The Hard Way

by Katie Ashley

  “What about this? Do you know what it means?”

  He handed me a piece of paper. It was the song lyrics to You Were Always On My Mind. As I read over the lyrics, I remembered a couple of months ago when I’d gotten into Jake’s truck after one of the basketball games.

  When Jake cranked the car, music came blasting out of the speakers.

  “Dude, what the hell is this shit?” I’d asked.

  “It’s Willie Nelson man,” he replied, turning the heater on.

  “That’s freakin’ fabulous, but why are we listening to it?”

  “Cause I like it.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little hokey?”

  Jake grinned. “I like hokey. Besides, it’s my song.”

  I snorted. “I thought your song was more 50 Cent’s Pimp or JT’s Sexy Back!”

  “Yeah, I am kinda a pimp, aren’t I?” Jake mused. Then he laughed. “No man, you’re wrong. This is a song to warm a girl up.”

  I raised my eyebrows skeptically. “Warm one up? I thought all you had to do was look in their direction, and they’d fling their clothes off and fall over.”

  Jake laughed. “Usually…but not this girl. She needs a little work, and trust me, it’s sexy as hell.”

  I had scoffed at the thought and dropped the subject. Funny, how the most ridiculous conversations could have some deep seeded meaning. Now that I looked back, it was a private moment between two friends—one I wasn’t willing to share.

  So, I looked at Mr. Nelson and shook my head.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but the doorbell rang. Mr. Nelson rolled his eyes. “That would be Pastor Dan,” he grumbled.

  Dan Parker was the pastor of the church Mrs. Nelson attended, and the one Jake had been court-appointed to attend after one of his sophomore year stunts. Well, the judge hadn’t actually mandated he attend church—just the rehabilitation program that Pastor Dan ran for wayward teens who did dumbass things like get drunk and drive a lawnmower naked down to the school and mow grass into the shape of a penis on the football field.

  I handed the velvet box back to Mr. Nelson. He glanced at it and then back up at me. “Don’t say a word about the ring to my wife, Noah. Not until we get through all this funeral bullshit.”

  Asshole. “Whatever,” I mumbled.

  As I went out the doorway, I glanced back at Jake’s room one last time, and then I followed Mr. Nelson downstairs.

  Standing in the foyer alongside Pastor Dan was a girl who looked just like an angel. No shit, she was decked in a flowing white summer dress. Only her dark brown hair contrasted against her pale skin and attire.

  I skidded to a stop on the bottom step and stared. It was then I realized she wasn’t really an angel. I’d seen her around school many times before. I may have even had a class or two with her. She’d transferred to Creekview when I was junior. That was the year her family moved to town, and Pastor Dan became the pastor of one of the local churches.

  Mrs. Nelson smiled. “Noah, I’d like to introduce you to Pastor Dan Parker.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, as I shook his hand.

  “Nice meeting you too, Noah.” Pastor Dan turned to the angel. “This is my daughter, Maddie.”

  At the sound of her name, Maddie dutifully raised her head.

  I reached out and took her hand in mine. “Yeah, I think we know each other from school,” I said.

  She nodded. “Yes, we do.”

  Mrs. Nelson put her arm around Maddie’s waist. “I don’t know what Jake would’ve done without Maddie. She’s been such a help to him this year. Why I doubt he’d earned enough credits to graduate without her.”

  I noticed tears glistened in Maddie’s eyes. She leaned over and hugged Mrs. Nelson, and they both wept. I shuffled back and forth on my feet and glanced over at my mom. She had tears in her eyes, too.

  If there was anyone more uncomfortable with people showing emotion, it was Mr. Nelson. His face darkened. He interrupted his wife and Maddie by thrusting the duffel bag of Jake’s things into Mrs. Nelson’s arms. “Noah and I got the things you asked for.”

  She wiped her eyes. “Thanks, dear,” she replied, pressing the bag against her chest.

  Mom cleared her throat. “Noah, I told Mrs. Nelson you’d be happy to take those items down to the funeral home for her.”

  I shot my mom a look. The last thing on earth I wanted to do was go down to the funeral home. I didn’t like to admit it, but I kinda had this thing about funeral homes.

  “Sure, that’d be fine.”

  Mrs. Nelson smiled and then reached over to hug me. “You’re such a good boy, Noah.”

  Pastor Dan peered out the window. “Uh-oh, if that’s your SUV, we’re blocking you in. Maddie, why don’t you give Noah a lift down to the funeral home real quick?

  Maddie and I both stared at him in disbelief. “W-What?” Maddie stammered.

  Pastor Dan nodded. “Sure. I was going to have to drop off Mr. St. Clare’s eulogy for tomorrow anyway.” He glanced at Mrs. Nelson and smiled. “You know, they’ve got to translate it into French for all those Cajun relatives coming into town.”

  “Oh that’s right,” Mrs. Nelson replied.

  He reached in his briefcase and pulled out a large envelope.

  Maddie reluctantly took it from his hand and started for the door. I followed close on her heels.

  I slid into the silver Camry still clutching the bag. Without a word, Maddie cranked the car. Christian Worship music blared out of the radio. She flushed a little and quickly turned it off. We started down the road as an uncomfortable silence hung in the air.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I checked her out. I was a guy—I couldn’t help it. I started thinking about why I’d never really noticed her—you know the way a guy was supposed to notice a girl, especially one as beautiful she was. Then it hit me. Maddie didn’t wear low cut shirts and tank tops with her jacked up cleavage winking at the free world, and she didn’t have her ass cheeks hanging out of her shorts and skirts. She kept herself covered.

  But it took just one glance at her long legs wrapped underneath the steering wheel to make me imagine them in short skirts. With my eyes roving upward, I realized she was also hiding a fabulous rack underneath her dress. Damn, what a waste.

  My below-the-belt thoughts along with being in close quarters made me blurt out the first thing that came to my mind—after her amazing legs and Double D’s. “You smell nice.” The moment the words left my lips, I cringed. Way to be an utter lameass, Noah!

  “It’s Noa,” she murmured.

  “What about me?” I asked.

  A smile tugged at her lips. “No, the perfume’s name is Noa.”

  “Oh, I get it,” I laughed.

  Maddie’s smiled widened. “Jake really liked it, too. He used to joke about it being a biblical experience or something silly like that.”

  “Yeah, I’d forgotten you were Jake’s tutor,” I said.

  She glanced over at me. A dark look flashed in her eyes. “I was his friend.”

  “Yeah, I know.” The truth was Jake had mentioned her to me before, but I’d never really paid attention. Not to mention he and I were both going in such crazy directions senior year. I had just taken it as one of those random “Jake” comments—the kind I’d blow off and then wait until he moved on to something else. But the more I thought about it, he never moved on to anything else. I remembered him stopping to say hey to her in the hallway or at lunch. Hell, when we were with him, we all said hello to her because everyone in the group knew better than to say something bad about her or tease her. If we did, Jake would have kicked our ass.

  Maddie brought me out of my ramblings with the tone of her next question. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure of what?”

  “That you knew Jake and I were friends,” she replied, an edginess creeping into her voice.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “You know.”

  I raised my eyebrows.
“Um, no I don’t, so why don’t you give me a hint or something.”

  She sighed. “I know I’m not part of the in-crowd or one of Jake’s usual conquests. And I’m sure you don’t know how it’s possible for someone like Jake to have given someone like me the time of day, but he did. He was always a sweet and perfect gentleman to me.”

  I thought about the way she’d been crying at Jake’s house. She’d really cared about him. “I’m sorry. I really don’t think that, I promise. Jake was…complicated. Even our friendship was complicated sometimes,” I said.

  Maddie looked at me in surprise. “Yeah, I guess he was a little complicated,” she agreed, softly.

  She didn’t say anything else, and thankfully, we pulled into the parking lot of Whitfield Funeral Home.

  When we got to the door, I balked. The last time I’d been there was when my grandfather had died. Suddenly, my mind tripped out, and I was flooded with memories. I was afraid the moment I opened that door, I would smell the sickening, sweet aroma of funeral flowers. Worst of all, I would see my grandfather’s chalky dead face the way it had looked the last time I’d seen him in the casket.

  Maddie turned back to me in confusion. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I muttered.

  Her face flooded with concern. She reached out and touched my arm. “Oh, I’m sorry. If I’d known you had some sorta phobia about funeral homes, you could’ve waited in the car.”

  Okay, I didn’t the like the way she was able to see through me so well. There were only two women in the world who could do that, my mom and my Grammy. I quickly got a hold of myself. “I don’t have a phobia, Dr. Phil.”

  Maddie raised her eyebrows. “Well, by the look on your face and your tone, one could only assume you have some sort of fear. If you do, it’s perfectly fine because-”

  “Don’t you know what they say about making assumptions?”

  “Um no.”

  “It makes an ass out of you and me!” I snapped.

  By the look on her face, I knew I’d gone too far. I sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that-”

  She interrupted me by holding out her hand. “Pay up.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I have this thing about people cussing in my presence. It’s disrespectful, and I think it reflects on one’s lack of vocabulary. So I’ve started this thing called a ‘Cuss Can’. You cuss around me, and you have to put a quarter in the can. All the proceeds go to the mission work at my dad’s church.”

  My jaw dropped. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “Now you owe me fifty cents.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. I didn’t know who the hell she thought she was standing before me demanding money simply for cussing. What planet was she on?

  “Listen Miss Priss, I’m not paying you a damn thing.”

  Maddie didn’t miss a beat. “Seventy-five.”

  When I still stood there gaping at her, she simply cocked her head. “Not man enough to pay up?”

  For reasons unknown to me, I reached in my back pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. “Now let’s just get something straight. Nobody tells me what I can or can’t do, you got that?”

  She eyed the one dollar bill and then looked back at me. “Need change?” she asked, clearly fighting back her laughter.

  “Keep it,” I grumbled.

  We were interrupted by Mr. Whitfield opening the door. “Can I help you?”

  Maddie smiled. “Yes Mr. Whitfield, my father wanted me to drop off his sermon for tomorrow, and we also need to drop off some personal effects of Jake Nelson’s.”

  Mr. Whitfield returned Maddie’s smile and opened the door for us. “Please come right on in.”

  The funeral home was silent. Dead silent in fact. The last few times I’d been there I guess they’d been at capacity with relatives and friends hanging all over the place. The hallways were dark and empty. “Where’s the other family?” I whispered to Maddie.

  Before she could answer, Mr. Whitfield answered for her. “Mr. St. Clare’s family isn’t doing visitation. Just simply a funeral tomorrow, which I think will be better in the long run. I imagine we will be at full capacity at the visitation tomorrow evening with all of Jake’s friends and family.”

  I nodded. He ushered us into his office. “Please have a seat.”

  Maddie and I sat down in the leather studded chairs in front of his desk. “Now let me see. Why don’t I take care of Mr. St. Clare’s eulogy first?” He held out his hand, and Maddie handed him the envelope.

  As he was shuffling through some paperwork, one of his workers strolled into the office with a white box in his hands. “Hey Bill, I got a call to head over to Memorial Hospital. Some tractor trailer jackknifed—looks like we’re getting two from the accident,” he said.

  Mr. Whitfield glanced up from his paperwork. “All right, Ed. I’ll expect you back later then.”

  “Oh, by the way, Paul just got back from the crematorium. Here’s the Nelson kid.” Ed plopped the box down on the edge of the desk and then headed out of the room.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” I hissed as a strangled cry erupted from Maddie’s throat. We both stared in horror at the sight of what was left of Jake sitting on the edge of the desk not a foot in front of me. Nausea overcame me that the larger than life sports god and manwhore was compressed into one tiny box. It didn’t seem possible.

  Mr. Whitfield grimaced. “Do let me apologize for Ed’s callousness. He should have never brought these cremains in here. We usually keep them in the back until the urn is picked out.”

  Maddie’s breaths came in harsh pants, and I swiveled my head to meet her frantic gaze. By the looks of it, she was about to start hyperventilating. Before I knew it, she reached over and fumbled for my hand. Part of me wanted to smirk and say, “Yeah, who’s freaked out by funeral homes now, huh?” But I would have been a total prick if I’d done that. Instead, I did the compassionate thing for once, and I squeezed her hand before I cleared my throat and stood up.

  “Mr. Whitfield, we’re really in a rush, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to just give you Jake’s things.”

  Mr. Whitfield nodded. “Once again, I do apologize. We’ll see you two back tomorrow evening then.”

  I nodded. I cast one final look at what was left of Jake before I tugged on Maddie’s hand, leading her out of the room. Her sniffling echoed through the empty hallway. When we got outside, I inhaled sharply of the fresh air as I leaned against the mahogany door. With her back to me, I could see Maddie’s shoulders rising and falling with her cries.

  “Um-are you okay?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry about having to—to see Jake like that. Uh—he would want us to—you know—remember him the way he was—when he was alive,” I stammered. I realized I sounded like an uber dickhead, but comforting grieving females was so out of my realm of expertise.

  When she turned around, her dark eyes glistened with tears, and my heart thudded in my chest. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone more beautiful than Maddie was in that moment. Jesus, what was happening to me? I may have never seen anyone more beautiful before, but I’d also never felt more like a creep and a weirdo either.

  “You’re right,” she murmured. She smiled weakly. “Thanks Noah.”

  I was too dumbfounded to do anything else but nod. I tried to shake off the weird feelings that were crawling over my body. I was going to be eighteen in two months, and I’d never, ever experienced the emotions I was feeling right now. I didn’t know what was more frightening: the fact I was entertaining attraction for the “goody” preacher’s daughter, or the fact that I was experiencing these feelings in the parking lot of funeral home not ten feet away from the ashes of my dead best friend. Either way, I felt like checking into the psych ward of the hospital immediately.

  I led Maddie over to the car and opened the driver’s side door for her. She gave me an appreciate smile before I headed arou
nd the side of the car. As we started down the road, a thought popped into my mind. “So did you do the ‘cuss can’ thing to Jake, too?”

  She giggled. “Yes.”

  My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “He actually did it?”

  “Sure, he did.” A wide grin stretched across her face. “He liked to joke that his foul mouth probably paid for the spring mission trip!”

  I laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, Jake was known to have a pretty serious potty mouth.”

  “He did for a while. Then he got to where he never even made a slip-up.”

  I shook my head. “Wow, that doesn’t sound like Jake,” I murmured.

  Maddie appeared lost in thought for a few seconds. Finally, she drew in a deep breath. “Noah,” she began. “You’re probably going to be hearing some things in the next few days about Jake that will—you know, surprise you.”

  “Oh?”

  She nodded. “I just want to prepare you.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Well, things that you wouldn’t have expected from him. Things he didn’t want everybody to know or to see about him…yet.”

  I thought about the ring and the song lyrics. I knew Maddie was on to something. Plus, there had been all that craziness in the last few weeks about him making a change and giving up drinking and partying. Frankly, as an extreme Michael Jackson fan, I thought Jake had listened to Man in the Mirror a few too many times.

  We pulled into Jake’s driveway and got out of the car. I walked around and met Maddie on the driver’s side.

  “Thanks for going with me, Noah.”

  “Thanks for taking me,” I replied.

  She gave me her beaming smile—the one that spread across her face, causing her dimples to pop out—and then she reached over and hugged me. As she pressed against me, I tried not to think of the way her fabulous rack felt. Instead, I tried thinking about how comforting it felt being hugged by her. Once again, I wasn’t sure which one was the worse of the two evils.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  That night when I climbed into bed, sleep evaded me. Instead, every memory I could conjure of Jake barreled its way through my mind. All I could do was think about him. A fire raged in my chest. Small flames licked at my heart until it grew into a billowing inferno. I knew what I needed to do, but I was too stubborn to give in to it. It was simple enough…I just needed to weep and to mourn. If I cried, I could release the pain…I could put the fire out. But I wouldn’t do it. Instead, I lay in bed, choking and suffocating in my own hard heartedness.