Chapter 17: Rain

My mother read the notice of claim a third time.

Then she went into the kitchen and stood with her back to me.

She did not make a sound, and I knew better than to follow her.

I went out the front door instead, into the parking lot, and I texted Drew with my thumb shaking.

It said: Job. Diner lot. Now.

The air smelled of hot asphalt and something metal.

It was nearly midnight, and for the first time in four months there was a cloud over Casa Verde.

His truck came around the corner with its lights off, and he parked beside the dumpster and got out.

"What's wrong?" he said.

"Nine families are suing us."

I gave him the envelope, and he read it under the neon sign.

His jaw worked as he read.

"They can't win this," he said. "You called the names in. It's in the log."

"They don't have to win. My mother has eleven hundred dollars. A lawyer's letter costs that to open."

"Then we'll find the money."

"With what? Being right doesn't pay a lawyer."

Something cold hit the back of my neck.

Then another landed on the envelope, and the ink on the number began to run.

Drew looked up.

"It's raining," he said.

The sky opened.

It came down in one sheet, thick and warm, on the lot and the neon sign and the two of us.

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