Danny drives around, thinking.
He has no destination in mind. He just doesn’t want to go home yet. He can’t stop thinking about why some people have so much and other people have so little. Why does a guy like Stephen Small get to drive around in a Ferrari and take his family out on a speedboat when Danny has to swing a hammer under the hot summer sun for meager wages?
Danny doesn’t stop to consider that he was born into a life of privilege and squandered his opportunities. He focuses only on how little he has now and how his father won’t even give him a loan.
It’s not fair, Danny thinks.
At a stoplight, he glances in his rearview mirror and notices a black sedan two cars behind him. The windows are tinted, and he can’t see the driver.
Didn’t he see that car earlier today?
He can’t be sure, but he thinks he spotted the car on his way to his parents’ house. He quickly takes a right, and the sedan does, too, even though its signal wasn’t on while it sat at the light.
Could it be Mitch’s guys?
Or the cops?
Danny takes another quick right and looks in his rearview mirror. The car rolls through the intersection without taking the turn. Danny breathes a sigh of relief, still studying the rearview mirror. He looks up in time to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting a car stopped in front of him.
Am I just being paranoid? Danny thinks.
When traffic begins moving again, Danny speeds out of the neighborhood, checking and rechecking his rearview mirror. He takes a circuitous route to make sure no one is following him anymore.
By the time he pulls up in front of the town house, Danny has made a decision.
Gotta make your own destiny, the manager had said.
Danny plans to.
He finds Nancy sitting on the couch watching a videotape of Crocodile Dundee. Their air conditioner isn’t working, and she looks miserable in short cutoff jeans and a tight T-shirt. Her hair is damp around her forehead, and there are sweat stains on her shirt. There is fresh polish on her toenails and wads of cotton wedged between each toe.
“Honey,” she says. “Do you want to go get some ice cream? It’s hotter than blue blazes in this house.”
“I need to run to the lumberyard,” Danny says. “We can get ice cream along the way, if you’d like.”
“What do you need at the lumberyard?” Nancy asks, pulling the cotton balls out from between her toes.
“I’ve got an idea for a new woodworking project.”
“Is it something you can sell?” Nancy asks, standing up and slipping her manicured feet into a pair of flip-flops.
“Not exactly,” Danny says. “But I think it could make us some money.”