Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“Yeah?” he questioned.
“You forgot your receipt,” I said, handing it to him over the door that separated us.
He took it, then nodded his head in thanks.
“Have a good one.”
I nodded back, backed my cart up, and moved two rows over and down to where my old Ford truck was parked, and dropped the tailgate.
I grunted when I picked up my first bag, thinking that I was getting more and more tired as the day wore on.
It was now two in the afternoon, and I’d been working since five this morning. Plus, I hadn’t eaten.
Maybe a burger from Maple’s was what I’d do. It was quick and it sounded really good. And it was in the same parking lot as the bank, where I had to go to next.
I’d just reached down for the second bag when a set of tattooed hands filled my vision.
“I got it,” Evander said, picking up two bags at a time.
That was a hundred pounds, and he’d lifted it like it was effortless.
“T-thank you,” I stumbled over my words.
Evander reached down for the rest of the bags and then tossed them into the truck bed before closing the tailgate.
And without another word, he was gone.
Shaking my head, I got into my old truck and started it up, praying to sweet baby Jesus that it started without backfiring.
I’d made it all the way out of town, and was pulling into my driveway, when I realized that I hadn’t stopped for the burger that I’d been craving.
Groaning, I pulled over to the side of the driveway and contemplated what to do.
I had eggs—I always had eggs, though—and I thought I might have some bacon. I could make myself some, but my mind was set on a really juicy burger, and it wasn’t going to settle for anything less.
Which had me pulling the old truck into the driveway, and turning around.
Only, just when I was about to pull out of the driveway, I remembered that I was planning on taking my father’s old ‘Cuda out for a drive to keep the battery up.
Knowing that if I didn’t do it today, it’d be next week before I could do it due to previous obligations including meeting my sister, Trixie for her doctor’s appointment tomorrow at two, I decided to go ahead and do it now.
Plus, it didn’t hurt that tonight was classic car night at the Dairy Queen.
Not that I would be going there. However, since the antique license plates my Pop had on the car had stipulations—such as you couldn’t drive it unless it was to a car show or to do regular maintenance on the vehicle at a mechanic’s shop—it was best to have a good excuse for why you were taking it out, despite knowing that you weren’t doing anything wrong.
Though, cops always made me nervous when I was in the ‘Cuda.
My father had kept that ‘Cuda in perfect condition, and there wasn’t much in this world that would catch a cop’s eye faster than a car painted cherry red with white racing stripes. Well, that and the fact that it had a 383 big block in it.
With my plan firmly in place—IE, getting into the car and driving to get myself that burger I’d been craving without getting pulled over by the cops—I headed out, being sure to keep the GPS on the front window where I could see it.
This car’s speedometer didn’t work. The gas tank also didn’t work once you got below a half tank, and I wasn’t even going to mention the fact that the ignition was long past overdue to be replaced.
Apparently, old cars were notorious for being able to start without a key, due to the ignition fucking up somehow, but I hadn’t known it until my dad had passed the car into my care once he’d injured himself on a tractor.
That, by no means, meant it was mine. It just meant that I was charged with taking care of it, and making sure that if he ever was in need of the car, it’d be in driving condition.
Once I was on the way to the burger joint, Maple’s, I started humming to myself, wondering if everyone in my family was cursed.
My mother had died of ovarian cancer. My older sister, Heidi, had died of breast cancer. My dad had fallen off a tractor while tilling the fields to get them ready for planting and was paralyzed from the waist down. My brother, Paul, was run off the road by a drunk driver, and as a result, he now had such debilitating back and leg problems that he couldn’t work because he couldn’t stand.
Then there was my sister, Trixie.
Trixie was the baby, though not by much.
She was my twin sister. I was older by four minutes, but you wouldn’t know it. Trixie was a natural mother hen. She always wanted to make sure everyone else was okay before she did anything for herself, and I hadn’t been spared from her care.