by Naomi Niles
“God, you can almost smell the odor of gasoline and old leather,” I said, “even from in here. Sometimes I really do miss Texas.”
“You ought to move home,” said Curtis. “It would do your heart good.”
Chapter Thirty
Jaimie
Within a few minutes, we turned onto a narrow dirt drive leading to a small wood-frame house with a wood porch. Behind it lay an enclosed yard with a red barn and a tiny house, and further back lay an immense stretch of pasture where horses stood grazing in the sun.
“Mom just texted me,” said Braxton. “Says she would come out to meet us, but she’s busy cooking. Sends her apologies and wants us to meet her inside.”
“That’s just Mom,” said Curtis. “If she breaks propriety even a little, she feels terrible.”
Curtis brought the truck to a halt, and we climbed out. I went to get my bag, but Braxton held up a firm hand and pulled it out of the bed. Smiling in satisfaction, he turned and strode off toward the house, Curtis at his side. I followed at a short distance. The front door was open, and a rich smell of cooked meats drifted out of the house, mingled with the earthy scents of the barnyard.
Inside the house, a row of tables had been set up containing one of the most lavish feasts I had ever seen. They sagged under the weight of ham and cheese croissant casserole, chicken salad with crackers, chipotle lime fish tacos, and jalapeno cheddar biscuits. One whole table contained nothing but desserts, among them a peach cobbler, bacon pecan cinnamon roll biscuits, Mexican chocolate brownies, and butternut pudding with whipped cream and candied pecans.
At the back of the kitchen stood a woman wearing a gingham dress and blue and white striped apron, her graying hair tied back in a transparent net. Setting down a tray of sweet potato biscuits that had just come out of the oven, she ran forward and threw her arms around me.
“Bless you for flying all the way out here,” said Mrs. Savery. “Braxton has spoken so highly of you.”
“Well, the feeling is quite mutual,” I said with a laugh as we broke apart. “How on earth did you have the time or—energy—to make all this?”
“Well, I’ll be honest: this is the first big meal I’ve made in ages. Jon and I were in a bad car wreck about six months ago and could barely get out of bed.”
“Oh, you poor thing!”
“We had to survive on takeout, like we did when we were first dating. But Jon was really gracious and bore patiently with it while I worked to get back on my feet. Braxton has mentioned that you like writing—imagine you suddenly lost the use of your hand and couldn’t write anymore. That’s what it was like. So now that I’m able to cook again, I’m throwing myself into it with gusto.” Reaching for the tray, she added, “Have a biscuit? They should be cooling by now.”
“Thank you; I’m starving.” I reached gratefully for it. “We didn’t really have time to eat breakfast before the flight this morning, and those peanuts they give you don’t really fill you up.”
“Well, I hope this satisfies you.” She motioned to the rows of tables. “Of course you and Braxton don’t have to eat it all by yourself. Allie’s on her way once she gets off work, and we’ve invited a few friends over.”
“I just can’t get over how good this all looks.” It looked magnificent, like the sort of feast the second ghost might offer Scrooge in a southwestern-flavored production of A Christmas Carol. I sat down at a table by the bay windows looking out on the backyard. A small floppy-eared black dog was happily chasing a flock of grackles on a fence-post, who rose together in unison, looking irritated, and flew off.
“You like it?” asked Braxton, sitting down next to me and taking my hand. “I know it’s a small house, but this is where we grew up. It’s home.”
“You must have so many memories associated with this place.”
“I do—mostly of me being dicks to my brothers. Was a time when Zac and I couldn’t even be in the same room without starting a fight. Then the other boys would have to come in and separate us.”
“What did you do to make them so angry?” Braxton seemed so close to his family; it was hard to imagine he had ever been an outcast.
“I had a chip on my shoulder from the time I was ten. Spent most of my time working out and picking fights. If you looked at me the wrong way, I was liable to sock you.”
“I’m glad I didn’t know you then.”
“So am I.” He laughed softly. “It’s only in the last year that I’ve really gotten my act together. Mom and Dad were talking about not letting me come home for a while. I don’t know if Mom could’ve gone through with it. I think shunning me would have killed her.”
“She seems sweet,” I said absently. I couldn’t help remembering the warning that Ren had given me during our last breakfast: Eventually, the mask will slip, and you’re the one who will get hurt.
***
We spent two and a half days in Sulphur Springs, during which, despite my misgivings, I found myself falling harder and harder for Braxton. On Sunday afternoon, the family played a murder mystery game. It didn’t take him more than a few minutes to figure out that I was the killer—“it was the way you kept looking over at me,” he said, “like you had some secret you were eager to tell me.”
“I’m no good at bluffing,” I said, disappointed. “I think you knew I liked you from the moment I said hello.”
“Someday we’ll have to play with all my brothers,” said Braxton. “Somehow, Marshall is always the last man standing.”
Just then, Curtis entered the room strumming a banjo and loudly singing “Wagon Wheel,” and the entire family joined in. That was the last private moment we shared until sunset when Braxton led me out into the backyard, where we sat on a hay bale holding hands. A cool wind was blowing, and the grackles were slim silhouettes against the dusky sky. As the reddish light deepened to purple and then black, I lay my head on his shoulder, feeling the steady beat of his heart.
“Is it weird how much I like you?” he asked after a long silence punctuated only by the dog’s barking.
“Is it weird that I like you, too?” I burrowed more deeply into him. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I really didn’t think you would last past Vegas.”
“I’m as surprised as you,” he said with a laugh. “I think we were drawn to the comfort of each other’s bodies. We wanted to do sexy things and not have to worry about the consequences.”
“But there are always consequences,” I said quietly. I could feel him nodding.
“So,” he asked finally. “What are we going to do? Are we dating?”
“I guess we are.”
He nudged me around so I could face him, a soulful look in his brown eyes. “I want to be really intentional about this. I don’t want to be dating through inertia or whatever.”
“No, I agree,” I said, rising slowly. “I want to make sure we’re both committed to this before we sign on. I’m not saying this will end in marriage, but I like you and want to go out with you.” When he continued to study me silently, I added, “What about you? I want to know what you’re thinking.”
“Well,” said Braxton, “I like you and want to go out with you.”
Somehow the words brought a surge of relief flooding through me. My pace quickening, I said in a cautious voice, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Hmmm?”
“And, please don’t be angry with me for wanting to know this. But it struck me that you never answered the questions they asked about your criminal record.”
“Oh, you mean at the press conference?” He sounded surprised but not angry.
“Yeah, that.” I held my breath for a moment before plunging forward. “Is it true that you were beating up—vagrants and homeless people?”
“Ah, yes.” The tone of his voice suggested that he had been expecting this question. To my surprise, he smiled, his honeyed eyes glinting in the light of the dying sun.
“I did some of those things, I’ll admit. But not just randoml
y or because I was out looking for a fight. I considered myself sort of a crime-fighting vigilante.”
This wasn’t the response I had expected. “You mean like Batman?”
He nodded gravely. “Yes. Exactly like Batman.”
“What led you to think that?” I asked, bewildered.
“Understand that in most of those cases I stumbled on a crime in progress. I would be jogging through the park at night or would turn a street corner and see someone getting robbed. My zeal for justice would kick in, and I would find myself pommeling the criminals. It was like this Hulk rage took over my body, and it was a long time before I learned how to control it.”
“Yikes.” I was quiet for a moment.
“Yeah. I can understand if you wouldn’t want to date me after that. I probably wouldn’t want to date myself, either.”
“It’s a lot to take in all at once.”
“Take your time,” he said, serene and patient.
“I guess I’m just wondering what motivated you. Why couldn’t you just call the police and have them deal with it? You were risking your own neck, you were risking physical injury and getting thrown in jail, to wipe a couple of lowlifes off the street. I mean, why? Why go through the trouble?”
Braxton said nothing for a moment. He lay back on the hay reflectively combing his hands through his hair, his face barely visible in the dim light.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said finally. “Do you mind?”
“I don’t have anywhere else I have to be.”
“Okay. When I was in the fourth grade, I had a best friend named Jim Pollack. He used to come over every night and eat at my house, and my folks didn’t mind serving him because he didn’t get a lot to eat at home. He lived in a rundown house with a tin roof and shag carpet that hadn’t been replaced since the seventies, and the whole place stank of mold and stale beer. His dad was an alcoholic, and every few weeks, Jim would come into class with bruises under his eyes. He said he had fallen down the stairs. He fell down the stairs a lot.
“Jim was a sweet, sensitive kid who sat in the back of the library reading Shel Silverstein books. If he saw a girl being picked on, he would stand up for her. He was a favorite of Gladys, an old woman who lived down the street in a three-story house with gables and a Victorian wraparound porch. The two of us used to go over there sometimes and sit on her porch while she told us stories of FDR and the old days when Sulphur Springs wasn’t more than a few ramshackle buildings situated haphazardly around the town center. Every time we went over there, she would have sweet tea and a fresh pie made.
“Jim’s dad, Mr. Pollack, didn’t like Jim going over there. I think he was worried that if Jim had adult friends, he would lose his power over him. He would cease to be frightening. And eventually, Jim might even work up the courage to tell somebody how he was being treated. Then Mr. Pollack could lose him forever…
“One morning, Jim came to me at school looking panicked. When I asked him what was wrong, he said Gladys hadn’t been outside for almost three days, and he was worried that she might have been hurt—that she might even be dead. He knew he wasn’t allowed to go over there, but his concern for the old woman outweighed his fear of being punished. As soon as school let out, we went over to her house.
“It was a chilly autumn afternoon, and a cold wind was blowing from the north. I remember it as vividly as if it were yesterday. We were both nervous as we crept onto the front porch, fingers crossed that no one from town would drive by and spot us. I rang the doorbell. But there was no answer. We knocked and knocked, but still, there was no answer.
“It was Jim who noticed that the door was unlocked. It was one of those swing doors with creaking hinges and a screen door to keep bugs out. We tried to peek through it but could only see dim shapes in the dark house. Finally, Jim suggested that we go inside. Since no one seemed to be home, I didn’t see the harm. And if Gladys really had died, that was important information that needed to be shared with the town.
“We hadn’t gone more than a few paces into the sitting-room before we saw the light glinting off the frame of her glasses. She was lying on the sofa, barely able to move—but still alive, bless her heart. She smiled when she saw us and said she had always known we would come for her. She had fallen in the shower a few days ago and had just managed to drag herself downstairs into the living room, badly hurt. She hadn’t been able to move and hadn’t eaten a crumb of food since the accident.
“Well, right away I ran into the kitchen and poured her some water. I brought out some biscuits I found in the tin. There was no phone in the house, but Jim told her she would be safe now that we had found her. We promised to call for an ambulance as soon as we arrived home.
“There was a tiny houseplant in a clay jar by the door. Gladys was so pleased to see us that she told us we could keep it. I gave it to Jim to look after and said I would come by periodically to check on it. Jim was elated—he had never gotten so much as a birthday present, and he hugged it to his chest like a puppy.
“When we returned to Jim’s house, we found that Mr. Pollack had been drinking heavily. He was pacing around the living room as though looking for someone or something to fight. And when he saw the potted plant in Jim’s hand he knew at once that he had been over at Gladys’ house. The sight of it sent him into a rage. He grabbed Jim by the ears and said, ‘You tattlin’ on me, boy? You been spillin’ our secrets to the neighbors?’ And he started hitting him, again and again.”
Braxton’s voice caught in his throat. “He was standing over Jim, and he pulled off his belt. And he said, ‘You are about to get the ass-whooping of your life.’ I ran over to stop him, but Jim turned to me with tears in his eyes and motioned for me to stay back. That was when the blows started. Loud and fast like the crack of a whip—first one, then two, then three—and at some point I thought it would stop, I thought he would get tired, or bored, and give up, but it kept going, and Jim kept screaming, and Jaimie, as long as I live, I’ll never be able to get those screams out of my ears.
“By the end of it, the plant lay smashed against the wall. Jim lay flat on his back against the carpet, unable to move. He survived, thank God, but the beating was so severe that it ruptured a disc in his spine. He never walked again, and has had to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair because of that night. The only positive thing that came of it was that the state intervened to take him away from his dad, and he ended up living in foster care for a few years before an aunt in Philly claimed him.
“And I was changed, too. I was ten, and I had to stand there and watch as my best friend was beaten within an inch of his life. I never forgot that—never forgot how powerless I had felt. And from that moment on, I promised myself that I would never again be put in a position where I had to look on helplessly while someone I loved was abused. For my tenth birthday, I asked my parents for a gym membership, and I started lifting weights and working out every single day.”
“Wow. Okay.”
Braxton hesitated for a moment before asking, “Do you hate me?”
I reached over and wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in the folds of his shirt. “Of course not.”
“Thank you.” He placed an arm around my waist, hugging me tightly as if afraid to let go of me.
It didn’t matter what Ren said. I had known him long enough to know that I trusted him. Inevitably, we would run into problems, but we could deal with those later. For now, I was content to lean against him and let him run his fingers through my hair, inhaling the scent of stale whiskey and cedar.
Was I making a mistake? Would I come to regret this? It was hard to feel anything but contentment at the moment. But I remembered how elated I had been when Daniel first asked me out, and how badly that had spun out of control, and how I couldn’t look back on that day now with anything with disgust and remorse. I wished I could see the end from the beginning, but for now, I could only trust and hope that it worked out.
***
Before leavin
g for Texas, I had submitted an application to SCI Fidelity Records, an independent record label based in Boulder. I arrived home on Tuesday evening, and when I checked my email at breakfast on the following morning, I found that they had sent me a request for an interview.
Overjoyed, I immediately called Ren.
“Hey,” she said, “what’s up?”
“You’re never going to believe this, but I just got the shock news of my life!” The tone of my voice left no doubt that it was good news.
“Tell me!” said Ren. “Did you get a promotion? Did you finish your book and it won an award?”
“No, even better.” I told her about how I had applied for the accounting job and how they had responded within a few days. “That bodes well, don’t you think? They must have been really impressed with my resume if they got back to me that quickly. Normally it takes them a few weeks.”
“It does bode well,” said Ren, “but it shouldn’t surprise you. You’ve put in excellent work over the past couple years, and I’m sure Randy gave you a glowing review.”
“Thanks.” It was encouraging to hear her say that, as some of her previous comments had left me with the impression that she thought I was lazy and unambitious. “I’ve worked really hard for this.”
“I know you have,” said Ren. “I’m really proud of you.”
But there was a tone of hurt in her voice as she said this. Remembering that we hadn’t spoken since she landed her book deal the week before, I said, “Soon we might both have some news worth celebrating.”
“Soon,” she said quietly. “The details of the agreement are still under wraps, so I’m not at liberty to post about it online yet. But they don’t care if I tell my best friend.”
“Let’s go out to Fish Pub Grill tonight,” I said. “We’ll order calamari and beer-battered cod and margaritas and drink until we’re tipsy enough that Braxton has to drive us home.”