Some Place Better Than Here

Chapter 12: Drop it Like it's Hot

Whenever Rob spontaneously called, it was to coax me into a last-minute shift.

"I'm helping my Mom with some moving stuff. Why?"

"Shit. Shit. Miller called in sick. I need an extra guy. Shit. Say Hi to your mom for me," Rob said and hung up the phone.

A minute later, Mary walked back out empty-handed and absolutely bewildered by the vagary. Blaming her failure on reaching for her wallet with her left hand.

"Why don't we just take booze from my house?"

"Wait, we can do that?" Mary seemed so dumbfounded by the concept of taking one of my mom's bottles of wine. I told her it really wasn't a big deal, but she was getting weirdly paranoid.

"This shit's like a hundred bucks!" Mary gushed while analyzing the random bottle of wine I had pulled out of Mom's wine cabinet.

"Oh," I mumbled, "is it?"

"Yeah, Danny! I only drink the ten-dollar shit. I don't drink this fancy shit. Your mom's gonna lose her shit!"

"I promise you she won't," I reassured Mary. I was a little perplexed that Mary was so nonchalant over illegally buying booze, yet was freaking out that my mom would get mad at me for taking a bottle of red wine. So to shut Mary up, I called Mom on speakerphone so she could hear the entire conversation.

"Mom, do you care if I take..." I paused to read the label. "A bottle of Tillard's Estate Wine?"

"Are you going to drive after you drink?"

"Why would you even say that?"

"Okay, sorry. Then yeah, I don't care. Just don't be an idiot and BE SAFE."

Just as I clicked the button to hang up, Mary said, "I'm like shitting myself."

"That's a really gross visual."

"I just can't freakin' believe that your mom literally does not care that we're taking a hundred-dollar bottle of wine. That's like—crazy!"

Before we left my house, Mary was gung-ho on seeing if I had a particular record in my bedroom. When I asked her what album, she didn't say. And just as I walked out the front door, it dawned on me that maybe she wanted to bang?

But it was when stepping out of the front door; going back to my car, that Mary dropped the surprise bomb on me.

"Okay. Can you drop me off at work?"

"Wait, Mary, you have to go to work?"

"Yeah?" she dragged out the word as she walked to the passenger side door, looking at me from out the corner of her eye. I stood, frozen, on the front steps.

"What's the big deal?" she said. "I only work until seven tonight. Come pick me up then, if you're not going to stand with your mouth open like an idiot for the rest of the afternoon, Daniel."

All I could think about was Rob, understaffed and overwhelmed at the carwash.

==========MARY==========

"Apples? Check. Two-dozen bottles of Heinz Ketchup? Check. Patterson Family Farm jarred fruit jam? Check." I read and repeated out loud as I did inventory at work. Needless to say, Wright Bros was dead. Linda was so bored that she sent me to the back with a red sharpie to overview and check off the imports from the week. I flipped through the clipboard and saw I had one last sheet and row of boxes in storage to strike a giant red X through.