought of at 10 p.m. when she was trying to sleep, and even though her eyes were getting fuzzy, words kept rolling around inside her head. 

A car backfired outside, but Jody didn’t even jump. Her hair was tangled and pulled back in a low ponytail, her purple glasses balanced on the tip of her nose, but barely hanging on. She hopped up, suddenly and inexplicably filled with newfound energy to do something. The corner store had ice. Ice sounded cool, and refreshing, and very possibly not needed at all. Jody ran outside to the garage and jumped on her bike. 

She barely had to pedal at all as her bike coasted down the black asphalt, burning hot and emanating almost as much heat as the fiery sun overhead. Long shadows fell onto the pavement, almost exactly the same color as the ground, but wavering so you could see their impossible shapes traced out in blurry splotches. Jody heard a motorcycle engine rev in the distance, and she touched her Converse to the bike pedals as the brakes screeched to a halt outside the corner store.

The neon lights of the open sign blinked on and off, first the O, then the P, and so on until the whole word was lit up like a tiny version of the pictures of Times Square everyone has seen before. Inside the store, it was a whole world of M&M jumbo bags and Gatorades, AC blasting from the counter at the front. A teenage-looking guy with dark brown hair and chip bags in each of his hands was talking to the woman who was working at 4 o’clock. 

“Listen, I got a five and four ones. The bags are 9.50. Can’t you let me off the hook for 50 cents? I could… I could come back and pay the extra 50 later if you want, I mean…” The woman at the counter was shaking her head.

“You know what five plus four is, right?” she said in a bored voice.

“What? Yes, of course I do.” 

“Well, let me tell you, it’s not 10. It’s not 9.50. It’s not even 9.25,” said the worker, sounding like she’d had this conversation many times before. 

“Yeah, I know. Hey, I guess I’ll just put them back,” he said, his voice just as tired as the worker lady. Jody felt her heart drop into her stomach as she watched the guy put back his bags. She knew this was worth it, however worthless it may seem.

“Hey, I’ve got a dollar,” she said, letting the words fall out of her throat as she had done so many times before. What are we going to do with you, Jody? her mother had said. You just say whatever’s on your mind. You just go right out and say it.

The guy looked over at her in surprise, then shook his head, smiling a tiny bit. 

“No, no, that’s okay, kid. You save your money. I can buy chips some other time.” 

“But I want you to have it. I don’t need it anyway; the ice costs $5 and I’ve got an extra.” The guy looked at her like he was trying to figure her out for a second, then took the money cautiously. He went up front and paid, seemingly slightly in shock. Jody knew she could do that to people sometimes. They looked at her and saw a 9-year-old girl wearing a baggy T-shirt and jean cut-offs, looking up at them with light brown eyes and a world of experience hidden inside them. 

When the guy was finished paying, he came back to Jody and thanked her. He had blue eyes that looked kind of like what Jody imagined hers looking like, curious and wise and slightly mischievous. 

“Listen, kid, you want a chip? You deserve one.” He said it with a smile in his voice, like he couldn’t quite believe she was there.

“Sure,” she said, and took one. The guy was silent while she chewed, then when she finished, sprung a question on her that she knew she wouldn’t be able to answer.

“Why’d you give me the dollar? You don’t even ... know me.”

Jody shrugged, thought about, then shrugged again.

“I just ... do that sometimes. I don’t know why. It’s kind of hard to explain, it’s just ... I do it because I have nothing else to do.”

The guy nodded like he understood, which was a response Jody didn’t usually get. Mostly, people looked at her quizzically until she finally walked away. 

“Hey, well, anyway ... hang in there, okay?” He looked at her one last time, then smiled, opened the door, and strolled off down the street. 

Jody walked out the door, too, and got on her bike. As she started off, she remembered she hadn’t bought any ice. It didn’t matter anymore.

When Jody got home, she sat back onto her bed, wrote “hang in there” on a Post-it note, and stuck it on the wall. She put her hands in her pockets and took out her five dollars that she had never spent, then blinked when she saw something odd.

The one-dollar bill she had given away was sitting crisp and new right there in her palm.

NiñaEstrella

VT

15 years old

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