“Hey, stranger,” I said. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you.” She hugged me and I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You here for dinner?”

“What are we having?”

I love this question, the one that says, Hey, there’s nothing like getting together with family, so long as you’re serving something decent.

“Spaghetti,” I said.

“Don’t worry about me,” Angie said. “I’ll grab something somewhere. I’ve got to go back downtown tonight for a lecture anyway.”

She blew threw the kitchen like a twister, there one moment, up the stairs the next. I heard the front door open, a new storm system approaching.

“Well, I hope you’re happy now,” Paul said, forcing me out of the way as he reached into the fridge for a can of Coke.

“Happy about what?” I asked.

“I got a job. Just like you and Mom wanted. I won’t have to be bugging you for money anymore.”

“That’s fantastic!” I said. “About the job, not the money thing. When did this happen?”

“This afternoon. After school. I went by this place, they needed help, they had, like, this sign in the window, I applied, I got it. You want to hear how the interview went? I go, ‘I’d like to inquire about your job?’And they go, ‘You start tomorrow.’” He scowled.

“Where’s the job?”

“That place over on Welk? Burger Crisp?”

“Burger Crisp? What do they serve, burnt burgers?”

“I know, it’s a fucking stupid name. The ‘Crisp’ is supposed to refer to the fries, but I guess they didn’t want to call it Burger and Crispy Fries, so they called it Burger Crisp. These are the people I’m going to be working for, who can’t even come up with a non-sucking name for their establishment.”

“Well,” I said, putting on my positive face, “this is clearly a cause for celebration, then.”

Paul rolled his eyes. “This is my new life, flipping burgers, scraping grease, and I have to wear a frickin’ paper hat over my hair that makes me look like some guy who couldn’t make it into the retard academy. And the woman who runs this place, she’s like Greek or Russian or Turkish or something and looks like if she stood in front of a moving tank she’d total it. And she’s got these two twin daughters who help her run the place, look like they could be playing for the NFL. If they fell over, they wouldn’t be any shorter.”

“So,” I said, struggling to maintain my cheerfulness, “when do you start?”

“Tomorrow, after school,” Paul said. “Unless I blow my brains out tonight.” He shook his head, unable to believe something this horrible could happen to him. “When my grades start to go down, it’s not going to be my fault.”

“Why don’t you go share your news with Angie,” I said. “She just got home.”

I figured, with so much joy in the house, why not spread it around?

Paul trudged upstairs, his every step shaking the house right down to the foundation.