by Lola Rebel
"Mr. Roberts says somethin' happened to—"
Chris spoke up as the kid's voice broke. "You ain't gonna let a girl see you cry, are you?"
The look from Marie stung a little, but the kid's lips pressed together and he straightened himself out. Chris let a smile spread across his face.
"Good man. You go with Mr. Roberts, and Miss Bainbridge will be waiting for you right outside, a'ight?"
The kid nodded and turned. Marie kept on staring at him in a way that he had no special desire to pay attention to. This was outside his area of expertise, he knew, but it wasn't as if he was just going to watch the kid get screwed up the way he had. That was how kids got mixed up in things they had absolutely no business getting mixed up in.
When he'd finally disappeared inside the office, Marie's silence broke.
"What was that supposed to be?"
He shrugged. "I thought I ought to straighten him out."
"You couldn't have been gentler about it?"
He put his lips together and didn't open them again.
She rolled her eyes. "You men, I swear to God."
Chris smiled, and she promptly turned away in a huff.
Thirteen
Marie Bainbridge sat and tried not to act like she was mad, which she knew wasn't working. If anything, she was making it worse, because every time she tried to play it cool, it meant that she had to think about it again.
She was dealing with these kids—with Jamie Pearson in particular—every single day. She knew how he thought, how he felt. She knew his problems. She knew where he was strong and where he needed more work.
Where did a bartender who might have spoken two words to the boy since she'd been in Applewood Junction think he had any place to override what she thought was best?
She closed her eyes. No need to get angry. No need to get angry at all. He was who he was, and she had to admit, the confident way that he'd handled a tough situation had a certain charm to it. She could almost feel the Sheriff's relief as Jamie had calmed down.
They waited together for a long time. Chris had been so ready to go work, before, yet now he seemed to be dawdling here with her, as if there was some reason he needed to stay. She couldn't figure out what it was, yet the fact that he was most certainly waiting for something was unavoidable and undeniable.
The thought, when it finally occurred to her, ripped itself right out of her mouth, in spite of not necessarily wanting to speak with him. It would serve him right if she were to remain silent. Her reflexive speaking didn't much care what would serve him right.
"What are they going to do with him?"
His silence might have implied that he wasn't listening and didn't think much of the question. The way that his face pinched, on the other hand, told a very different story.
"If you don't know, then—"
"I know exactly what they're going to do with him," Chris said finally. "It's not a topic I enjoy discussing."
"If I offended you, then—"
"No," he cuts her off shortly. "I can't just ignore it, I guess. I shouldn't ignore it."
"Ignore what?"
"If they've got family to take them in, then that's how it goes. Jamie don't."
"And if they haven't got any family?"
"Then things get prickly. Nobody'll take in some strange kid, will they? Hard enough feeding the mouths you got." Chris leans his head back. The brim of his hat touches the wall behind and lifts a little off his brow. "So they go along to an orphanage. He's an only child, yeah?"
Marie nods. Jamie had been letting on little hints, when she hadn't had him working too hard to talk much, that his mother was expecting. If she was, then when she'd—she hadn't been far enough along to show much.
"That's good, then. No siblings is the best way. You have brothers or sisters, they might keep you together—they might as well not, too."
"So these orphanages. Not the sort of place you want to be, then, from the way you make them sound."
"Then I made them sound right," he agrees. He's got his eyes closed, so whatever his feelings, or his history, Marie can only guess.
"So is there anything we can do?"
"Sure is," Chris says. "All that happens if nobody claims him."
"So… all we have to do is take him in, then."
He opens an eye. "Looks like you're catching on, then." He closes it again. "That's exactly what we're going to do."
"We?"
Chris nods softly. "I owe him a favor."
She raises an eyebrow, though as she does so she realizes he can't see it in the first place. "A favor?"
"I owe his folks a favor, but I can't pay it back, can I? So I pay them back by sparing their boy."
"That must be a story," Marie offers. How long are they going to be in there?
"Sure," he says, and then shuts his mouth.
"How do you know so much about all this stuff? I don't imagine that they teach you all about it tending bar."
"They don't," he agrees again. But again, he shuts up and doesn't expand on it.
She doesn't push him. There are some things that are private, no matter how curious she might be, and curious she certainly is.
"How much longer do you think they'll be?"
He shrugs. "It's hard to say. For the formal parts? They'd already be back. But if Sheriff Roberts decided to give the kid a talk, or they wanted to give the kid some ice cream to help him get over the shock, or he didn't handle it all that well so they let him walk away, then it could take longer."
"But they know we're out here," Marie insists. They wouldn't make a big delay, not for no reason, right?
"Then you know better'n me, I guess. Me, I'm just waiting until he comes back out. Then I'll think about what to do next, I guess."
"So you mean to say…"
"What?"
Marie's mind raced, but in the end she fell silent. He didn't press her to finish her thought.
The door opens, finally. It might have been an hour, but it felt like she'd been waiting for days. Somehow, Marie had expected Jamie to come bursting out, like he'd been waiting impatiently and finally was allowed to leave. That wasn't how it happened.
The door swung open and Jamie trudged out, like every step was one more than he thought he could take. Chris rose quickly and grabbed the door from him. The silence, though, was a surprise. She'd expected that at some point, he'd say something again. That he would try to step in and insist that the boy toughen up, like he had on the way inside.
But he didn't. He walked beside him a little ways, until finally Jamie came to the bench outside the Sheriff's station. The boy pulled himself up onto the seat and leaned back against the wall.
"Y'alright?"
Jamie blinked and looked up at Chris. "Mr. Broadmoor," he said. Almost surprised. Marie was almost surprised as well.
"Everything's going to be fine," Marie chimed in. It wasn't going to be fine, she knew. His parents were dead, and they weren't going to come back. But she couldn't bring herself to say it.
"Miss Bainbridge? I don't… um…" Whatever he was going to say, his lower lip started to tremble and he tightened up his jaw, his little muscles twitching as he tried to hold himself in. If Chris weren't there, he might have been bawling already.
The bartender knelt down in front of him and laid a big hand on the boy's shoulder. "It's alright, kiddo. You got every right to be upset, and nobody expects anything else from you right now. You need to let it out, let it out."
Jamie leaned forward and pressed his face into the bartender's shoulder. The sound of soft crying was almost audible over the sound of the town continuing to move around them. She waited there for a long time, until finally the boy leaned himself back. Chris spoke again.
"Miss Bainbridge is going to keep watch over you for a little bit, okay? But don't worry, I'll come and check on you every day, so if you need anything, anything at all—"
Jamie looked like he was about to lose it again, but he didn't. He nodded slowly, and
then when Chris turned to look at her, she knew that it was her turn. How she was going to do it, that was the real question.
Fourteen
Chris watched from his place behind the bar closer than maybe he should have. The bar wasn't any kind of place for a kid, not even on a good night. Thankfully, tonight was a good night. Quiet, a little dead. He crossed over to the other side of the long bar and leaned over.
"Y'all doing alright?"
Jamie flinched at the sound of his voice, leaned down over a slate. The boy turned and gave a weak smile. "I'm okay," he says, like he's trying to reassure Chris rather than the other way around.
"Good," the bartender says back. There are a couple of clean plates sitting on front of both of them. There might be hell to pay at the end of it, but he couldn't exactly ask them to pay for it, so Stan will be footing the bill.
He steps back across the bar as a young man walks up. He's not from around here, and Chris doesn't immediately recognize him. The guy speaks up, though, and something in the back of the bartender's mind catches on a memory that he can't quite place.
"I'll have a beer," is all he says.
"Sure," Chris replies. It's a routine, one that's as automatic as breathing. His hand drops to the tray of glasses and starts pouring.
"Don't I know you from somewhere?"
Chris shrugs, his eyes cast down on the glass as it fills. "Might be."
"I swear I seen your face before."
For years, Chris had worried about people seeing his face in all the wrong sort of circumstances. None of it had born fruit, though. Most of the time, these days, he didn't let it rattle his cage.
"I don't know where, I ain't been around here that long."
"I'm just passin' through, myself," the guy says. The way he says it is familiar, too. Another vague, far-away memory that Chris can't place. He doesn't work too hard to make it happen, either. "So I doubt I'd know you from here if you had been."
"Where you from, then, originally?"
"Oh, just up a little ways. Still out of Oklahoma, but I used to tool around the panhandle, up north, you know?"
Chris did. If they knew each other, then that would be where they knew each other from. Which meant that the man in front of him would have known a very different person altogether.
"I can't say you're ringing any bells," Chris said. The beer finished pouring and he set it on the table. "You want to settle up now, or on your way out?"
The guy puts a quarter on the bar. "Will that do me?"
"You've overpaid," Chris answers. "I'll grab your change."
The way the man watches him sets off an instinct that he hasn't felt in a long time. He has to stifle it. Not with the kid right there. There won't be any trouble.
"Right, my mistake," says the guy after a minute, as he notices Chris isn't moving to the register. He waits anyways, his hand not moving to change out the quarter.
Chris takes a deep breath and leans forward. His hand slips down to his pistol, tucked and hidden by the way he turns his shoulder.
"I don't want any trouble, man," he growls.
The guy looks at him. The confusion on his face is almost believable, but he's made it larger than life. "Trouble? No, no trouble at all."
His hand closed around the handle of his pistol and he eases it out of the holster, real slow and real easy. Silent. "Just put the piece on the bar, alright? Don't make any fast moves."
The fact that he knew the man on the other side of the bar was doubtless. The identity, though, remained a mystery. If he couldn't remember, then it must have been a real short while that they rode together. Maybe they never did, just passed once or twice.
"I don't know what you're talking about," the mystery guy said. But Chris didn't buy it.
"I ain't going to let you rob me. Not now, not later. So just put the piece on the bar, and there won't be no trouble."
He showed the barrel of his own pistol, peeking over the edge of the bar top and aimed at the middle of the man's chest. At this distance, there wouldn't be any chance of a miss, and the fellow on the other side didn't need to be a psychic to know what would happen if the trigger gets pulled.
The man's face dropped a little. "Alright, man. Take it easy."
"On account of you and I having been such good friends before, I'll let this slide. You want your shooter back at the end of your stay, I'll give it to you, but after that, you take it, and you get out of my town, aight?"
The guy moved slow. His hand ducked inside a coat pocket, and he pulled free a pistol with a sawed-short barrel. A good sort of gun for quick drawing. The sort of gun that a man who plans to use it would carry. He set it down on the bar and Chris picked it up, then set it down behind. With the pistol still pointed square at the man's chest, he pushed the button to open the drawer, dropped the quarter in and pulled a dime and a nickel free.
"There you go. Fifteen cents change. Go have a seat, and don't cause no trouble, and I won't call no Sheriff to see if there's anyone looking for you. You got it?"
The guy nodded. "I got it."
"Good. Now get goin'."
The guy took his beer and left. Chris's heart suddenly started pounding. No, he realized, correcting himself. It wasn't sudden. He'd been ignoring it pounding. His eyes naturally shot over to Marie and the kid. They weren't looking at him.
Maybe for a little longer, he'd be able to keep it to himself who he'd been before. But eventually, without a single doubt, they would find out. His heart thudded so hard that he could feel it in every part of his body. He had to make sure Jamie was going to be alright first. He owed that boy his life, after all.
Fifteen
Marie's first instinct was to tell him to leave first thing. After all, the way people would think—well, Chris had a reputation, and she had to worry about the reputation she was going to get for herself, as well. What was more, she had to worry about Jamie, now, too.
But then she looked over her shoulder at the boy, laying there on the bed, and she just… couldn't bring herself to do it. That was all, of course. It had nothing to do with how she felt.
His voice was low and soft and he sat back in his chair as if he were concerned that he might fall out of it if he didn't take special care.
"How are you holding up?"
Marie didn't know how she was holding up. It all felt fine. It wasn't all that different from what she did every day, and yet she felt as if at any moment, the whole thing might come crashing down around her ears. "I'm alright."
He leaned forward and took a deep breath, put his hands on his knees. "Well, if you've got a handle on everything…"
"Don't go yet," she said. The words came tumbling out of her mouth before she really had a chance to think them over, which left her trying to think up a justification after the fact.
He sat back again. "Is everything alright?"
Marie kept her mouth shut. It was the best way to go. Her head was swimming. Too much had happened today already, and the best thing to do was go to bed.
Then he started to stand again, and her body started to feel funny again, a vague electric tingle that she couldn't quite explain and didn't want to try. More than anything, she thought, she'd like it to go away. So she did what she had to.
She stood up with him.
He was tall, close up. She'd known he was tall, before. From afar, you could tell right away, the way that he towered over others. From close up, it was natural to notice. But it was natural to look up, to ignore it, to think that it wasn't so noticeable.
Now, though… now, she noticed. The way that he stood over her, she barely came up to his armpits, and he must have weighed twice as much as her. He looked like he could fit her into his pocket, and in that instant, Marie realized exactly how small she was. How powerless she was in comparison to the big bartender.
"You didn't have to get up for me," he said. His voice was low, and the sound of it made a shiver run down her spine. An implication that she couldn't quite put her finger on. It to
ok her a moment to register that maybe he was speaking softly because of the boy in the other room.
"I don't want you to go," she said again.
He should have gone, she knew. She was letting something come over her that she shouldn't have given a second thought.
"I have to."
"Please, I don't know what to do. You can't leave me here, alone."
He reached out with one thick arm and wrapped it around her, pulling gently until her head was pressed into his chest. She didn't like how it made her feel. She was modern, capable. It wasn't a source of pride or agitation, but she'd proven quite well to her own satisfaction that she didn't need anyone else to support her.
If she kept careful watch over her teachers' salary, she could make do by herself. Chris Broadmoor was many things. He was dangerous, he was a mystery. He was at the center of no less than a dozen separate rumors that were liable to bring a red tint to her face just to hear the stories that people thought he had fit himself into.
And the feeling of his chest against her head, the way he didn't yield a single inch to her, made her feel weak. Yet in the same bundle of emotion there was something else, a feeling that she could keep going. As if he were there just to keep her on an even keel.
The moment stretched on for what felt like a long time. It might have only been a few seconds.
"I need to go," he said, finally. "I can't stay here."
Why couldn't he, though, she thought. She didn't say it out loud, because she knew the answer without having to ask. He couldn't stay because he was who he was, and she was who she was. There would already be talk, but it would be that much worse if he made the mistake of thinking that they could be together, even just to keep her sane for a night.
"You're right," she said. The words came out of her mouth, but she didn't mean them.
He let his arm drop to his side, took a step back. She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding and felt as if she were deflating like a balloon.