Melt Like Butter

by Daisy May

  I huffed as I stabbed a piece of chicken. Or I just don’t feel like sharing my life story with complete strangers, I told her silently.

  “Anyway, I’ll get you Lucas’s email address,” she said. “You should be able to reach him that way. I think he was cruising in the Mediterranean or something. I don’t know if he’ll be able to get the information you want from out there, but if not, I’m sure he’ll help you when he gets home.”

  “Right.”

  Andy cleared his throat. “Mom is a semi-retired accountant, by the way.”

  “Okay?” I hadn’t asked what Celeste did for a living. In fact, I couldn’t care less about any of them.

  “Just in case you wanted to know.” His lip curled back in a small, probably unconscious sneer. “She’s not rich or anything. She collects a pension. If you’re looking for money, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  I set down my fork. “I’m not looking for anything but my biological mother. I came here to see if your mom knew why I couldn’t get in touch with the landlord. That’s all.”

  “Sure,” Andy said, disdain still clear on his face. “I’m sure that’s the entire story. You’re not holding anything back from us at all.”

  “Andy, he doesn’t owe us his entire story,” Celeste said warningly. “He hasn’t asked me for a dime.”

  “I have to say I’m with Mom here,” Jeremy said. “You’re being aggressive for no reason.”

  Andy let out an indignant huff. “Somebody has to be. God knows you don’t look out for Mom.”

  “Honey, I can take care of myself,” Celeste said. “I don’t need looking out for.”

  It was good to see that even the happiest-seeming families still got into arguments. From the sounds of it, this was a well-worn path they were heading down. They’d be at it for a while, and they’d forget I was here in the meantime.

  I dug into my food, which was still only half-eaten. I was quite talented at tuning out arguments as I ate. And this time, the food was better than usual.

  By the time I finished, the three of them were still debating. I stood up, and they all went quiet. “Thanks for the meal,” I said, depositing my plate by the sink. “I’ll take that email address and get going now.”

  “All right,” Celeste said, getting up to wrap me in an unwanted hug. “I wish you the best, Tyler. I wrote down my number for you on that paper, too, just in case you want it.”

  “Not likely.” I crumpled the paper up and jammed it into my pocket, stepping away from this overbearing woman and her irritating children.

  “Bye, Tyler.” Jeremy waved, as cheerful as ever.

  “Bye,” I said, and turned my attention toward the one person who hadn’t acknowledged my departure. “Bye, Andy. And don’t worry. I won’t bother your mother again.”

  FOUR – ANDY

  I hoped I’d seen the back of Tyler. He gave me a strange vibe, and the story he was spinning was too weird to be true. To be safe, I asked Mom for his last name. “I’d like to do some research on this person,” I said. “See if he really is who he says he is.”

  I had to admit Tyler wasn’t quite the seasoned con artist I’d imagined. He was young, maybe a couple of years younger than me, and he had the attitude of a rebellious teen. Behind his pointed features and grungy clothing, there was clearly some pain. But it could all be an act. I could tell for sure that there was more to him than he was saying.

  Mom bustled around the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner. “It’s fine,” she said. “He’s a sweet boy. I hope he updates me on what happens. I feel a little emotionally involved now.”

  “That’s how he wants you to feel!” I said, shooting a glance at Jeremy. “Back me up here. We need to research him.”

  “It couldn’t hurt to see if he’s on Facebook,” he said.

  “He isn’t,” Mom said.

  “You checked?” I asked. “Really?”

  “I know how to use the Facebook.” Placing a box of cookies on the table, she sat down again.

  “The Facebook? Doesn’t sound like you know how to use it.” I grabbed a cookie. “He probably didn’t tell you his real name, anyway. Butter wouldn’t melt in that man’s mouth. I should ask Wright if he can help.” Wright was a friend of mine – and an ex from a few years ago. He’d become a private investigator after we broke up, and I was sure he could help us figure out who “Tyler Bernhardt” really was.

  Mom blinked. “That’s brilliant! You should call Wright and ask him to help Tyler.”

  “Why would I want to help him?” I groaned. “We don’t know him! All we know is that for whatever reason, he’s fixated on you.”

  “He had good reasons to come here both times.” Mom broke a cookie in half. “And in this family, we help people who need it.”

  “Sure.” I leaned back in my chair with a sigh. “Not him, though.”

  “You should call Wright anyway,” Jeremy said helpfully. “You guys could reconnect, and your love life could come off life support.”

  Ugh, he was back on this? “We’re still connected. As friends.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “We’re much better as friends than we were as a couple. There are no feelings left between us, especially since he’s practically married to his new boyfriend.”

  “If you say so.”

  “If Tyler can pay a PI, he can find one on his own,” I said. “If he can’t, Wright isn’t going to do free work for him.”

  “But he’ll do it for you?” Jeremy asked. “If you ask him to look up Tyler?’

  I shrugged. “It’d be a small favor.”

  “Which he’ll do because he’s secretly still in love with you?”

  I swiped at him. “Give it a rest, Jeremy!”

  *

  Once I called Wright, he promised to look into Tyler. He said it might take him a few days. He was busy with his caseload, but he was intrigued by the story and, like me, he wanted to look out for my mom.

  I hung up the phone feeling vindicated. Someone besides me could see that Tyler was up to no good.

  For the rest of the weekend, I waited for Wright to get back to me. I did my laundry, went to the gym, meal-prepped for the week, and cleaned my place from top to bottom.

  I shook my head to myself as I got in bed on Sunday night. I had no idea what Jeremy was always on about. Even if I felt like starting to date again, I wouldn’t have had the time.

  The most important thing in my life was my family. I’d always been that way, especially since my father passed. If cancer could take him out of the blue like that – only five weeks from when he was diagnosed to when he died – it could happen to anyone. So I held my loved ones close… even the annoying ones.

  On Monday morning, Mom told me she was going shoe shopping that night. I invited myself along. I could use some boots for the oncoming winter. Seeing Mom was okay with my own two eyes would be an added bonus.

  I arrived at six to pick her up. As I parked, my thoughts went to Tyler. There was no reason for me to suspect he was around. Still, something told me to check. Shielding my eyes, I scanned the vicinity. There was no one in sight, aside from an old woman knitting on her porch across the street. My instincts had been wrong. I was overly paranoid. Pursing my lips, I went inside to call Mom.

  As we came out again, my blood froze. The old lady across the street had stopped knitting… because a man was on her porch talking to her. Although the man had his back to us, I recognized his shaggy brown hair and his scruffy style of clothes. He was back after all.

  “Tyler!” I yelled.

  Mom grabbed my arm. “Leave him be. He’s not hurting anyone.”

  “You knew he was here? He came and talked to you?”

  “No, he didn’t. He said he wouldn’t bother me again, and he hasn’t – although he’d be welcome to, as you know.”

  I shook my head at her, unable to muster actual words.

  Tyler had glanced toward us during our hurried exchange, and now he was talking to the neighbor again. I’d had enough. I s
tampeded across the street, filled with righteous fury.

  “What do you think you’re doing here?” I asked as I crossed onto the neighbor’s driveway. “Don’t you understand you’re not welcome here?”

  Tyler crossed his arms. He was wearing a light denim jacket – too light for the autumn weather, really – and a pair of unfashionably-torn black jeans. “You seem to be the only one who has a problem with me,” he said.

  “You’ve gone from harassing my mom to harassing the entire neighborhood. Of course I have a problem.”

  “He’s not harassing me, dear,” the old woman piped up. “He was only asking a question.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” Tyler said, “but the landlord wasn’t able to help me. He doesn’t keep records of where his tenants go after they leave. So I’m asking a few of the people in the area if they might have met my biological mother or if they have any idea of where she might be now. Again, I’m looking for my biological mother.”

  He put on a good act, I’d give him that much. If he thought he was going to make me feel guilty about looking out for my mom and her neighborhood, though, he was dead wrong.

  “That’s nice,” I said. “Keep giving people that line. I have somebody looking into you, and he’s going to find out who you really are and what you’re doing around here. So I hope you find your so-called mother pretty fast, because once I know what your deal is, I’ll call the cops if you show your face in this neighborhood again.”

  He stared at me, his features twisting into a mask of disbelief. He could’ve been attractive, if he’d softened up and smiled, although I couldn’t imagine him doing that.

  “You’re a fucking psycho,” he said. “I’m seriously in awe that someone would be this set on keeping me from finding my mother.”

  “It’s not that I want you to keep you from finding her. It’s that I don’t believe she exists.” I spun on my heel and strode onto the driveway, hoping I’d seen the last of Tyler Bernhardt.

  “I think maybe you should leave now,” the neighbor hesitantly said to him. “After what he said – well, I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by the name you mentioned. I don’t see how I could help you.”

  I grinned to myself as I headed back over to Mom. My maneuver had worked.

  I just wished I could warn all the other neighbors about Tyler.

  FIVE – TYLER

  “You knew Laney Jefferson?” I asked, my heart in my throat.

  The middle-aged man standing in his doorway nodded and blew a puff of smoke. He’d introduced himself as Mark a minute earlier. “Sure, I knew her. She used to say hi in the street, bum a cigarette from time to time.”

  I took a sharp breath. Finally, after knocking on doors all up and down the street, I had a lead – no thanks to Andy Knutford.

  What a sanctimonious asshole. Acting like I was going to hurt his mother just by going into her house. Hell, I hadn’t even gone near Celeste this time. Was I going to hurt her just by existing?

  Even now, excited at finding a man who knew Laney, I still rankled. Andy had to be the most obnoxious person I’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. What a waste of good looks. He would’ve been seriously attractive, if his nose hadn’t been stuck so high in the air you couldn’t even see his face.

  “Do you know where Laney is now?” There was a note of desperation in my voice, which I didn’t mind. In fact, I embraced it. Whatever might make people more likely to help me, I’d do it.

  “I’m not sure,” Mark said. “We weren’t friends, just friendly. I did ask her to come by and watch my cat when I was out of town one weekend.”

  This sounded promising. “Did you have her phone number at that point? Her email address?”

  Mark scratched his head, thinking for a long moment. “No, actually. I loaned her the key, and he left it under the doormat. That was it.”

  I tried not to sigh. “Do you know if anyone else in the neighborhood was friends with her? She lived here for a while, right?”

  “Oh, a few years, but she left a few years ago. There were a couple of people she would talk to, but I believe they’ve all moved.”

  “Would you have a way to get in touch with them?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think so.”

  Now the sigh came out. “I’m really hoping to find her,” I said. “Do you know anything about where she worked? Her hobbies? Where she hung out?”

  “Um… she did mention…”

  I waited impatiently as Mark scratched his head again. God! How itchy was he?

  “She worked at… let’s see…”

  “Retail?” I prompted. “Restaurants? Call center?”

  “Actually, I think it was a store somewhere. Um…”

  He was driving me crazy!

  “A hardware store. Which one would it have been?” Scratch, scratch, scratch. “It was on the west end of town. Started with a K.”

  “You mean Kiehlman’s?”

  He brightened. “That’s the one! You know it?”

  “I know exactly where it is. I got a screwdriver there once.”

  One of my adoptive mom’s boyfriends had once bought a new bed for me. We’d struggled to put it together, but for that one day, the three of us had felt almost like a family. He’d given me a twenty and sent me off to Kiehlman’s – most likely so he could have some privacy to screw Sophie, now that I looked back on it. The bed had come with all the tools needed to assemble it.

  Still, he was better than most of her boyfriends. Too bad she couldn’t keep him around.

  “What a coincidence,” Mark said. “Maybe you saw her there.”

  Yes, I might’ve walked right past the vagina I popped out of and didn’t even know it. I could’ve saved all this time and effort if I’d known who she was back then. I could’ve spared myself the “pleasure” of meeting Celeste and Andy.

  “Life is funny like that,” I said, smiling with genuine satisfaction. “Thank you for your help. I’ll give you my number in case you remember anything else about Laney. Call me if you remember anything at all.”

  “Sure.” Mark handed me his phone, and I typed my number in.

  I started to say goodbye, but he seemed hesitant to let me leave.

  “Listen…” His hand rose to the back of his head yet again. “I don’t know what kind of relationship you’re hoping to have with Laney. I feel like – I mean, she might’ve changed over the past few years. Sometimes people change – but maybe I should warn you…”

  “She got pregnant at sixteen and gave me up for adoption, then never bothered to check on me in the past twenty-three years.” I smiled grimly. “I’m not expecting much.”

  “All right. It’s just that she’s…”

  “Flaky? Irresponsible? Uncaring?” I chuckled. “I’m ready for all of that.”

  “Okay. I’m sure you are. It’s just…” Scratch. Scratch. “When she came by to look after my cat, she didn’t feed him or clean his litterbox. I don’t think she played with him or petted him, either.”

  “Then how do you know she came by at all?”

  “Because when I came back, the pile of cash I’d been storing under my mattress was gone.” He bit his lip. “Almost two thousand dollars – vanished. I didn’t talk to her much after that.”

  *

  It was too late in the day to visit Kiehlman’s. I’d go tomorrow, first thing in the morning. I wouldn’t have anything better to do with my day. I’d walked out on my job last week in a fit of anger. Now that Sophie had kicked me out, she couldn’t bitch at me about doing chores around the house. That was one good thing about my current situation.

  Back at the motel, I lay in bed and thought about Laney. Stealing Mark’s money was lower than even I would sink. He was a nice man, from what I could tell. Still, I wasn’t surprised she was a thief. It fit with the image I had of her. I just hoped she’d found herself in a better financial situation at this point, or this whole mission to find her was going to be for nothing.

  I pul
led a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. I hadn’t smoked in a while, but watching Mark do it had awakened the craving, and I’d picked up the pack at the corner store. I watched a roach skitter along the floor as I lit up. A no-smoking sign was on the door, so I turned away from it.

  Kiehlman’s, first thing tomorrow. With any luck, Laney would still be working there. I’d tell her how she’d wronged me by bringing me into this world just to abandon me, and I’d use her guilt to shake her down for a nice fat paycheck.

  Then I’d head down to Mexico. Lie on the beach and swig tequila until the money was used up. After that – well, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. Considering how bad Laney owed me, I hoped it’d be a long time before the money was used up.

  With any luck, I’d leave this whole shitty town behind. I’d never have to think about Sophie or Greg or Laney again. Or Andy, either.

  Too bad luck was the one thing I’d never had.

  SIX – ANDY

  Wright’s office was nothing like the private investigator’s lairs that you saw in the movies. Then again Wright wasn’t exactly a hardboiled, chain-smoking, cynical antihero, either.

  “I had a few minutes free to look into your friend!” he chirped, drawing back a curtain to let even more light into the already-sunny room. Abstract paintings his boyfriend had made decorated the walls, and a basket of individually wrapped caramels sat on the desk in front of him.

  “He’s not my friend.” I took a candy and slipped it into my pocket. “And what did you find?”

  “It took a little research. The name Tyler Bernhardt isn’t that uncommon. I wasn’t following him around or anything, obviously. What I did is basically like a Google search, but using private investigators’ databases that aren’t open to the public.”

  “Wright, I don’t need the whole background story. What did you find?”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes, still somehow cheerful. Our different attitudes had been a frequent source of conflict while we were together. Now that we were just friends, it was nice to have someone positive and optimistic in my life. Most of the time.