Second Hand: A Tucker Springs Novel 2

men had returned to the patio with a fresh round of beer and huge plates of food. They kept quiet, knowing it wasn’t over yet, that if they’d disturbed too much on the way out the door she would suspect what had been done. El thought for sure she’d figure it out because they almost never got him to come over unless it was for something like this, and he was ready for the fallout, ready despite his earlier vows to stay out of things, ready to tell his mother she had to let go, that things were only things and didn’t matter, that it was more important her grandchildren had room to play in the house than it was for her to collect every salvageable piece of junk from people’s trash. He was ready, but it never happened. She was too busy showing off the new things she’d bought, the delight and wonder they provided her dancing in her eyes.
El finished his food as quickly as he could, downed his beer, and chain-smoked his way back to his apartment over the shop.
He lay awake thinking about what Abuela had said about being lonely. There in the dark, he admitted she was right, but the truth—the cold, hard truth—was that there wasn’t any sure way to happiness, or any way at all, period. Not lasting. Rosa chased men and had their babies. Patti bought crap and combed through garbage. Abuela fussed over people. Denver fucked twinks and bench-pressed cars. Jase fought to keep his bar from the bill collectors.
Nobody was happy, not really. Everyone was lonely. El and everybody else, they all waded through the misery that was life and tried to find some pleasure secondhand. Pick something at random and cling to that, because there was no magic bullet train to happiness.
That should have been enough, that talking-to he gave himself. Except damned if he didn’t lie there thinking about the way Paul’s hands had moved when he’d tried to mimic the motion of a weed whacker, Paul’s voice echoing inside El’s head, bright and polite and funny as he said over and over, “Spinny-things.”

chapter 9
    I
    felt a little silly carrying a cappuccino maker into El’s store, but I made myself do it anyway.
“Paul,” he said when I walked in. His bright smile made
    me feel a little less ridiculous. “What are you doing here?” “You give people money for stuff like this, right?” I asked
as I put the machine down on the counter.
“That is part of my job description. How’s the weed
whacker?”
“It’s good.”
“And the job?”
I fidgeted, flustered by the questions. “Good, I guess.”
He seemed to be waiting for something, so I said, “How are
you?”
His smile got bigger. “Can’t complain. My day just got
significantly better.”
“Because you need a cappuccino maker?”
He laughed. “Yeah, that’s it,” he said in a way that told me
that wasn’t it at all.
I felt awkward, like I was missing a joke. I decided that
meant I should get down to business. “So, can you give me
money for this?”
He shrugged and finally bent to look at it. “Probably,” he
said. “I’ve never taken one of these before, so you might have
to give me a few minutes to do some research. You want to
hock it or sell it?”
“Uh . . .” I felt myself blushing. I wished he didn’t always
make me feel so clueless. “What’s the difference?” “Well, are you looking for a loan, hoping to buy it back
later?”
“I don’t ever need it back.”
“In that case, I can buy it from you outright.”
“I have more, too.”
“More cappuccino machines?”
“No, but more kitchen stuff. Mixers and bread makers
and grills. Should I go get them?”
“Are they in your car?”
“No. They’re at home.”
He stared at me, as if debating something. A slow smile
spread across his face. “I can only take one item a day,” he said,
shrugging. “It’s some kind of law.”
That was unfortunate. It would have been better to have
the money in one chunk rather than spread out over a couple
of weeks, but it seemed it couldn’t be helped.
“So you’ll take this today, and I can bring the rest of the
stuff, as long as it’s only one thing per day?”
His smile grew. “Exactly.”

    The amount he was able to give me for the cappuccino maker was depressingly small, but it was better than nothing, and if he paid me the same amount for the rest of the junk in my pantry, I’d be doing well. I took in the panini press the next day, and the waffle maker the day after that. I took the money to the nursery and bought more flowers, and spent