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“You’re ambidextrous?”
“Not really,” I hedge.
“Well you’re using mostly your left arm to swing the hammer.”
“Trying to use both.”
“Your right one hurts.” After she says this, her gaze falls down to her shoes before it lifts back up to mine. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
I roll the shoulder. “Pretty obvious?”
She nods. “I can tell it bothers you. I noticed you swing mostly left-handed, although I don’t remember hearing that about you—that you throw a baseball left-handed. And I would have, because we’ve got a lot of children who’re lefties.”
“Yeah, fucked up the shoulder.”
Her brows draw together. “Is there no fix for that?”
“Oh, yeah. There’s a fix.”
“Why haven’t you been fixed?” She gives me a no-shit look, and I can’t move as a cold sweat hits me—at the word “fix.”
I feel my teeth start to chatter, clamp my jaw shut as my shoulders tremble. Jesus Christ. My stomach churns. “Didn’t get around to it yet.”
“Before your trip here?” She looks skeptical—or maybe it’s dissatisfied.
I nod. “Gonna try a few things when I get back.”
“What’s the story there?” With my weak, shaking arm, I start to hack at the wall again. I pause mid-swing, squeezing my eyes shut. What the fuck did she just ask me? Story…
“Story what?”
“What’s the story of why you came here? What motivated your visit?”
Another cold sweat, and my legs feel weird and wobbly again. Fuck. My stomach rolls as I’m gripped by something like panic. Just withdrawal, I tell myself. I struggle to think as I grab a quick, desperate breath. “My cousin drops the shipment off…”
She nods. “Bryant. We see him perhaps twice a year. I didn’t think of him as your cousin.”
“Well, no.” I give her a smile I hope doesn’t look too strained. “You didn’t know me.”
Everything feels kind of echo-y as I focus my gaze on her.
“In any event, I’ve met Bryant a time or two, and once his girlfriend Mary. Did something happen to him?”
“No…but he was telling me about it. He mentioned how people wanted autographs.” I shrug, feeling like a fucking moron as I struggle to find words. Finally I manage to add, “I wanted a break.”
“Put another pin on y
our corkboard,” she says. I frown before realizing what she means: add another destination to my travel log.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Is it all you’d dreamed of?” She waggles her eyebrows, and I turn my head so she can’t see me quite as well.
“Oh yeah. Better.” I glance back at her as I strike the wall again. “You ever read that book Watership Down—the one with rabbits?”
“I adore it.”
I nod. “That’s the kind of trip I really wanted. Get back close to nature. Underground. Just find a burrow, find a buddy. Bam. Vacation.” I smile, and I feel it ease up—that dark, bad feeling that withdrawal brings on.
