🅈🄴🄻🄻🄾🅆 🄲🄰🄽🄰🅁🅈 🄱🄸🅁🄳 •Stanley Barber•

Three Conversations

"Congrats on the new job," Melissa said, propping herself forward on her elbows at the kitchen table.

I didn't even bother to look at her. "Thanks."

"When do you start?"

She tried to meet my eyes, but I just continued to stare down at my cold, Kraft mac-and-cheese. I didn't understand how I could eat a whole box of this as a kid when it tasted like plastic. But then again, everything we bought tasted like plastic. At least Jacob had tried to make it appetizing by mixing it with fruits or veggies he would steal from the cafeteria.

"Uh, yeah," I said when Melissa waited for an answer. "I, um, start my training on Wednesday."

"How long does that go on?"

"Two days. Then I started working on Saturday. Full-time."

"That... Sounds fun."

Yeah. I mean, technically I was supposed to start today, but when Call-Me-Rebecca found out about The Accident, she gave me a few days to recover. I think she felt empathetic, more than she cared about my actual health. I no longer wanted the job, but someone had to pay for Jacob's medical bills.

I didn't understand why I still had to pay those off. They failed, didn't they? The doctors were supposed to save him, and when his heart went out for good, they said, "Sorry about your brother. Give us twenty thousand dollars, please."

We could have used Jacob's money to pay for it, but alas, that went into covering his funeral, and everything his shit car insurance couldn't pay for the truck he hit. Not like I was salty about it. I had forgotten all of that; it was swept away with the rest of my immediate memories post-Jacob's death.

"Your friend Dina stopped by the shop again," Melissa said. "She, uh, wanted me to give you this."

Melissa opened up her cigarette box, and pulled out a little slip of paper from inside. It had a phone number on it, along with Dina's name in an easy-to-read script.

"Nice handwriting," I noted, taking it from Melissa. "So what? She just wants me to call?"

"That's what you typically do with a phone number." Melissa switched out the box for her phone to check the time. "Shit, I've gotta go."

She pushed away from the table, and the chair made a horrible grunt on the tile floor. Melissa's face seemed to sag at the thought of going to work again. Even two weeks after the funeral, she still looked absolutely awful. Her usually paper-white skin almost looked gray, and the bags under her eyes were a nasty purple. She tried to give me a sympathetic smile as she grabbed her purse.

"Hey, I'll see you later, yeah?" Melissa said. "I'm really sorry, Kara."

She rushed out of the door, not bothering to shut it when she left. I slowly stood up, and closed the door behind her. She was finally gone.

Not that I hated seeing her. She was the only thing I had left of Jacob, which made it hard having her around. It just reminded me that he was never coming back.

Not having her around also meant that I could stop pretending to eat. I went back to the table, and grabbed the bowl of fake food, ready to throw it away. I caught a glimpse of Dina's note, and I put the bowl back down on the table.

Why did she want to talk to me? I picked up the note with one hand, while retrieving my phone from the other. I dialed her number, each button beeping in response to the seven digits, and it began to ring. I set it down on the table, and waited.

"Hello?"

"Hey," I said. "This is Kara? Kara Foster."

"Oh, hey there, Kara!" said Dina. "I'm so glad you reached out to me. I was hoping we could talk."