Not a whole hell of a lot.

Shit.

Here I was with a fucking degree and the most promising job involved waste disposal or working on a road crew.

Okay. Not a problem. I’d just have to expand my search a bit. I would need to look a little farther away. So what if I had to commute. Lots of people commute to their jobs. I’d just be joining the ranks of every other working stiff in America. No big deal.

Except it was a big deal.

The longer I looked, the less I found. There was an opening for a paralegal forty-five minutes away, but I knew next to nothing about law. There was a minimum wage position available at the local independent bookstore in the next town. But the thought of earning $7.25 an hour was depressing.

It seemed I didn’t have much in the way of options. I found that I was getting nowhere fast.

I closed the screen and grabbed my keys. Maybe I just needed to go old school and get out there and beat the pavement.

As I drove into Wellston and couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of trying to get a decent job there of all places.

Wellston wasn’t the sort of place that generated employment opportunities. I took notice of the people on the streets, looking for familiar faces.

I recognized Pete Gochenour who had been a year younger than me in school and had taken over his dad’s hardware store once he graduated. He was chatting with Cheryl Jacobs, a co-worker of Julie’s, that I remembered from my days in the system.

As I passed by Darla’s Drink and Dine, I saw Mr. Cox, my old probation officer leaving with a bag of what I presumed to be Darla’s famous donuts. He hadn’t changed. He was still balding. Still overweight. Still looking like someone had pissed in his cornflakes. I may have put my foot down on the accelerator as I passed, not wanting to be noticed by that particular individual.

I drove by JAC’s and saw Jeb, my former boss inside. Feeling a touch nostalgic, I stopped the car and got out.

The bell above the door rang when I opened it. It seemed Jeb had finally gotten around to replacing it. It no longer sounded like a dying cow.

I grabbed a pack of gum and a bottle of soda from the cooler and headed to the front. I recognized Melanie Stanton behind the counter and groaned inwardly. Melanie had been a permanent fixture on my shit list when I had worked at JAC’s. Her incessant perkiness had been more than my moody, bitchy self could handle.

I dropped my items on the counter and waited for Melanie and Jeb, who were too busy looking at an inventory sheet, to realize they had a customer.

“What does a girl have to do to get some decent service in this town?” I asked, giving the two my trademark scowl.

Jeb looked up and blinked a few times as though trying to place me. If he didn’t recognize me after all the time I spent working in his damn store, I’d smack him in the face.

“Ellie?” he asked, leaning forward. Melanie gave me a wide smile and then came around from behind the counter, holding her arms out.

“Ellie McCallum! Oh my goodness! It’s so good to see you!” Melanie enthused, folding me in her perfumed arms before I had a chance to move away. I patted her back mechanically and then extracted myself.

“Well I’ll be damned! What the hell are you doing back here? I thought you had gone off to some fancy college,” Jeb said, tucking some Skoal in his lip and spitting into an empty water bottle.

“Yeah, I did. I just graduated,” I said, puffing up a bit with pride at being able to say that.

Hell yeah. Ellie McCallum graduated from college. Take that, shitty upbringing.

“Wow. Really? That’s great, kiddo. So what the fuck are you doing back in this shit hole?” Jeb asked, spitting in the bottle again.

I shrugged as Melanie rang up my items.

“Well you know, Wellston has that crazy gravitational pull that just makes it impossible to stay away,” I joked.

“Have you taken to smokin’ crack while you been away?” Jeb laughed, slapping the counter with his hand, tobacco juice dripping from his lip.

“Don’t be so crude, Jack,” Melanie scolded and I watched as she swatted his arm playfully. Huh. There was definitely a vibe between the two that had never been there before.

And she called him Jack. Was that Jeb’s real name?

Jeb put his hand on Melanie’s back and left it there. Yep. They were definitely screwing. Yuck.

“My boyfriend still lives here. I came back to be with him,” I explained, surprising myself with my honesty.

“You’re not with that dumbass Nolan boy that I used to see you run around with are you? He’s a POS, Ellie.”

I almost choked. “Oh god, no,” I exclaimed.

Jeb wiped some spit off his chin with the back of his hand. “Good. You’re a better girl than that fool. So what are your plans now that you’re back? Whatcha gonna do with that fancy degree?”

This time I did feel a little embarrassed. I hated that I had no real plan to speak of when it came to my future employment.

“Uh, well, I guess I’ll look for a job.”

Jeb came around from behind the counter and draped his pudgy arm around my shoulders. He smelled like cigarette smoke and body odor. It made me want to gag.

“Well, you know you always have a job here if you want one. I just had to fire the fucker that worked the third shift last week. He was stealing lottery tickets. Dumbass forgot that I have cameras all over the place. Had to call the sheriff’s department and file charges and everything.” Jeb shook his head.

“You may know him actually. Stu Wooten.” This time I shook my head, not surprised in the least that Stu hadn’t matured at all. He was still a dumb criminal.