Page 30 of Light Up My Life

“You drive up here every day?” Mom asked.

“It’s only a thirty-minute drive,” he said.

“Are you in high school?” Mom asked. “Starting your own business?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“So impressive.”

“I’m just saving money for college,” he said. “I’m hoping to get into USU next year.”

Marcus straightened up. “Me too.”

“Yeah?” Buddy asked. “That’s cool.”

I started separating out the yellow M&M’s from the other colors. Harris popped a few brown ones into his mouth and then looked at Mom like he might get in trouble for it. I smiled at him and ate a red one. He laughed.

“Good luck today with sales,” Mom said.

“Thank you. I’ll see you all tonight.” Buddy headed toward the food truck area where I assumed his trailer was set up.

“We forgot to ask him if his name is really Buddy,” Momma said after he left.

“It can’t be,” Marcus said. “It’s for the gig for sure.”

“What if it isn’t?” I asked.

“There’s nothing wrong with the name Buddy,” Mom said, defending him like he was a longtime friend. “Anyway, Jasmine will find out later.”

“I won’t!” I protested.

“We’ll see,” Mom said.

In that moment, I happened to see Ryan across the way, squatting down beside a young girl and helping her stick jelly beans to the roof of the house they had coated in white to look like Snoopy’s doghouse. The girl must have been his cousin. She was smiling and so was Ryan. My heart seemed to race to life and I scolded it.

Maybe I would get to know Buddy a little better, find out his real name.

Chapter 11

“Aunt Josie sent a package for Christmas! Has anyone seen it?” Mom called up the stairs the next afternoon.

“I haven’t!” I was in the bathroom getting ready. I was going over to Fiona’s house and needed to time my exit from the neighborhood well before dark.

“Maybe we have a porch pirate!” Harris called. Ever since he’d learned that word, he used it whenever he could. Some of his uses made me think he didn’t quite understand what it meant. That he just liked the word pirate and imagined an actual pirate every time he said it. But I was impressed he’d used it properly this time.

“We’d better not. We already have enough thieves in this neighborhood,” Mom said.

“The pirate will stop the thieves!” Harris replied. So much for being impressed.

I applied one more coat of mascara, then went downstairs. Mom was moving around packages on the island, studying their labels. Next to her was our finished gingerbread house from yesterday. It had turned out cute. Perhaps a little too much frosting, and too few items that made it actually look like the Wizard of Oz, but close enough. Besides, the candy was disappearing off it by the hour so it would be completely unrecognizable soon.

“What did Aunt Josie send?” I asked, looking at the packages myself.

“I don’t know. Half the time she sends perishables. That’s why I don’t want it sitting around.”

Last year she’d sent a fruitcake that she hadn’t packaged well enough. It was basically a box of crumbs and fruit by the time we got it.

“You’re going somewhere,” Mom said, finally looking at me. “Remind me where.”