Every Thursday at Thriftporium was "Thiftpaloosa" day, the day when all the merch got cut to half price as the store tried to move as much stuff out before restocking. This meant the store was full of my two least favorite kinds of customers.

Yes, I'd only been working there a couple of weeks and already I had opinions. Thursdays brought the hoarders, who bought all kinds of ridiculous stuff and tried to argue the prices down. Then there were the shufflers, ancient people who spent hours walking up and down the aisles to end up spending fifty cents on some old shoe strings. At least the shufflers didn't argue prices.

Thriftporium did live up to Kim's promise, though. They paid standard minimum wage, no funny business, and the deep discount on the clothes meant that I was no longer dressed like a middle-aged hobo. Or at least I was no longer dressed as a middle-aged hobo when I wasn't in front of Ann Simmons.

Carly had pulled some kind of head cheerleader strings and got me a locker in the cheerleader section of the girl's gym locker room so I had someplace to store my contraband wardrobe. Carly being friendly and helpful was in some ways more alarming than hostile Carly. I knew better than to trust it. She was angling for a way to get Kaiden back, and was going for that "keep your enemies close" strategy. I was impressed. I didn't think she was that smart.

I looked up at the clock and sighed as I finished checking out yet another shuffler. (This one bought a chipped set of salt and pepper shakers and patted my hand and called me dearie). Thirty minutes till closing.

"What's wrong, Mator?"

I blinked twice, sure I was hallucinating.

Kaiden leaned over the counter, grabbed my chin and moved it up and down. "Hi Kaiden, nice to see you!" he said for me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked as I rescued my face from his grip.

"Just dropping some stuff off for my mom," he said. "Really it was an excuse to see my favorite math tutor."

"Yeah? You two-timing me, Preston? You got another math tutor on the side?" I clamped my mouth shut and ducked my head behind the cash register. Where had that come from? It was almost flirting.

"Wow, you sure do blush hard," Kaiden said. "When do you get off?"

"Closing. Kim and I ride the last bus home."

Kim, hearing her name looked up from where she was shoveling used handbags back into their bin. One of the hoarders had upended them all because she thought she saw a strap that might have belonged to a Gucci bag. (Of course it wasn't a Gucci bag. There was crying.)

"I could give you gals a ride home," Kaiden said as Kim wandered up.

"Really? That would be great!" Kim answered for both of us before scurrying away to get the push broom.

"Great for us. Not great for you, having to hang out here for the next twenty-one minutes," I said.

Kaiden stepped aside to let an elderly lady with her hair up in pin curls up to the counter. She was clutching a huge corduroy pet bed and the bottom half of a blender. After she checked out, she handed the pet bed to Kaiden.

"Just carry that out for me, handsome," she said. "I'm gonna steal your boyfriend for a minute, young lady!"

I flapped my mouth open in shock and closed it again. Kaiden wasn't my boyfriend. Was he? Why did everybody think he was? He hadn't even kissed me. He hadn't even tried to kiss me.

"We're just friends," I said faintly to their departing backs. Neither of them appeared to have heard me.

"That's okay," the next guy in line said. "Teenage dating is over-rated. You should let your parents pick out a nice young man for you."

"I don't have parents," I overshared and then clamped my mouth shut.

"I see."

This guy was a rare thing in Thriftporium, a stranger. Middle-aged, dark-skinned, and not too tall, he had just a hint of gray in his tidy black hair. His close-cropped beard also had hints of gray, and he looked at me with the kindest, blackest eyes I'd ever seen. I realized with a start that it was Carly's "Mexican" from the church picnic. He was buying a kettle-style barbecue grill that the owner of the thrift store had rehabilitated with high-temperature paint.

"Kinda late in the season for barbecuing," I said as I rang him up, desperate to normalize the conversation.

"We'll have a few more nice weekends. And there's always next year," he replied with a calm smile. "And really, I mostly want it to make shrak. It's hard to get American stoves hot enough to cook it right."

In my short time at the thrift store, I'd been subjected to all sorts of weird conversations, but this one was strangely intriguing.

"What's Shrek? Like the green guy?"

He laughed a big booming laugh that made the final pair of old ladies puttering around at the back look over at us with envy.

"No, no, shrak. It's a kind of flatbread. A taste of home for me." He pushed his new acquisition toward the door. "Good evening. Nice meeting you!"

By the time Kaiden had shoved the over-sized pet bed into the back of the old lady's ancient Mazda, I had swept behind the register and Kim was also ready to go. We closed out the drawers just in time for Mel, the owner of Thriftporium, to come by and take the money and lock the doors.

Kaiden had to rearrange a bunch of football stuff in the back of his jeep to fit Kim into the backseat. As soon as we got out of the parking lot, she started a Kimquisition.

"So, Homecoming's next weekend," Kim said, leaning as far forward as the jeep's seatbelt would allow her so that she could yell in our ears.

"Yep, it is," Kaiden replied over the whoosh and rustle of the jeep's flapping plastic side windows.

It's kinda weird that Craig is Homecoming King," Kim continued, ignoring Kaiden's blasé attitude.

"Naw. He deserved it," Kaiden replied.

"So are he and Carly still a thing?"

Kaiden waited until he turned the corner before replying.

"Far as I know."

"Dance looks like it's going to be fun."

Several blocks passed in absolute silence but for the roar of the jeep. Kaiden cleared his throat.

"So, that reminds me, Kel. We're all going out to the lake after the dance. You going to come this time?"

"To the lake?" I asked.

"Yeah, the lake. After homecoming dance." He risked a glance into the back at Kim. "You too, Kim. You should come. We have a bonfire. It's fun!"

"No thanks," Kim said, her tone suddenly sour. "Kel and I don't want to get on Ann Simmon's bad side."

"I don't know, it might be fun?" I asked her plaintively.

"No." She leaned forward again and slapped my arm. "No, it won't. Trust me. I know things."

Kaiden threw her a hurt, strangely hunted glance but said nothing.

Like after the water garden, I made Kaiden let us out at the end of the block. As we walked along in the crisp night air, Kim kicked leaves out of the way and muttered under her breath. Eventually, one house from the Simmons', she grabbed my arm and stopped me.

"Just what is going on between you and Kaiden?" she asked, her face so close to mine I could smell the sour gummies she'd been eating on her breath.

"I don't know what you mean. I tutor him. We hang out sometimes."

"I don't understand what he's playing at. You, I get, You're just clueless." Kim scowled at me, her face weird under the streetlight. "You be careful of him. He's not being on the up and up with you."

"And you can tell that with one conversation with him on the way home tonight?" I kicked some stray leaves out of the way and started back toward the house.

"Yes," Kim said as she trudged along behind me. "Because I know how these things work! You don't. You're just some gawd-damned naive virgin who's going to get herself in serious trouble if she doesn't listen to her older wiser foster sis."

"I'm the older one! By two months," I objected with a laugh to cover the sting of her words.

"Only in calendar time," Kim said as we headed down to our basement abode.

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