Cherry Money Baby

Cherry’s run was a loop, from her trailer park, down Hope Avenue, up Route 9, past the bottling plant, and back down Webster. The same every day. Same direction, same view.

Except today.

The road ahead was blocked. She slowed a few yards from the sawhorses, stopped, bent, stretched, and spit onto the pavement. The kid in the traffic vest made a face.

“What’s going on?”

“The road’s blocked,” said the kid.

There were police cruisers and wooden barriers and detour signs.

“No kidding,” said Cherry. “I mean, why?”

“They’re filming a movie,” said the kid. He was maybe in college. He had those super-geek glasses that actual geeks bought when they decided to embrace geekdom. He was probably wearing old-fashioned sneakers. Cherry stretched her calves and checked.

Yup.

“What movie?”

“It’s a remake of
Alive and Unmarried,
the one about Stewart Cane, the guy who, like, invented soda.”

“And they’re filming it here?”

Aubrey didn’t have much to recommend it besides a nightclub, Shabooms, and they had one of those over in Worcester, too.

“Yeah. So the road’s blocked. You gotta go around.”

Cherry put her palms out. “Okay, okay, I’m going. Easy.”

She spit one more time for good measure and started back home. She jogged past the nice houses, then the slightly scrubbier houses farther down, then the just-plain-scrubby houses, and at last came to the entrance of her trailer park, two streets of mobile homes called Sugar Village. Next to the village was Sweet Pond, which was clear and dead, thanks to runoff from the cola bottling plant. The lake sort of smelled sweet. She always liked that.

A weed-clogged crack separated the darker concrete of Hope Ave. from the paler cement of Sugar Village, and some part of Cherry, left over from avoiding cracks and broken backs, hopped over the threshold.

That hadn’t been too bad. She didn’t flip out or swear at the glasses kid. See? She could be chill. She decided today was Day One of her new life of not flipping her shit at people. Today was Day One of not being a crazy bitch.

Their trailer was small, even by trailer standards. Cherry’s bedroom was half a bedroom, split down the middle with a flimsy wall of Sheetrock. Her younger brother, Stew, had the other half. No wall was more than two inches thick, which meant a stray elbow or angry fist could easily knock through to the next room. Every snore, conversation, or cough was audible through the walls. Privacy was a dream — except in the glass phone booth of the shower, which was a great place to get some thinking done.

The faucet sputtered and gagged, releasing a jet of scalding water and steam. She stood under the flow, letting her thoughts wash away with the sweat and road grit. Hot showers were the best, with the water so hot it turned your skin pink, as if you could shed it gecko-style. And just when she couldn’t stand it any longer —
twist, crank, rattle
— she’d torque the cold water to full. The shock
nuked
conscious thought.

A quick change and Cherry flounced into the kitchen in her work uniform. Burrito Barn staff were required to wear vomit-yellow polo shirts with matching visors. She’d spent the previous evening scrubbing a chipotle stain off the lapel with a toothbrush.

The percolator bubbled, filling the trailer with an oaky, burned smell. Cherry’s father sat at the kitchenette table, palms enveloping his favorite mug. She kissed his forehead.

“Morning, Pops.”

Grunt.

“I’ll make you breakfast.”

Pop flipped a page in the
Aubrey Times.
“Donuts in the fridge.”

“No donuts.” She retrieved the frying pan from its drawer. “You gotta eat healthier, Pops, or your heart’s gonna ’splode.”

The sink was filled with last night’s pasta dishes. No one asked her to wash them, but the men were just fucking
incapable.
Pop and Stew might be content to eat off a plate with congealed gravy stuck to the underside, but
someone
had to have standards.

“How was your run?”

“Aborted,” said Cherry. “They’re filming a movie at the bottling plant, I guess.”

“You couldn’t just go around?”

“Nah. If I can’t do
my
route, I’m not running.”

“You’re a crazy girl.”

“I know.”

She set the eggs sizzling and retrieved a Yow-Gurt from the fridge. According to the package, it was both nutritious
and
delicious. Pop eyed the pink sludge as though he doubted both counts.

“How come I gotta eat eggs and you get to eat that shit?”

“I’m not fat, Pops.”

Pop huffed, turned a page. “I’m big boned.”

“And your big bones are covered in clogged arteries,” said Cherry. “You’re like a bacon-wrapped dino skeleton.”

Pop chuckled and handed her the comics page. Charlie Brown missed the football. Cherry missed
Calvin and Hobbes.

“Your quarterly report card came in.”

Her eyes jerked up a little too quickly. She lowered them. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Apparently it came a week ago, but somehow it fell out of the mailbox.”

“Weird.”

“And into the trash.”

“Huh.”

“And got ripped into a million pieces.”

Cherry ate her yogurt. “Must have been mice. I told you we need an exterminator.”

He pushed the document across the table. It had been reassembled with Scotch tape, roughly, but the writing was still legible. Next time she’d burn it.

“Look, what does it matter?” She tossed the empty Yow-Gurt cup over her shoulder. It landed squarely in the trash. Pop raised his eyebrows, duly impressed. “I’m graduating, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,
high school,
” said Pop. “What about college? How do you expect to get in with report cards like this?”

Cherry allowed herself a peek at the Aubrey Public stationery. The details had not magically transformed:

“That last one is bullshit,” said Cherry. “I do
not
have fu —” She took a breath, smiled, turned her palms out. “I am rage-free. And my language isn’t
vulgar
— it’s . . . colorful.”

Pop chuckled. She started to stand, but he stopped her with a gentle hand on her wrist. “You’re not getting off easy because you make me laugh, Alice Kerrigan.”

Cherry swallowed. “I hate that name.”

“Cherry.”

“Pop.”

He released her. “What do you wanna do?”

“I want to save your eggs before they vulcanize.”

When your pop’s an auto mechanic, you pick up some choice vocab.

Pop sighed like a deflating bouncy castle and turned out his palms — a family gesture.

She wasn’t sure how it had happened, this Grand Canyon of a misunderstanding between her and Pop. She was on one side, missing early decision for college, pretending to forget early enrollment, dropping hints about taking a year off. Then way the hell and gone on the other side was Pop, who usually respected her decisions, but now he was wringing his hands, waiting for those applications to go out, still expecting Cherry to be the first Kerrigan to go to college, the family vanguard, the one with
potential.

She wasn’t going to college, and she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him.

She added some chopped peppers to the eggs. (In addition to washing the dishes, the boys were incapable of shopping for anything other than microwave pizza and beer.) She served it up on Pop’s favorite Patriots plate.

“What’s all this green shit?”

“Vegetables,” said Cherry.

“No cheese?”

“Are you serious?”

She flicked away the report card and tossed it in the bin with the coffee grounds, browned paper towels, and other garbage.

Something smacked her on the back of the head.

“Goddamn it, Stew!”

“Language,” said Pop.

“Morning, family!” Cherry’s brother opened the cabinet and took down the Cap’n Crunch. “How is everyone this fine Sunday?”

Cherry socked his shoulder, then leaned in close, sniffing. Stew looked at her like she’d just farted. “What?”

“You stink like weed,” she said in a whisper.

“You can’t smell shit,” he hissed.

“You better have left some hot water for me,” Pop said, examining a green-and-yellow wad at the end of his fork.