All Horns and Rattles: The Baxter Boys #5 (The Baxter Boys ~ Rattled)

by Charles, Jane

  “Shit!” I left the bag in my room when I took a shower.

  “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Tears sting my eyes. That’s the one and only time I’ve not had my bag with me. It goes everywhere with me, even into the bathroom, if I don’t have a locker to shove it in to keep safe.

  Now what the hell am I going to do?

  If I go back and demand my money, Mrs. Graft will only deny having it. I’ve seen her deny shit before when we all knew better. And, it’s not like I have proof it was ever there.

  How the hell am I going to eat?

  The diner! I don’t have a shift until tomorrow, but maybe I could talk Bert into letting me eat and take it out of my next paycheck. Not that I can afford to go in debt so quickly, but I need to eat, even if it is only one meal a day.

  But, I already ate this morning. Maybe I should wait and spend future earnings tomorrow.

  Shelter tonight for sleep and a soup kitchen tomorrow for meals, if the shelter doesn’t have food. That’s the smart thing to do. I’ll be able to shower at the gym, so at least I’ll always be clean. Since they open early, I already planned on getting there first thing, cleaning up and hanging out between my shifts there and at the diner.

  I love the gym. It’s my home away from home. Miguel, the owner, is one of the few adults I actually trust and then there is Tex.

  A smile pulls at my lips. I don’t know what it is about Tex, but I love that guy. Not that he’ll ever know. He’s three years older than me and sees me as nothing more than a kid sister to be messed with. His teasing is all in good fun, just to irritate me, because he’d never dream of saying anything that might actually hurt someone, and I’m pretty sure his heart is made of gold. A gentleman with a southern drawl and he says some of the craziest things. His green eyes are always full of laughter, as if nothing bad has ever happened to him and it’s his job to make sure everybody else is happy.

  Why shouldn’t he be on top of the world? He’s going to college and has a big family back in Texas. A mom and a dad who live on a ranch, and he has sisters and brothers, who are always calling or messaging him. Close-knit and tight and to be honest, I’m envious of what he has. If I hadn’t been separated from my brothers and sister, would we be tight like that?

  Tex will be done with school in a year and a half and I doubt he’ll stay around here. Why should he? His family is miles away. Why wouldn’t he want to go back there?

  Maybe we’ll stay in touch, maybe we won’t. We have Miguel and the gym in common but that is about it. He probably won’t even remember me in a few years. Which is fine because I’ve got plans of my own. I’m going to college and I am going to have a career. Even if Tex thought of me as something more than a kid that hangs out, I don’t have time for a guy to be messing up my life and goals. I already had a few of those and I’m not going to screw everything up now by getting into a relationship. So, it’s for the best that Tex doesn’t know that he’s the one guy I actually care about. Besides, it would only make things awkward between us and I need his friendship more than I need a boyfriend. I need to stay focused on the plan and that is the only thing I have time for.

  I also need a more immediate plan for today.

  The only drawback to graduating early is that I could have gotten breakfast and lunch at school, but the idea of living on the streets and trying to make it to class worried me more than food.

  Grabbing my suitcase, I wander the streets some more, like I’ve been doing all day. I know the routes from the Grafts to school and to the two places I work, but there are a lot of other streets out there, which I’ve been spending my time learning today.

  There’s a shelter near here because I know I saw one. Now I just need to remember where that was.

  I stop in front of Miguel’s, the gym I work at. It started off as a small boxing gym back in the day, like before my parents were even born. Gym is also a general term for the place. Years ago Miguel bought up the property across the street from his original gym. It was an old high school that had been closed down for years because it was too small for the neighborhood. The district could have added onto the school, but then they would have lost their track and football field, which they weren’t willing to sacrifice. They didn’t want to give up the parking lot either, so instead of making it work, the school district found a larger property. They built a new school and claimed that the renovations for the school were so costly that it was cheaper to build new. I don’t know anything about construction so I have no idea if that was true or not, but Miguel made it work. He kept one wing of the U-shaped building, the one with the gym, workout rooms, and locker rooms, and didn’t really change much. On the opposite wing, he completely tore it down and rebuilt a larger addition, eating up the parking lot and lawn between the school and the track, and built an oversized indoor soccer field. He thought the kids in the neighborhood would like to play on leagues like they do in basketball. Miguel planned for them to play on the football field when the weather was nice and be able to be inside when it was too cold. Except, it went beyond his intentions, which I’m totally cool with because I found my passion. Besides soccer, rugby is also played on the former football field, but when the weather is too bad, those teams practice inside too.

  What he had hoped would be a safe place for kids to hang out and play basketball while he coached his boxers turned into a kind of community center. All ages and genders come in and out the doors of Miguel’s from six in the morning until eleven at night, seven days a week, except on holidays like today.

  When Miguel’s wife died, he sold his house and renovated the cafeteria, since it already had a kitchen that wasn’t being used, and made it a home. Tex and Johnny, a boxer, live with him right now, and I’m pretty sure the only time Miguel ever leaves here is to go to the grocery store and Mass.

  Miguel’s isn’t open now though, or I’d go in. Unlike a lot of fitness centers that open up on New Year’s Day so people can get right on those resolutions, Miguel’s doesn’t have that kind of clientele. Most of the people who come here are for the rugby, soccer, basketball, boxing, or just work out to stay in shape. The members are here for the competition, doing what they can to be the best and stay at the top of their game, and it’s nothing like the health clubs I’ve ever seen on television.

  He’s very strict about being closed on holidays because it’s family time. Which is great, I guess, if you have a family to be with.

  I glance around. It’s going to be dark soon and I know I passed a shelter. Now to find it.

  This area isn’t the best so I make sure my bag is over my shoulder and across my body, and I hold it tight to make sure nobody can grab it. I also hold tight to my suitcase. The same one I’ve been lugging around for ten years, but I can’t lose it. It’s so battered, and the only thing that has changed is the clothing that has gone in and out of it over the years. However, there is one constant item—the teddy bear Dylan gave me when I was six. It’s the only thing I have left that is proof that I once had a family.

  I wish I knew what happened to them. Dylan, Noah and Jade. My caseworker, Mrs. Hood, said she’d be able to give me that information after I was 18 and told me to come see her after my birthday. Except, she retired and my new caseworker, Mrs. Parker, is on maternity leave for who knows how long.

  What if my brothers and sister have forgotten about me? It was a long time ago and even though I remember them, that doesn’t mean they’d remember me.

  Even if they do, that doesn’t mean Dylan or Noah want anything to do with me.

  Sinking down on a bench, I just stare off into space, facing the truth. I just turned 18, which means Dylan is 24 and Noah is 21. Both adults and neither of them came looking for me. They either don’t care or they forgot. Just because I had to wait until I was 18 to learn anything, that didn’t mean they couldn’t come looking for me after they became adults. And they didn’t.

  Why would they want me anyway? I was just a kid of six, and it’s not like we had years to form bonds and
all of that. Not like the kind of bonds Tex has with his family.

  Boy, he can go on and on about his Mama’s apple pie for hours and stories from when he was a kid on the family ranch. His family would go looking for him if he’d been taken away.

  Crap! Why the hell am I feeling sorry for myself? I didn’t need my brothers and sister for twelve years and don’t need them now. I’ve planned for this and worked my ass off for a 3.96 GPA. Next is college. I don’t know what I want to study yet, but I’ll have two years of gen ed classes to figure out before I have to declare. But, one thing is for certain. I will find a way to go to college, and pay for it. I will have a career. I will have a home of my own and never ever worry about where I’ll sleep or eat again. And, I’ll never count on anyone. The only person who can take care of me is me, and now that I’m an adult, I don’t have to do what the system requires either. I can do as I damn well please and what is best for me.

  Feeling rejuvenated now that I’ve reminded myself of who I am and where I’m going in life, I get up and march down the streets until I find the shelter I’d passed earlier and take a place at the end of the line.

  A very, very long line.

  “So, Son, have you thought about your plans after you graduate?”

  I knew this question was going to come before I returned to New York. I just hoped it wouldn’t be until right before I was getting on the plane.

  “Not sure, Pa.” I answer honestly. “Still got a year and a half to go.”

  “What’s there to think about?” Wyatt, my oldest brother asks. “You’re coming back and getting settled.”

  That’s what Wyatt did and he expects everybody else to do the same. He went off to the University of Houston where he majored in earth sciences and minored in atmospheric sciences. Or as he puts it, he got a degree in storm chasing. Though, why he needed a degree is beyond me. Wyatt’s been chasing tornados since he could drive. We live in tornado alley, a stone’s throw from Oklahoma, and as soon spring gets here, it’s pretty much a weekend pastime for him. When he isn’t out chasing a storm, he’s on the nightly news delivering the weather forecast. A job he landed right out of college last May.

  “Probably,” I finally say. It’s easier to answer as expected instead of getting into an argument over what they think is best for me.

  The entire family is sitting around a big ass fire pit out behind the house and Mama brought out all the fixings for s’mores, though I’m not sure how any of us can eat after dinner.

  Man, the one thing I do miss in New York are the big spreads of food that woman can put out without breaking a sweat. Especially her apple pie. I’ve eaten a lot of apple pies in my day, but none of them are near as good as Ma’s.

  “You’ve got land here, Tennyson, don’t forget that,” Pa reminds me.

  Tennyson! It’s so weird to be called that when most of the year people just call me Tex.

  “A full acre to do with as you please, just like the other kids. No point in settling anywhere else.”

  Except, I don’t want to be within walking distance of my parents for the rest of my life. I’ll never have privacy again. Wyatt put a trailer on his until he decides what he’s going to build. However, he did dig a shelter since trailers are practically magnets for tornados, or so it seems, and while he likes to chase them, he doesn’t want to get mangled up in a trailer because of one.

  “I hear Coach Lumbrick is going to retire in a couple of years. You could have his job,” Pa says.

  “I don’t want to teach physical education and coach football at the high school.” Anything but that.

  “Then what the hell do you want to do?” Austin asks. “Isn’t your degree in physical education?”

  “Sports and fitness administration.”

  “So, you can teach gym class,” Pa says.

  I know my family thought I’d go off to New York, try the boxing thing, sow my wild oats, and then come home and do something with the ranch or oil or whatever I could find. Then I’d settle down and be as happy as a pig in slop. But, that ain’t going to happen. “I want to open a gym, like the one I work at.” There, I said it.

  “We don’t need anything like that around here,” Wyatt says.

  He’s probably right. I can’t see a gym in these parts. Hell, they tried to open an exercise place, with the machines and aerobics classes just for women and it closed in less than a year. There wasn’t enough interest. Most everyone around here lives on farms or ranches. They already get plenty of exercise and don’t need to go somewhere to stay in shape.

  “Well, I hope you don’t come back and teach gym because that would just be weird,” April complains. Then she slowly smiles. “Unless you’re going to write me passes to get out of it.”

  She’s the youngest in the family and is going to be a freshman in that high school next year.

  “I’m just glad I’ll be gone before you get there,” Eliza says. She’s the fourth born and a senior in high school. The same age as Nina, and the two are about as night and day as you can get.

  My sister is all frills, curls, cheerleading and boys.

  Nina is tough, no makeup, rugby and no interest in boys. At least not that I’m aware of.

  I’ve got to stop thinking about Nina. I especially don’t need to think about her the way I have been--with breasts, kissable lips, and a very fine ass. She’s the same age as Eliza and if some junior in college showed his interest in her, he’d be discouraged real quick, and Austin and Wyatt would be right there with me.

  So, if I wouldn’t like it if a guy my age was interested in my sister, why is it okay that I’m interested in Nina?

  It’s not okay and I need to remember that.

  But that doesn’t mean I can stop thinking about her. Maybe if when I think about her, I think of her as Horns, the mouthy kid, and not Nina, the beautiful young woman who I want like I’ve never wanted anyone in my life.

  It would probably be best if I don’t think about her at all, but I’m worried. She doesn’t have anyone, and if the Grafts kicked her out today, like Nina said they would, where did she go? I hope she went to Miguel. I told her to but she didn’t want to bother him on a holiday. Plus, she insists that she can take care of herself.

  That’s all fine and dandy, but what if she can’t find a place to sleep tonight? Shelters aren’t the safest place in the world, even if she can take care of herself. Besides, that fifteen hundred she has saved isn’t going to get her far, at least not in New York.

  Damn, I wish she’d get a phone. Then I could at least call and check on her, but Nina refused to get one because she thinks she doesn’t need one.

  That’s easy for her to say since she isn’t the one 1,600 miles away under the big, open, star filled sky of Texas worrying if she has a place to sleep tonight.

  3

  “Hey, Nina,” Betsy greets me when I walk into the diner. “Why are you here so late?” Betsy has worked the overnight shift at the diner since she came to New York decades ago and is usually getting here as I’m leaving. Betsy is only about fifty, but looks like she stepped out of the sixties with her red beehive hair, frosted pink lipstick, along with powder-blue eye shadow, thick eyeliner and even thicker false eyelashes.

  I lift my suitcase. “Shelters are full.”

  “Aw, Nina. Some birthday, huh?”

  “It sucks.” I take a seat at the counter. It’s late and hardly anybody is in here.

  “What did she do, kick you out after supper?”

  “Breakfast!”

  Betsy’s eyes widen as her painted-on eyebrows arch. “What have you been doing all day?”

  “Wandering around and looking for a place to sleep.”

  “Have you eaten?” Betsy’s been like a mother to me ever since I came to work here when I turned sixteen. She’s the only woman who’s ever tried to mother me. It’s a shame we rarely work at the same time.

  “Don’t have any money.”

  “What? I thought you were saving tips.”

&nbs
p; “That fucking bitch, Mrs. Graft, stole it.”

  “Do I hear Nina?” Barrett calls from the back. He’s the short order cook who’s been working here about five years. He’s twenty-three and one of Miguel’s boxers. When he isn’t cooking, he’s training for a fight. It was Barrett who got me this job.

  “Hey, Nina,” Abby says as she comes from the back. She just started here about a week ago. Fresh from the Iowa cornfields and looking to become an actress. She usually works from around four in the afternoon until one in the morning.

  “It’s going on midnight and you haven’t eaten since this morning?” Betsy asks.

  “I don’t have money, remember, “

  “Burger and fries for Nina,” she calls back to Barrett. “It’s her birthday.”

  “Make a note so Bert takes it out of my pay. I don’t want to be accused of stealing.” Bert, the owner, watches every single penny in and out of the diner.

  Betsey takes money out of the pocket where she keeps her tips. “Consider it my present to you.” She waves it at one of the cameras in the corner. “I’m paying for her supper,” she yells then turns, adding, “you miserable tightwad.”

  Tears spring to my eyes, but I blink them away. It’s the first birthday gift I’ve been given since I turned six.

  Julia plops down next to me and hands me a bottle of beer. “Cheers, baby brother.”

  I snort and tap it against hers. “I’m not your baby brother.”

  “I am older. I was born on the 19th and you were born on the 20th.”

  This is a familiar argument. “It was six minutes, not a full day.” I just shake my head. “You’re going to hold that over my head for the rest of my life aren’t you?”

  “You betcha.” She relaxes back in the chair and stares up at the star-filled sky.

  Wyatt left hours ago and the rest of the family went inside. It’s just me and Julia out here.