While her brother slept, Brittany poured over the local newspaper, determined to find herself a reasonable job. Sadly, there wasn’t much work available for her skillset. Most of the jobs posted required some sort of relevant experience, which Brittany didn’t have. Pretty much the only thing she really excelled at was her art. Beyond that, she could cook and clean, but no one was hiring a surrogate sister or mother.
Leaning back in her chair Brittany sighed, feeling deflated. She glanced sadly towards the bedroom door beyond which Zack was sleeping soundly. A part of Brittany knew that there was more to his damaged eye than he was letting on. There had to be. He was always getting strange and mysterious wounds, and she kept turning a blind eye to them.
“What do you do at night?” she wondered aloud, still staring at the door. She feared that perhaps Zack was getting involved in the seedy underbelly which had slowly rotted their once wholesome town. Back when their parents were alive, it was the kind of place where you could leave your front door unlocked at night, and let your kids play out on the front porch. But all that had changed during the last decade. Now if you walked home alone at night you kept your steps fast and your head low. Their town was no longer safe and was Zack possibly contributing to that?
No. Brittany shook her head. She wouldn’t believe that Zack was doing anything dishonorable. That wasn’t like him. He was the protective older brother who had been there for her, who had helped raise her. He could never hurt someone.
With a sigh, Brittany looked back down at the paper. It was slim pickings for jobs. There wasn’t even any waitressing work ads. Groaning, Brittany scrunched up the page and pushed it aside. It was useless. As bummed out as she was, she went back outside to work on some more sketches beneath the willow tree and clear her mind.
When Brittany drew the world around her, she disappeared, and she became lost in her art. The process consumed her. She’d learned early on that drawing was a great way to get away from all the pain and sadness that haunted her day to day life. With a pencil in her hand she could get away, she could draw beautiful castles or strong, powerful animals capable of carrying her off on their backs. And her pictures were good, she was sure of that. Whenever she plucked up the courage to show them to Zack, he was always full of praise.
“Wow, Brittany, those are amazing,” he’d gush proudly. “Clearly, you got all the talent in the family.”
Brittany would blush modestly, secretly warmed by his words. If Zack liked her pictures, then they must be good. Yet no one else had ever seen them. Had her parents still been around, she’d have showed them, but beyond them, the town of Harlow was cut off from most people. There was nothing like a tragedy to show you who your real friends were. Those who did stick around had recently left town for college, leaving Brittany well and truly isolated with only Zack for company.
She realized that she wanted a job for more than just financial reasons. She longed for companionship. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d met someone new. In her town people only ever left, no one new ever showed up.
Placing down her artist’s pad, Brittany saw that the sun had started to dip in the sky. She wasn’t sure of the exact time, but she sensed that it was late afternoon. Zack would be waking up soon and her plan had been to ambush him with her idea of getting a job. He was always most receptive to change when he was fully rested. But if she went to him with only an abstract idea, he’d never go for it. She needed something concrete if she was going to win his approval.
Standing up Brittany dusted herself off and headed back inside. A quick glance at the clock told her it was four o’ clock. She had little over an hour until Zack awoke. Brittany stood in the kitchen and debated what to do. She knew that she had to cast her net a little wider to find a decent job. The newspaper had been a dead end, which meant that really, she needed to look online. Only her house didn’t have internet. Zack was bizarrely dead set against having it. Brittany paced around the small table, debating what she should do.
An hour, that was all she needed. If she left now, she could cycle into town and use one of the computers at the library to access the internet. But if Zack found out he’d be pissed, and that’s putting it mildly. Not if he never knew, not if she was back in time. Before Brittany could talk herself out of it, she was heading out of the front door and reaching for her bike. Despite the lateness of the day, the air still felt hot and humid. Pressing down on the pedals Brittany started to cycle and was soon leaving her street and heading into town.
The feeling of freedom was intoxicating. As the wind blew through her hair, she leaned back and relished the sensation. She pedaled harder to help whip her hair into a wild frenzy. She was laughing, delirious with the excitement of it all. The fact that her visit to the library was forbidden made it feel all-the-more wondrous.
She was giggling to herself like a crazed sole conspirator as she chained up her bike and hurried up the stone steps towards the library. It was now four fifteen leaving her only thirty minutes to find the perfect job, which Zack couldn’t possibly say no to.
“You can do this,” she told herself confidently as she entered the air-conditioned cool of the library. Pushing back her shoulders and lifting her chin ,she approached the section with the computers and tried to blend in, acting as though she belonged there, that what she was doing wasn’t actually some strange act of defiance. As she logged into a vacant computer, she prayed that her perfect job was just a few internet searches away.