Chapter 32: Taken by the Major: Chapter 32

I stared at the bank statement in my hands. At some point when I was little, Dad had taught me how to balance a checkbook. And then when I was a little bit older, I learned the envelope method of budgeting. After all the misinformation I got from Mac, I managed to cobble together a system of my own. It was halfway between a balanced checkbook, a stack of envelopes, and weekly trips to the bank to ask for a printout of what my account looked like.

It was always depressing, always bleak. But never this bad. I didn’t even make it out of the bank before I had to sit down. I didn’t have the money to pay rent. That meant I was going to have to use Ruby’s money. I was already tapping into her account for our bills.

I had been spending less and less on groceries, relying mostly on the SNAP card. I had stopped eating during the day. I just couldn’t afford more than one meal for myself. At least Ruby was getting free lunches at school.

My insides roiled. For someone who didn’t eat very much, I was certainly throwing it all back up a lot. And I had that little situation facing me down. I was going to need to see a doctor sooner rather than later. I read as much as I could at the library and made sure I had a bottle of the right vitamins. But would they do either of us any good if I just threw them up again?

“Are you okay?” The bank manager came out and stood in front of me. I must have been scaring off the other customers with my look of shocked terror as I reviewed my lack of balance.

I shook my head. “Not unless you’re hiring?” It couldn’t hurt to ask.

“I’m sorry, we’re not. But you can always fill out an application online, and if you qualify, the system puts your name on a waiting list for when we do have openings.” Her smile didn’t look particularly sincere.

Had she gotten her job through that online application system? Did anyone get a job, ever, from those online applications? I had spent days at the library doing nothing but putting in applications and taking ridiculous online questionnaires that felt like research papers. One of the applications asked me if I would ever strike a customer. They asked me three different times in a monstrously 120-question long ‘quick Q&A’. There was no comments section because I really wanted to point out that one hundred and twenty questions were not quick. There also wasn’t a place to say I wouldn’t hit someone, but I would pour a drink on them in self-defense.

I folded my bank statement and left. I knew that’s why she had come over to talk to me. She was going to tell me to leave. I didn’t want to be that person, the one who had to be escorted out of businesses.

“I’m good,” I said again as I stood up and dragged myself one step at a time back to the car.

I wondered if I could sell it. Walking was probably better for me, anyway.

I got in behind the wheel and started it up. I caught a glimpse of the pile of dresses in the back seat. It would be next to impossible to take home dresses from Sally’s Bridal if I had to walk. Selling the car wasn’t going to happen, but I could use it less. That would save on gas for a while.

It took two trips to carry the dresses inside from the car. There weren’t that many dresses, only three, but the skirts on them were so big. Nothing for prom yet, but a couple of quinceañera dresses had needed hemming.

I had to wait while Connie helped with a sale. Nothing nearly as dramatic as the pregnancy reveal had happened in a while.

“Thanks for waiting, Kenzie,” Connie said as she opened the garment bags and examined the hems. “Perfect, as always.”

I handed her the invoice slip. “Do you think you could possibly pay me early this time?”

She shook her head. “I don’t run the checks. I send all the paperwork to the other store in Redding. Sally takes care of it there. But I’ll put a note on it to ask if she can do a rush.”

I didn’t want to beg. I didn’t want Connie to know how desperate I was for money. Funny, I had no qualms about anyone knowing I was poor. But now that I was desperate, I didn’t want anyone to know anything. It was bad enough that I asked about a job every time I came in.

“You don’t know if the other store has any openings, do you?”

“I doubt it. Sally has been sending me her overflow. Hold on, I have a couple of hems for you.”

The hemming jobs weren’t going to cover rent, but they would be enough to cover the utility bill, and that counted for something.

I waited and thanked Connie when she handed me a single dress. “I guess I thought there were more. Oh, well.”

I smiled. I didn’t feel like jaunty banter. One hem was the difference between having meat and vegetables to put in our ramen or not. At least I could get ramen on my SNAP card for cheap at the dollar store.

I went home. Ruby sat at the kitchen table doing her homework.

“I thought you’d be at the library,” I said.

She shrugged. “I didn’t feel like it. I was hungry so I made some noodles.”

I dropped the dress on the couch. “Oh, really? That was going to be your dinner.”

“Seriously? Again? I miss hamburgers and pizza,” she whined.

And I missed having the money to pay for luxuries like fast food and take-out. It was so far from luxury, it wasn’t even funny. I felt nauseated at the thought of a cheap drive-thru hamburger being a luxury. I clamped my hand over my mouth and ran for the bathroom.

Nothing came up, but it felt like something wanted out. I belched. “Ew, gross.” I brushed my teeth before returning to the living room. I picked up the dress and carried it to the hook on my closet door where I always hung the dresses from the bridal shop.

When I stepped back into the kitchen, Ruby was staring at me. “Are you okay?”

I smiled and nodded. Neither were enthusiastic, but they weren’t completely fake, either. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Don’t lie to me, Kenzie. You don’t have an eating disorder or something, do you?”

I barked out a laugh. “An eating disorder?”

“Yeah, we’ve been learning about them in health class. And you don’t eat anymore, and you throw up all the time like you’re sick, but you don’t act sick.”

“I don’t have an eating disorder. I’m stressed, Ruby. It’s hard to eat when my insides are all nervous from not having a job.”

She looked at me with big, wide eyes. Her hair was sticking up in unruly spikes again. I ran my fingers over her head, mussing her hair more, not that it was noticeable. “You’ve been cutting your bangs again,” I pointed out. “I’m stressed. That’s it. And I don’t throw up that much.”

“Come on, Kenzie. You just ran back there to puke. The stress has you throwing up all the time. I can hear you. When was the last time you had a vegetable?”

I wanted to laugh. Ruby was being the responsible one for once, thank you, middle school health classes.

“We’ll get more money at the beginning of next month and I’ll be able to stock up on canned veggies then.”

“Canned is not fresh,” Ruby pointed out. “But we don’t even have those. All we have to eat right now is dollar store ramen, not even the good stuff, and canned sausages. You could have at least gotten tuna.”

“Tuna costs more than sausages. We’ll be okay, Ruby. Dinners are going to be boring and basic for a while, that’s all.”

“Did my Social Security check come in?” she asked.

“It did, and I put it away.”

“Then take some out and use it to buy groceries.”

I shook my head. “I can’t, sweetie. I’ve already used it for rent.”

“But you always said that was what you spent on treats and…” She trailed off, confused.

“It is what I used to buy us treats, and pay for the electricity, and put gas in the car. You know I’m struggling to find a job. The money I made at Burger Jeff paid for rent and insurance and the phone.” I ticked off the items on my fingers. It was a short list. The money didn’t go very far.

“I’ll think of something. Someone in town has to be hiring.”

“Too bad the ski season is over. You could have gotten a job at the slopes.”

I sighed. She was right. The local resorts seemed to always have openings for the winter. And the few times that the weather dragged skiing into the late spring, they were desperate for help. Unfortunately, skiing didn’t last much past mid-March this year. The only jobs they had right now were for trail guides and other fitness types. I didn’t qualify.

“I could go see if Tate⁠—”

“You’re not to go see him again. He’s not part of our lives anymore.”

I knew she had tried to go see him. I had too, but he hadn’t been home for weeks. I was pretty sure he left town and wasn’t coming back.