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After a few daysof traveling and holding their collective breaths, Birdie, with Maisie dozing in the back seat, made what was to be a quick stop in Myrtle Beach for snacks. They ended up staying.
The smell of the ocean reminded them both of home. Unfortunately, the only concrete box of an apartment building they could afford, thanks to the three thousand in cash Maisie came up with out of thin air, was several blocks away from any shoreline and smack-dab in the middle of a high-crime area.
Within days, Birdie had lined up a waitressing job near the beach, convincing herself that even though the majority of her income would be in tips, at least the diner was close to the water. So what if she had to take three buses to get there? She could spend her lunch and breaks sitting on the beach.
She had envisioned watching children search for seashells and the ocean tides undulating over the sand. Just like she used to do with Lucas.
It didn’t take long for that positive energy to get squashed like a bug, as the diner was constantly busy and the only meal she had time for was when she got home to Maisie. More times than not, too tired to eat, giving her sister both portions.
Maisie’s job search efforts hadn’t produced many opportunities other than a sketchy boyfriend named Creed she had met while filling out a job application at the Dollar Tree and who Birdie swore must have been a gang member, based on the number of obscure tattoos on his face and fingers. Nothing like getting your body marked for life in areas that would preclude you from any decent job opportunities.
Maisie didn’t get the job, and a couple days later Creed quit his, based on an argument with the manager over what he described as a “dispute over employee perks.” Which Birdie translated as, he helped himself to merchandise and got caught.
The days at the diner were long and surprisingly exhausting. Her days so rote she almost wished for an apocalypse or a meteor to crash to Earth, just to have something different to discuss other than whether someone wanted their eggs scrambled or sunny side up.
Today was no different than yesterday. Unfortunately, her evenings were becoming just as predictable.
Trudging up the stairwell that smelled like dirty trash cans and piss, she knocked several times and waited for Maisie to unlock the barricade of deadbolts on the other side of the door. When she walked in with two armfuls of groceries, rather than take one, Maisie turned around as if inconvenienced at having to get up from the couch.
Creed, her firecracker of a boyfriend, sat slouched beside her with his arm around her shoulders, wearing a cliché of a white tank top and acid washed jeans, held up by a thick black leather belt.
Birdie sighed heavily upon seeing the slug of a man making himself at home. His long dark hair was so greasy, she was fairly certain she could toss a salad with it, his long thin fingers raking down the sides of his 1970s porn-tache, over and over.
As she passed the delightful couple, Maisie twirled her hair mindlessly as she watched the TV while his eyes tracked Birdie until she thought she might spew the contents of her stomach in the kitchen sink.
“Did you get oatmeal cakes?” Maisie asked, her eyes glued to the TV with Creed’s hand high on her thigh.
“No, that would require disposable income, Maisie. Of which we do not have because you don’t have a job.”
“I left Wayward with three thousand in cash, Birdie. How much did you bring with you?”
Birdie kept her mouth shut. She had twenty-five hundred in a savings account that was for when she finally escaped Wayward and her parents’ house. But she wasn’t about to tell Maisie that.
She also didn’t mention she’d earned her money working odd jobs and at the local grocery store. Maisie never worked a day in her life, so the three thousand dollars she brought with her had to have been ill-gotten.
“May-May don’t need a job,” Creed said with astounding improper grammar. “I take care of her.”
“Oh, so tomorrow, you’ll get next week’s groceries, then?” Birdie asked sarcastically.
“Not tomorrow,” he hem-hawed. “But just as soon as my welfare check comes in, Maisie gets her own box of oatmeal pies.”
Birdie scrunched her face as if the toilet had backed up while Maisie gazed at her boyfriend as if he were loaded with cash and making it rain.
There wasn’t much she could do except put the groceries away and go hide in her bedroom.
The one rule she refused to back down on, and Maisie actually complied with, was Creed was never to spend the night.
Ever.
Under no circumstances.
At least there was that.
For a couple weeks, she’d come home from work to an apartment full of people drinking and doing drugs. She and Maisie had a couple of fights until she finally won, telling her sister to leave. Maisie refused, stating it was her apartment, too. Birdie pulled out the lease and showed where hers was the only name on it. And that if she wanted to stay, her highly suspect friends had to go.
Birdie had won that round, compromising on Creed being able to be in the apartment during the day only.
As far as she knew, he arrived at noon to avail himself of what little groceries they had and then they’d both dip out at around nine to go to the drug party du soir elsewhere.
