Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock (general ebook reader .TXT) 📗

Kelsey shrugged. Yes, she desperately wanted to know a secret.

“I loved it so much. I used to sleep with my arm around the basketball, just so I could breathe in that dirty orange-leather smell.”

“That’s your secret?” Kelsey was a little disappointed.

“No, that’s not it.”

She pulled the car to the side of the road and put it in park. Then she turned to face Kelsey, wincing a little as her hip twisted underneath her.

“This is my secret: Sometimes I feel so guilty that we loved it so much, we didn’t want it to end. And we keep living out that thing we can’t let go of through our children, trying to make it last. But I wonder sometimes if it’s fair, this thing we do.”

“Really?”

“I’ve watched you your whole life. Your talent is beyond believable, and I tell myself, She’s got such a gift. But sometimes I look at your face while you’re out there, and I wonder.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just wonder who you’re doing it for. See you looking around a lot. And I think, My baby is too concerned about what other people think. I don’t see you feeling it the way I felt it. Like it’s magic.”

“It just doesn’t feel like magic when I’m so worried about letting my own father down. It’s like his job is at stake if I make a mistake. What’s the fun in that?”

“Honey, I do hear you. That makes perfect sense, so—”

She was going to say something else, but Kelsey cut her off.

“Can you be good at something and maybe not love it?”

“Is this about something Lillian said?”

“No. I mean, I thought so once. But this is about me. I’ve been wondering more about doing what I love and not just going along with what everyone expects. But it’s hard to separate the two.”

Wind was blowing dust and tumbleweeds across the road. It had become almost normal, to live amid swirly gray ash, smelling smoke. Normal is whatever you grow used to, like wildfires choking the life out of everything. Or a town that lives through its children, over and over again, until nobody remembers a time when that wasn’t the case.

“Your dad’s been trying to talk to you all day.”

“I know. I know I’m in trouble for skipping out on practice.”

“No. No, you’re not.”

“What, then?”

“Well, he wanted to tell you himself, but I’ll just nip this one in the bud. He’s not going to ref this season.”

“Why not?”

Not ref? That was like saying her father would no longer need his organs.

“Why would he do that?”

“So you can have a senior year like a normal person. It’s too much pressure, having your dad be the one that makes the calls. And you just said so yourself, so obviously he’s not stupid.”

“So he’s giving up what he loves for me?”

“I think you are what he loves, Kelsey.”

Kelsey leaned into her then, breathing into her mom’s neck, which actually did smell a bit like old basketball leather.

Just when she thought she might start crying, her mom said, “Now, enough of this nonsense. Come on, you’re going to be late for your first shift.”

Kelsey had hoped she might have forgotten all about the U-Pump-It and Jimmy Jeffs, but of course, that would have made her someone else’s mother.

“Excuse me, what shift?”

“You heard me. I told JJ you’d be working for him the rest of the summer, which by my count is about fifty-seven more days, so a penny a day and you’ll have paid off that debt.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Honey, after those Wyoming girls got done with me, that’s about all I have left,” she said, laughing and steering the car back onto the road. A tumbleweed stuck to the undercarriage made a scratching sound along the pavement, like background music in a horror movie, which Kelsey felt was appropriate.

“We will love you until the end of time no matter what you do,” she said, “but my children will not steal. And don’t you forget it.”

Kelsey thought back to her brother complaining about the game they were made to sit out in the cold car, because of the racist mascot. She did not want to have to see Jimmy Jeffs every day, but you had to hand it to her mother when she said, “There are some things more important than you being comfortable.” She meant it.

ALASKA WAS WASTED ON US

“Your camper pooped his pants and threw them in a tree,” Amy says to Fiona.

“Oh God, was it Nick?”

“Yeah. His brother, Franky, said he was going to try to hold it all week, but he couldn’t. I think he’s pretty terrified of the outhouses. Especially the one named Forget-Me-Not.”

Fiona is sure Nick is terrified of all the outhouses—Lupine, Fireweed, Foxglove. Whoever had come up with the brilliant idea to name them after wildflowers didn’t have a clue about six-year-olds.

“Can you help me get them down?” asks Fiona, staring into the branches.

“I have nineteen other campers to worry about right now,” says Amy in an agitated tone.

“Right,” says Fiona. “I’ve got it.”

Amy is obviously still mad at her about losing their jobs at Dairy Queen. But she’ll come around; she always does. Fiona just needs to be patient. She wishes Amy were more grateful, though, that Fiona found them both positions here at Camp Wildwood for the summer, even if they are totally unqualified.

Camp counselors needed, Alaskans preferred. Outdoor experience a plus but not necessary.

“Look, we tick all the boxes!” she’d said, showing Amy the ad.

“Especially the ‘no outdoor experience necessary’ box,” said Amy sarcastically. “Have you forgotten that the outdoors is full of mosquitoes, Fiona? And also, I hate children.”

“No, you don’t,” said Fiona. “You were one yourself once.”

She couldn’t understand why Amy cared so much about Dairy Queen anyway. Greasy fast food with perverts for coworkers? She should really be thanking Fiona.

Although, now that she’s standing under the branches of a spruce tree dying from beetle kill and staring up at Nick’s jeans, Fiona