Chapter Text
Amber dipped the thick slice of bread into the French toast mix coating both sides and dropped it on the griddle. Then moved onto the next. She glanced back when she heard the pad of soft feet. It was her little sister Martha who looked up at her. She couldn’t believe how big she was, eleven years old. Her beautiful brown eyes scanned the French toast analytically. Amber silently pondered how different her little sister was now. She had always been an odd girl, but the intervening years had left her even more strange. Martha spoke.
“You use inferior tools, spices, bread and eggs, yet your French toast is better in all measurable categories to other versions, why?”
Amber smiled and shook her head. The things that came out of Martha’s mouth had often shocked her since she had returned. Amber smiled at Martha.
“They don’t know the secret ingredient; Do you remember what it was? I used to tell you and Sarah when you were little…”
Martha shook her head. Amber ruffled her hair playfully.
“It’s love you silly goose, tell Sarah breakfast is almost ready and then get the table set please.”
Martha shook her head.
“There is no empirical data to prove that statement is true. Are you going to argue with Sarah this morning again?”
Amber raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
Martha nodded.
“I will get my headphones.”
Amber shook her head as her baby sister walked off. She flipped the French toast and smiled as she looked around the old farmhouse. The good memories far outshined the singular bad memory. She’d removed most of that with a couch from a thrift store. She heard Sarah’s distinct gate. She was walking again but she needed another surgery and more physical therapy before she could hope to join the track and field team again. She sighed when she saw the shirt Sarah was wearing. It was a picture of Cthulhu holding two hands over a pair of children with the words ‘In God We Trust’ along the bottom.
“Really Sarah?”
Amber shook her head. Sarah was so much different; Her once beautiful blonde hair had been dyed blue-black and she favored black clothing and black eyeliner. She reminded Amber of her once best friend, April, a goth-vampire-fan girl. Sarah’s eyes betrayed the snark that was to follow.
“You think you’re our mother. You can’t boss us around.”
Amber sighed. Sarah’s attitude hadn’t improved since her surgery. The girl had a chip on her shoulder the size of Mount Everest when she was wheelchair bound, Amber had hoped this would change once her sister was walking on her own, but it had not. She couldn’t really blame her, she’d lost both parents, her grandparents, except for one who had washed his hands of the children and their mother. Amber had been absent for the worst of it due to her own issues. Their mother’s abuse had marked all three sisters, some scars would never heal.
“I’m your legal guardian, that means I can. I will ignore the shirt but put on a bra that is part of the dress code, as archaic as it is.”
Sarah glared at Amber and was about to unleash every ounce of teenage angst she possessed but then she noticed Martha had appeared and started setting the table. With the youngest’s appearance, Sarah seemed to lose all steam and retreated to her room. She came back in a plain black T-shirt and was wearing a bra. Amber dished out the French toast to her sisters and sat down they ate silently. They all piled into their grandmother’s old orange and yellow pickup truck. Even if they added all their ages together, they could still not even come to half of its age, yet it still ran perfectly and seemed to be in almost pristine condition. Amber dropped Martha off first, then she drove Sarah to school.
The sixteen-year-old looked over at Amber. She looked almost sheepish as she spoke.
“You didn’t eat breakfast, you haven’t all week. Are you okay?”
Amber smiled.
“I wasn’t hungry. I’m fine.”
Sarah ran her fingers along her backpack’s strap.
“You haven’t been eating much. I… I am worried about you, it’s what mom started to do when she… you know…”
Amber patted Sarah’s forearm.
“Money is just a little tight, I’m fine. I want to make sure you and Martha have enough to eat.”
Sarah went even more pale as she came to a realization.
“My phone. You aren’t eating because you bought me my phone this month?”
Amber shook her head.
“No, it’s not that, don’t worry about it Sarah, I’m fine, I eat for free at the bar and I get food at the store. You should get to school.”
Sarah reached out her hand to pull the handle then for the first time since Amber had told her that their mother was dead Sarah hugged her so tightly it might have hurt if Amber wasn’t who she was. Amber returned the hug and kissed the top of Sarah’s head.
“I, I forget how much you give up for us. I’m sorry.”
Amber smiled again.
“Sarah, you’re a teenage girl, trust me, I know, I was there, not so long ago. Now go to school.”
Sarah slid out of the old pickup truck and waved before heading towards Smallville High School. Amber made sure her sister went into school before heading off to work. During the day that was Value Fresh. Kansas’ newest chain of grocery stores. It had replaced Smallville General Store. Just one of the few changes Smallville had gone through since a huge suburb had been built. Amber had seen it advertised as ‘fresh country air and small town feel with the employment opportunities only a large city can offer’. In her opinion the change wasn’t an improvement.
She hung her jacket in her locker and pulled on her work apron. It wasn’t a glamourous job, and the customers were horrid, at least the new breed of wealthy housewives, but it helped put food on the table and the solid benefits package had helped her sister walk again. She smiled at Delilah who was opening up the checkout next to hers. The older woman, who was in her late thirties, possibly early forties, as far as Amber knew smiled back. Delilah leaned back against the rear guard of her checkout and crossed her arms.
“I still haven’t figured out why you’re still here. You’re what, twenty-one? Saw your picture at Toby’s school last night during the Halloween party. You won all of the events at State championships when you were in Grade six. And I heard you went to that fancy Excelsior boarding school, won a bunch of state championships there, swimming, track and field. Rumor has it you were in line for the Olympic team. Hell, I bet you could still get a scholarship to any school in the United States. Sheriff told my husband you are a certified genius and can turn junker cars into the fastest things on wheels. Yet here you are, at Value Fresh, working a dead end cashier’s job, getting sexually harassed by Dick who never grew up after high school. Gonna help me solve this mystery?”
Amber smiled and shook her head.
“Life isn’t straightforward. Why are you here? Sheriff’s deputies make good money, especially with that new sub-division.”
Delilah shrugged.
“Kids are all in school, and I want spending money. Now you.”
Amber wiped down her belt and focused on scrubbing off some dried milk that the person on the evening shift had left. She didn’t look up at Delilah.
“I got sick and fell into a coma just after high school. Woke up to a mom who was a drug addict and a sister who couldn’t walk, another who has severe autism. Found out my little brother had been killed in the same accident and my dad had died of a heart attack. Also, my fiancée had run off with whatever money my mother hadn’t spent on her addiction. Then mom was murdered.”
Delilah eyes had softened when Amber looked up again.
“I’m so sorry, two years, I had no idea. Sorry, I shouldn’t have pried.”
Amber shrugged.
“Hey, that’s life, I’m doing what I need to make sure my sisters have food, health care and a roof over their heads. Folks around here don’t like talking about my family. The Kents used to be pretty important to everyone, mom kind of destroyed our reputation. Now we’re the white trash they whisper about behind our backs.”
Delilah chuckled.
“I resent that; We’re the white trash they gossip about.”
Amber grimaced when she saw Amanda approaching. The girl was part of the new problem in Smallville. Toxic would be an understatement. Her father was the pastor of a local Baptist church that used a very literal interpretation of the bible. Since they’d arrived the conservative crazies had come out of the woodwork. Amanda had tortured Amber for years because her grandmother was married to another woman. Amanda walked up to the checkout and put her groceries in the belt. Amber smiled at her because it was her job to be nice to the customers and only because it was her job.
“Good morning, Amanda.”
Amanda liked to come in and show off her newfound wealth. She’d recently married a wealthy young hotshot lawyer from Metropolis. With a glance Amber could tell her old nemesis was pregnant, and it was most definitely further along than the wedding two weeks ago. So much for waiting until marriage and purity vows, she thought to herself. Amanda had that morally superior look on her face. As Amber scanned the expensive groceries that had priced her and her sisters out of shopping in Smallville.
“I see sin hasn’t paid, has it?”
Amber kept on smiling as she responded.
“Congratulations, what are you three, or four months along? Your parents must be ecstatic. Oh, and also congratulations on your marriage, what was that… two weeks ago? Must have been a great honeymoon.”
Amanda glared at Amber.
“How do you even know that?”
Amber smiled warmly.
“I noticed the bump. That will be two-hundred and fifty two dollars, and sixty four cents, oh, and would you like to donate to the Precious Angels today?”
Amanda slid her card into the reader and put her pin in. Amber tore the receipt off and offered it to Amanda.
“Have a blessed day.”
Amanda tore the receipt out of Amber’s hand and stormed off her with cart. Delilah had been snickering for half of the interaction.
“Wow, that was some nice shade, I wonder how they’re going to spin that.”
Amber shook her head.
“I shouldn’t have. It was just so tempting.”
Delilah made a gesture with her chin.
“Dick alert.”
Amber shifted and glanced in the direction Delilah had indicated. She sighed and prepared herself. Richard, or Dick as they liked to refer to him was one of those guys in school that had been picked on, and now that he had a shred of power, he threw it around. He was in his thirties and treated his assistant manager position at the Value Fresh like it was his destiny. He walked over to Delilah’s station and looked it over and gave a small nod, then he moved over to Amber’s and looked it over. He leaned close to her.
“I see your name tag is crooked, let’s just fix that.”
He reached up and slipped his fingers under Amber’s apron brushing up against her breast as he pulled the back off the pin before sliding it back in. He nodded.
“There you go. Are you free tonight? There is a Halloween party at the Roxy, I have two tickets.”
Amber bit her tongue and instead of telling him what she really thought she just shook her head.
“Sorry, I have a shift at my second job.”
He sighed.
“Too bad. You know, today seems kind of slow. We’ll pay you for the hour but why don’t you head home.”
Amber protested.
“I need this shift. The tax payment on my house is coming out next week.”
He shrugged.
“Maybe see if you can pick up an extra shift at your other job today then.”
Amber resisted the urge to call him what she wanted to, she just sighed and pulled off her apron.
“See you tomorrow, Delilah.”
Richard spoke up.
“Actually, sorry, I took you off the schedule for tomorrow too, it’s just business, you understand.”
Amber clenched her fists, then shook her head before heading to the back and getting changed. She could go to her union and create a stink technically he couldn’t do this under their contract but the last time she’d done it he’d made her life even more miserable. The fact his father was the area manager meant most of his antics including the sexual harassment were laughed off as boys will be boys. She closed her eyes and slammed her locker shut. This would make food tight until the end of the month. She leaned against her locker and her head against it. She should have just said yes to the date, she knew he’d do this, he always did.
She pulled out her old cellphone. The screen had cracks. She tapped the number for Jimmy’s Auto. Maybe she could pick up some work there. Jimmy picked up the phone.
“Hey Mr. Gott, it’s Amber, you got anything that needs done that you don’t have the hands for?”
“Actually, I do Amber, Bernice overbooked us for oil changes today and Frank called out sick. You not working at the Value Fresh today?”
Amber sighed.
“No, they cancelled my shift, not enough business, and tomorrow’s too.”
Jimmy sounded almost angry when he responded.
“Said no to that little prick again I guess.”
“Yes. I’ll be right there. Thanks Mr. Gott.”
The rest of the day went well. Amber loved working on cars. She definitely stood out when it came to working in an auto shop. She had long silky platinum blonde hair, ice blue eyes that reminded those who saw them of a blue winter sky and frankly could have been a star had she chosen that route. Put simply it was like she’d been crafted by a sculptor. She’d been called angelic. Not that the oversized blue overalls she was wearing did her any favors. She was under an SUV on a wheeled cart working on an oil change. The lift bays were all full. Jimmy hadn’t been exaggerating when he had said he was overbooked. People were rushing to get their cars ready for winter.
The last few days before this one had been so cold there had been frost and a few flurries. Typically, that didn’t start until mid-November at the earliest around Smallville. Amber had been working through oil changes at a break-neck pace. She heard her name called. She rolled out and looked up at the source. She sighed. A Korean man was looking down at her. She recognized him. Everyone called him Gangnam. She had no idea why, and only knew it was a reference to a song that was released the year she was born. His real name was Hu Dae-Ho. He was a street racer from Metropolis. Amber sighed.
“What do you want?”
He put his hands in his jean pockets, and he smiled.
“I thought you were dead.”
She sighed.
“I am to you. Go away.”
He took his hands out of his pockets and kneeled down.
“Don’t be that way, Amber. My friend said he saw you working here today. I had to see it with my own eyes. You’re wasting your talent here. I have a shop in Metropolis. I’ll pay you ten grand just to show up for the job interview. At the end of which I’ll hire you, guaranteed. People will line up to get their cars worked on by you.”
Amber rolled her eyes.
“I don’t do that sort of work anymore, Gangnam. Now go away, if the cops even see me talking to you, they could pull my probation, and I’ll lose my conditional expungement.”
Gangnam lowered his voice.
“I got a big race coming up, I’ll give that ten grand, two hours work. No one needs to know.”
Amber sighed, that kind of money would really help but she decided to keep on the straight and narrow.
“Look, I wish I could help but I have another six months before I can consider anything like that. Now go away.”
Amber hit her head on the head rest of the car when she heard a familiar voice. An agent from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, her name was Victoria Valentine. She’d been a pest poking into Amber’s life wherever she could. Amber’s refusal to sell the Kent farm and her successful defeat of the Eminent Domain claim on the property had made her some powerful enemies. It had stopped another massive subdivision from being built. Victoria sounded like she was the cat that had finally caught her mouse.
“Well, well, well, I believe that is a violation of your probation isn’t it, Amber.”
Amber glared at the agent.
“I’m employed here, and he’s a customer. No Judge would revoke it. I’m sure you’re going to try though. Do you do any actual investigation work, or are you to busy getting your leash tugged by Armstrong?”
Gangnam stood up and dusted his hands off.
“Just asking her how long it was going to be until she could work on my car, agent.”
Victoria smirked.
“Long way to bring your car from Metropolis, Hu.”
He gave his own trademark smirk.
“Oil light came on my way through town. What can you do?”
Victoria smiled at Amber as she walked away. Amber glared after her.
“Thanks Gangnam, I appreciate you screwing up my life again. Go away.”
Amber sighed and rolled back under the car. She’d have to defend herself, there was no money to hire a lawyer. She’d have to go memorize all the case law around probation violation now. The rest of the day went without any real incident. Amber was washing the grease and dirt off her hands before heading to pick up her sisters.
“If you worked for me full time I could book three times the oil changes, not to mention tire changes. Why aren’t you?”
Amber smiled.
“Because the benefits I get at Value Fresh mean my sisters get the help they need. You can’t pay me enough to pay for that and the bills. I appreciate the hours you do give me.”
He smirked and pulled his wallet out and peeled off two hundred dollars and handed the money to Amber.
“If you come back tomorrow, I’ll keep you busy, two hundred again.”
Amber nodded.
“Thanks, Mr. Gott, I really appreciate it.”
She waved and headed out to her old pickup. The diesel engine complained as it started. Amber sighed she’d need to change the glow plugs soon. Something she’d never quite realized was just how much work it took to run a farm, keep a house in order and just be an adult. Martha got into the back seat and pulled on her seat belt. She wrinkled her nose.
“You smell like oil.”
Amber nodded.
“Yes, had to work at Jimmy’s today.”
Martha frowned.
“You need to wash your hair, it stinks.”
Amber gave a slight roll of her eyes as she pulled away from the curb and headed to pick up Sarah. Martha was picky. Certain smells bothered her, one was diesel fumes, another was auto shop smells, there were more of course. Sarah was waiting for them and climbed into the front seat and pulled on her seat belt. She looked at Amber.
“Put your seat belt on.”
Amber shook her head and pulled the seat belt on before driving towards the farm. Sarah glared at Amber.
“Anything could happen. What would Martha do if you got hurt in an accident?”
Amber tried not to laugh at how absurd that was. Not that her sisters knew her secret. She had pondered telling them when their mother had died but she’d kept it to herself. No need to even bring it up.