by Brent, Cora
I knew I was waiting for him. Every time the door opened I wondered if he’d be the one to step through it. Our conversation from Saturday night felt unfinished. The medal he’d left on the bar was in my back pocket and every now and then I’d pat the small lump it made.
“Leah, can I get another?”
I knew who was hailing me before I looked up. There were only three customers in the bar, all of them Cactus regulars, all friends of my father who had known me since I was tiny and who I suspected felt like it was their civic duty to keep giving the bar their business nearly every day. The speaker, Jarvis Pratt, had retired from the prison some years back and then survived a bout of throat cancer that left him disfigured and with the metallic voice of a robot. He’d always been kind. I smiled at him and filled his glass to the very top. I couldn’t imagine alcohol was good for a man with his health issues but that wasn’t for me to judge.
Misty arrived an hour later. I’d known her as a customer before I gave her a job. She was a favorite among the customers and I was glad she wanted to work here even though I couldn’t offer her more than part time.
“Look at you all decked out,” she declared with a low whistle after depositing her purse in the back room locker.
I rolled my eyes and tossed a towel at her, again wishing I hadn’t spent so much time primping in front of the mirror this morning.
The first shift of the prison must have just let out because three guards entered in their blue and white uniforms. I didn’t know them but Misty did and began working their table. I motioned to her and she nodded to say she had everything covered, leaving me free to get some work done in the office.
The numbers hadn’t become any happier since the last time I looked at them. I chewed the end of a ballpoint pen and wondered about our chances of obtaining a more favorable mortgage. That wouldn’t be the end of the bar’s troubles but it was the most urgent situation. Next weekend I’d sit down with my dad and have a serious talk about what we ought to do next. Maybe being confronted with a difficult reality would make him snap out of his spell and lend a hand.
I reached in the drawer for another pen to chew on since I’d demolished the first one and my fingers touched the sharp edge of a picture frame. I pulled it out, remembering how I’d stuffed it in there right after my mother’s funeral. I couldn’t work with her watching me. The photo had been snapped many years ago, on a trip my parents had taken to Hawaii together while Daisy and I were left in the care of Celeste. Luanne was stretched out on a lounge chair wearing the skimpiest of yellow bikinis and even though my eyeballs shrank at the sight of the cold smile I recalled so well, there was no denying that she’d been stunning. People who meant well used to make claims of the ‘You’ll grow into a beauty like your mother’ variety. They were being polite. A beautiful woman was expected to produce beautiful children. And sometimes when I twisted my head this way or that in the mirror I would catch a glimpse of Luanne. But I would never be described as a great beauty. I wasn’t sorry about that. Perhaps my mother would have been a better person if she hadn’t believed her looks entitled her to the world. I shoved the picture back into the drawer. Face down.
There were some bills that couldn’t be put off so I dealt with the ones I could manage and stuck the rest in the drawer with Luanne’s picture. I scarcely drew any salary for myself, just enough to buy groceries and gas for my car. My father still had some money in his checking account for household expenses but I plundered that only for the bare necessities.
“Money sucks,” I muttered, thinking I might have gone down the wrong path when I chose an accounting major because I had no wish to ever lay eyes on another dollar sign again.
I needed a drink. I wasn’t even a drinker, indulging in a beer once or twice a week but never accepting my customers’ frequent offers to join them on a shot. I didn’t look up when I left the office and made a beeline for the whiskey collection, filling a shot glass before I could change my mind. I’d never taken a shot of straight whiskey and it burned like hellfire. Gagging into the sink wasn’t a good look for a bartender but my throat literally felt like I’d swallowed lava. An eruption of masculine laughter told me that the spectacle hadn’t gone unnoticed. Blood roared between my ears when I finally raised my head and the first thing I saw was Ryan Jedson sitting on a nearby bar stool and observing me like I was the house entertainment.
“Hey, Leah,” he said, all cheerful as you please.
I seized a napkin and wiped my mouth. The remainder of my lip gloss came off.
“I didn’t know you were here,” I replied, an unnecessary comment.
“You all right there, girl?” Misty deposited her drink tray on the counter and leaned an elbow on the wood.
“I’m fine,” I croaked but she was already checking Ryan out.
“You’re a new one,” she told Ryan, her husky voice plainly articulating that she was interested in an explanation.
“Nope. I’m not new at all,” he argued, drumming his fingers on the bar. I caught a hint of coconut, probably his soap. His hair was wet and he was clean shaven, like he’d just stepped out of the shower.
“I can deal with this,” I told Misty and she nodded, leaving the counter to serve the newest pair of post-shift prison guards who intended to celebrate the end of the work day with a few ounces of hard liquor.
“Have some pretzels.” Ryan pushed a bowl toward me. I got the feeling he was making fun of me. “Some solid food will chase away the sick feeling.”
I popped a pretzel into my mouth and chewed. It gave me a few seconds to recover. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Water.”
“Water?”
He unfolded a fifty dollar bill. “Your best brand please.”
“It comes from the sink and it’s free.” I filled a beer glass in the sink and handed it over.
Ryan took a sip and looked around.
“Where’s your bodyguard?” he asked.
“Terry only works Thursday through Saturday. And he’s not my bodyguard. He bartends and helps keep order around here on the busy nights.”
“He’s a local? He looks familiar.”
“Terry Kaiser. Yeah, he’s all Emblem, born and bred.”
“Kaiser.” Ryan scratched his head, thinking. “Hell, I know who he is. I used to play football with his older brother, Davis. The guy could throw a block but damn if he didn’t have sand between his ears. The Kaisers were all cut from the same mold. Big and dumb.”
It was the truth but somehow I felt defensive of Terry. “Terry’s all right,” I said in an offhand way and wiped down the already clean bar.
Ryan drank his water and then resumed staring at me. There was really nothing else for him to look at but receiving the entire focus of those penetrating dark eyes gutted my concentration. I refused to indulge in some lightheaded schoolgirl crush on Ryan Jedson. Everything else aside, I’d seen my own mother’s mouth on the guy. I’d heard him admit what they did together. No amount of time could cancel that moment from my mind. Ryan wasn’t dangerous. He wasn’t a murderer. I’d always known that. He also didn’t deserve what had happened to him. I knew that too. But I couldn’t think about him that way. I couldn’t allow myself to want him.
I set down the towel and met his stare with my own.
A quiet minute of mutual reflection passed between us and Ryan broke away first, shaking his head once with a snort and a small grin as if he knew something private and comical.
“You want to share the joke?” I asked, ignoring the flutter in my stomach at the sound of his deep chuckle.
“There’s no joke,” he said, leaning forward. He must have spent time outdoors during his Florida years. He was more savagely tan than he’d been before. “In fact I’d say there’s nothing even slightly funny about this situation, Leah.”
“What situation?”
He gestured with a pointed finger. “You and me.”
Why did I have to feel dizzy? They were such simple words. You and
me.
“You and me?” My heart pounded. There was nothing I could do to stop it.
“Yeah.” He stretched, slightly arching his back so that his chest muscles were highlighted against his t-shirt. “You and me, Leah. Sitting here at your father’s bar and having a conversation like we’re two regular old acquaintances.”
I didn’t detect any anger. If he’d blamed me at all for his banishment and for everything that happened afterwards then he wouldn’t be capable of carrying on a calm conversation.
“We are two old acquaintances,” I told him. Maybe once we’d been friends. Maybe once he’d been my fantasy prince charming. That connection had been severed a long time ago.
Hadn’t it?
Something was bothering him all of a sudden. He looked like he was searching for a way to say what was on his mind.
“You’ll never know how much I hated myself when I realized you saw us that night,” he said.
I wasn’t prepared to talk about this. I didn’t want to. My mother on her knees, her dress at her waist, his groan at the feel of her lips.
My throat burned for a different reason now. The nausea that threatened to engulf me rose again from a different place. I whipped my head away, unwilling to let him see that the memory remained devastating.
“Leah, look at me. Please.”
He’d see it if I looked at him. He’d see the old bewildered hurt written all over me. I breathed once. Twice. And I looked at him anyway.
Ryan wasn’t on the verge of laughter now. His shoulders drooped and his expression was disturbed. He was miserable.
“I’m exceedingly sorry,” he said. “I wanted you to know that Luanne and I had been over for a long time before that night.”
“Dammit, Ryan,” I hissed, trying to keep the volume down lest this piece of gossip get added to the lore of Emblem. “Why are you bringing this up? I don’t really want to hear all the disgusting details.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”
“No.” And I didn’t. But I did. Because imagining was terrible too. Imagining was as bad as knowing.
Ryan exhaled and fidgeted in his chair, looking uncomfortable. “I’ve never told anyone this before. The thing with Luanne started when I was sixteen. She’d never given me the time of day so I was shocked when she made a move. I’ll spare you the particulars but she wasn’t vague when she decided what she wanted. Of course I knew it was wrong for a dozen different reasons. I ended it when I was seventeen. I quit school. I moved out. I’d had enough of being Luanne’s plaything.”
I might have been wrong.
Knowing was worse.
Now there was confirmation, instead of only suspicion, that Ryan had been underage, a kid, when my mother sunk her claws into him. Of all the things Luanne was guilty of, and there were many, preying on the teenage son of her best friend was the wickedest of her lows. How had Luanne’s perverted influence changed the course of his life? Perhaps the boy who cherished the desert wouldn’t have dropped out of school, left his mother’s home, and turned to petty crimes that would, with Luanne’s help, lead him to ruin.
“Fuck,” I muttered because it was the most appropriate word for this situation. Then, in the barest of whispers, “Damn you forever, Luanne.”
Ryan frowned. “My mother never suspected. She loved Luanne like a sister although god only knows why. And she was working at the shelter so much and was so stressed out trying to solve everyone else’s problems. Getting that kind of news would have broken her heart.” He choked out a bitter laugh. “Instead she had her heart broken in a different way, thinking I might have killed a man. I didn’t, in case there’s still doubt left in anyone’s mind.”
“I don’t doubt you, Ryan,” I said and I didn’t. He had no reason to seek me out just to tell a lie.
Misty, while flirting with the prison guards, had caught on that something was up from across the bar and she tilted her head as she looked our way. I uncovered my mouth, gave her a nod of reassurance and pretended to wipe nonexistent crumbs off the bar.
Yes, Celeste’s heart had indeed been broken. She was the kindest person I’d ever known and I’d cried over her death every day for months. I still cried over her now and then, a much higher volume of tears than I’d ever been able to generate for Luanne. Ryan didn’t know something about the day she died and maybe hearing it would help him heal. Or maybe it would crush him all over again with bitterness over what he’d lost.
“You know what, Leah?” Ryan said. “I feel better after telling you the whole story and apologizing for how I might have hurt you. It’s good to come clean. Nothing weighs as much as guilt. Don’t you think so?”
I did think so. But the question confused me. Was it a challenge? Was it a request for friendship and understanding? I didn’t know. I couldn’t think straight.
“What my mother did to you is indefensible,” I said, then swallowed. “I never really hated you, Ryan.”
He touched my hand, not a romantic gesture. He was trying to get me to look up, to meet his eye. I didn’t find anger there, or sadness either. Just an intense kind of watchfulness that I couldn’t quite decipher.
“You never hated me?” he asked as if he didn’t believe it.
“No. I only thought I did for a minute.”
Ryan withdrew. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. Then he stood up.
“Keep the fifty,” he said.
He said it like I’d annoyed him somehow. But I was only guessing at his moods. I was probably projecting my own disappointment in myself. I owed Ryan Jedson a complete account of everything I knew, everything I’d said, everything I’d done.
“He’d fucking kill you, Leah.”
That wasn’t true. Ryan didn’t strike me as a violent or unreasonable guy. I should have searched him out the day I heard he was back in town. He’d understand that I’d been stuck. Manipulated. Coerced into repeating everything he’d told me. He would believe that my mother used that information to create the conclusion that suited her. And what suited her was seeing Ryan thrown in prison. He already knew the depths of Luanne’s vileness. Nothing I had to say about her would come as a shock to him. I could also tell him that I’d mourned his mother’s death more than I’d mourned Luanne and every day I wished I’d been a stronger person when it might have made a difference. All the honest words I’d thought about saying to him for six years were ready to be heard.
But Ryan had already taken a step back and was glancing around with an attitude of impatience or irritation. He probably had somewhere else to be.
“Will you come back sometime?” I asked. “I’d really like to have the chance to talk to you more.”
The friendly smile he flashed made me think I must have imagined the moment of strangeness. “Of course I’ll come back. This is nice, isn’t it? Talking again after all these years.”
I returned his smile. “Maybe next time instead of paying fifty bucks for some tap water you’ll accept a drink on the house.”
He looked around, slowly and calculatingly, taking in every inch of the dingy bar before nodding in agreement. “I might do just that.”
I was going to say something else but he turned his back and briskly exited. A strangely hollow feeling enveloped me as I watched him go and I understood why. I recognized the fast pace of my heartbeat for what it was. I lacked the willpower to stop myself from staring after a man I had no business being attracted to. Even though it couldn’t mean anything, just an echo of an ancient crush.
Misty touched my arm and I jumped. I’d been so focused on Ryan I’d managed to forget anyone else was around, hadn’t even noticed when Misty stepped behind the bar. Now the fog of my Ryan fixation had lifted and I was able to hear the blended noise of conversations in the room, followed by the brief crackle of laughter.
“Honey, you were in another world for a minute,” Misty noted and then snapped her gum. “Already asked you twice where you were hiding the rum.”
“Top shelf,” I said an
d whisked away Ryan’s untouched glass of water.
Misty made no move to locate the rum and instead looked at the counter. “What the hell did he drink that’s worth a fifty?”
“Nothing. You take it.”
One of Misty’s over drawn eyebrows rose to her multi-colored hairline. “You sure?”
“Yup.” I didn’t want to touch Ryan’s money.
Misty had no such qualms. She snatched up the fifty in one hand and jerked her head toward the door Ryan had just departed from. “Who the hell is he, anyway? Got to admit he’s the most bang-worthy thing I’ve seen since I moved to this crappy town.”
I spilled the water down the sink. “He used to be a friend.”
Misty unscrewed the bottle of rum. “Used to be? And now you’re putting on makeup to impress him?”
I was ready to deny it.
Misty wouldn’t let me. “Don’t bother. Your face already gave you away.” She added Coke to the glass of rum and then quickly filled two beer glasses from the tap. “Wish I had a friend who looked like a male stripper and stopped by just to drop off fifty dollar bills. Make sure he knows he’s welcome to visit anytime.”
“Already did.” I touched the lump in my back pocket for a second, wishing I’d had the presence of mind to ask him about it.
Chapter Seven
Ryan
I waited more than a week, opting to take my time on purpose because I knew she’d keep her eyes trained on the door while hoping that the next broad-shouldered guy who strolled in would be me.
There wasn’t much going on in my life in the meantime and I was getting restless. The properties I’d quietly purchased along Emblem’s Main Street so far would need some attention but right now that work was in a holding pattern due to permits and other bullshit. Rence had overnighted the paperwork I’d asked him to draw up but for now it remained in a fat envelope atop the marble kitchen island. I was picking my moment to make that particular presentation.
I’d spent the week working out, shooting in the desert and taking a few online classes to keep my mind sharp.