by Bijou Hunter
Vidalia
⊱✿ ✿⊰
My sister-in-law isn’t a bad person, but I want to slap her whenever I’m forced to bum a ride off someone or take the bus.
With my lack of credit, I need a co-signer to buy a used car. Reg was willing to do it, but Champagne decided it was too risky. Apparently, her uncle’s friend’s daughter’s college roommate ruined someone’s credit after they co-signed for her car. My brother shrugged and said he was sorry. While he might be the breadwinner, she wears the pants in their marriage.
I’ve lived with Reg and Champagne since I was fifteen. Mom felt a teenage girl sharing a house with an unrelated man was inappropriate. This was her solution to finding out that her boyfriend was a perv.
Mom made her choice, and I wasn’t particularly surprised to get the short straw. Like she told me when I was a kid, she needed a man. Kids were simply a by-product of her relationship with my father.
Now my dad lives in an assisted living facility where Nigerian caretakers wipe away his drool and change his diapers. No way was Mom sticking around for that trouble. Once he had his accident, she filed for divorce and found a man with a working brain and dick.
Standing at the bus stop, I think of the hulking biker from earlier. He’s the kind of man my mother would appreciate –– good looking men willing to take charge.
At least, Mom knows her limitations. Champagne thinks she’ll travel the world one day or become a doctor or some other random out of reach goal. I feel bad for Reg, who just wants to watch sports and sit out back with the kids. Meanwhile, his wife has big stupid dreams he’s forced to pretend are possible.
Like our mom, Reg understands life’s restraints. None of us are special. As he often tells his son and daughter, “You’re lucky you don’t live in a mud hut and eat dirt for dinner. Now quit your bitching.”
Reg isn’t home when I arrive, and I hear Champagne talking to her mom who lives with us. They babble day and night. I wake up to the sound of their yapping and go to bed with the same voices doing very bad versions of whispering. These women never shut up.
The moment I enter the bedroom I share with my niece and nephew, Neo asks to play.
“I need to shower and get something to eat.”
“Then you’ll play?” my six-year-old niece whines.
“Did you do your schoolwork?” I ask the kindergartner and first grader.
They nod in unison, causing their strawberry blond hair to fall into their eyes. Reg said a few days ago if Champagne didn’t cut the kids’ hair, he’d do it himself. Based on how their wild hair isn’t butchered, I assume my brother hasn’t gotten around to making good on his threat. It’s only a matter of time, though.
“Vi, are you home?” Champagne yells down the hall.
“Yes.”
“Can you watch the kids while I run to the store?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks, babe.”
A shower later, I sit in the backyard, under the table umbrella, and watch my niece and nephew run in circles with their friends. Watching Neo and Princess turns into watching half of the neighborhood.
My best friend, Fern, keeps telling me to find a man and get married, so I can move out of this house and stop sleeping in a bunk bed.
“You’re an adult with an Angry Birds comforter,” she points out nearly every time I talk to her. “Stop being your brother’s maid and nanny and start making a family of your own.”
Fern was the thinnest girl in our junior class at school and the fattest pregnant girl the following year. She jumped into motherhood and marriage with both feet and never looked back. Her husband, Taylor, smells like oil grease and cigarettes, and he refuses to change diapers. Even so, Fern is happy.
Why couldn’t I find a man to pay the bills while I raise the kids and gossip about celebrities? My life would be a helluva lot easier with a husband. I’d have a car, and a grownup bed and I could quit my job and read during the day while the baby sleeps. It sounds so damn easy, but I refuse even to consider it.
I don’t want to lie, and I’d have to if I claimed to love someone like Taylor. Or even a man like my brother who lives in his head to avoid the dull life he’s saddled with.
Deep inside, I know I’ll eventually settle one day. Likely when I’m nearing thirty, and my prospects dwindle of finding a husband who won’t slap me around or brazenly cheat. Or possibly sooner if I suffer from the same baby craving that’s afflicted so many girls I knew from school.
Until then, I ignore the cramped living conditions and simply grumble about my lack of a car. For now anyway, I can convince myself I’m not Champagne, dreaming of an exciting life out of reach for someone like me.
5
Ogre
⊱✿ ✿⊰
With a little digging, I find out that one of the managers at Vidalia’s Walmart lives a block from my apartment. He isn’t thrilled to give up information on one of his employees, but I wear the bruiser face of a man with little patience. He gives me Vidalia’s schedule for the next two weeks and a promise not to blab that I asked about her.
Showing up at Walmart, I still worry the guy might get squirmy and tell her. Based on Vidalia’s expression, she’s surprised to see me and not the least bit worried.
“You were right about that pasta salad,” I say, struggling to sound casual even as I fight the urge to pull her over the counter and steal her away.
Vidalia smiles, and I’m relieved she at least remembers me from the day before. Hundreds of faces must pass by her counter each day.
“I’m glad. It’s a popular item.”
Despite her generic response, I know she’s sizing me up. Her eyes shine, hiding nothing about her mood. Vidalia Cornish is wondering what my story is, and I wish I could blurt it out right here and now.
“I’m Gunnar, but people call me Ogre.”
“Why Ogre?” she asks, crinkling her nose and making her freckles dance.
“I used to cage fight and got banged up,” I mumble and wave my hand around my face. “Broke my nose a few times. Jaw once. Cheekbones too.”
“Does it still hurt?”
Vidalia’s eyes study my face, and I dig the concern I see in them.
“No, but the guys like to rag on me saying I was a pretty boy and now I’m an ogre.”
“That sucks,” she says, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t want anyone calling me Freckles or Red.”
“But they do anyway, don’t they?”
“Yeah,” she says and nearly knocks me over with her bright smile.
We stand there a little awkward for nearly a minute while customers pass behind me.
“Do you need more pasta salad?” she asks, taking an unsteady breath. Before I can answer, she adds, “Were you at that bar called Belly Up last weekend?”
I rub my eyes and tilt my head side to side. “I was.”
Vidalia leans forward and whispers, “If you’re here because you think I’m a slut and you want to hook up, then I have bad news. That was drunk me, and I’m not drunk ninety-nine percent of the time. Sorry.”
“You don’t remember nothing from that night?”
“Nothing that would make anyone come looking to hook up. I guess I blocked out all of the good stuff.”
“You weren’t, I mean, nothing happened that made you–– Look, if you remembered, you’d know you didn’t seem at all like a slut or nothing. It wasn’t like that. You were more modest than any drunk girl I’ve ever seen.”
Vidalia studies my face and thinks about how to react. Before she can say anything, a woman comes up to the counter and asks for enough food to feed an army.
I refuse to leave. Where am I going to go? Vidalia is all I’ve thought about since I had her in my arms. So, I wait like a lonely loser desperate for a girl’s attention.
Vidalia doesn’t hurry the woman along, but I catch her regularly peeking at me. I work out what to say while I wait, and I wonder if she’s doing the same with me.
When she finishes, I step up and ask the q
uestion before she can blow me off.
“Maybe after you get off, we could talk, and I could help you fill in the gaps about that night.”
Biting her lower lip, I swear she’s ready to gnaw off a chunk.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to hang out with customers.”
“If you want to say no, just say no. Don’t use the boss won’t let me thing.”
Vidalia flinches at my hard tone before steeling her jaw and holding my gaze.
“I don’t want to date anyone. It’s not personal. It’s just what it is.”
“Did some guy wrong you?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“No.”
“You’re lying. When a woman says she doesn’t date, it’s ’cause a man did her wrong.”
“I don’t care what a woman says or means. I know what I say and mean. The truth is I don’t date anyone because I’m busy and dating takes time, and I don’t have any.”
Eyeing her, I look for a lie, but all I see is the offended ire of a normally gentle natured girl.
“Well, all right then.”
“Yeah.”
“But if you did date, would you date me?” I ask, feeling emboldened by how I’ve survived her already kicking me in the balls.
“How do I know you didn’t try something gross while I was drunk?
“Because my mama taught me to treat women sweet. She wouldn’t put up with her only son manhandling or taking advantage of a girl.”
Vidalia blinks quickly, taking in my words, and maybe rethinking my question about a date.
“Yeah, I guess I would go out with you if I dated. I don’t date, though, so my answer is still no.”
“Fair enough,” I say as if her words don’t tear out my heart and stomp on it as badly as she did my balls.
Exhaling softly, Vidalia almost seems a little sad about her decision. Regretful or not, she fills a container with the pasta salad and hands it to me without changing her mind.
I wear a smile when I leave her. Not because I’m happy but because I have a plan B. It’s not a good option or all that sane. No way would my mama approve, though she and Dad are the ones who give me the idea. When they met, she was scared and alone, and he acted as her savior.
Now I’ll play hero for Vidalia, even if it’s all for show.
6
Vidalia
⊱✿ ✿⊰
Long after Gunnar walks away, I feel awful. He seemed genuinely nice despite his rough exterior. Not once did he leer at me even though he’d seen me drunk off my ass days ago and could assume I’m an easy lay. If anyone would ever tempt me with dating, Gunnar would be the guy. However, I stuck to my guns and blew him off.
I did the right thing.
But I feel awful anyway. Gunnar owns the saddest brown eyes, and I made them sadder. I’m not someone who normally makes people feel bad. I bite my tongue even when people deserve the truth.
After work, I sulk for the rest of the evening. Reg asks if everything’s okay, and I only nod. My brother means well, but he turns to Champagne for help with any problem involving feelings, and I don’t want to talk to her about Gunnar.
I can’t talk to Fern either. She’ll want me to go out with Gunnar. I can already hear her in my head. You’re not getting any younger, Vi. Get your big head out of your little ass and start making life decisions.
I wish I had someone in my life to talk to that would understand both why I’m sad over telling Gunnar no and why it was the right decision.
With no one to share with, I keep the melancholy balled up inside me and wait for it to go away.
Three days later, and I’m still digging my way out of those negative feelings. I even find myself hoping Gunnar might show up for more pasta salad. Why would he, though, after I blew him off?
My body feels heavy as I shuffle to the bus stop to grab my ride to work. Depression makes no sense considering the situation. Yet I breathe in the gloom with every step I take.
Stuck in my head, I take too long to acknowledge the approaching motorcycle and am nearly struck by it.
I jump out of the way and smack into the wall of a laundry mat. The black bike stops long enough for the man to look back at me. In a perfect world, I’d cuss him out for nearly running me over. In the real world, I keep my mouth shut so that I won’t end up this scary bastard’s latest victim.
My breath catches when the scary asshole pulls a gun and aims at me. Frozen in place, I don’t know what to do. There’s nowhere to run in the alley. Forward takes me to him; backward won’t get me away fast enough.
The gun’s bang sends me off my feet, but I feel no pain. The guy looks behind me and fires his weapon at a group of men roaring into the alley on their bikes.
Praying to disappear, I press myself against the wall. If I die, no one will be put out. My family will be sad. Tears will be shed. Reg might get drunk one night. Then they’ll go on without me. Champagne will move Neo to the top bunk and sell my stuff. I’ll be gone, and no one will care.
Tears blur my vision as more shots ring out. I hear the motorcycles revving. In my haze of tears and panic, I spot the first guy disappear from the alley. The other men quickly give chase. In all the chaos, I realize someone is saying my name.
“Vidalia, get on,” Gunnar says.
I don’t recognize him until I wipe the tears away from my wet eyes. Glancing back and forth in the alley, I realize we’re alone.
“I need to go home,” I whimper.
“No, he knows you saw his face. Going home won’t be safe for you or your family. Come with me.”
In any other situation where I’m nearly killed, I’d take off and refuse to look back until I was locked in my house.
With Gunnar, I don’t think straight. He’s been on my mind for days. Now I’m terrified, and he offers me safety. All I must do is trust him and climb on the Harley. My brain struggles to visualize my house, but I only see the smiling faces of Princess and Neo. If they were hurt because of me, I couldn’t live with myself.
Unable to think straight, I do as Gunnar instructs and climb on behind him.
My arms wrap tightly around his hard waist without my mind once thinking about his good looks. I’m crying and confused while his usual sad eyes are calm and certain. It’s a no brainer for him to be in charge until I know what the hell is going on.
7
Ogre
⊱✿ ✿⊰
Vidalia’s arms hold me in a vise grip for the entire ride to my parents’ double-wide in a wooded section of Pema. I don’t let myself focus on why she’s afraid, only on what I need to say when we arrive.
Parking in front of the cedar-stained home, I’m hesitant to shut off my Harley Low Rider. Vidalia is bound to have questions. She might even become hysterical once we climb off the bike.
Turning to face her, I’m startled by her now green eyes. I hadn’t realized they changed colors. This is just one of a million things I crave to learn about Vidalia Cornish.
“Can you climb off?” I ask, finding my voice.
Vidalia leans to her side and slowly eases off the bike. I wait until she looks steady before tossing over my leg and standing up straight. Her frightened gaze locks onto mine, and I know she’s waiting for answers.
I say nothing, though. Instead, I take this opportunity to run my fingers across her soft, freckled cheek.
“You’ll be safe here,” I finally whisper and then jut my chin toward the house. “This is my parents’ place, and few people know about it.”
When Vidalia nods weakly, I rest my hand on her elbow. I guide her up the front steps and onto the porch where I unlock the door and warm air hits us.
“I’ll cool this place down,” I say, leaving her side so I can switch on the air conditioner.
Vidalia doesn’t remain where I leave her. She shuts the door and locks it while scanning for trouble through the shades.
“I need to call my brother,” she says, reaching for her phone.
Moving quickly, I swipe it away. �
�No, don’t.”
“Why?” she asks, narrowing her gaze.
“What are you going to tell him?”
“Just what happened.”
“If he knows too much, he’ll want to get involved, and that could put him in danger.”
Vidalia glances at her phone in my hand. “When can I go home?”
“In a few days.”
“Days?” she balks, looking ready to reach for the phone. “I can’t miss that much work.”
“I’ll handle your boss. You can stay here where it’s safe while my club deals with the problem.”
Vidalia’s gaze moves from my hand to my face where she studies me for the longest minute of my life.
“My brother needs to know I’m safe. I can’t not show up at home.”
“Then call him and say you’ll be home in a few days and he shouldn’t worry.”
“He’s going to know something’s up. I don’t run off like this. He’ll also worry about me losing my job and not being able to pay rent. Money’s tight with my sister-in-law pregnant again.”
“Tell him you met a guy,” I suggest, circling her. “And he got you squared away with your boss, and you’ll still get the rent money. Tell your brother that you’ll give him the dirty details once you get home. If he’s anything like I am with my sister, he won’t push the topic if it gets too personal.”
Vidalia almost smiles, even as her arms wrap protectively around her body.
“Are your parents cool with me being here?”
“Yeah. They split their time between Pema and Ellsberg down south. I can use the place when they’re gone.”
Vidalia looks uncertain. I don’t know if she’s simply nervous about her situation or if she realizes my saving her was a bit too coincidental.
“What do I do while I’m here?” she asks, her voice shaking.
“You can watch TV. We have board games too. There’s food in the fridge, and I can get you anything you need.”
Tightening her arms around her body, Vidalia holds my gaze. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“No.”
“If you were, would you tell me?”
“No.”