~Part Two~
Shelby put her cell phone down.
"Did you call that lady yet?" Her step-brother had just asked her. He was dripping wet with a well-worn blue bath towel held tight around his waist and had just come into the kitchen where she was. He had a second, yellow bath towel draped over his head.
Shelby nodded. "Just hung up with her. She seemed nice. Um, Jamie, do we know her? I can't figure out how she knows me."
He shrugged. "Like I said, she asked for you last night. You must know her from the store or maybe from somewhere else?" He said.
Shelby shrugged. "Anyway, I got me an interview for Monday!" She said.
Jamie's face broke into a grin and he leaned in for a fist bump. "Hey, that's awesome!" He said. "But I still think that's fucking awful what old man Snyder did to you. I should pee in his coffee in the breakroom or something. Asshole."
Shelby wrinkled her nose. "Ewww. Don't do that. I'm moving on to better things. That's all in the past now," she said with a grin.
Jamie nodded, using the towel on his head to dry his hair one-handed.
"What are you getting all cleaned up for?" She asked.
Jamie grinned at her again. "Gonna go hang out with Terri."
"Terri, huh?!" She said, smiling widely in a teasing manner. "Your new girlfriend?"
Jamie rolled his eyes. "Yes. That one," he said.
Shelby snickered. "Don't forget condoms, lover boy."
Jamie snorted. "Are you kidding me right now? Duh," he added. He turned to walk back down the hallway but paused.
"Hey, do you still have that face cream...that zit stuff?"
Shelby nodded. "Under the bathroom sink on my side. Its store brand something. It's got salicylic acid in it."
He nodded. "Thanks...sis," he said, turning and abruptly dropping one edge of his towel, providing her an unobstructed view of his naked ass.
"Oh, my God!" She said, throwing her hands up over her eyes. "It's so blindingly white!!"
He chuckled and sauntered down the hallway. She heard his bedroom door close at the end of the hall and she was then alone.
She wasn't sure where her stepdad was at the moment, but looking out the trailer window his truck was gone so she knew he wasn't around. Probably was out at the store maybe. It was a tiny, local, small-town store with a single gas pump that carried mostly essentials like frozen hamburger meat and bread and eggs and milk - and also cold beer.
Mike, her stepdad, liked to sit on the bench in front of the store and talk to everybody that came and went. He was a friendly, sturdy, down-home Southern transplant with a grey-white beard and a Razorback ball cap whom everybody liked and seemed to be good friends with. She smiled to herself. He was in his early fifties and though he was a Yankee now and had been for several years, he still had that hint of a southern accent that probably would never go away. Not that she wanted it to. It made him who he was.
To her, he was a saint. He sure had been nice to her. Just like their two stray dogs they had, he also took in stray people like herself. He hadn't had to continue to let her live with him and his son because her mom was totally out of the picture now and Shelby was not his responsibility in the slightest. But she would be forever grateful to him because of his kindness. He had for sure saved her from several years of foster care. Hell, he had even thrown her a surprise graduation party a couple of weeks ago. It had been such a sweet gesture it had made her tear up. Her bio dad probably didn't even know where she lived, and Mike - though no biological relation to her at all - had organized a party for her with a Walmart cake, and he'd even gotten a recipe from the old ladies at church and had made pink party punch. She would always be indebted to him which was why she needed a job. She'd worked at McDonald's part time during school, but she'd really enjoyed the hardware store for as long as she'd worked there. It had been a real job with decent hours and benefits. She knew Mike would never ask her for rent money, but she was determined to pay him back in some way, anyway.
Mike worked weeknights at the Honda plant that was a good forty minute drive from their trailer. Normally he'd be sleeping now, but he liked his weekend days. He'd never be a rich man, but she knew he liked sirloin steaks and a pricy local microbrewed beer that he would never buy for himself. She could buy the steaks for him from time to time now. The beer would have to wait until she was old enough, but that day would come. In the meantime she insisted on paying her own cell phone bill and buying her own beauty and hygiene products. She did whatever she could do to help so she didn't feel like she was a burden on him, though he always assured her that she was not.
Shelby stood up. She might as well take down the sparkly "Congratulations, Graduate!" banner that still hung up on one wall of the kitchen. She'd fold it up and put it in the shoebox where she'd placed the other cards she'd gotten from her graduation. She was officially a high school graduate now and was ready to take on the world.
But Shelby frowned. She opened the small dishwasher and started unloading clean dishes.
Taking on the world meant heading to college for a couple of her friends. And in a perfect world she'd have joined them. Lord knows she was every bit as smart as they were. She had taken calculus just like they had. But there was no money for her to do anything like that. Her biological dad had been in and out of prison and had been completely out of her life since she was five - she barely even remembered what he looked like - and the last she knew, her mom had fucked up her sobriety and was on heroin again. Neither of them had anything to give to her, anyway. Except for her name. She had always liked her name. A country music fan to the core, her mom had loved Reba McEntyre. Reba's son Shelby was a good enough name even to give to a girl, so her mother had thought. And she'd been right.
Shelby looked out the kitchen window as she put the last glass away in the 1980's dated cabinets. The sun was out and it was a nice Saturday in the trailer park. It was getting warm outside. Warm enough for the shorts and sweatshirt she was wearing, and maybe warm enough to sit outside if one sat in the sun.
She took the banner and walked down the hallway to her bedroom. Their trailer was barely over 900 square feet so it didn't take long for her to walk it, and she turned into the first bedroom.
It was mostly a typical teenage girl's room. She had movie posters on her walls and a flowery pink comforter on her twin bed that Mike had bought her when she'd moved in. She hated it, but had never had the heart to tell him. He hadn't had any female children, and he evidently thought all girls liked pink and flowers.
"Hey, Bingo."
The little brown dog on the bed opened one big eye and looked at her.
"How's my good boy?" She asked. She patted him on the head as she walked by. He was a Chihuahua and ever since she'd moved in he'd been "her" dog.
Their other dog Roscoe was truly a mutt. He was a medium sized dog but was a mix of so many different breeds it was hard to tell what he was. He had a lot of hound in him, and maybe some poodle because his black hair was kind of curly. He'd been missing an eye when they got him and though he'd been abused in the past and didn't normally trust men, he'd taken to Mike immediately. Everybody - even dogs - could see the good in Mike. Roscoe was probably napping on Mike's bed.
Down the hallway was Jamie's room. Jamie had the bedroom at the end of the hall and it was a little bit bigger than hers, because his closet extended out that extra bit that her bedroom could not because of the hallway. She supposed that it was fair that he had the bigger room. She was just happy she had a bedroom at all.
"Shelby!" Jamie yelled from the hallway.
"In here!" She called back. He'd already passed her bedroom but he turned around and stuck his head inside. She was on the floor on the other side of her bed putting the graduation banner into her senior memories shoebox.
"Do you care if I take the car?" He asked. They had a little 2004 Blue Honda with paint failure that they shared.
She grinned. "Sure, Hugh Hefner. Clean up any messes you make in the backseat."
Jamie scrunched up his nose. "Fucking hell," he said. "We'll trade up for Terri's brand new, red Chevy Silverado anyway once I get to her house."
"Doesn't it have a backseat too?" Shelby said.
Jamie grinned. "Yes. But it's the truck bed, little step-sis. That's what we use. And an inflatable mattress."
"Blech. Whatever," she said, waving her hand in the air, dismissing him.
He winked and smacked the doorjam with his palm. "See ya around."
