On the Fly Read Online Free PDF

given up the fight
after tossing a big stack of napkins on it. I’d have to get a rag
from the workers once he was done. He had gotten more of that
sticky stuff on his face than he had in his mouth. All I could do
was grin at him.
    Maddie had asked for a small bowl of
vanilla, no cone, nothing on it. I figured she was still worried
about money and was trying to get the cheapest thing on the
menu.
    “ They’ll let Pumpkin live
with us?” she asked between bites.
    Pumpkin was the huge, fluffy, orange
tabby cat I’d had since I was twelve years old. I was twenty-five
now, which made him thirteen. He was starting to get on in years,
and the move had been harder on him than it was on the rest of
us.
    It didn’t surprise me that Maddie was
concerned about him. The day she was born, he’d become her cat more
than mine. I’d caught him in her crib on countless occasions when
she was a baby, curled up right by her side. If we’d tried to close
her door so he couldn’t get in, he’d clawed at the carpet and
whined and cried until we let him in out of fear that he’d wake her
up. He’d always looked out for her, so now she was looking out for
him.
    I smiled. “Absolutely. It’s got
hardwood floors. No carpet for him to tear up.”
    Tuck gave me his best
dubious look, raising his left eyebrow so high it was comical. “Are
you really gonna
work for a hockey team, Mommy?”
    “ Really, really.” I
finished off my hot fudge sundae and wiped my face with one of the
few napkins I’d held back from trying to clean up after him. “Mr.
Sutter said we can even go to some of the games.”
    One of my new job perks was four
tickets to every home game. I’d told Mr. Sutter I wanted to donate
all the ones on school nights to some charitable cause or another
because that was too late to have the kids out. But it would be
nice to be able to treat them to something like a hockey game on
the weekends.
    “ Awe-some!” he squealed,
emphasizing each syllable. Then the last of his mint chocolate chip
plopped off his cone and splatted on the table. He started giggling
uncontrollably.
    His laughter was infectious. As good
as I felt with how today had gone, I was laughing in no time. Even
Maddie laughed for a second before quietly going back to her bowl
of vanilla. I went to the counter for a bucket and rag to clean up
Tuck’s mess.
    I was still in awe over it all. I
mean, the salary for this job was going to be more than I had ever
come close to making before. It had full benefits—health and life
insurance, 401(k), vacation and sick time—in addition to all sorts
of perks like the game tickets. I couldn’t figure out why Mr.
Sutter was giving the job to me. Yeah, he’d said he had a thing for
the underdog and that his mom was a single mom, too. But still. It
wasn’t quite clicking. Especially not since he’d handed me that
check today.
    “ Get yourself a place to
live,” he’d said. “Buy some furniture. Get an appropriate wardrobe, because we
have a dress code. Do something fun with your kids and something to
spoil yourself, and we’ll see you next week.”
    Who did things like that? No one I’d
ever met.
    It’d been hard to have faith in
humanity ever since I’d gotten pregnant when I was sixteen, and
instead of loving me through it like I thought the Bible taught
people to do, my parents had kicked me out and told me never to
come back. Dad was a minister. He’d said he couldn’t allow sin like
mine to stay in his house, that it was like inviting Satan to stay.
It had gotten even harder to believe in people after what Jason had
done to Maddie.
    But now, this man I’d only known for
the length of a thirty-minute interview was trying to turn my life
upside down in the best way possible. I didn’t know how to process
it.
    When I got back to the table, Maddie
had finished her ice cream and Tuck was licking the
table.
    “ You,” I said to him,
trying hard to have a stern mom voice instead of falling into
another fit of