Read Online Do Not Pass Go by Kirkpatrick Hill - Free Book Online

Trim, neat, efficient, her hair pulled back. Her face scrubbed. She looked older and younger at the same time. Deet was afraid that when she went to work she’d feel like she had at the jail, ashamed and embarrassed. Like he’d felt the first days at school. All the people who came into a diner looking at you. He wished he could get a job instead. He wished he could protect her from people’s eyes.
    One night he asked her, “When you’re at work, do you feel like everyone’s looking at you funny?”
    She sat down at the table with him and gave a bigsigh. She looked pretty tired. “Well,” she said, “I know a lot of people who eat there and a lot know Dad from the shop. First thing I always think is, whoever comes in, I wonder if they know about it. But you wouldn’t believe how many people ask me about Dad right away, not even embarrassed, and start telling me about their boyfriend or brother or even themselves getting in trouble. Like I just joined some kind of club.”
    â€œLike Sally,” said Deet.
    â€œRight. Like Sally. I don’t know if I’d want to tell someone stuff like that.”
    She shook her head, looking a little bewildered. “It’s begining to seem as if there are more people who’ve messed up than ones who haven’t. Anyway, when people say things like that to me, I don’t feel like we’re all alone.”
    Deet thought about people telling you about their mistakes. They were giving you something very special, weren’t they? Like Bingo and Willy, at the shop. When Deet did something wrong, they’d laugh and tell him about something they’d done when they were just starting out.
    Nothing could make you feel better than knowingthat someone else had done something stupid too. He’d have to look to see if there was a quote about this.
    Every night Mom put all her tips in a glass jar in the cupboard. She said that people who looked like they couldn’t afford it would tip the most, but the big-shot guys, especially if there were a lot of them at the table being loud and funny, left the least, sometimes nothing. Tips were the only thing that made a waitress job okay, because they just made minimum wage otherwise. He’d leave big tips when
he
grew up. Huge ones.
    It was okay, having Mom working. Deet had to get the girls off to school, which was not a lot of fun, but Mom was home early enough to get supper and go see Dad at night.
    But that didn’t last long. In a few weeks they changed Mom’s shift and things got a lot more complicated. She was working noon to nine, and that meant she couldn’t see Dad at all, except on Saturday or Sunday, and there was no help for it.
    Deet couldn’t stand the idea of Dad being there alone, with no visitors except on weekends.
    â€œMom,” he said, “you’ve got to let me go visit Dad. He’ll go crazy if he doesn’t have visitors.” He expected a big argument, and part of him was hoping she’d win the argument. But she’d changed her attitude toward the jail, partly from going there every day, and partly from what people had said to her at work.
    â€œI could get the school bus to drop me off in front of the theater, and walk to the jail from there. Then I could get the city bus home an hour and a half later and take care of supper and all, and get the girls to bed.”
    â€œWhat about your homework?” Deet took hours and hours to do his homework. He read the textbooks, underlined them, and then outlined the chapters. He wrote questions for each chapter and then covered the answers with a paper and quizzed himself. He read extra material on whatever they were studying. Whatever the assignment he studied it twice as well as anyone had ever dreamed of. It was a matter of being thorough, and it was a matter of being afraid that he somehow wouldn’t remember what was necessary when it was time for the