Read Online Grace by Richard Paul Evans - Free Book Online

Fortunately we didn’t do it often. “Grease costs money,” Mr. Dick always said, so we only changed it once a week. He would have held out longer, but after seven days of using the same grease everything we dropped into the fryer started tasting the same, be it French fries, corn dogs, or burritos.
    I was alone in the back, rolling burritos and stacking them in a plastic container when Dean came back.
    Dean was a master of avoiding work. In fact he was a genius at it. I think that if he worked half as hard at working as he did avoiding it, he would have had a perennial lock on Employee of the Month.
    He had two main tactics. One, he would wander around the kitchen like he was looking for something, occasionally stopping to talk to people who were actually doing work. When they looked like they were about to brush him off, he’d say, “I can’t talk anymore, I gotta find that…” and he’d leave before saying what it was he was looking for.
    His second trick he saved for closing time. He’d grab the mop and spend nearly an hour mopping the front dining room, a ten-minute job at best. If you called him on it he accused you of low standards of cleanliness. Whenever you had to close with him it would generally take an extra half hour to get out while you did everything yourself.
    Dean jumped up on the back counter.
    â€œSo, spud, tell me about that girl.”
    â€œWhat girl?” I rolled another burrito.
    â€œThe one you brought by the other night.”
    â€œI didn’t bring her.”
    â€œWhatever, you Pollock. She was pretty tasty.”
    â€œYeah, well she’s not your type.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah. She has taste.”
    His eyes narrowed. “Then why is she hanging out with a loser like you?”
    â€œLucky, I guess.”
    â€œYou’re such a nerd.”
    He went back out front. He didn’t say anything else to me for the rest of the shift but he smacked me in the back of the head on his way out. I had never been happier to hear his car engine rev.
    Jackie and I had the late shift. I liked Jackie. She was in my math class at Granite and was tall, wore braces on her teeth, and had bright red hair. She also played the violin and was on the chess team, which pretty much put her in the same social class as me.
    She talked a lot about dumb things, like the existence of leprechauns and life on Venus, but I never heard her say a mean thing about anyone. (An interesting note: In her mid-twenties, Jackie became a female bodybuilder and was later recruited by the Women’s World Wrestling Federation. Her violin lessons weren’t wasted. She was called “The Maestra.” After she’d pin someone she would hold them down with her foot, play Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” then break her violin over their head.)
    As we closed up I filled a bag with leftover food. I remembered how Grace had devoured the onion rings so I put a couple jumbo-sized orders inside. Jackie saw me stowing the food in my knapsack. “Mr. Dick would purée you if he saw you doing that.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œDon’t worry, I’m not going to tell. I think it’s a stupid rule. Mr. Dick would rather we throw the food away then take it home. He doesn’t respect us.”
    â€œJackie,” I said. “We’re teenagers. No one respects us.”
    â€œTrue,” she said sadly.
    Â 
    After Jackie’s mom picked her up, I locked the back door and rode home. My legs still ached from my walk from school and my shoes were still wet. To make it worse, the temperature had dropped into the twenties.
    Once I was home I didn’t even think about being seen; I went straight for the clubhouse. The light was still off inside and the things I had brought from Grace’s locker were still untouched by the door. I was suddenly worried.
    â€œGrace?”
    Nothing.
    â€œGrace, you okay?” I found the