Second Hand: A Tucker Springs Novel 2

shut my eyes, hating that I had failed like this, hated what my mother was about to think of me. “She met somebody else. A professor at the university.”
“Oh, Paul. I’m so sorry. Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine, Ma,” I lied.
“You’re such a nice boy, honey. You’ll meet somebody else. I know you will. Somebody who truly appreciates you.”
Leave it to my mom to pull out the most clichéd mother speech ever. And yet, it helped a bit. “From your lips to God’s ears.”
“How’s the clinic?”
“Fine.”
“Do you still like it?”
“I do. My boss is a great guy, and I love all the animals, you know?” I wished I hadn’t disappointed everybody by failing so miserably, though. I should have been the veterinarian. Instead, I answered the phone for Nick and sent out bills.
No girlfriend. No fiancée. No real job. No real life. Just some secondhand makeshift number I’d pulled out of the wreckage of what should have been.
Mom interrupted my pity party with a depressingly upbeat tone that screamed Bright New Idea. “Do you have any plans for the summer?”
“Not really. I can’t afford to go anywhere.” I could barely afford to stay put, either, but that made me think about the pink flier. “My neighborhood is having this contest for nice yards. The prize is $500.”
“That sounds like a good way to get outside,” she said. “Get some sun. Maybe you’ll meet someone nice.”
“In my front lawn?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
I laughed. My mother was an optimist and a hopeless romantic. She called me a pessimist, but I didn’t see it that way. I dwelt closer to the land of reality. “I’ll settle for the cash prize, but thanks anyway.”
“I’m thinking about coming to visit you in a couple of weeks. Your dad’s busy, but I could come.”
I found myself smiling. “There’s not really that much to see here.”
“You’re there, honey. That’s enough for me.”

    I started on the yard that day. Mowing was easy, but there was tall grass around the base of Stacey’s sculptures that I couldn’t get to with the mower, and bushes and abandoned flower beds all around the base of the house. I pulled plants that I hoped were weeds and left ones that I hoped weren’t. It immediately became apparent that the mower and my hands were insufficient tools.
    I went into the detached garage. It had been set up as Stacey’s studio, and a few pieces of scrap metal still lay on the floor. I could have put my car in the garage if I’d put a bit of effort into it, but so far, it hadn’t been necessary. I’d probably want to deal with it before winter came, though.
    We’d lived in an apartment building back in Fort Collins and so hadn’t ever needed landscaping tools, but that was the type of thing tenants sometimes left behind, so I checked the corners of the garage. I did find the snow shovel that had died from the previous year’s epic snow, a plastic rake that was missing more tines than not, and one very rusty hoe, but that was it.
    I got in my car, intending to hit the nearest hardware store, but El’s flashing “BUY - SELL - PAWN” sign caught my eye, and I looped around the block to find a parking space. I had no idea if people pawned gardening tools, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.
    El was right where he’d been the last two times I’d been in the shop, reading a magazine with his feet up on the counter. He smiled at me and stood up as I came in.
    “Tell me you’re not here to buy more jewelry for your girl.”
I tried to smile back, although it was harder than I would have liked. “No jewelry,” I said. “I’m actually looking for yard things.”
“‘Things’? We talking ‘things’ like gnomes and plastic Bambis?”
“I was thinking a little less tacky and a bit more utilitarian.”
He laughed. “Fair enough. What’d you have in mind?”
“I need one of those spinny weed-chopping things.”
He rubbed the short hair at the nape of his neck. “It so happens I have not one, but two of those ‘spinny weedchopping things.’” He gestured toward the back corner of the shop. “You want gas-powered or electric?”
I hadn’t realized there were different types. “Whichever’s cheapest, I guess.”
He seemed to find that funny. He smiled and touched the rectangular bulge in his shirt pocket but didn’t pull the cigarettes out. “Not exactly aiming to make yourself my favorite customer, are you?” The way he said it wasn’t mean, though. His