Page 34 of Necessary Cruelty
That only makes me like her more.
The Makepeaces have a dozen children, although it’s difficult for me to remember which of them are adopted and which aren’t. She likes to say that her parents found her by answering a classified ad while on a mission trip to Korea, but I assume that’s a joke. Amelia is the oldest girl, but the youngest Makepeace kid is still in diapers. Every Sunday, I see them walking past my house and down the dusky road toward the little church house. Amelia is always out front like a mother duck who wouldn’t mind so much if one of her mismatched ducklings wandered away.
She is one of the few people who also understands what it’s like to stand out like a sore thumb in this town.
I gesture at the roll of shop towels at the end of the counter that we use to clean up food spills, but she waves me away.
“It’ll dry on its own,” she gripes. “And there’s no getting this stain out.”
Amelia is one of the few people in the Gulch who won’t comment on the fact that I never speak, if she notices at all. Sometimes, I wonder if she has even figured out that I never hold up my end of the conversation. Typically, she says enough for the both of us, which I appreciate. Most people treat me like a circus freak or make a game out of trying to get me to slip up, like tourists who try to make the guards at Buckingham Palace break their forced silence.
Because most people are assholes.
Amelia just prattles on like she’s happy just to have someone listening.
“Are there any hot dogs left?”
She doesn’t bother to wait for a response and heads for the machine where pale hot dogs spin on rollers, beads of sweat dripping off them to sizzle on the heating element underneath. The smell of it used to bother me on the days when I came to work hungry. Even with my employee discount, it’s an indulgence I can rarely afford.
Now I barely think of the things as food. Imagining the slurried flesh being forced into casings of skin helps it seem less appetizing. I watch her slather a bun with mustard and take a gigantic bite in a detached way. When I think about my empty stomach, I try to imagine that the gnawing feeling at the pit of my belly is a superpower. Other people need sustenance to live, but I gain strength from the emptiness.
Sometimes, I almost believe it.
Amelia doesn’t know that I’m literally starving, because I’ve never told her. Our lives have bounced off each other like the lines of two parabolas briefly touching before turning away, but they don’t intersect or overlap. She knows as little about what goes on behind the closed door of my house as I do about hers.
Amelia comes back to the counter and plunks down a few crumpled bills and some coins.
“You here alone again?” she asks, mouth still nearly full of hot dog. “That’s not safe. Anyone could come in here and hold you at gunpoint, or something,”
I shrug in answer. The owner’s son is supposed to work with me in the afternoons but he only shows up when he feels like it. And it isn’t a blue moon tonight, so I’m on my own. And I’m not scared of armed robbery. Even someone from the Gulch wouldn’t bother with the tiny amount of money in the register, and I wouldn’t be afraid even if they did.
You have to value your life to be afraid of losing it.
Amelia pays and even drops her change in the tip jar that no one else ever seems to notice is there. I’m handing her a receipt when the bell dings above the door.
I look up to see Jake Tully walk into the Gas and Sip.
Amelia catches sight of my jaw-dropped expression and follows the direction of my gaze. When she glances back at me, a mischievous smile teases along her lips.
“And who are you?” she drawls, leaning back on the counter. Despite the too long and too loose dress and a face that is entirely free of makeup, Amelia has all the confidence of a model walking down the catwalk. “I know all the boys around here.”
“I’m Jake,” he says, an open smile on his face. “I just moved here from Los Angeles. What’s your name?”
“Amelia,” she purrs, batting at his shoulder like a playful kitten. “Well, aren’t you just a big piece of man meat.”
She always acts like this. Only people like me, who pay attention, realize it’s an act. These moments when she manages to get away from her family, as brief as they are, bring out the urge in her to act out. If her father were to walk through the door, God forbid, Amelia would immediately revert to the shy and retiring pastor’s daughter that she has to be during every other moment in her life. I wonder if Jake notices the unease in her narrowed eyes.
It makes me wonder what goes on behind the closed doors of the Makepeace house.
But for right now, I find myself staring at Jake in fascination. Everything about him seems genuine, uncomplicated, and I have no idea what to make of it. No one around here behaves like this, walking around introducing themselves and acting like they don’t have anything to hide.
He seems so…normal.
Like someone who isn’t doomed.
It’s weird.
Jake doesn’t seem surprised to see me standing behind the counter, which is noteworthy because I never told him I work here. Or where I live, for that matter.