C HAPTER O NE
I PULLED THE ten-dollar bill out of my wallet for the tenth time and held it up in front of me. “Ten measly bucks,” I mumbled under my breath. I shoved the bill back into my wallet and sat up so quickly I cracked my head on the ceiling. The bed I usually shared with my brother was on a platform overhanging the hitch of our family’s travel trailer and had less than three feet of space between mattress and ceiling. Shay and I had argued with our mother Maggie for years about moving to the back where the trailer’s double bed could be converted into two twins, but she dismissed the idea out of hand, insisting that no one would sleep there but her.
I swung my feet around so they dangled off the side of the bed and rubbed at the top of my head. It still throbbed, but maybe a minor injury would finally teach me to stop getting so worked up over the ten dollars Shay’d quick changed from Tracy.
The Hardware Store Girl , I corrected myself. I needed to quit personalizing her. The Sheedy boys liked to call me soft, and even though I made it a point to kick their asses once in a while to prove I wasn’t, deep down I knew they were right. I was weak.
Clearly. A week had gone by and I was still sweating the couple bucks we’d scammed. It was time to get over it. It’s not like ten stupid dollars was going to make or break Tracy’s life.
The Hardware Store Girl’s life. God damn it.
“You look more anxious than a sinner at Saint Peter’s feet,” Maggie said, eyeing me up and down. She was almost at eye level even though she stood on the kitchen floor while I still sat on the shelf bed. Our trailer was only about a couple hundred square feet, and from the kitchen you could pretty much see the entire place. “Yer head all right?”
“Fine,” I grumbled. Usually I was fine with the small space, but lately I really hated living in such a dinky trailer. I loved Maggie, but I was twenty-three, and a man needed some time on his own.
“Thinking about your brother?”
Her words shook me from my thoughts and made me realize what a dick I was being. My baby brother was off on some fool mission our clan leader had concocted, and all I could think about was some hardware clerk.
At least I’d finally stopped thinking of her as Tracy.
“Yup. Worrying about Shay and forgot where I was,” I lied. If I admitted I was hung up on some country girl, Maggie would probably box my ears, recent injury or no.
Anyway, I really was worried about Shay. Paving or roofing scams were one thing. They were barely scams at all. We really did pave the gull’s driveway or give them a new roof; we just cut a few corners here and there while we did it. There was little danger in that. Once the gull realized the quality of our work (or lack thereof), we’d be long gone.
This mysterious job Shay was off doing for Pop Sheedy: now that was dangerous. I was sure of it, even if I was a little hazy on the details.
“You have that phone, right?” Maggie asked. My hand instinctively moved to my pocket to make sure it was still there. The feeling of carrying a phone was a new one, but it was also a comfort.
“Yeah, it’s right here,” I said, patting my hip. Travelers were usually paranoid about having cellphones, but for this job I wanted Shay to have a direct line to me. The feeling of the hard rectangle in my pocket reassured me that if anything went wrong, he could contact me at a moment’s notice, no matter what sort of situation he found himself in.
“Well, good,” Maggie said. “Then you know everything’s okay. Shay would call you if he needed anything.” She turned away and busied herself with the teakettle. “Why don’t you go back out on the road with your uncle tomorrow? There’s still three months left of the season. You’re going to get bored spending the whole time in the Village alone with me.”
I narrowed my eyes at my mother. Even though we could always use the money,
I PULLED THE ten-dollar bill out of my wallet for the tenth time and held it up in front of me. “Ten measly bucks,” I mumbled under my breath. I shoved the bill back into my wallet and sat up so quickly I cracked my head on the ceiling. The bed I usually shared with my brother was on a platform overhanging the hitch of our family’s travel trailer and had less than three feet of space between mattress and ceiling. Shay and I had argued with our mother Maggie for years about moving to the back where the trailer’s double bed could be converted into two twins, but she dismissed the idea out of hand, insisting that no one would sleep there but her.
I swung my feet around so they dangled off the side of the bed and rubbed at the top of my head. It still throbbed, but maybe a minor injury would finally teach me to stop getting so worked up over the ten dollars Shay’d quick changed from Tracy.
The Hardware Store Girl , I corrected myself. I needed to quit personalizing her. The Sheedy boys liked to call me soft, and even though I made it a point to kick their asses once in a while to prove I wasn’t, deep down I knew they were right. I was weak.
Clearly. A week had gone by and I was still sweating the couple bucks we’d scammed. It was time to get over it. It’s not like ten stupid dollars was going to make or break Tracy’s life.
The Hardware Store Girl’s life. God damn it.
“You look more anxious than a sinner at Saint Peter’s feet,” Maggie said, eyeing me up and down. She was almost at eye level even though she stood on the kitchen floor while I still sat on the shelf bed. Our trailer was only about a couple hundred square feet, and from the kitchen you could pretty much see the entire place. “Yer head all right?”
“Fine,” I grumbled. Usually I was fine with the small space, but lately I really hated living in such a dinky trailer. I loved Maggie, but I was twenty-three, and a man needed some time on his own.
“Thinking about your brother?”
Her words shook me from my thoughts and made me realize what a dick I was being. My baby brother was off on some fool mission our clan leader had concocted, and all I could think about was some hardware clerk.
At least I’d finally stopped thinking of her as Tracy.
“Yup. Worrying about Shay and forgot where I was,” I lied. If I admitted I was hung up on some country girl, Maggie would probably box my ears, recent injury or no.
Anyway, I really was worried about Shay. Paving or roofing scams were one thing. They were barely scams at all. We really did pave the gull’s driveway or give them a new roof; we just cut a few corners here and there while we did it. There was little danger in that. Once the gull realized the quality of our work (or lack thereof), we’d be long gone.
This mysterious job Shay was off doing for Pop Sheedy: now that was dangerous. I was sure of it, even if I was a little hazy on the details.
“You have that phone, right?” Maggie asked. My hand instinctively moved to my pocket to make sure it was still there. The feeling of carrying a phone was a new one, but it was also a comfort.
“Yeah, it’s right here,” I said, patting my hip. Travelers were usually paranoid about having cellphones, but for this job I wanted Shay to have a direct line to me. The feeling of the hard rectangle in my pocket reassured me that if anything went wrong, he could contact me at a moment’s notice, no matter what sort of situation he found himself in.
“Well, good,” Maggie said. “Then you know everything’s okay. Shay would call you if he needed anything.” She turned away and busied herself with the teakettle. “Why don’t you go back out on the road with your uncle tomorrow? There’s still three months left of the season. You’re going to get bored spending the whole time in the Village alone with me.”
I narrowed my eyes at my mother. Even though we could always use the money,
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