by Emilia Finn
“Geez.” I look around in search of backup. I look to the guard at the door. I look to Jess. Then, as a last-ditch effort, I look to Libby. A cop. And Griffin’s wife. “Help me?”
“Stop hitting on Jess, stop sending your mother insane, and stop fighting football teams. That’s my advice.”
“I didn’t ask for advice.”
“You asked for help.” Libby flashes a playful grin and enters the courtroom ahead of us. “That was me helping.”
“Ah, crap.” Mom’s soft voice brings my eyes up.
I look around in search of whatever upset her. I look to Rob, to Dad, then to the judge.
A woman.
I glance back and grin when Mom hurriedly rebuttons her shirt.
“Sit down,” she hisses, “shut up, let Jess do her job.”
“Will you still love me if I go to prison?”
“No! I made two of you so I could mess one up and throw him away.”
“Geez.” Rob snickers and tucks his arm around hers; it looks like he’s supporting his mom, but what he’s actually doing is restraining her – much the same way Dad is doing on her other side. “I guess it’s lucky I’m the perfect one.” He looks to me and grins. “Sucks to be you, trashbag.”
“Shut the—Agh!” I swing around and swallow down my cry when Jess grabs my damn ear.
Beautiful, perhaps. But she’s mean.
“Sit down,” she hisses under her breath. “Shut your trap. I have nothing to lose here today. Whether you’re a free man or not, my bill is still gonna be paid.”
“You are a trained fighter.” Judge Abram barely meets my eyes. Rather, she studies her notes with a lifted brow that says she ain’t impressed. “You come from a fighting gym, your father trained world title holders, you were trained by him, and by the title holders. You won your first sanctioned fight when you were…” She flicks over a page and reads aloud, “five years old.”
“I was four,” I whisper to Jess. “I won that ribbon when I was four!”
“Shut. Up.” She smiles for the judge, but pinches my thigh under the table.
“You have a striking lineup of wins, Mr. Hart.” Finally, Abram’s shrewd eyes come to me. “But they do not excite me. When your fans see you, they see your magnanimous smile, your wins, your arrogance. But when I look at you, I see that you believe yourself to be above the law. You consider yourself untouchable, and when you’re fighting, you’re a danger to society.”
“Wait.” She’s not smiling. She’s not impressed at all. “I don’t fight anyone who didn’t ask for it first.”
“Luke!” Jess growls. “Shut up.”
“No, hold up.” I stand, because I guess I wanna be thrown into jail for contempt of court or some shit. “I don’t pick on anyone, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” The judge’s eyes are like laser beams, cutting my head off. “You will call me ‘Your Honor’,” she declares with venom. “I did not work my entire life to be called ‘ma’am,’ when I am the most powerful person in this room, Mr. Hart. Do you understand?”
“I-I’m sorry,” I stutter out when images of a toilet in the middle of a crowded room flash through my mind. “Your Honor. I didn’t mean to disrespect you or your courtroom. All I’m trying to say is that I don’t pick on people, I’m not a bully. I don’t hurt anyone weaker than me.”
I look across the room to Kora’s boyfriend and his two buddies – all three have neck braces and various ‘broken’ bones. They’re all lying. I beat their asses, I won, but all three of them made their own casts in the science lab at the college.
“I stand up for myself. I don’t let people beat on me. I don’t let people beat on others, either. But I also don’t kick when they’re down. I was trained to end a fight, Your Honor, not to start them. I was trained to neutralize a threat, stop the war, then walk away.”
“Inspiring.” She’s not inspired at all. “Do you want to know what I think, Mr. Hart?”
No. I really don’t think I do.
“I will tell you,” she pushes on. “I think you have anger control issues. I think you consider yourself an exception to the rule, someone who does not have to follow the law.”
I open my mouth to speak. To argue my defense. But the judge lifts a brow and silences me with ease.
“I think that if you took even a moment before today to learn the customs of a courtroom, you’d know it is not your place to address me, but your counsel’s. You’d know not to call me ‘ma’am’. And you’d know that it’s probably best if you wore a tie.”
I look down at my shirt, my jeans. Then I look back to her.
“I think you consider yourself a little bit special, Mr. Hart, and before we release you into society as a full-fledged adult, it is my job to knock you down a peg or two, lest you do real damage.”
She snaps her file closed and folds her hands over the top. “I am ordering twelve one-hour sessions with a therapist who specializes in your brand of arrogance. You are to complete all twelve sessions without missing a single one, and if, at the end, your court-appointed therapist deems you safe for society, then I will waive this six-month sentence in a medium-security facility that currently has your name on it.
“If, however,” she continues when my heart jumps, “you fail to attend a single session, or the court-appointed therapist is concerned that you need more rehabilitation than she’s able to provide, then you will be taking a state-funded vacation far away from this town to give you a chance to cool off and rethink your direction in life.”
She looks deep into my eyes and glares. “Do you understand me?”
I swallow. Nod. Pray I don’t lose my lunch. “Yes, ma– Um… Yes, Your Honor.”
“Additionally,” she adds. “I am ordering community service. I’m aware the lake in the center of town needs a little love, now that summer is nearing its end. Weeds have grown, the dock is rotting. I know your family enjoys that lake over the summer, so now you can take a little time to show your appreciation for what those who came before you built. I want you to tear out that entire dock, and replace it so that it stands up under engineering approval. I’m certain,” she grins a little cruelly, “you can find the funds for such a project somewhere in your trust fund.”
A movement behind me catches my eye. My mom raising her hand like she’s in elementary school. I’m sure she’s piping up to inform the judge I have no trust fund, but Dad grabs her hand and brings it back down to silence her.
When Mom is sitting still again, the judge’s eyes come back to me. “You have until your twelve sessions are complete. One session a week gives you twelve weeks to get yourself under control, and to finish the dock rebuild. If, at the end of that three months, you’ve missed a session, or the dock is not complete, then we’ll end up right back here, but next time, I will not be as forgiving.”
The judge looks to Jess. Then to the guys sitting at the table to my right. She looks past me, possibly to my mom and her cleavage. Then, finally, she looks to me once more and lifts a single brow. “Do we have an understanding?”
I lower my chin. “Yes, Your Honor.”
I twitch when she brings her hammer down onto the desk.
“We will adjourn for three months. See you in the winter, Mr. Hart. Perhaps then, you will wear a tie.”
Ally
Work Experience
“It’s like I’m in the Wild West out here, Mom.” I walk the main street of this town that houses something like fifteen thousand people, despite the smalltown cliché, bullet-riddled ‘welcome to town’ sign quoting a different number. “I’m just waiting for the horses and wagons to roll on down the road.”
“You are being exceptionally dramatic, Allyson.”
I never knew a person could hear an eyeroll until I grew up and moved out of home. Back when I was a kid, my mother’s parenting style could be best described as ‘chaos’. She was a free spirit, a wild card, while I was the one enforcing rules and talking her down from spontaneity and craziness.
Now I’m a woman, and we seem to have switched roles… sort of. She’d still be a pot-smoking hippie who enjoys unsafe sex if I allowed it. But she also has a better handle on dramatics than I do, and best of all, not once in all these years have we not been friends.
It’s nice, of course. I love being my mom’s friend, even after my teen years – the years when her wild spirit warred with her motherly duties of keeping me from becoming a statistic like she was. ‘Teen mom’ are curse words in our home. Despite the trauma of being forced to slide condoms onto phallic-shaped fruit every single time I loitered in the kitchen, once I cleared those teen years, things went back to normal for us. I became the serious one, and she, the eternally immature one.
“Mom…” I stop at a row of bicycles resting against a beam outside a diner, study the setup for a moment, and tilt my head. “I’m pretty sure this is where they tie horses up while they drink inside brothels.”
“Allyson!” Mom laughs, only to stop and honk at someone annoying her in traffic. “There are no horses, there are no brothels, and you’re being extra, honey. You’re fulfilling a stereotype right now.”
“Oh yeah?” I scoff and continue walking past the pile of bikes. “What stereotype?”
“Big city snob,” she retorts, only to end with a shouted, “Hey, jackass! Get a pair of glasses or get off the damn road! What the hell is wrong with you, huh? Huh?” She lays on the horn for so long that she risks being brained in rush hour traffic. “Babe, you’re in town for work, so how about you be kind to your hosts, experience what it’s like to be in a small town, and this weekend, you can come home, and we can get hammered while we watch the new Bond movie.”
“You are so strange.” I stop at the single set of traffic lights in town. I look left – nothing. I look right – nothing. I look ahead, only to shake my head when I still don’t have the green light to walk, despite the fact there isn’t a damn person in sight. “Mom, how many cars are surrounding you right now?”
“A-freakin’-million,” she grunts. “It’s sending me insane.”
“Ahh. That’s good.” I stand at the corner and close my eyes. “Tell me more.”
Mom turns silent for a moment, stunned and speechless, only to burst out laughing when she understands. “You’re weird! Are you seriously asking me to describe this mess just so you can feel better?”
“Oh look,” I drawl when I hear the beep-beep-beep that says I can cross. “I got the green, Mom. And I’m not scared for my life. It’s like…” I glance around. “Where’s the adventure? Where’s the risk of dying from a cab, or being run down by a bus?”
“Do they even have buses there?” she whispers.
“No! Only the Greyhound that travels out of town. None of the commuter buses, though. It’s disgusting.”
“What do people there do if they have no car?”
“Horses!”
My exclamation draws a pair of shrewd eyes from an overly large woman standing outside a shop named Dixie’s. She stops what she’s doing, leans against a tall, plastic llama and, folding her arms, she watches me like maybe I peed in her pool.
“Ma’am.”
She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t move a single muscle, except for those controlling her scowl.
“Mom, I thought small-town folk are supposed to be nice?”
She snorts. “How the hell am I supposed to know? I’ve never lived there.”
“So why am I here?” I cry out, only to bite my lips closed when I pass the supermarket, and a woman and her daughter step out.
They’re both working on suckers, they’re both beautiful, and though they don’t really bear any resemblance to each other, they sure seem to have a connection that reminds me of me and my mom.
“Excuse me.” I lower my chin a little, in apology and embarrassment, only to skip around the couple and keep moving. “People here think I’m weird.”
“Allyson, honey… you are weird. You think they ride horses to work, and I bet my new car that you’re wearing heels right now.”
I look down at my feet and frown. “Of course. I’m dressed for work; heels are part of my look.”
“But are you at work right now?” she questions with a sly arrogance in her voice. “Or are you parading around town and telling everyone how behind the times they are?”
“Mom!” I stop in my tracks and clutch my phone tighter. “I just saw a guy in overalls.”
“You are horrible,” she cackles. “Baby, I’m about to pull up at the office, so if you’re certain you’re gonna be okay in Hicksville, then I’m gonna have to let you go.”
“I think I’ve been sucked into a wormhole.”
I slow out front of my destination, and stand in front of a bakery that smells of sin, and beside that, a photography studio that shows off beautiful family canvas prints. Smiles, fun, love.
Not a single pair of overalls.
“Okay, so now I feel guilty. Mom, I’ve been a snob. I admit it.”
“So say sorry, open your mind, and stop being a jerk.”
“These family pictures are nice.” I pass the bakery and stop in front of the studio. “Have you ever heard of Christina Cooper?”
“No, honey. But it would be presumptuous for you to think I know everyone… in a town I’ve never been to.”
I press the tips of my fingers to the shopfront window, and angling my head, I study the women posing together in another canvas. Two women, one blonde and one brunette, despite this image being in black and white. The women are opposites of each other. One is smaller, slimmer, while the other has curves.
Not big curves, not regular woman curves, but when compared to her companion, she’s clearly curvier than the other. The smaller one has longer legs, longer hair, and a more angular jaw. Her eyes are darker, soulful and… well, old. Like she’s an old soul. The fairer woman has wild curls, bright eyes, a trouble-making grin.
What makes this image striking isn’t their eyes, their hair, their polar differences; it’s what makes them the same. They’re not family – not by blood, anyway. But they definitely belong. They both stand in a way that says they’re about to slam me to the ground and beat the shit out of me. They have faces of warriors from centuries gone by. They’re unafraid, they can’t be intimidated.
They roar.
Both women wear little black booty shorts, dark sports bras. And despite the fact they scare me simply by existing on canvas, both of them earn my disapproval because they have ridges in their stomachs that say muscle.
I’ve never had a stomach like that, and hell, but why did the universe do me like that?
“Ally? You there, honey?”
“Hmm?”
“You went silent,” Mom pushes. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I frown and study the canvas. “How would you feel if I decided I like women?”
“You… what?”
“But, like, two of them. At the same time.”
“Ally!”
“Mom!” I burst out in nervous laughter. “This hick town, at one point, had these hot chicks, and it’s bothering me, because five minutes ago, I was straight. Now I’m not sure.”
“You are a hot mess,” she grumbles. “Love is love, baby. But how about you figure it out before you drag me into your mess? Once you know, you can tell me what’s happening, then we’ll plan what comes next.”
“You just roll with the punches so smoothly.” Shaking my head and breaking eye contact with the canvas warriors, I turn back to the bakery and make my way in. “I told you I kissed Curtis Reginald back in ninth grade, and you were ready to kill me.” I stop inside the shop and line up behind the small crowd. “It was a kiss.”
“In ninth grade, you were fourteen, almost fifteen, and that’s when good girls get pregnant.”
I burst out in piggy snorts, but try to smother them when the person in line in front of me peeks over his shoulder.
“Mom,” I try to smooth the laughter out of my voice. “I think perhaps you’re holding on to a little e
motional baggage. It would be healthy for you to talk to someone about it, perhaps offload the burden.”
“Yeah,” she scoffs. “I’m talking to you, and I offloaded you to college. That’s a win-win for me, honey. Now seriously, I have to go. Ted is going to get mad if I’m late to my nine o’clock again.”
I stop for a moment, frown, then check the clock on the wall. “Mom, it’s ten past already.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” she laughs. “I have to go. Have fun today, then call me tonight and let me know how it went. Don’t get pregnant.”
“You have issues.” I shake my head and take a step forward when the line moves. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye, honey. Love you.”
“Yeah, bye. I love you.”
I bring the phone away from my ear and hang up, but when a shadow falls over me and the temperature changes – I swear the temperature drops by a few degrees – I glance up to find a guy who stands much too tall for me.
He grins, studies my eyes for a moment, then he nods. “I love you too. I don’t usually jump this fast, but sometimes the stars align, and bam. It’s all over.”
He’s cute. Hell, he’s sexy. But he’s also playing me.
He comes complete with broad shoulders, thick chest, and arms that might each be wider than my thighs. Five o’clock shadow, twinkling eyes, and a heavy brow shadowed under a dark ball cap.
He’s everything I try to stay away from in a man – because if he’s prettier than me, then it’s gonna become an issue when he takes longer than I do to get ready to go out.
“So?” he asks. “My place, or yours?”
I look around the small bakery, the fridges, the pie warmer. I look at the guy in line in front of me, then I look back, and find a woman behind me.
Smiling.
I look back to the guy who may have a mental imbalance, only to ask, “Excuse me?”
“You said you love me.” He looks to the woman behind me, as though seeking corroboration. “I said I love you back. I’m not saying it won’t end bad, seeing as we only just met, but we gotta get started first, right?”