In Search of Tomorrow ✓

Eight

There were only a few dollars in there; I had no idea how expensive my car would be but knew it wouldn't be cheap. I needed more money; but how?

Katie must have realized that I'd grown annoyed by her analysis of everything pertaining to my life, because her next comment was more general. "I don't know why nobody's stopping by today," she said airily.

I could play along with small talk. "It is sort of rainy," I said, gesturing with my duster towards the window. "There must be a system of showers coming through the area."

There was more awkward silence. I glanced at the cow clock on the wall and saw that I still had half an hour until Cameron would pick me up and take me to get my car.

"Can I leave work at five instead of five thirty?" I asked, suddenly remembering I hadn't cleared my early departure with my boss yet. "I have to go pick up my fixed car from the shop."

Katie shrugged. "Doesn't seem like you'll have much else to do here anyway after we've finished cleaning," she said. She glanced again outside the window, where rain was still falling onto the slick pavement, and then turned back to her work with furrowed eyebrows.

Just then, the glass door opened and the bell jingled, revealing the first customer of my shift. I instantly went behind the counter, tying on my apron, and tossed my feather duster aside.

"Hi, and welcome to Skyport Creamery," I chirped, smiling as happily as I could. "What can I get you?"

The customers seemed to be a little girl, around nine years old, and her dad, who was holding his daughter's hand tightly as she surveyed the options with greedy eyes. I gripped the ice cream scooper so hard that my knuckles went white.

Finally, the little girl whispered to her daddy what she wanted, and he straightened and said to me, "She'll have the mint chocolate chip ice cream in a sugar cone with rainbow sprinkles."

I snapped on my gloves and grabbed a sugar cone, then began scooping up the ice cream.

"And I'll have French vanilla ice cream with walnuts, chocolate chunks, Oreos, and hot fudge class in a large waffle cone."

Struggling frantically to remember his order, I prepared both of their ice creams and then handed them across the counter. Then I went over to the cash register, tossing my gloves in the trash can, to ring them up.

Please let that dad be a good tipper.

"Your total is six dollars and thirty-eight cents," I said, taking the ten-dollar bill from the dad and counting out his change. He dumped the three dollars and sixty-two cents in the tip jar, much to my ecstasy, and then thanked me with a smile.

"Let's go eat outside," he said, taking his little girl's hand again as she licked her ice cream fervently, smiling happily. I watched them go and then counted out all the money in the tip jar (eleven dollars and sixteen cents) before dumping it into my coin purse.

I picked up the duster again and resumed cleaning, smiling as I realized that my thoughts that used to be occupied with fretting over bills and car payments were now occupied with visions of a certain dark-haired, blue-eyed boy and how I'd get to see him in less than fifteen minutes. I found myself looking at the clock more than usual as I finished cleaning and untied my apron. Maybe Katie was right, and he was good for me.

At five ten, Cameron stepped inside Skyport Creamery, still wearing his soccer gear. His hair looked either very sweaty or very wet as a result of the drizzle outside, but he was grinning.

"Ready, Evelyn?" he asked, raising his hand in a wave when he saw Katie behind the counter.

I grabbed my purse from the hook at the back of the shop and slung it over my shoulder. "Hurry up, let's go," I said.

We went outside and he opened the passenger door to his convertible—I surprised myself with not hesitating before I hopped inside. My usual sense of panic did not overwhelm me as he closed the door behind me and then climbed into the driver's side, and I actually tilted my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes as he drove.

"We're here," he said roughly fifteen minutes later, pulling into the parking lot of the mechanic. I thanked him and hopped out of the car, clutching my purse in my hand and hoping I had enough money to cover the costs.

I pulled open the doors and stepped inside the air-conditioned lobby, wrinkling my nose at what smelled like oil and gasoline. Up at the counter, a friendly-looking woman who was on the phone beckoned me over.

"One moment," she mouthed, holding up a finger with a professional smile. I leaned against the counter and tried to run numbers in my head until she hung up, then laced her fingers together and asked, "How can I help you?"

"I'm picking up my car," I said. "It broke down a few days ago and I got a call earlier today saying it was fixed."

Once she called someone up to the desk to show me to my car, and once the mechanic told me a lot of things I didn't understand about the state of my vehicle and the repairs he had done to it, we got to pricing. "The repairs are gonna cost you about eight hundred," he said, sticking his hands in the pockets of his dirty jeans and leaning against my car door.

I gawked, staring at my van, then back at him. "Excuse me?" I asked.

"It ain't cheap havin' a car," he shot back, as if I were some spoiled little rich kid who was just getting exposed to the world of money.

I rolled my eyes and fumbled through my purse for my checkbook, then turned back to him. "Look," I said. "I can't pay all that right now. Can't I pay you back in increments?"

What followed was a heated discussion, during which he told me perfectly clearly he thought I would cheat him out of the rest of the money and during which I told him I was being perfectly honest. Finally, the mechanic, who seemed to be the owner of the rinky-dink little shop, and who seemed to be desperate, told me I could pay one hundred dollars and a time over eight weeks—but that he'd charge me interest.

"Whatever," I said. Even though the interest would cost me more in the end, I knew I couldn't afford to pay the eight hundred right off the bat.

I gave him the first hundred and he handed me the keys to my faithful little car. As I clutched them in my hands, I tried not to imagine the seven hundred dollars I'd still have to pay and instead made myself think of the bright side—at least I had my car back.

I drove to Maddie and Clare's after-school care to pick them up with the music turned up loud and the windows down, trying to drown out all my worries. When they slid into the car one-by-one, Clare shot me a glare that made me turn down the radio, then crossed her arms.

"I think it was stupid to try and fix this junk of a car," she said, buckling her seatbelt and then helping Maddie do the same. "We could have just ridden with Cameron all the time."

I steered out of the carpool line and back onto the main road. "Stop it," I told her. "And Cameron's coming over tonight to tutor me again, so behave yourselves."

The rest of the drive was silent, and when we pulled up at the house and I unlocked the door, Clare disappeared up the stairs with her backpack without another word to me. I helped Maddie settle into the living room with her favorite coloring book and her dulled crayons, then went into the kitchen to try and figure out dinner.

My gaze kept travelling out to the driveway, thought, where my car was sitting parked and where Cameron's would come pulling up in just a few short hours. Smiling, I started in on sandwiches for dinner, mentally making a note to go to the grocery store when I could and trying not to think about my tutoring session that was growing ever-closer.