Chapter Text
Bradley pulled into an empty unpaved parking lot in front of a large grey slab building, eyes darting down to the address bolded and highlighted on the court order letter laying open in his lap.
God, this had better not be the place.
He pursed his lips, squinting under the front seat visor searching for a sign before he spotted a single giant red placard. The raised lettering was caked with mud and partially obscured by the surrounding shrubbery but he could make it out: West Spoonerville Community Centre.
He sat back and sighed. So this is what the next twelve weeks looked like.
In spite of the Uppercrust reputation and years of considerable and strategically timed donations to Chesterton College, Bradley, third of his name, didn’t manage to evade all consequences for his impressive spree of criminal activity during the X Games. He was perfectly aware he’d foolishly risked a few lives, committed a healthy amount of property damage, and exhibited some truly piss poor sportsmanship, and he could admit it looked bad when it was spelled out like that.
However.
His lawyer had listened to his long list of mitigating circumstances (whining) and the full context of his actions (excuses) but had dismissed all of it in favour of arguing the merits of restorative measures and how promising a candidate Bradley made “for a therapeutic and community oriented approach to meaningfully demonstrate his remorse and changed behaviour”. It was nothing short of humiliating and came only second to the absolute tongue lashing his father had given him.
When all was said and done, all damages to the university campus had been covered by the Uppercrust estate, the Goofs had declined to press charges, his father arranged his case to be heard by a notably lenient judge, and here he was with court ordered community service.
He did his best not to think about the Goofs. He occasionally felt a pang of something (not quite guilt but something) when he considered how he’d manipulated Goof Sr. He wondered if he’d still feel this way if the Gammas had won— the Goofs wouldn’t have been the first casualties sacrificed at the altar of legacy and reputation. There was just something about how easy it had felt.
His feelings toward Max were less complicated. He wished he could cannon launch him into the sun. It was difficult to see past his pride and he suspected there was little else to it.
Of course, there was still Tank.
Bradley slid his phone out of his pocket. No messages. Well, it was Tank. He’d come around eventually. Punching Bradley’s fucking lights out and the silent treatment felt like overkill if you asked him. He would give Tank some more time to cool off and then it would all be settled. He took a breath to steady himself and ignore the churning in his stomach.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed another car at the far end of the gravel parking lot. An ugly red rust bucket and it was empty. Time to clock in then. He quickly checked his teeth in the mirror, smoothed his brow, fixed his collar and tried to school his face. He was still an Uppercrust and this charade was a formality.
He wandered the length of the building before finding an open backdoor by a few dumpsters and ventured down a long unlit corridor. Was everything here grey? He seemed to go in circles for a couple of minutes but eventually came across a tiny room with a small poker table and several folding chairs squished together at the centre with a fridge and sink in the corner. He was so busy taking in the bleak setting, he didn’t notice anyone standing in the doorway.
“You’re late.”
He startled and whipped around to look at a young woman eyeing his polo and khakis warily. She looked unimpressed.
“No, I’m not,” he said quickly. He didn’t dare look down at his watch and briefly wished he’d spent a little less time in his car feeling sorry for himself.
She said nothing and only tilted her head slightly before marching out. Bradley quickly followed and found his long strides just barely matched her speed walking.
She didn’t look at him as she spoke and her tone was bored and steady as though she wasn’t practically sprinting. “The centre opens at 9. I need you here by 7:30 every morning or we’ll be behind schedule. But it’s whatever, we have Dennis around since it’s your first day.”
Bradley nodded. “And what, you work with Wren?”
She spared a puzzled look before stopping at a storage closet and reaching into one of her impossibly deep cargo pant pockets to pull out a lanyard with roughly a thousand keys attached. “I am Wren.”
“Right, right.” He’d imagined the Wren MacPherson, Operations and Programs Manager, West Spoonerville Community Centre he’d received a carefully detailed email from regarding his supervision, description of duties, and mandatory code of conduct had been an older woman. Overwhelmed, secretarial, maybe a bit dowdy. Someone he could coax into granting him leniency with his particular brand of blue blooded false charm. This woman was maybe twenty, unsmiling, and she had yet to make eye contact. He also suspected her lack of dress sense and unkempt hair were intentional.
“Here, these are yours.” She handed him a green notebook and a manila folder. “The notebook is your daily reflection. I sign it at the end of every day. The rest is basically what I emailed you last week but I figured a printed copy would be a valuable reference.”
She finally looked up at him. The black liner she had thickly applied made her wide unblinking gaze more pronounced; Bradley felt unsettled and took half a step back. “It wasn’t exactly in the news but I have some idea why you’re here. Do what you’re told, no more, no less. Dennis is waiting for you by the lobby.”
Dennis may not have been as openly hostile as Wren but Bradley couldn’t be sure he made better company. He was uninterested in exchanging introductions nor pleasantries. He immediately lumbered outside toward the expanse of greenery, gesturing widely, “This is what we’re up to today, boy.”
Bradley bristled at the epithet before registering what he'd said. “We’re mowing all this? Today?”
Dennis grinned, his wizened face had the quality of burlap. “Mowing, whacking, weeding, trimming. Come on, let’s get on with it before the sun gets high.”
A few hours later, Bradley felt disgusting. His shirt was clinging to his back, his khakis felt oppressive, and his hair had matted to his forehead. It must have been nearly noon; he’d always hated hats but maybe this could’ve been averted if he’d thought to wear one.
He continued using the weed whacker he was assigned to line up the perimeter of the community soccer field. It was so heavy, he was just barely managing not to drag it along the ground at this point. He reminded himself, not for the dozenth time, that he had managed to neither cry nor vomit. Thank goodness for small miracles.
He heard a distant call and saw Dennis gesturing toward the building from the riding lawn mower on which he was comfortably perched. The old bastard. Bradley scowled but gave him a wave anyway. It was lunch time. It couldn’t possibly get worse than this.
The centre was in full session. There were kids everywhere. Groups of younger children being lined up by a harried looking woman, each with armfuls of paint supplies, teenagers somewhat recklessly moving AV equipment on ungreased wheeled carts, a group of rowdy middle schoolers recovering from a game of basketball, and throughout, the unmistakable stench of heat and sweat and grass that each of these runts had dragged in with them. Bradley realized he probably smelled just as bad, if not worse. He wanted to die.
In the middle of it all stood Wren, who distractedly waved him away as she scribbled on a clipboard. He started to wander back to the tiny room with the fridge and the poker table and realized he was looking at a break room. Were they usually this depressing? He was unsure. He quickly grabbed one of the water bottles in the fridge, darting out before he bumped into any other staff, and headed back to the parking lot. He threw himself into his car and immediately cranked the air conditioning while drinking deeply from the bottle. It was disgusting. Mountain Spring, the label read.
He idly checked his phone and still no messages. Not from Tank. Not from any Gamma.
It was going to be a long day.
Dennis had taken his old bones home after a morning spent leisurely joy riding on a lawn mower while Bradley toiled so he was forced to seek out Wren for his next task. He was promptly sent to clean the boys’ toilets and kiddie cubby area at the far end of the building by the gymnasium.
It was while he was scrubbing a particularly stubborn stain on the wall by the cubbies that he heard shuffling footsteps by the gym doors leading outside. He didn’t bother to look up, expecting it was some kid trailing in late for some activity or another but the person had stopped and was hovering by the entrance.
Squatting as to reach more of the area he was cleaning, coated in a layer of sweat and grime he would need to spend the evening scrubbing off of himself and in clothes he’d inevitably burn, Bradley miserably looked up to see Max Goof, of all people.
Max fucking Goof.
He stood up so abruptly, he felt it in his knees, and his face felt hot. “What the fuck.”
To his credit, Max also looked taken aback. His mouth was hanging open and he just stood there for a moment before nodding and walking back out the door.
Bradley gave up on the stain and spent ten minutes rooted to the floor, seething. He wanted to break something but figured he could do without the additional property damage. Instead, he stuck his head into one of the cubby holes and screamed.
Seeing either Goof was a nightmare but Max— the guy who had rejected his Gamma offer, gotten under his skin, pushed him to his limits. The reason Bradley was currently standing there raging and caked in filth. God, there was twelve more weeks of this. Would jail be that much worse? What was Max even doing here?
He circled that drain for a bit longer before gathering all of his supplies, carefully returning them to their respective closets, and finally sitting down with his daily reflection. It was nearly 3:30 pm. He just needed to eke something out and then he could think about dying.
Wren looked up from his notebook, a red pen in her hand poised to sign it. “Seriously?”
Bradley lifted his chin. “It’s honest and it was a long day.”
“‘I have developed a healthy appreciation for the staff at the Uppercrust estate ’?”
“It’s true,” he replied indignantly. “I’ve gained some perspective.”
Her face was the picture of disdain but a corner of Wren’s mouth twitched as she stared at him. She signed the notebook.
Bradley held back a sigh and was about to express some perfunctory gratitude when Wren’s face inexplicably lit up.
“Max? You came a day early!”
Kill me, he thought.
For his part, Max, who seemed to be carrying a plastic basket of helmets and making his way in the other direction, only nodded at him before sheepishly returning Wren’s hug. He had to nearly bend at the waist to accommodate her. Bradley narrowed his eyes at the display.
Max’s hair looked longer, hanging in his eyes a bit; the curls around his ears and at the nape of his neck stuck out more. The brown of his forehead and the skin along his jawline looked deeper. He still had in all of his grotesque piercings— Bradley didn’t know the name for the ones by his bottom lip or the ones that made his earlobes look bigger and he didn’t care. They looked stupid.
Wren and Max launched into some inane, excited small talk and it was just as well, really. He grabbed his notebook and called it a day. A really shitty day.
As soon as Bradley got home, he threw his car keys against the wall, immediately began to undress in the foyer, and all but crawled to the shower. He was so tired. He was used to spending hours on end training for skateboarding and rollerblading competitions but the combination of his early morning and hours spent under the sun stripped him of all of his physical and emotional reserves. And that didn’t account for how it all had been compounded by the humiliation of being seen by Max Goof.
He stood under the cool spray and thought back to Max’s startled expression. Something about the interaction felt off, as though Max had been a bit surprised but not shocked to see Bradley Uppercrust III practically on his hands and knees cleaning up some stain–undoubtedly some bodily fluid–off a wall in an empty area at the back of some underfunded community centre in shit hole West Spoonerville.
The only reason Bradley was staying within fifteen minutes of the area was because he was on thin ice and banned from his father’s various summer homes for the duration of his community service. He was, however, allowed to stay in one of the dozen cheap rental properties his father had purchased some time in the 70s, before he’d moved his operations to the city. He figured the accommodations sort of rounded out his punishment.
He wasn’t even sure why he hadn’t imagined that Max would be from somewhere like this. He was rough around the edges but unassuming. Of course, he hung around and served his community. Bradley scoffed in distaste and remembered how tiny, hard nosed Wren had brightened and flushed at the sight of Max. It really was all some grand joke.
It was a good thing I don’t need to rely on people liking me then, he reminded himself resolutely, as he stepped out of the shower. He resisted checking his phone for the rest of the evening.
Bradley stumbled into the centre the following day with three minutes to spare, hair slightly unkempt and looking somewhat less polished. He had spent his night fitfully sleeping with hazy visions of his father’s sneer and warped, surreal coverage of the X Games explosion he’d caused on ESPN.
He had made the wise decision to dress in shorts, rather than in his usual khakis, and a polo in case he was asked to spend another day completing yard work. His own personal court ordered purgatory.
Wren had raised her eyebrow at his wardrobe shift and slight (embarrassing) dishevelment but said nothing before asking he give the lobby a second mopping. Apparently Dennis had decided the main entrance was a great path through which to transfer the previous summer’s cycling equipment. He was going to kill that old fuck.
He set to work, and for an hour and without anyone around to piss him off, Bradley’s ire seemed to dissipate. He sunk into an oddly zen state as he clumsily worked out the finer details of mopping a large area. He had accepted his fate at this point. These twelve weeks were his Twelve Tasks. If you thought about it, Heracles and he weren’t that different. Sons of great, cruel figures sentenced to pay their amends after a fall from grace. This was the way of things.
He knew, of course, this calm would be short lived and it would take exactly a single soul to step on his wet floors to send him into a rabid state of indignant snarling but in this moment, he had the gravitas and mental fortitude of a monk. This would be great fodder for his reflection log.
The day went on with little incident. He moved from the floors to finishing the front weeding and finally releasing the West Spoonerville Community Centre’s placard from where it’d been temporarily imprisoned within a thick wall of vines and shrubbery.
He had been forced to ask Wren how the power washer worked and she patiently showed him, her small frame adopting a wide stance to withstand the force. She turned it off to hand it to him and curtly, almost politely, nodded before scurrying back into the building. She no doubt had parents to placate and hordes of their gremlin offspring to corral from one activity to another.
Once or twice, he caught Max’s profile as he moved kids along and asked them to follow him as he led them toward the back where there was a small skate ramp by the east staircase. He was grinning broadly and Bradley could hear his guffaw from where he worked. Obnoxious.
This pattern continued as the week went on. Bradley moved as quickly and quietly through his tasks as he could. He kept his head down, nodded when instructed by Wren, avoided the goddamn children, the break room, and the other community centre staff. He especially dodged Max Goof at every turn. He was there to do time and the conditions were humiliating enough. He had a constant dull gnawing feeling deep in his gut. He couldn’t endure the additional labour of pretending to be amiable. He’d never managed as much under ideal conditions.
On day four, he spent his break parked under a shaded area a block from the grounds and laid his head down while the alternative rock station played at the lowest volume setting. He was actively trying to stave off a headache.
He checked his phone for only the second time that day to find it dead. He stared at it for a moment, confused, when he remembered that he wasn’t in the habit of remembering to charge it himself. The Uppercrust staff were generally considerate enough to care for his belongings as they surreptitiously cleaned his wing of the manor while he was taking breakfast or in the shower. During the school year, Tank would take care of it. Most evenings in the Gamma house, Bradley spent villainously monologuing or ranting about something plaguing him or drunkenly grumbling his frustrations to Tank and he’d inevitably crash. In the morning, his room would be slightly tidier, his books stacked and ready to go for the day; an aspirin and a glass of water on his night stand.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Not now, he’d think about it later. Right then, he needed a charger.
When he reached the front desk, there was nobody there. He wondered if maybe Wren was behind it unbeknownst to him, as pint sized as she was, and began to lean over the side in search of a charger when a head popped up.
“Oh!” an elderly woman startled, putting her hand to her chest. She had her entire head of white hair wound in a spiral atop her head and a pair of glasses hanging from a pearl chain around her neck. “How can I help you?”
“Uh,” Bradley hesitated as he took in her unexpected form. This woman was older than God.
“Oh, you must be the Uppercrust boy.” She perched her glasses at the very end of her long nose only to peer at him over them anyway. The unbidden image of an alert bloodhound came to mind.
“Right, yes,” he began, smoothing the front of his shirt. “I’m Bradley. I wondered if you had a charger– well, uh, for my cell phone.”
“Yes, yes,” she waved her hand dismissively. “I suppose you would carry around one of those mobile bricks. Let’s see what we have here.”
She puttered around behind the large oak desk for a moment before pulling a stubborn drawer out jerkily, revealing dozens of tangled assorted chargers. He was surprised she hadn’t keeled over from the force. “I reckon one of these might hold you over.”
After some clarification on what he needed (no, that’s for a Motorola, ma’am, I need a Nokia charger), he was ready to thank her and be on his way before she slowly raised a halting hand. Bradley was unsettled by her unhurried, distant air and he could feel the urge to say something snarky and dismissive crawling up his throat.
“I’m Bev,” she said solemnly, holding his gaze. “I’m the centre director. It’s lovely to meet you, Bradley.”
“Likewise,” Bradley returned uneasily, looking around for someone, anyone , Wren even, to put an end to this interaction.
Bev’s face broke into a mischievous smile. “I’ll be leaving you to your business then.”
Jesus Christ. He all but ran.
So the centre was run by the world’s oldest woman and a juvenile delinquent, he mused as he collected trash by the east end of the building. This area bordered a thick wood and was where the older teenagers were encouraged to park. Bradley suspected the concentration of detritus at this end of the parking lot was correlated with their after hour extracurriculars. Namely, making out and hot boxing. He was appalled but couldn’t necessarily blame them for not knowing these activities were what pool houses were for.
At least it was Friday.
He had a whole weekend to hibernate. Drink. Revisit his DVD collection. No Gammas to boss around, no summer homes with which to entertain, no false affections to be offered, nobody to lord over. The reality of his impending first weekend spent alone, away from the Uppercrust estate, was quickly dawning on him.
He was standing perfectly still, gripping his nearly full garbage bag and grabber tool in his balled fist, staring furiously at the ground when the nearby building doors burst open and out stepped Max carrying far too many skateboards. He was going to drop them all.
Max yelped at the sight of him, clutching the skateboards harder to his chest, tripping on the cuff of his obscenely baggy jeans and falling flat on his ass with a loud oof.
Bradley couldn’t help it. He was cackling.
Max dropped everything he was holding and quickly righted himself. “Fuck off, Brad.”
“Not my name,” Bradley shrugged. “What’s up, Baby Goof? Operating a skateboard smuggling operation?”
“Oh please,” Max said, picking up the skateboards and walking toward a car that made Wren’s look like a Bentley. Bradley shamelessly trailed after him. “They need repairs.”
“And what, you’re going to spend your weekend fixing them up?” Bradley needled, watching Max struggle to open his trunk. “That’s awfully selfless.”
Max tensed his jaw, silently, carefully packing and shutting his trunk. Bradley patiently waited and was rewarded with Max fully turning to face him, arms crossed. “Is there a point to this or…?”
“Just checking in on our resident Mother Teresa, is all,” Bradley said, mirroring his stance.
“What, you mean you aren’t here picking up trash out of the kindness of your heart?”
Bradley sneered, “You could say that. A slap on the wrist, all things considered.”
“I’ll say,” Max gave the garbage bag he was still holding a sweeping look. Bradley really could kill him. “Tell me, Brad, do you imagine this is more or less degrading than being my towel boy might’ve been?”
He’d missed this– antagonizing someone but especially Max. He hadn’t felt anything in ages and here was Max with his stupid, lazy, gap toothed smile and intriguingly spotted face playing into their old shit talking. He’d baited him so hard, Max was leaning forward, ready to poke an accusing finger into his chest.
“Spoken like a true beacon of the community,” Bradley gritted out.
Max laughed at that.
“I guess you’d know.” He flipped the sunglasses sitting in his hair down over his eyes. “See you later, Brad.”
He drove away leaving behind enough exhaust to cause a second hole in the ozone.
Though he’d never admit it, Bradley was almost relieved when Monday swung back around.
He’d spent his few waking hours that weekend testing the limits of his survival skills: chiefly failing to cook an omelette, googling which bathroom cleaning products couldn’t be paired together, and, in the end, resolving to do little more than play video games and speak to no one, including the same pizza guy who looked increasingly concerned after every successive delivery he made.
He’d thrown his phone into his night stand drawer and unplugged his landline. Nobody had called and nobody would.
He was so tired.
He tried to think back to a time when he’d actually cared about his body, his eating habits, getting literal sunlight. He couldn’t do much more than shower and finger comb his hair before he sluggishly made his way into the centre.
“Look alive, Uppercrust,” Wren intoned but she eyed him with some concern. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” he replied, flipping through the log and task list Dennis had left for him. Bathrooms, some inventory, pruning and upkeep by the front, nothing crazy. He could deal with that. There was a beat of silence before Wren spoke again.
“There are, uh, some breakfast burritos or whatever. In the break room.” He could tell she was speaking with a carefully casual air. Bradley looked up to consider her through narrowed eyes but her face remained impassive as she stared back.
“Right,” he returned. “That’s– thank you.”
She nodded and left the front desk, sweeping by him. Bradley noticed that she basically power walked everywhere. She always forcefully pumped her short legs with her back held straight, chin slightly raised, arms close to her side. Like a sixties cartoon character.
One bland microwaved breakfast burrito later, he was knee deep in the entrance garden bed repotting hydrangeas when he noticed Max making his way toward the front carrying a stack of boxes and Wren Speedy Gonzalesing her way over to share the load. He couldn’t hear their conversation from where he worked but he could see their easy grins and casual body language. Their warm rapport disgusted him. He shifted his supplies so he could crouch with his back to the pair of them.
The rest of the day and the next (and with Dennis fortunately absent), Bradley had achieved a sort of flow. He was getting the hang of basic gardening and cleaning tasks, he’d figured out where supplies were kept, and he and Wren managed to establish a nearly silent, civil symbiosis.
He filled his daily reflection with slightly less bullshit thoughts. They were mainly cliches about the satisfaction of a hard day’s work but he felt he had genuinely found some calm in the ache and mindlessness of manual labour. He liked taking a step back to appreciate his efforts. As an added bonus, he didn’t have time to think about his father, or Tank, or the Gammas, or what anyone thought of him when he was ready to pass out as soon as he got home each evening.
Of course, the monotony he had come to emotionally rely on was occasionally broken by one Max Goof.
Max was everywhere and spoke to everyone. Children excitedly exclaimed his name and ran to him when they caught sight of him. The teenagers awkwardly but eagerly accepted his high fives. The other WS community centre staff looked pleased to work with him. He was like their mascot.
Bradley supposed it wasn’t all that different from when the two of them were at Chesterton. Max was unfortunately likable. He dressed terribly, had facial piercings, and truly awful posture. In fact, Bradley had never seen him not leaning on something; he was always casually leaning, with his arms crossed and hands tucked into his sides. Still. Max smiled often, he made others laugh. Even when Bradley was too far away to make out what he was saying, he could hear Max’s low, encouraging tone.
It was infuriating.
Especially since it was becoming clear Wren and Max were particularly friendly. Wren, who could otherwise be found scowling at a clipboard, smiled around Max. Bradley had even heard her laugh– a pleasant tinkling sound he was sure he might’ve imagined if he hadn’t seen it for himself. And Max– Max was risking permanent spinal damage by how willing he was to lean to make up for their height difference as they greeted one another and caught up at seemingly every opportunity.
Their dynamic made sense in a way. Wren, despite her cargo shorts and oversized shirts and messy hair, was cute. When she wasn’t staring holes into Bradley and speaking in her eerie Wednesday Addams monotone or zooming around like the Road Runner barking orders, she was almost charming. And, well, girls liked Max. It was easy math.
A part of him wondered why he was so bothered by the two of them. He had suspected that Max may have spilled the beans on Bradley’s X Games antics but nothing Wren did suggested that. She wasn’t warming up to Bradley by any means but she tolerated him and looked less and less like she’d swallowed a lemon when he asked her a question. Bradley was acutely aware that his supervision was just one more thing Wren had to do and he didn’t necessarily need the woman who signed his goddamn court required daily reflection to be nice to him. He didn’t need anyone’s pity or kindness.
Max did though. Max needed it and everyone, even Bev, seemed willing to indulge him.
Whatever.
He let his disdain slip to Wren while helping her stock the kitchen pantry. It was a larger haul than usual because something, something, ice cream day was coming up later that week. The younger kids in particular were apparently looking forward to it.
Bradley was only half listening to Wren’s explanation of the tradition when he spotted Max speaking to one of the other staff members in the hall, a youngish woman with colourful braids and paint splattered overall shorts. Bradley thought he might’ve seen her a few times on the grounds, encouraging four year olds to draw inspiration from their environment for their finger painting pieces. Max was, as always, practically horizontal with his side pressed against the wall and listening intently with an open expression.
“He really can’t help himself,” Bradley muttered as he finished organizing the spice rack.
“Huh?” Wren looked up from where she was counting and jotting down numbers of condiment bottles and turned her head to quickly take in the scene in the hall.
“Nothing,” he shook his head, “you were saying about Friday–”
But Wren’s suspicious gaze was already morphing into one of puzzled amusement. “Are you– are you jealous… of Max?”
“No,” he spluttered, “don’t be ridiculous.”
He turned to reach for another bag of pantry supplies from their pile but Wren was too fast. She jumped up and blocked his path.
“What’s up, Uppercrust?” She was grinning now. Her typically disinterested affect was gone. She was practically gleeful and he could see her unusually long incisors. It was kind of freaking him out.
“Nothing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes." He hissed; he could hear the hint of agitation in his voice.
There was a tense pause as they stared at one another. Finally, Wren sighed. “He’s just a nice guy, Bradley. Don’t sweat it.”
“What on earth is that supposed to mean?”
She stooped to pick up one of the bags and pressed it into his hands.
“Nothing,” she replied in a soothing tone. “Let’s finish this up.”
From the hall, he could hear shared laughter.
Thursday was a bit of a shit show.
There is an extreme weather warning this afternoon for the residents of eastern Pennsylvania, his car radio garbled, as he drove carefully through sheets of rain. Bradley was dreading how much worse it could get and wondered how the greater Philadelphia area could remain in operation with this weather.
“Uppercrust! You’re here!” Wren barrelled toward him as soon as he stepped in the building. She took no mind that he was absolutely drenched. “It’s going to be an inside day, obviously, so I need some help setting up the gym for the little ones and–”
So he spent the next two hours setting up different activity areas in the gym– an obstacle course, the crafting corner, a scavenger hunt. He’d even found a dozen little wheeled stools for children to scoot around on in the supply closet and a rainbow parachute that had seen better days but was still operable.
Once he was finished, Wren, who had organized the quiet reading and movie areas in the library, ushered him to the front to help check kids in and take attendance. Which might’ve been easier if he had ever once interacted with any of them.
“And you are?” He asked a wispy little boy staring up at him through coke bottle glasses. He paused for a moment to notice the child had little hand painted ducks on his rain boots.
“Archie,” the boy whispered, looking around.
Bradley scanned his list, “Archie, Archie – Archibald Simmons?” God, that’s unfortunate, he thought.
He was about to shuffle the kid along and move on to the next but Archie seemed hesitant to join the other kids in the gym. He instead appeared to be actively trying to disappear.
Bradley hesitated and then crouched so he was eye level with him, “What’s up, why don’t you want to join your little friends?”
“Ms. Mac always takes me in,” Archie sounded muffled with his chin and mouth tucked into his coat.
“Oh,” Bradley quickly looked around for Wren with no luck. This is why he didn’t talk to kids. “I guess– I could walk you in. Uh, I’m Bradley.”
He held out his hand for the child to shake and Archie looked at him consideringly before gripping Bradley’s index and middle finger and shaking. And then they were off. Soon wee Archie was putting his things away in his cubby and settling down with pipe cleaners and a paper plate in the crafting corner. Phew.
The rest of the check-in went smoothly and Wren thanked him with an absent pat to his shoulder as she ran off to help someone calm a group of younger teens.
Finally, he breathed, he could move onto his task list. He felt a little less zen than usual because every room was packed to the gills with kids doing their best to make the most of a rainy day and the staff were darting around counting heads and occasionally redirecting their attention to manage the simmering chaos. It was fine though; he found he’d sort of gotten used to the hum of chatter and the occasional collective outburst that was soon stifled by a nearby staff member.
He was helping Wren carry more bean bags into the movie corner when the overalls girl (Zara, he’d learned her name earlier that day) ran up to Wren breathlessly.
“Hey, so I was just down in the basement looking for the old board games– Dennis mentioned extra storage at some point and I thought– well, I guess it doesn’t really matter now but–”
Wren began to lead her into the hall, nodding at him to follow, before spinning around to face Zara. “It’s already crazy around here; please, spit it out.”
“The basement is flooding.”
“It’s flooding?”
“Not the whole thing, I don’t think,” Zara whined, wringing her hands. “Not where the extra storage is, like further in. Like where the water heater and whatever else is.”
“God,” Wren said under her breath. “Okay, okay, uh – go find Bev and let her know. Dennis is off today so we should figure out what we’re looking at before we give him a call.”
Zara immediately turned on her heel and left. Wren watched her turn the corner before sagging against the wall, covering her face with her hands. She didn’t move and Bradley stood in slightly panicked silence. What was happening–
Wren suddenly popped back up, like one of those inflatable men outside used car lots, scrubbing her hands over her face, and shaking out her arms. She was already halfway down the corridor before she called, “Come on, Uppercrust, let’s find some flashlights and go see how fucked we are.”
Bradley was no expert but they appeared to be pretty fucked.
The basement ran under most of the building and was, thankfully, divided into different storage closets, old rec rooms, and a large old kitchen area with a freezer and additional pantry. From the staircase, however, they could tell that the main utility room half a floor down was submerged in at least four feet of water. Bradley briefly wondered if the water would be just about up to her chin if Wren were to stand in it. As it was, nobody was going down to inspect anything in a flooded utility room.
“There are some fuse boxes all the way in the corner. They probably cover the storage areas and the west end of the building but I can’t be sure.” Bradley had never seen Wren emote so much. Her eyes were somehow even wider and she was tapping her fingers along her thigh. “You need to call Dennis and I’ll call the city. Ask him what to do for now. As soon as we get this shit drained, he can figure out how bad it is.”
Bradley did just that. Strangely, he felt a little bad for interrupting Dennis’ day with his granddaughter (“She graduated kindergarten today! Can you believe it?” ) and he doodled on the back of a CVS receipt as he listened to Dennis’ meandering, distracted thoughts regarding different areas of the building and their corresponding source of power. This building had been built in the 60s which explained a lot. In the end, Dennis concluded that if the storm didn’t let up within the next hour or so (unlikely) and the basement was still actively flooding (Wren would be lost to it at this point), it was best the city cut the electricity entirely to ensure everyone in the building remained safe and absolutely not electrocuted.
Great.
Wren took the news about as well as could be expected and Bev swanned in from wherever her office was to discuss the logistics of calling all the parents and arranging emergency pickups before the city came to shut off the power. Bradley considered letting Wren know he had a fully charged cell phone they could use in case they were cutting it close but suddenly, everyone was in motion and working as a seamless unit to gather and ready the kids.
After every kid had gone home, the staff had stayed behind to tidy up the centre and he had, unquestioningly, joined them. It had been dark but they’d managed.
The entire time, Wren had darted from room to room with her flashlight insisting they were forgetting something. Bev tried to assure her that everything was fine and Dennis would be back very early to begin accounting for the damage to the basement. The centre wouldn’t even open until midday (he was thankful for the opportunity to sleep in). It took the entire staff pleading with her to call it an evening but Wren finally relented.
He arrived home after six and skipped a shower in lieu of collapsing in bed.
Lying awake, Bradley found he shared her uneasiness though. He stayed up for a bit playing the day back in his head. He thought about Archie’s duckie boots and Wren’s face when she’d allowed him to see her momentary panic. It left him feeling strange; something in his chest felt like it was squeezing. He wished he wasn’t so tired; he couldn’t reflect on any of it further.
He succumbed to his exhaustion shortly after.
Wren was right; they had forgotten something.
He walked up to the end of the front desk a quarter to ten feeling oddly light. The storm had cleared and the consistent mugginess they’d been barely coping with for the last week was gone. The air was crisp and he’d remembered to drink coffee for once. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this good.
As he flipped through the maintenance log (oh, Dennis really had shown up earlier to complete repairs, nice), he heard a sniffle from under the desk.
“Wren?” Bradley circled the length of the desk and gawped at the sight of her sitting underneath, crouched in the far corner; her knees were tucked into her chest. She looked absolutely defeated. “Are you– are you feeling okay?”
She looked up at him with red rimmed eyes and said nothing for a moment.
“We open in three hours and the freezer has only just come back on,” she whispered.
He waited. As far as he could remember, they’d all divvied up the contents of the perishable foods in the kitchen and taken them home to store.
“We forgot to clean out the basement freezer.” She suddenly reached out, gripping both of his wrists and pulling him down. He squatted low and awkwardly shuffled on his feet to join her under the desk. “Bradley, it’s Sundae Day.”
Oh. Well, fuck.
“So… it’s all melted?”
“Maybe some of it can be salvaged but I don’t think slightly refrozen goopy ice cream is exactly what everyone imagined.” She let out a little broken laugh and blew her nose into a tissue. “Sorry, I’m being gross. I’m just tired, I think.”
She was being gross; personally, he would sooner die than allow for such a display but still. Bradley felt for her. He had the uncomfortable realization the centre probably carefully stretched its resources however it could. The opportunity to treat a few hundred kids to a sundae station was a big deal, despite how sad he found the entire situation.
The image of teeny tiny Archie fearfully turtling his head in and out of his raincoat at the prospect of playing with his peers came to mind. Goddamnit.
“Any clue what to do?” he chanced.
“The ground is still soft; I could ask Dennis to dig me an early grave,” she sighed. “Or a nap maybe.”
“Have you called Bev?”
“Not yet–”
“Don’t call Bev.” He wondered how much a sundae per child could even cost. “Is anyone else coming in soon?”
“Max,” Wren sniffled. “He was going to help with setup.”
“Great. The two of you set up then.”
Wren was staring at him now. “Nope. Nope.”
“It’s ice cream, Wren,” he said slightly condescendingly. He suspected he was getting that gleam in his eye Tank used to love pointing out. His scheming look. Except the scheme was literally just buying some kids a not insignificant amount of ice cream and charging it to his father. Not really a scheme at all, really. He was so acing community service.
“Nobody wants your fucking money, Uppercrust–”
“Not really my money,” he reasoned. “I just carry the card–”
“That’s such a rich bitch thing to say–”
“Do you want to salvage your little community tradition or not?”
She took a long breath. “Would you accept the centre offering to partially expense the cost?”
“Of course,” he lied. “Are you going to let me save your ass now?”
“Fuck you,” she replied but she did look somewhat relieved.
At that moment, Max sauntered in but stopped when he caught sight of a red faced Wren and Bradley with his trademark shit eating grin sitting under the desk. His eyes darted back and forth between them. “Good… morning…”
“Morning, Baby Goof,” Bradley beamed at him. “MacPherson here shit the bed.”
“Uppercrust– ”
“Ah ah,” Bradley wagged his finger at her. “I’ll be going now. Don’t mark me absent.”
Wren turned to look pleadingly at Max. “We have to replace all the ice cream. Please go with him.”
“Wait, I don’t think–”
“That’s really not necessary–”
She raised her hand for silence in an uncanny impression of Bev. “I need to collect myself and I have a few people showing up early. So go.”
Max and Bradley refused to look at one another as she left.
Bradley was walking straight toward his car pretending he didn’t catch Max hesitating by his own out of the corner of his eye. “You coming?”
Max stubbornly planted himself by his– was that a Sunfire? – driver’s door. “We could take mine?”
“This isn’t The Flintstones, Baby Goof,” Bradley drawled. “I’d rather get us to the store and back in one piece.”
Max’s face turned red. Well, the unpigmented apples of his cheeks looked a bit pink; the rest of his face had become an even deeper brown since Bradley had last seen him.
“At least, it’s mine. It actually cost me something,” he asserted.
“I’m surprised they didn’t pay you to take it off their hands. How much did that put you out? A quarter and some belly button lint?”
Max threw up his hands, spluttering. Bradley might’ve heard the rest of his irate reply but he had already seated himself at the wheel of his Lexus and shut his door.
After a moment, Max opened the front passenger and slid in. “Fuck you.”
Bradley’s smirk faltered as he started the car. He realized that they had never shared an enclosed space like this before; it was strange detecting Max’s earthy, citrusy scent. Out of the corner of his eye, Bradley noted his easy, sprawled posture in the front seat as Max tried to surreptitiously take in the details of the car’s interior.
He cleared his throat and pulled out of the parking lot.
The car ride was almost silent. Bradley tried to keep from fidgeting. He would catch himself tapping the steering wheel or tunelessly humming before abruptly stopping. Max sat perfectly still with his body slightly turned toward the door, his brow furrowed. Bradley was so used to the two of them voicing their animosity toward one another, Max’s palpably repressed anger made him uneasy. He didn’t know what to say, if anything. Going tit for tat was their thing but this felt like maybe he’d struck a nerve. This is hell, he thought .
As soon as they walked into the grocery store and Bradley grabbed a cart, he felt some of his anxiety subside. He was going to buy so much fucking ice cream. Max, for his part, trailed behind him, seeming as though he felt out of place.
Ten minutes later, Max was reaching into their nearly full cart when Bradley slapped his hand away.
“This is butterscotch,” Max deadpanned. “Generally, we try to stick to Neapolitan; you know– vanilla, chocolate, strawberry?”
“Variety is important,” Bradley sniffed as he inspected two different brands of matcha sorbet. He was beginning to get irritated. “Do me a favour and go pick out sprinkles or something.”
“Wren will already have sprinkles–”
“Then go sit on your hands somewhere–”
“What is your problem?”
“I’m trying to do this right,” Bradley snapped, leaning over the cart. “I know she said to tag along but–”
“This isn’t how we do things, Bradley,” Max gestured to the two dozen or more jumbo cartons Bradley had carefully stacked. “The sundaes are a tradition. We need to be able to replicate this–”
“I’m trying to make it special.”
“What’s up with you?” Max asked scathingly. “Did you get visited by the Ghost of Community Service Future or something?”
Bradley fell silent. He could feel heat crawl up his neck in humiliation. Max seemed to play back his words and looked embarrassed.
“That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Bradley began to busy himself with returning some of the flavours into the freezer. He had privately wondered earlier if kids even liked coffee flavour before tossing it into their pile. Leave it to Max Goof to piss on his parade.
He understood why Max was treating him like some rich asshole with a newly acquired conscience. In some ways, he was some rich asshole with a newly acquired conscience. He was unsure how to pick apart his own motives, if he was honest. Kids were looking forward to ice cream and he had the means to deliver on that. It felt like a no-brainer but he was beginning to appreciate the optics; he could sort of see it from Wren and Max’s perspective. He didn’t care if they thought he was on some apology tour; he wasn’t labouring under the delusion this would make anyone like him. He didn’t need nor want that.
After a tense silence, Max stepped away from the cart, “Y’know, I think I saw maraschino cherries in the next aisle.”
“Fancy,” Bradley replied sarcastically. “Next you’ll be suggesting gold flakes.”
“Hey, if you can find gold flakes, you can have gold flakes,” Max hesitantly grinned. The studs under his bottom lip caught the grocery store fluorescent lighting and Bradley found himself fixated on the gap in his front teeth.
“I doubt it,” Bradley said quickly, looking away. “This is Spoonerville.”
“You never know,” Max said in a sing-song tone. Bradley accepted the implicit olive branch and followed him down the other aisle.
In the end, they did not find gold flakes.
Sundae Day was both a complete blur and, reportedly, a success.
Bradley had ducked out to avoid the chaos just as the youngest of the children approached the different prep stations Wren had put together.
Bradley thought Wren might’ve been shooting him grateful looks but as it was a Big Secret what he’d done, and Bev serenely looked on as several of the children helped themselves to heaps of Rocky Road and cookies & cream, he elected to ignore her. He was busy pretending he wasn’t at all experiencing a confusing mix of stifled emotion and catharsis at the sight of Archie carefully holding a bowl larger than his head with two large scoops of mint chocolate chip and joining two other children at a bench.
He sat in his car during his lunch break slowly eating a protein bar he’d recovered from his glove compartment (one of these days, he was going to get into the habit of packing a lunch) when Max tapped his finger on the passenger window. He was beaming as he gestured for Bradley to unlock the door.
“Whoa, whoa– you can’t eat that in here.”
“It’s for you,” Max said excitedly, handing Bradley an obscenely large bowl of ice cream. “Or we can share. Whichever. I would’ve grabbed two but the kids are going crazy in there. Turns out butter pecan is a hit.”
“Yes, well,” Bradley said airily, lifting his chin. “I could’ve told you as much.”
The combined fifteen minutes to and back from the store enduring Max’s presence in his small car was one thing. He wasn’t sure what to make of the two of them just sitting there with nothing to distract Bradley except for a shared bowl of ice cream between them. He wasn’t even sure he could stomach any of it at the moment.
“Wren asked for the receipt, y’know.”
“I know.”
Max nodded as he shoved a large spoonful of chocolate into his maw. Bradley frowned.
“Please don’t fuck up my car.”
Max effortfully swallowed, tongue darting out to the corner of his mouth. “I won’t lie, I’m tempted.”
Bradley felt inexplicably flustered. This thing they were doing, this friendlier version of their back and forth he was beginning to share with Max, unnerved him. He took a scoop of vanilla and resisted examining the pattern of discolouration on the back of Max’s left hand.
There was a long shared silence. Max spoke first.
“I started coming here when I was seven,” he said quietly. “Summers were long and PJ wasn’t always around. It was nice coming here sometimes and knowing adults who weren’t my dad would look out for me.”
Bradley thought back to his childhood summers. There was the sleepaway camp he attended with the sons of other WASP-y east coast types. He had always thought maybe he’d enjoyed himself but he now felt as though he had spent much of his time maintaining his position at the top of their dumb rich white boy pecking order and going out of his way to demonstrate his athletic prowess. It was sort of lonely and stressful. He wondered if Tank remembered things differently. He wished he could ask him.
“Met Wren here,” Max continued. “This place is Bev’s baby but Wren is the one who loses sleep over making sure kids have a good time every summer.”
“Wren’s cool.”
“Yeah, she is,” Max sighed in a way that irked Bradley.
“Does your dad live in Spoonerville?” Bradley asked quickly, suddenly wanting to talk about anything else. He inwardly cringed and hoped it wouldn’t be weird to ask Max about Goof Sr. He held his breath waiting for Max to give him a look or to change the subject or leave the car and slam the door or tip this bowl over his head–
“Dad moved actually,” Max replied pleasantly, reaching for another spoonful, “He sold the house and he and Sylvia have settled down in the city. It’s weird driving by my old place and seeing the front door painted a different colour and different flowers out front but it’s good for him.”
Bradley could only nod and feel stupid.
“My break is almost over. So I should…” He gestured out his window.
“Right,” Max smiled at him, picking up their spoons and tissues before leaving. “Thanks for saving the day, Brad.”
Bradley couldn’t be bothered to correct him.
Wren wasn’t being nice but her slightly warmer manner of speaking to Bradley wasn’t unwelcome.
He was unsure what to think of it. The girl who signed his community service day log wasn’t going to be his friend just because he’d once bailed her out of a shit situation or because he occasionally said something she found funny or because he wouldn’t actually mind if she were his friend. Bradley tried to think of the last time he’d made a friend that wasn’t somebody who was already in his orbit of sons’ of Uppercrust business partners, or Gamma members who were sons of Uppercrust business partners, or with whom he was forced to make idle chit chat with at dinner parties because they were sons of Uppercrust business partners.
Except Tank, but that had been all Tank’s doing.
After his little adventure as the undisclosed saviour of ice cream and childhood joy, he returned to his routine of remaining apart from everyone and everything. He completed his tasks, he barely refrained from expressing irritation around Dennis (though he was finding the man infinitesimally more tolerable), and he sat in his car and remembered to eat the prepackaged grocery store turkey sandwich he’d packed. Somehow he was unable to recapture his former zen.
A week after he’d last spoken to Max, the man popped up directly behind him while Bradley was setting up the new sprinkler system, scaring the shit out of him. “Can I help you? ”
“Yes, actually,” Max grinned. “We’re short staffed and I could use some help supervising the three-legged race.”
“You need help… supervising.” Bradley hedged.
“It’s the six to eight crowd. They’re accident prone. I have the first aid kit but in case it gets to be a bit much– well, I’d appreciate it.”
Max smiled again like he was trying to win him over. Bradley looked away.
“Uh, okay, yeah. I just need to finish this up. Give me five.”
“Sure thing,” another broad grin.
Ugh.
“She fell on her face, Max.”
“I mean, yeah, but I’m telling you that baby tooth was on its way out,” Max tried to comfort him. “I saw her wiggling it just the other day.”
Bradley had let a pair of children he was intently watching get hurt. One moment, they were fine and the next, one of them had somehow tripped over their joined legs and sent the other flying. There were tears, and snot, and blood, though Max insisted that practically all kids did was get hurt and most of the blood was from an overdue baby tooth loss and a minorly scraped knee. As a form of damage control, Bradley had searched the scene of the crime for the tooth and (without retching) secured it in a ziploc bag for the child to later negotiate for a fair, market competitive price.
He was still coming down from the ordeal after the kids were sent home, but Max seemed to find it all hilarious. He kept giggling to himself like an idiot as they cleared the field of toys and sports equipment.
“Max, she was sobbing,” Bradley groaned. God, he hated everything.
“She’s seven,” Max replied calmly. “And Anjali loves a little drama. She was fine as soon as she got a Mulan bandaid.”
When they’d finished, they walked toward the front entrance in (what Bradley wished was a) comfortable silence. Max looked like he was at ease as he ambled alongside him. Bradley tried to act normal. He felt a faint buzzing in his ears and under his palms. He crossed his arms. He felt as though he couldn’t trust himself to do more than put one foot in front of the other.
Wren met them at the front desk as he stood at one end, filling out his reflection. Max was sitting in the old leather chair with his legs crossed over the desk, fidgeting with an old walkman he’d found in one of Bev’s many sticky drawers.
“This thing is like jammed shut,” he complained, trying in vain to pry it open.
“Hey Uppercrust,” Wren didn’t hesitate to knock Max’s legs off the table; he let out an oof in surprise. “Any key takeaways from today?”
“Children are prone to physical injury due to their own sheer incompetence,” Bradley replied glumly.
“That they are,” she turned to Max. “I need a ride.”
Max, who was still smiling widely at Bradley’s distress, shrugged. “Sure.”
Bradley tried not to stare at the two of them. He had obviously been aware of their closeness but observing it from two feet away felt different. Their shared history felt especially apparent as Max stood to lean into Wren, handing her the walkman to inspect. She rolled her eyes affectionately after quickly managing to pop out the tape.
He felt a bit sick. It had been a long day.
He pushed his completed daily reflection across the desk. Wren absently signed it and wished him a good night. He could only nod.
A week later and another tap on his front passenger window.
“Yoo-hoo,” came Wren’s monotone, “Uppercrust.”
Bradley unlocked the door. Letting just anyone sit in his car was becoming a habit.
He had been sitting in the parking lot after a long Friday, just zoning out and mustering up the will to drive home and spend the long weekend alone.
The Fourth of July was on Tuesday and he had spoken with his mum earlier that week. She’d asked the standard questions (Do you look well? Is there anything you need me to keep from your father? ) and then spent fifteen minutes filling him in on the pressures of planning the party in Westchester County. Both of them were aware he was expressly forbidden from attending. It wouldn’t do the family any good for him to be seen in his current state. Still, he listened and made the appropriate sounds of concern and awe.
If his mother were a flower, she’d be an orchid. If orchids sustained themselves on a steady diet of red wine and people fawning over them.
Wren didn’t even disguise looking and feeling around every inch of his car. “What the fuck, Uppercrust?”
“It was a gift.”
“Before or after you chose a life of crime?”
“Before but this almost came at the expense of my misdeeds.”
She reached into her book bag, nodding slowly, “You forgot your notebook.”
“Oh thanks,” he tucked it away in the console. He was looking forward to spending the next four days refusing to reflect.
Wren played with his stereo for a minute, turned it off and faced forward with her hands clasped in her lap. Something was up but he was tired so he laid his head back again and waited.
“So listen,” she started. And then nothing. Ah yes, he thought, he had always enjoyed suspense. He wasn’t at all an impatient asshole prone to snapping during uncomfortable social situations.
“Are you going to just sit there or—”
“Shut up, I’m trying to say something.” She took a deep breath. “Look, I know you probably have plans. Like boats and wine and shit.”
He gave her a skeptical look which seemed to fluster her further. “I don’t fucking know! Whatever. But if you’re free Tuesday, my family is having a little thing.”
“Your family,” he echoed.
“Yes. And our neighbours and friends and whoever.”
“And you’re inviting me,” he processed aloud, confused. He hadn’t expected this at all. Wren had a family. A family with a Fourth of July event for friends. To which he was being invited.
“You don’t have to come,” she said sharply, crossing her arms. “I just thought—“
“No, no, it’s— I just wanted to, y’know, make sure.”
“Oh,” she relaxed. “Well, I’m inviting you, so.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.” She nodded once and left.
He leaned his head back again and ran what had just happened over in his mind a few times. The squeezing feeling in his chest was back.
He finally found the energy to drive home.