Sweet

by Tammara Webber

  He pressed his lips to my forehead and said, “Good night, Pearl,” before he rose and disappeared inside.

  Mama drilled two things into my head growing up. The first was a goal: that I be able to provide for myself well. The second was an assertion that being alone was better than being with the wrong person. We’d been far from wealthy, but we were comfortable. Thomas—clearly the right person for her—worked hard to get her to admit it. Even when she capitulated, they argued about the size of that rock he slid onto her hand. She worried that everyone in town would think she was a gold digger. He said everyone in town would think he was a cradle robber, so they were even.

  She’d taught me two things by example: to crave independence—which had sort of backfired on her when I refused to go to med school—and to fiercely, unapologetically shield and protect any child I might have. But none of that left me with any inkling of what to do when the person I wanted most to defend, to save, was a grown man.

  chapter

  Twenty

  Boyce

  Before my mother turned up, Sam had grown used to daily chitchats with Pearl when she came home from class. After dumping her backpack inside, she’d come out to the garage with cold Pepsis and let Sam show off whatever she was working on that day. I tried to put a stop to it once, pretty damn sure Pearl was as uninterested as a non-mechanic could be in the dirty details of a head-gasket repair, but she told me to hush and let Sam finish.

  That night during supper, I’d told Pearl there was no need for her to suffer through one-sided conversations about transmissions and oil pumps just to keep from hurting Sam’s feelings. The kid loved cars more than anyone I’ve ever known aside from myself, but she was bright enough to comprehend that most of the time even people who brought their cars in just wanted us to do the work—they didn’t want to hear a speech about it.

  “There’s actually a connection between describing something to someone and learning it at a deeper level yourself,” she said. “When I was a sophomore, I tutored a couple of my Chi-O sisters who were struggling with first-year biology. Pretty simple stuff. But breaking those basic concepts down and explaining them actually helped me in my more advanced courses.”

  She’d tutored Maxfield through practically every class at the end of junior year when he’d been half a fuckup from failing out. “So you’re letting Sam bore the crap out of you to help her.”

  “It’s ten or fifteen minutes.” She smiled. “Very little can bore the crap out of me in fifteen minutes. Besides, I remember you and Lucas discussing cars and car parts in high school, so animated and engaged that anyone watching y’all would’ve thought you were talking about boobs.”

  “Oh, we discussed those plenty often too.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure.”

  Sam had formed something between a little-sister thing and a crush on roommate, so she noticed when Pearl stopped coming home after class. “Where’s Pearl?” she asked after several no-Pearl days, all no big deal except for the way her voice rose like a cracked bell, not quite in tune.

  “She’s avoiding my mother.”

  Leaning into the engine next to me, Sam pulled up so fast she almost fell over. “Why?” she said, grabbing hold of the front end briefly to right herself, ignoring the way I lunged for her arm. She never asked for help. If she needed something, she demanded it. I can’t reach. Lower the lift. After she was in the truck and screwing with the radio last week, her dad told me she’d been born with a spinal disorder, adding that she’d been scrapping her way toward self-reliance since birth. Big surprise. Not.

  “What’d your mom say to her? Did you let your mom kick her out?” she asked, her fist balled like she was prepared to sock me if I’d had anything to do with Pearl’s disappearance. “I thought this was your place. Did you kick her out?”

  “Settle down. Jesus. Nobody kicked anybody out. It’s… complicated.”

  She frowned at the worn-out hose in her hand, halfway detached and briefly forgotten. “I’m pretty smart, y’know. I can follow complicated.”

  I sighed. “Fine. But you can’t talk to Pearl about it. At all. Understand?”

  She felt for her chair’s handles and lowered herself into it. “Why not?”

  I stared at her.

  “Okay, okay,” she huffed. “I never see her now anyway.”

  I finished detaching the coolant hose while I spoke. “My dad died in May. He and my mom—who took off when I was seven—never divorced, which was news to me. So everything is hers—including the garage. She thought I was just going to run the place for her until she sells it or whatever she plans to do with it. Fuck that—but I promised Pearl a place to live until mid-August, so I worked a deal with my mom. I’ll stay and keep running the garage until Pearl moves back to Austin. Then I’m gone.”

  “She’s moving away? And… you’re leaving town?”

  “I can’t stay and watch my mother pull to pieces everything I’ve built. I have to get the hell out of here, at least for a while.”

  “So I won’t have a job anymore either, come fall.” Her crushed tone was hell.

  I nodded. “Sorry about that, Sam.”

  She stared into her lap. “Sorry about your dad.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry about him. He was nothing like your dad. He was just something I survived.”

  She scratched her thigh with a grease-lined fingernail, thinking. “What do you think will happen to Wynn’s Garage? Obviously your mom isn’t gonna run it. She never even comes out here.”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.” I wished like hell that was true.

  “This sucks,” she said.

  She had no idea. I had less than six weeks left with Pearl.

  Pearl

  A few months ago, I read an article that linked anxiety to inattention to accident-proneness. Fascinating, I mused, and didn’t think about it again—until now.

  During lab this morning, I dumped a petri dish full of phytoplankton and the water in which they were swimming on my shirt. Thankful no one noticed, I refilled the dish and conducted the series of measurements as expected, but this was three for three. First the beaker. Then last week I’d tripped over a taped-down cord in the lab and sloshed scalding hot coffee over my hand, which might have gone unnoticed had I not spit out a Boyce Wynn-worthy string of curses right after. (“Nice,” one of the visiting undergrads said, sending me a flirtatious grin, because being chatted up is what a girl wants when her hand is on fire.)

  I might have been inured to the sulfurous odor emanating from my shirt, but I knew Minnie wouldn’t welcome me smelling like a science experiment during my four-hour shift at the inn, and the liquid had left a conspicuous blotch of discoloration as well, so I went home after class to change, cussing my recent spate of carelessness while acknowledging the thrill that zipped through me at the excuse to see Boyce during the day. I missed my weekday chats with Sam too.

  Since Ruthanne kept her hail-battered Ford coupe parked on the gravel next to Boyce’s car, I’d begun parking my GTI on the street on the opposite side of the trailer. Inside, she sat on the sofa, alternating her attention between her phone and daytime television. We ignored each other, per usual. I dumped my backpack on the kitchen table and grabbed two Pepsis from the fridge.

  Neither Boyce nor Sam had seen me arrive when I wasn’t expected home, nor did they see me back away from the mouth of the garage, processing the conversation I’d overheard.

  I put the sodas back into the fridge as my thoughts spun, stretching and twisting like they’d been threaded through a taffy machine. Boyce had no hopes or remaining aspirations concerning the garage or his relationship with his mother. He had continued working for her for one reason: the promise he’d made to me.

  All I could do to help him was free him to leave.

  Shouldering my backpack, I left the trailer, snuck to my car and drove to Thomas’s office as if on autopilot. Once inside I recalled that Tuesday afternoons were reserved for surgery consult
s and emergency postsurgical checkups. There were five people in his small waiting room—the equivalent of rush hour. I nearly burst into tears.

  His nurse, Talisha, opened the door to call a patient back, glancing up from the chart in her hand to spot me standing like a lost puppy in the middle of the room. “Well, hello, Pearl! What are you—” She halted mid-sentence and reached to take my arm. “Come on back, honey. Mr. Gardner, you just head on down to room three. We’ll be right with you.”

  One minute later, I’d been escorted into Thomas’s inner office, handed a cup of water, and left to sit on the sofa he used for an occasional afternoon nap. An ornate clock sat atop the doorstop edition of Gray’s Anatomy in his bookcase and ticked the seconds away—ninety or so of them by the time he slipped through the door and shut it behind him.

  “What’s happened?” he demanded, walking to sit beside me. He took my hand and focused his clear blue gaze on me.

  “I need to know if there’s a chance… that I could move home.” My lip wobbled and I swallowed, bracing myself. “Without quitting my program—”

  “Good God almighty, yes! Your mother has been beside herself. She can’t sleep, barely eats, cries constantly—I’ve never seen her like this. Please come home. I’ve tried to talk her into calling you, but she’s convinced that she estranged herself from you with that unreasonable med-school stipulation. I didn’t think we were going to survive your birthday tomorrow.”

  I began to sob and leaned onto his white-coated shoulder, relieved at every word he’d said but miserable at the reality of leaving Boyce—our nightly talks, his appreciation of my sorry attempts at preparing dishes my mother could make a million times better, the coffee he programmed to start ten minutes before he knew I got up, every kiss we’d shared and all we never would.

  “Pearl, tell me what’s happened.” Thomas’s jaw was rock hard, his hands bracing my shoulders so he could see my face. Anger brewed in the gaze he leveled on me, and his grasp tightened. “Did you and Boyce Wynn have a falling out, or is it something worse?”

  “No—it’s…” I took a deep breath. “Fifteen years ago, his mother left his abusive father, and Boyce and his brother—and now she’s back. She’s taken the bedroom Boyce promised me. I’m sleeping in Boyce’s bed and he’s sleeping on the sofa. We’re all sharing one bathroom—”

  “Say no more, honey.” He slid his arms around my shoulders. “Trust me—just come on home. Everything will be fine.”

  • • • • • • • • • •

  Thomas had his office manager reschedule later appointments, and I waited in his office until he saw patients who’d already arrived. Following him home after a month’s absence, I turned my stereo low and reviewed possible scenarios despite his reassurances that Mama would welcome me home. I’d imagined letting her know I was doing fine and taking care of myself—easing her worries while discouraging further disputes or ultimatums. I hadn’t anticipated coming to her with an entreaty to move home.

  I chewed my lip as we entered my neighborhood and fought tears when we turned into the cul-de-sac. I parked in the driveway, not my spot in the three-car garage, but Thomas beamed, waiting by the back door. I was less sure of what awaited me, which must have shown on my face.

  He hugged an arm around my shoulders when I reached him. Opening the door, he called, “Essie! I’ve brought you something. Come and see.”

  We walked through the mudroom and into the kitchen as Mama appeared in the opposite doorway, far less put together than usual, and pulled to a halt.

  “Pearl?” she said, as if I might not be real. Her eyes filled with tears. “Pearl?” she repeated, coming across the kitchen, arms spreading. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  I went into her arms, relieved. “Mama. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Mija, you’re here? You’ve come home?” At my nod, she began sobbing. “Perdóname, por favor! I’m so sorry, mija.” We cried into each other’s necks, and she held on to me like she’d never let go.

  “Me-OW!” Tux bellowed, trotting as quickly as his stubby legs would carry him to twirl his whip of a tail around my legs and fuss at me for my absence, the same way he had every time I’d come home during semester breaks.

  “Tux is right,” Thomas said. “This reunion calls for steak on the grill.” He gathered us both in his embrace and squeezed. “Come on, Tux. I think Mama might allow you a few table scraps tonight. Better take advantage, little man.”

  “Merrrow,” he agreed.

  “I have work tonight,” I said, sniffling. “At six.”

  We all shifted just far enough apart to view each other’s faces. The creases between their brows matched, and they blinked as if I’d spoken gibberish.

  Thomas recovered first. “Where do you work?”

  “At the inn.”

  “Can you stay until your shift begins?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How about a chat on the patio and three iced coffees? You girls go on outside, I’ll be right out.” He looked at Mama then, and something passed between them. “It’s time to tell her, Esmeralda.”

  Her eyes refilled with tears and she nodded as an ice-cold trickle of trepidation tore down my spine.

  chapter

  Twenty-one

  Boyce

  During our nightly meeting on the top step, there was something different about Pearl. She was quieter—no gossip about her shift at the inn. My stories about Sam’s red-faced reactions to the things customers sometimes left out in the open when they brought their cars in—polka-dotted panties in a backseat, a sealed box marked fecal matter resting on a dash (“There’s poop in that box! Poop!” Sam said), a strip of condoms curled in a cup holder like a roll of stamps—all produced the ghost of a smile instead of laughter. She leaned her head on my arm and I fell silent, smoking and leaving her to her thoughts.

  Once my mother had closed herself into her room, Pearl and I went inside and took turns in the bathroom. I was bedded down on the sofa, lights out, when she came out wearing a thin-strapped blue tank and shorts. I nearly bit my lip in half to keep from moaning my appreciation of it, of her, of her in it. “Good night, Pearl,” I said, doing fuck-all to conceal the lust in my tone, but damn. Instead of answering, she walked toward me, silent. The light from the bedroom behind her glowed dimly, outlining the curves of her body as she walked up to me and held out her hand. I sat up, taking it, and she tugged softly.

  No idiot, I allowed myself to be led to my bedroom. She closed the door behind me and switched off the light. The window was open wide, the fan oscillating in front of it like it meant to lift itself right off the dresser, but the night air remained sticky and hot. The only AC units were in the kitchen and the bedroom my mother occupied across the trailer. We were going to be sweat-covered in two minutes flat, but I didn’t give a single goddamn if she didn’t.

  “You want me to lay you down, sweetheart?” I asked, pulling her close, hands sliding to cup her ass as she nodded. “Done.” I leaned down to kiss her full mouth, my dick springing to attention in my boxers, fully prepared to give her whatever she wanted, however she wanted it.

  She opened that warm, pretty mouth wide and pressed her pliant body into mine, arms looping around my neck, fingers raking across my scalp and forking through my hair. I groaned right into her and she sucked my tongue hungrily, swallowing the garbled sounds that said my body meant to own hers. My dick surged jealously and I fought like hell to banish the vivid fantasy of her mouth taking me deep because I wouldn’t last five seconds if I let those images run loose in my head. And then she dropped to her knees.

  “Holy shit,” I ground out as she pulled my boxers down my thighs, and then not one coherent word left my mouth.

  I paid no heed to the urge to guide her because she didn’t need any goddamn directions. My fingers sank into the silky, dark waves of her hair and I just held on, watching as the sway of her head followed the warm stroke of her tongue and the constriction of her throat. Three seconds f
rom exploding, I tugged at a handful of her hair, almost relenting when she shook her head no. “Next time,” I panted, half-sure I would drown her with the force of my release because my body wasn’t used to the amount of self-denial I’d been requiring of it lately.

  The suctioned pop as her lips left that swollen, greedy head was my breaking point. I fell to my knees and turned her onto her hands and knees, yanking her shorts over her hips and pulling her bare backside into the saddle of my lap while choking out, “Okay?”

  “Yes,” she groaned and I plunged deep, one hand braced on the floor, my opposite arm locked around her middle, palm pressed to her belly and fingers slanting low to stroke her as we shuddered into waves of climax from that solitary thrust.

  Nuzzling her hair aside, I kissed the back of her neck, tongue lapping down the soft arc of her salty skin, and she trembled and convulsed again with a soft moan. I hummed my approval, placing soft, sucking kisses across the beautiful jut of her shoulder blade and still shaking from the intensity of my release—I’d never experienced anything like it. I’d never come that close to losing control.

  Oh. Shit. No condom. No condom. Fuck. My grip around her slackened, but I didn’t release her because her arms were quivering visibly. I was still supporting most of her weight.

  “Oh…,” she said, angling away from my lap and tucking her chin to glance at me over her shoulder. “We forgot—”

  “I’ve never had sex without a condom, and I’ve never had any, um… infection issues.”

  She slipped her shorts back up and I did the same, processing the fact that in a decade of sex with too many girls and women to recall, this was the first time I’d outright fucking forgotten to grab a rubber first.

  “I… I had my yearly check after… I’m clean, too. But…” But pregnancy, she didn’t say aloud.

  I heard it anyway.

  My dumbass brain went straight for a vision of Pearl pregnant with my child, and God help me, I wanted it. Wanted it so bad I had a hankering to pick her up, carry her the ten steps across the room to my bed and fuck her again to double my chances. What in hell was wrong with me?