Breathe into Me

by Fawkes, Sara

  I heard the pop as the old door unstuck itself from the doorjamb, and knew this place hadn’t been used in a while. The interior was nice, although not quite as ostentatious as the main house. The main area was a big open room with sparse furniture in comparison to the house. A pool table sat against the side wall, and a covered couch in front of a big flat-screen TV sat across from it.

  “Trent said the first floor of this place was razed by Hurricane Katrina, so everything down here is fairly new.” He pulled off a sheet covering some of the chairs. “There’s water and electricity out here as well as cable, but if you’re hungry you’d have to come to the house for food.”

  My eyes moved to the far end of the room, toward a large piece of covered furniture in the corner. Lips parting, I stepped lightly over the tile floor and pulled at the thin cloth. It slid easily off the smooth surface, piling to the floor around my feet.

  Everett moved in beside me. “Well, damn, I didn’t know that was here or I would’ve invited you sooner.”

  I ran my fingertips over the smooth wood surface of the baby grand piano, moving around to the front. My lessons as a child had been on an instrument just like this; a different make, but the exact same size. The brocade bench seat wobbled when my knee brushed it, and I left it alone as I lifted the lid for the keys.

  Unfortunately, I knew the instant I hit middle C that the tuning was off. Disappointed, I ran a quick scale and listened to the discordant notes fill the air. Sighing, I put the lid back down. “Oh well, that would have been too much luck for my life lately.”

  “I will hear you play one of these days.”

  The conviction in Everett’s voice made me look at him. He stared back, and I could see my own disappointment mirrored in his eyes. Despite my frustration, I smiled at him. “I know exactly what I’d play for you, too.”

  I could see it in his eyes that I’d sparked his interest, but before he could reply I held up my hand. “Find me a piano first.”

  He grinned. “Deal. Now let’s see if we can find you someplace to sleep.”

  Two more sheets later we came across an old maroon couch that didn’t quite match the decor, along with some pillows and an old quilt. “This’ll be great,” I said, arranging things on the couch. There were a few lumps in the cushions but I’d slept on worse.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay in the house? We’ve got more rooms than we know what to do with.”

  I shook my head. Everett didn’t seem to like my answer. “Is it that you don’t trust me?” he asked in a curiously hesitant voice.

  “No,” I said quickly, and to my surprise I realized it was the truth. I looked away. “I don’t trust myself.”

  I didn’t see what he thought about that information, and honestly I didn’t want to. “Thank you for the bed,” I said, sitting down on the couch.

  “If you need anything, just come up to the house. I’ll leave the back door open for you.”

  I nodded mutely, still staring straight ahead. All this talk of beds and sleeping arrangements felt too intimate, somehow, and I knew if I looked at Everett, the awareness I felt for him would be painfully clear. After another awkward moment, he said, “Good night.”

  “G’night.” And then I was alone. I let out a pent-up breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding.

  The sun still hadn’t gone down yet, but my body was slowly succumbing to drowsiness. Pulling the quilt over my shoulders, I stared at the far wall before lying sideways onto the pillows. I needed to be up early again in the morning for work, and would have to budget extra time to call a taxi. Despite a cursory search of the beach after we cleaned up Everett’s shoes from my lunch, my bike was nowhere to be found. I hadn’t been particularly attached to it, but that meant one less freedom in my life. I was running low on options.

  But for now, at least I had a place to sleep. I curled inside the thick quilt around me and closed my eyes, praying sleep would come quickly.

  * * *

  I made it to my shift on time the next morning, glad I left an extra change of clothes at work for days such as this. Six in the morning was an ungodly shift, but I’d slept surprisingly well on that lumpy couch and was actually feeling good for once.

  Work was normal right up until after lunch. My only clue that something bad was about to happen was Clare’s anxious look from two aisles over at something behind me. I turned to see Macon approaching me, and there was nothing I could do to get away.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that you were having an abortion?”

  At first his words didn’t register. “I … what?”

  “You should have told me you were pregnant. I would have taken care of you!”

  I stared at him, his words a sudden blow to the gut. “Macon,” I murmured, struggling to formulate an answer to a conversation I never thought I’d have, “I’m not … I wasn’t …”

  “You had an abortion?”

  I looked up at Dolly, the checker I was helping. The appalled look on her face drove the entire situation home, and it was like a blow to the gut. “No,” I said emphatically. “I would never do that!”

  I knew from the expression on her face that she didn’t believe me.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Macon said, and I rounded on him.

  I stared at him, openmouthed, unable to speak. This had to be a sick joke. “Macon, I wasn’t pregnant, I never had an abortion.”

  “What kind of person are you to kill an unborn baby?”

  I was the center of attention for the entire front of the store, all eyes on me, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. My lungs seized, unable to pull air into my body; nothing could get past my throat. I hadn’t had an asthma attack since I was a little girl. Long ago I’d thrown away my inhaler, not thinking I’d ever need it again. The familiar sensation of a fist squeezing my heart and lungs threw me into a panic, and I fought against the feeling as I struggled to get air.

  “Out of the way!” I heard a familiar voice ring through the air, and then Clare was there. “Come on, girl, nice and slow. Just breathe in and out.”

  Rob appeared beside us. “What happened? Is Lacey all right?”

  “I think she’s having an asthma attack.” Clare’s arm moved around me as she guided me toward the shelves along the front wall. “Lean down and focus on breathing, sweetie.”

  “Baby?” Macon crouched down across from me, face filled with false concern. “Are you all right?”

  “Get back,” Clare snarled next to me, and stepped in front of him. “Come on, nobody’s going to hurt you, just breathe.”

  It took several choking gasps for air before I felt my lungs begin to unclench. By now tears were streaming down my face, and I swiped at them with the back of my hand.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Mrs. Holloway’s voice almost made me go into another asthma attack, and I kept my eyes on the floor.

  “Lacey was having an asthma attack.”

  “I can see that.”

  I looked up to see the store manager staring down at me, her lip curled with disdain. Her frosty gaze moved over to Macon, then Clare, and back to Rob. “Is she better now?”

  By now, air was flowing once more. I still wasn’t one hundred percent, but I nodded and answered anyway. “Yes, ma’am,” I croaked, my voice all but gone.

  “Very well. Ms. St. James, if you would follow me.”

  My gut shriveled into a hard knot. I couldn’t even look at the woman as I straightened up, knowing exactly what was about to happen. My gaze fell on Macon, who’d melted into the background to watch the proceedings. There was a savage glint in his eyes as he watched everyone’s reactions. A small wrinkle at the corner of his mouth told me he was holding back a smile.

  Oh, God. The whole ordeal had been a cruel joke, and I was stuck on the butt end of it.

  Nearby me, I heard Clare speak up. “Mrs. Holloway, it wasn’t her fault … ”

  “Ms. Bishop,” our manager said in tones that brooked no argument, “
please return to your customers.”

  I couldn’t bear to look at Clare or anyone else in that storefront. As I walked past the cash register I heard someone ask a question in a low voice, then Dolly answered back in a loud whisper. “Bless her heart, she had an abortion.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I snapped as I walked by, but it was too late. By the time I was out of the manager’s office, the whole store would know. The truth didn’t matter; this gossip was too juicy to bother with the details.

  I followed the large woman through the aisles and into the manager’s offices in the back of the building. It wasn’t large, but there was enough room for a desk and chairs. Mrs. Holloway closed the door behind me. “Do you know why I’ve asked you in here?”

  Because you’ve never liked me? Whatever my grandmother had said in Glenda Holloway’s ear had poisoned the store manager against me since the day I was hired. I’d worked hard, been on time nearly every day, but nothing I could do ever seemed enough.

  “You’ve already been warned once about allowing personal problems to affect work performance,” she continued, not bothering to wait for my answer. She sat down and pulled out a drawer. “Please sit down, Ms. St. James.”

  I sat, too tired to argue. So Rob had told her about Macon’s previous visit.

  “I don’t appreciate having a liar among my workforce,” she continued, thumbing through her files until she pulled mine out. “You’ve made a habit of falsifying your timecard, clocking in either too early or too late.”

  I listened mutely as she ticked off a myriad of offenses that were either overblown or blatant lies. I just stared blankly at her, not giving her a chance to see how my heart was breaking. She was thorough, I had to give her that. She showed me every instance I’d gone outside the lines, proving that what was coming was inevitable and all my doing. Rob’s warning was a single-line statement, but it was also included in her laundry list.

  “I took a chance hiring you, Lacey, because your grandmother was a friend. Unfortunately, based on your performance, I’m afraid I’m going to have to terminate your employment. You will be escorted to your locker to make sure you only take what is yours and not what is company property.”

  Behind the desk, my hands clenched into fists but I didn’t allow any emotion to show on my face. I was going to be escorted out of the building as if I had stolen something, or wasn’t trusted enough to be left unguarded. As much as I wanted to rant and rave about how unfair this was, there was nothing I could do. Such a reaction would only validate Glenda Holloway’s opinion of me, and I had enough pride not to let the bitch win.

  She studied me, as if eager for my reaction. Seconds ticked by before she frowned. “Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  When I didn’t give her one, she seemed annoyed by my silence. “Your conduct here will be kept permanently in your file. Any potential employers will be given a full rundown as to why you were dismissed.”

  I just stared at her, keeping my gaze blank. The door behind me opened, and Elton, the old security guard, came inside the room. I cringed inwardly at having someone else witness this, but didn’t allow my frustration to show. Tears of frustration were threatening, and my lungs still burned from the asthma attack, but I held everything in. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me beg, or show any emotion that she could gloat over.

  Finally, Glenda gave an annoyed grunt and motioned for Elton. “Please escort her out, and make sure she doesn’t steal anything.” To me, she added, “Your grandmother will be so ashamed that you killed her great-grandchild so callously.”

  Elton accompanied me silently to the employee area while I packed up my things into a plastic grocery bag. Then I was escorted from the building, left alone only once I’d exited the front doors. Macon was nowhere in sight but I couldn’t care less at this point. I kept on going, walking straight through the large parking lot.

  “Lacey!”

  Clare’s voice sounded behind me but I didn’t turn, continuing forward toward the main street. Tears stung my eyes but I didn’t stop, even when she called my name a second time. I couldn’t let her see me cry, couldn’t bear for anyone to see my tears.

  Beside the shopping center was a six-foot cinderblock wall separating it from the nearby neighborhood. Nothing was on the other side except an alley nobody ever used. I turned up that narrow road, continuing down the dirt path until I was halfway between the two streets at either end and nobody could see me.

  Then I leaned back against that gray wall and slid to the ground, bawling my eyes out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “You seem distracted.”

  “Mmm.” It was true I had a lot on my mind. I hadn’t told anyone about my being fired. It was a conversation I was dreading, and I had hoped to replace the job quickly, but my plans on that front weren’t working out so well. The fight with my mother two days prior still weighed heavily on me as well. We hadn’t spoken of it, and the unresolved feelings made me edgy.

  I stared at the math problems before me, but my eyes were already starting to cross. Sighing, I leaned back in my chair. “Math has never been my strong suit.”

  “Well, you’re doing better than before. That’s a start at least.”

  Snorting, I leaned my head over to look at Everett. He was leaning over my latest test, his hair partially obscuring his face. I stared at his profile, the slightly-too-large-for-his-face nose that still fit, the square jaw that on anyone else might have been too much. The T-shirt he wore stretched across his hunched shoulders, setting off the thickness of his arms.

  I’d always been a chest-and-arm muscle kind of girl, and Everett had those to spare. I would catch myself staring and have to look away sometimes, struggling to focus on whatever we were studying. It’d been a long time since someone, a stranger to boot, had been this nice to me without expecting anything in return.

  Didn’t hurt that he was cute.

  “Oh, by the way, I’ve got some good news and bad news about the transmission. Trent said he’s too busy right now to rebuild another one, but he’d be willing to swap yours out with one he’s already got.”

  “That’s awesome! So what’s the bad news?”

  “Well, it’s only potentially bad. He needs to know what kind of vehicle you have to know whether it’ll work.”

  “Admit it, you just want to know what I drive.”

  He grinned. “The question has crossed my mind,” he teased, bumping my ribs with an elbow good-naturedly.

  Well, it wasn’t like it was a national secret. “It’s a 1973 Ford Bronco, stock manual transmission.”

  Everett blinked, and then gave a long whistle. “Now I feel woefully inadequate. Hang on, let me text Trent and see what he says.”

  The answer came almost immediately. “He says it’ll work, and he’s free tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow was Saturday, and another day off from the sandwich shop. “That could work,” I said carefully. “I need to call my uncle Jake first to let him know not to shoot us when we go pick it up.”

  My uncle Jake lived up in the northern part of the county amid the pine forests. We weren’t exactly close relations, but he’d been friends with my grandmother for years and when I’d expressed an interest in cars, we’d bonded.

  “How about we move the transmission to wherever you’re storing the truck? Trent can use his dad’s flatbed, so it shouldn’t take much work to get it up there. Probably cheaper than towing the Bronco down here.”

  I thought about it for a minute. “Alright, see if he can set it up. Now, chop-chop, I’m paying you to tutor me, not to sit here playing on your phone.”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  * * *

  The entire swap went without a hitch.

  I was surprised by how quickly Trent installed the heavy piece of equipment. The wiry boy still manhandled the large transmission better than men twice his size.

  “That boy’s got the knack for them machines,” my uncle Jake said as we watch
ed Trent and Everett work under the truck.

  I grinned. “Which one?”

  “Not yer boy, doubt he knows a socket wrench from an Allen. That blond boy, though, he’s got the touch.”

  Coming from Jake, that was quite the compliment. My uncle probably would have fixed my truck himself if I didn’t have too much pride to ask. As it was, he helped them out, keeping on his feet since both his knees were messed up from an old motorcycle injury.

  Trent rolled out from under the truck, wiping his hands on his jeans. “All right, start it up.”

  I climbed up into the cab and stuck the key in the ignition. It felt so good to be back inside the big Ford. The view was much higher now due to the jack stands, but I’d missed being surrounded by the huge cab. “Hang on,” I called, then turned the key.

  The old Bronco coughed, attempting to start. She’d been sitting for a good while and didn’t like being made to work again. I babied the gas pedal and tried again, and this time it only took three tries for the starter to get her going.

  Everett poked his head around my open door. “All right, put it in reverse.”

  Crossing my fingers, I slipped the stick sideways on the floor. It shifted much easier than I ever remembered before, and I could tell from my uncle’s whoop that the tires were moving.

  “Try cycling through the gears.”

  Keeping the clutch pressed, I put it in each gear, my smile growing bigger with each one. By the last gear, I was grinning like a loon: I had my baby back! I hit the gas, glorying in the rough sound of the exhaust, before finally letting it idle in Neutral. “That was awesome,” I exclaimed, sliding out of the cab.

  “Son, lemme talk to you a sec.” Jake swooped in and pulled Trent aside, leaving Everett and me alone.

  I stared at the Bronco, biting my lip to contain my smile before it overwhelmed me. God, I hadn’t been this happy in so long.

  “And you called my car ratty?”

  “Hey,” I said in mock affront, “she’s a diamond in the rough. Give her some credit.” Truthfully, I enjoyed what Jake called patina; the rust didn’t bother me, only made me identify more with the old girl. “Anyway, don’t judge a book by its cover. Want to see the engine?”