Page 35
Leslie gave me a look that said she didn't need to be told that. She was right. She didn't.
"So," she said, turning back to her phone with renewed purpose. "Call Alex. Trip to the grocery store. Rugs. Chutney." She ticked each one off on her fingers. "This is why I love this job."
"You love this job because Ernie lets you rearrange the window display," Ernie said.
"I love this job," Leslie corrected cheerfully, "because every week I get to call an eighty-year-old woman who once talked down a hostile veteran with a jar of apple chutney and ask her if she has anything new for me." She looked at me. "Where else am I going to get that?"
Ernie opened his mouth, then closed it.
"Start figuring out the window display," I said, before he could recover.
Chapter Ten
“I don’t want to leave my friends,” James yelled at me for the one hundredth time. It had been a long time since he’d had this bad of a meltdown. He’d worked himself into such a state that tears and snot were running down his scrunched up red face, and he was beyond hearing anything I had to say. I just had to let it run its course.
I continued to sit cross-legged on the floor of his room while he paced in front of me, stopping occasionally to yell in my face.
“You’re a stupid-head.”
I held out an arm, and it stopped him mid-stride. “Hey, we don’t call people names, no matter how mad we are. That’s the rule, right, James?”
He glared at me. He was on the edge of flinging another insult, probably poopy-head, but he held back. “Okay, I won’t call you names,” he said reluctantly.
“That’s really good, James. But you can talk about your feelings all you want.”
Another tear dripped down his face. He wiped at it with the back of his hand, smearing mucous and tears all over. “I hate you.”
“Do you really? Or are you mad at me? And are you really sad and scared?”
His brow furled. That was my boy, he was a thinker. “I’m mad at you. It’s your fault we’re leaving.”
“Yes it is. I took a job that’s over a hundred miles away, so we have to get a new house.”
More tears fell. “I won’t know no one.”
“That’s not true. You’ll know Miss Angelica and Miss Zoe.”
“They’re grown-ups, I won’t know any kids. And Grandma and Grandpa won’t be there.”
“They promised to come and visit.”
“Can I bring my dinosaurs?”
I nodded.
“And my iPad?”
I nodded again.
“Can Kylie come?”
“No, Buddy, she can’t. Her parents aren’t moving, she’s staying here in Nashville.”
More tears dripped down his cheeks and I felt like a monster. These were the moments I missed Marie the most. She would know what to do, what to say.
“But I want her to come. She’s my best friend.”
“I know. But you’re going to make new friends. I’m going to make sure we get a house that you like, and that it is close to a school that you like.”
