Bearly Enough (2 page)

“How about eight? Is that too late?”

Lucy was supposed to work until five, but by eight the
dinner rush would be over. “Okay, that works. Are you sure that you don’t
mind?”

“Nope! Not at all! See ya then!” Gabby said cheerfully.

And before Lucy could respond, the line went dead.

Gabby was definitely staying true to her word—even though
she wasn’t around as much, she was sure as hell keeping tabs on her.

Which was probably a good thing.

Lucy cleared another empty table and carted the dishes back
to Mac.

“Stay on back here and talk to me, sweetie,” he cajoled.

Mac was harmless, but Lucy had no time for his antics today.

“Are you a moron?” she shot back. “We’re completely short on
the floor. I don’t have time to hang back here and flirt with you!” She turned
and stomped out of the kitchen, but not before Mac started laughing.

“Love your feisty attitude!” he called back.

She shook her head.

Mac was in his mid-thirties, which meant that he was o-l-d,
but he had gone through a nasty divorce as well as some other weird shit with
his crazy ex-wife, who had run off with his kids. Lucy wasn’t sure of the
details, and honestly, she didn’t much care. Mac liked to flirt with her, and
while Lucy would sometimes flirt back, just for fun, she wasn’t in the mood
today. She was tired and sweaty and working her ass off.

“Thanks again, Lucy!” Jimmy, Trish’s husband and the
co-owner, called as he cleared another table. Lucy couldn’t have picked better
people to work for, but Trish and Jimmy seriously owed her for today. And she
still had hours left in her shift, on top of an essay to write tonight.

Damn classes.

She had graduated high school only to take college courses,
which required more work and more effort.

Screw that.

Sometimes she didn’t understand.

What was the big accomplishment of graduating high school if
she just had to go on and do more work and more studying?

Feeling her anger at the world start to take over, she
focused back on the simple task of taking orders, serving food, and clearing
dishes. Focusing on work allowed her a respite from her daily problems.

Five hours and a lot of sweat later, Lucy found herself
sliding into a booth across from her sister. Sometimes it was hard to imagine
that they were sisters.

Gabby sat across from Lucy, her blue eyes bright and her
caramel-colored hair falling in soft waves around her face. Gabby had always
been on the curvy side, though it wasn’t until she moved in with Zane that she
really began accentuating those curves. Tonight Gabby was dressed in a soft red
jersey dress that clung to every contour of her body. It made Lucy proud, in a
weird way. Somehow Gabby seemed more confident, more sure of herself.

Lucy, on the other hand, was lean and long where Gabby was
round and soft. Her bright blue eyes were rimmed with black kohl, and her dark,
nearly black hair was pulled back in a straight ponytail. She had left on her
black pants from work, since she wore mostly black anyway, and she had changed
out of the bright red and white polka-dotted top, which was reminiscent of the
fifties, and into a black sweater.

“Hey,” Gabby greeted her warmly as Lucy tucked her legs up
underneath her.

“Hi.” She glanced over to the far corner of the diner where
Zane was trying to sit inconspicuously with a cup of coffee and a newspaper.
“You bodyguard?” she couldn’t help asking, unable to avoid sounding snarky.

Gabby frowned. “It’s late,” she explained. “He wanted to
make sure that I got home okay.”

“You can’t drive yourself?”

Gabby sighed. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Sometimes Gabby seemed less spunky than Lucy remembered.

“How are classes?”

Lucy rolled her eyes. It was just the beginning of October,
so she was nearly halfway through the semester now. It was definitely
challenging, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to admit that to Gabby.

She stalled by raking her hands through her ponytail and
pulling her hair to one side.

“Come on,” Gabby said, “tell me how things are.”

Lucy shrugged. “It’s hard, alright? Happy now? It’s hard.”

“Of course I’m not happy,” Gabby said softly, “I’m here to
help.”

“Are you?” Lucy asked harshly.

“Luce, come on,” Gabby said quietly, “I’m doing the best I
can.”

“Are you? I mean, what the hell, Gabby? You don’t explain
anything to me! You just up and move in with Zane and all those other people
out there, and it’s like you’ve fallen off the face of the earth!”

Gabby hung her head, her curls falling softly in front of
her face like a curtain. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried really hard not to let that
happen. Clearly, I’ve failed.”

Damn. Now Lucy felt guilty.

“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “It’s just been a long day.
Things are tough with classes, that’s all.”

Gabby narrowed her eyes. “Are Trish and Jimmy still being
good to you?”

“Yes! Of course!”

“Just checking,” Gabby tilted her head, chewing thoughtfully
on a piece on a breadstick. “Can I help you with your classes?” As always,
Gabby had quickly forgiven her.

Lucy shrugged again, looking away.

Gabby glanced sideways to look over at Zane. As if he could
sense her looking at him, he raised his eyes from his paper. It was like they
were exchanging thoughts without actually talking.

Weird.

But it made Lucy sad at the same time.

“How would you like to spend some time with me? At our
house?” Gabby asked.

Zane’s head whipped back up to look at them.

Very weird. There was no way Zane could have heard Gabby
from across the diner, but it was like he had heard her every word.

Lucy picked up a breadstick and picked at it. “I don’t
know,” she said slowly. Something about Zane and Gabby’s life together made her
uneasy. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she felt like an intruder.

“Really, Luce,” Gabby said. “Why don’t you come hang out?
Bring all your books and I can help you go over your course work.”

“I don’t know, Gabby. I really don’t want to impose on you
like that.”

Gabby rolled her eyes. “Please.” She gave Lucy a knowing
look. “How is Mom?”

Lucy let out a loud sigh, running her hand through her
ponytail again. “You know, the same.”

“So, she hasn’t cleaned up her act at all, has she?”

Lucy shook her head.

After Lucy, their mother Andrea, and Gabby had all nearly
died a few months ago when the thugs had burst into their home, Andrea had been
treated to having the shit scared out of her by one of Zane’s friends, Quentin.
Quentin had also dumped out all the alcohol that was in the house. But it only
took a couple weeks before Andrea had been back to her old ways, buying booze
and sneaking it home when Lucy wasn’t around.

Lucy had tried to convince her mother that she needed rehab
to really kick her addiction, but Andrea wanted to hear nothing of it.

Lucy’s head ached when she thought of the small house they
shared. She knew that when she returned home tonight there would be nothing in
the fridge except a few apples and a container of orange juice.

She took a big bite of her breadstick, knowing that she
better eat now while she was still at work—that was another good thing about
working in the diner. She could eat for free and not have to worry about going
home to bare cupboards and an empty fridge.

Of course, Lucy was almost nineteen, and completely capable
of buying groceries herself. In fact, until recently, Gabby had been stocking
the fridge for as long as she could remember. Even as a young girl, Gabby would
take a twenty-dollar bill to the grocery store and push a big cart around,
filling it up with food and making the twenty dollars stretch as far as
possible.

Even after Gabby had moved out of the house, she still came
over and brought groceries, but since she had moved in with Zane, she had only
brought groceries twice. Gabby had said to Lucy on more than one occasion that
she needed to start grocery shopping herself.

“When is your next day off?” Gabby asked, pulling Lucy from
her thoughts.

Lucy stared at her blankly. “Oh. Umm, Thursday I think. I
don’t have any classes, and I’m pretty sure that I’m not signed up for any
shifts then because I’m working a double on Friday.”

She didn’t tell Gabby that she was taking a double on Friday
so that she could be off on Saturday and spend all day drinking with her
friends at an outdoor concert in Portland.

“Perfect!” Gabby said, “I’ll take off that day. I’ll come
get you around nine and we’ll head back to my house for the day.”

Lucy was skeptical. “Why can’t I drive?”

Gabby fidgeted with the hem of her dress. “I mean, you can
if you want to. It’s just tricky to find. I thought I would make it easier by
picking you up.”

“Whatever. Sounds good.”

After that, the awkwardness that Lucy had felt slowly
dissipated, and she and Gabby slipped back into sister-mode as they caught up.
Lucy ached to have her sister around more, and she regretted taking it for granted
when Gabby was always around.

Before Lucy knew it, it was nearly ten and she could feel
the tiredness in her bones. “I should get going,” she said apologetically.
“It’s been a really long day.”

“You’re right,” Gabby said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hold
you up.’’ She stood up abruptly.

“You didn’t hold me up. I just wasn’t counting on working so
long today.”

Gabby nodded, and Zane was next to her in an instant,
possessively wrapping his arm around her waist.

Damn.

If only Lucy could find someone as hot as Zane to be
possessive about her. Any other guy, and Lucy would have found that kind of
behavior unappealing, but Zane somehow got away with it.

Zane’s friend Quentin had showed an interest in her, but
Lucy just hadn’t found him attractive. He was a little too reserved and a
little too safe. Though he did have the same nice, muscular build that Zane
did.

Oh well.

Lucy kissed Gabby goodbye, and mumbled a goodbye to Zane.
She went out to her beat-up car and drove home.

It wasn’t a long drive, and soon she was pulling into the
driveway of the tiny house that Andrea owned. Sure enough, the trashcans from
three days before were still sitting out front, and she dragged them around to
the back of the house.

“Mom!” she called, walking in the door. “I’m home!”

There was no reply, but she could hear the blare of the TV.
Lucy made her way into the living room, and there was Andrea, passed out on the
couch, a stupid reality show about a bunch of bored housewives with bad perms playing
in the background.

“Of course,” Lucy muttered, grabbing the remote and turning
the TV off.

“Hey!” Andrea protested, sitting up abruptly and looking
wildly around. The sudden silence of the room had startled her awake.

Lucy gave her a pitiful look. “Go back to sleep, Mom. You’re
drunk.”

“I am not,” she slurred, but Lucy didn’t even give her a
second glance as she stalked back into the small kitchen. She pulled open the
refrigerator door, and not surprisingly, the fridge was still empty. Except now
the small carton of orange juice was gone.

“Great,” Lucy said to herself. Her mother must have been
drinking screwdrivers all afternoon.

She heard the TV turn back on, and part of her wanted to run
screaming into the living room and throw one of Andrea’s various bottles
through the TV.

But instead, she took out an apple and calmly went upstairs.
One day she would be out of this house, far away from the mother who had been a
drunk her whole life. A visibly absent parent, a no-show on parent visiting
days at school, an embarrassment when it came time for play dates, and a mess
when she did actually show up at events.

Somehow, Lucy was going to get out of the house sooner or
later.