Can’t Let You Go

by Jones, Jenny B.

  “If you can’t trust in what I’m doing, then trust in the man you know I am.”

  “I can’t do that.” I wished I could. “I’m losing too much.”

  “What if we’re more than those buildings?”

  “You’re asking me to choose you over the Valiant?”

  Before Charlie could answer, the repairman opened the door. “Hey, Mr. Benson, I got something I need you to take a look at.”

  Charlie’s eyes never left mine. “I’ll be right there.” He exhaled slowly and took a step back. “Katie, you tell me to leave, and I’ll leave. I’d like to stay and help. But I will not talk business or buyouts with you, and I’m not going to fight. Maybe I can’t be who you want me to be tomorrow, but today. . .I can at least be who you need.”

  I stood there on the front porch, right next to the very door Charlie had come through so many times when we were younger. Dates. Prom. Church.

  We certainly weren’t those kids anymore.

  “Stay,” I said. “I’d like you to stay.”

  We walked in together, and Maxine met us in the soppy living room. Her arms crossed over her chest, she stared Charlie Benson down like a firing squad.

  He inclined his head. “Mrs. Dayberry.”

  “I hear you worked your tail off last night with this disaster.”

  “I helped a bit.”

  “Well.” Maxine moved a hand to her hip. “I would’ve answered Katie’s call of distress, but it was my bingo night. I’m a ten card player, and I take no prisoners or outside communication when I’m in the zone, you get me?”

  “We wouldn’t want to interrupt your sacred time,” I said.

  Maxine straightened the row of gold bangles decorating her wrist. “It’s not like I get crazy like some of those bingo nut jobs.”

  “You take a whole bag of troll dolls.”

  “Moral support.”

  “And don’t forget your statue of the Virgin Mary.”

  She turned to Charlie. “I’m very spiritual.”

  “We’re not Catholic.”

  “At least I don’t blow up water heaters.”

  “Nope, just chicken trucks.”

  “That was a long time ago and I—”

  “Ladies.” Charlie stepped between my grandmother and me, his hand grabbing mine, as if to restrain. “How about we get some work done?”

  “Excellent idea,” Maxine said. “Dibs on role of supervisor.”

  “Katie and I can handle it. You take it easy, Mrs. Dayberry.”

  Oh, he was putty in her manicured hands.

  “Thank you, dear boy. I lost to Peg Pickering last night more than once, and I am just not feeling full of vigor. Plus that tramp stole my lucky dauber.”

  “What a tough night you had,” I said. “Really puts mine into perspective.”

  Maxine’s grin seemed to hold plenty of vigor. With her poison apple red nails, she gripped Charlie’s chin in her hand. “You’re a good boy, Charlie Benson. And if I were thirty years younger and Sam didn’t worship my every breath, I’d snatch you up myself.”

  He looked to me for assistance.

  But I just smiled.

  She roughly patted his cheek. “We’ll take that help. We’ll take any help you got.” Her cobalt eyes narrowed. “You know what I’m saying?”

  “I believe I do.” His easy smile dimmed, and the face of the Chicago businessman appeared. “Today I’m just here to clean a house.”

  Maxine scrutinized him for a moment. “Good enough. Oh, and keep your paws off my sister here.”

  “I’m your granddaughter,” I corrected.

  She rolled her eyes and sashayed away. “Details.”

  We worked all day, stopping only when a restoration company came and ripped up the hardwood and tile in spots where the damage had been too great. They set up fans loud enough to be airplane propellers. Sometimes I would work side by side with Charlie. Our arms would touch, my leg would brush against his, a hand would be at my back. Other times he’d be working across the room, and I’d look up to find him watching me, a small smile playing at his lips.

  It was nice to drop the battle lines.

  He could just be Charlie.

  And I could just be me.

  But was there any hope for the two of us together?

  Chapter Nineteen

  I dreamed of death and Charlie.

  On Wednesday morning, I slowly roused, stretching arms sore from cleaning and furniture lifting. The industrial fans downstairs might as well have been sitting outside my bedroom for how loud they were. I rolled over, fluffing the pillow beneath my head, and recalled I had dreamt that I had slept on a runway and was just about to be mowed down by a low-flying jet. But right before the airliner charged over me like a giant bird of doom, Charlie appeared, sprinting toward me and pulling me to safety in the nick of time. I had shown my appreciation by raining kisses all over his face.

  Then a gorilla drove by in a VW bug, Snickers candy bars fell from the sky, and a marching band serenaded us with the greatest hits of Justin Bieber.

  When I awoke, I knew I needed to deal with my feelings for Charlie Benson.

  And I was never eating those frozen burritos again.

  My anger over Charlie’s role in the buyout seemed to spring from a bottomless well, but I had to admit, like an addiction, this was a boy I had never gotten out of my system. And much like that addiction, reason did not prevail. Good sense said to steer clear, but my heart said. . .what if he’s the one?

  After spending a scant fifteen minutes on my appearance, I slipped on my Micky’s Diner t-shirt and cinched it in a knot at the waist. It billowed over the waistband of my jeans, and I knew I wouldn’t be starting any fashion trends with this look. Today I had a full schedule. I had a full to-do list for the Valiant, a morning shift at the diner, then I had to stop by Vivi’s for a final fitting of my bridesmaid’s dress.

  My bed bounced as I plopped in the middle and opened my laptop. I had an hour before I was to report to work, so I typed up some content on the buyout for some blogs that had contacted me, responded to some emails for interviews, and ignored Ian’s tenth text about calling in for a podcast out of Manhattan. Last week I had put in nearly forty hours on research, phone interviews, calls to strategic persons of interest, three interviews with area news stations, and one meeting with a state Congressman.

  We had two more days until the meeting with the special commission, and I both feared it and welcomed the finale. But if the Valiant was destroyed, what would become of me? My only plan was to manage the facility. I had been lucky to immediately find work at Micky’s, but I couldn’t do that indefinitely. The cobwebs and dust were accumulating on my college degree.

  My fabulous shirt and I rolled into Micky’s at six o’clock.

  “You’re almost late,” Loretta said, breezing past me with a steaming coffee pot.

  “Sorry. I got behind Mr. Philpot’s tractor.”

  “Clock in then meet me at table ten.”

  I obeyed her snippy orders, but not before grabbing myself a cup of coffee and one of Loretta’s famous cinnamon rolls. They were big as a dessert plate, and the trick was to eat the center first while it was still warm and gooey. Hot icing was an underused little bit of nirvana.

  I said hello to some friendly faces and made my way to the table in the corner where Loretta sat with a man in a navy blue suit, crisp white shirt, and a tie decorated with the initials of a Texas university.

  “Katie, this is Daniel Stephens,” Loretta said as I sat down. “He’s taken over the case in Reggie Barker’s sudden departure.” She had a laptop in front of her, and a folder of papers thick as a dictionary.

  I shook hands with the gentlemen who looked to be about ten years younger than James. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I’ve been doing nothing but catching up on this case,” Mr. Stephens said. “A little unusual that each of the property owners doesn’t have their own attorneys.”

  “We’re in this together,�
� Loretta said. “We decided that from the beginning.”

  “It looks like your previous lawyer did you more harm than good. He knew nothing about eminent domain.”

  “None of us do,” Loretta said. “But I guess we’re learning the hard way.”

  “I’m going to be honest with you.” Mr. Stephens took a quick drink of coffee. “It doesn’t look good. And time is not on our side. But you’ve been creating a thunderstorm of bad press for Thrifty Co., and that’s made an impact.”

  “That’s all Katie and her English fellow,” Loretta said.

  Mr. Stephens smiled with approval. “One of their attorneys contacted me last night with a new offer. I’m meeting with the rest of our property owners today, but here are yours. Hot off my printer.” He slid Loretta her piece of paper first, then mine.

  Loretta’s eyebrows rose to the middle of her forehead. “Whoa.”

  I studied my offer. “Twenty thousand dollars more than the initial offering.”

  She whistled low. “Mine too. That could be a nice chunk down on a new RV for my retirement.”

  “But we’re not interested, right?” My bite of cinnamon roll turned to glue in my mouth.

  Loretta pushed her paper back to Mr. Stephens. “No, we’re not interested. You’ll get the same answer from all of us.”

  “I thought that might be your answer,” he said. “I just wanted to pass on the information. I’ll call them right away. Tell them we’ll be there Friday to hear the verdict of the special commission.”

  “And you let them know I have more media spots lined up so I can continue telling the world what they’re doing to us,” I said. “Our slightly aggressive, but mostly tasteful mud-slinging is only getting started.”

  “Ladies, you need to prepare yourselves for Thrifty Co. to come back with an even bigger dollar amount. I’ve seen settlement offers double and even triple over the initial numbers thrown out. And if that happens, I need to know how you want me to proceed. Legally, your town has every right to your property. You may have won the favor of your city, your county—”

  “We’ve been mentioned on CNN and FOX half a dozen times,” I said.

  “Okay, and even on a national level, but the three special commission members will be looking at it from the perspective of what’s best for In Between.”

  “But they’re landowners,” I said. “How could they not side with us? All they have to do is imagine if they were in our position.”

  “I hope that’s exactly what they do.” Mr. Stephens slipped our offers back into his leather attaché case. “But the reality is landowners don’t often win. Think about their offers, okay? I promise I’m going to do everything I can, but I need you to be realistic with your every decision.”

  “And if we don’t like what this commission says?” I asked.

  “You can take it to a court of your peers.” He didn’t even try to sound optimistic about that option.

  “You just dig a little deeper,” Loretta said. “Look up more statutes, more cases like ours. Dredge up some dirt on this company. If we go down, I want it said we went down with our fists a flying.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Mr. Stephens took one last drink of coffee then stood. “I’ll communicate your refusal of the new offer. If I hear anything else, I’ll let you know. I guess in the meantime, keep doing what you’re doing and. . . think about what I said.”

  The lawyer left our table, and when he walked out the door, I knew we wouldn’t see him again until the meeting at the courthouse.

  “You trust that guy?” I asked Loretta.

  “Much as I trust any man.” She plucked the pen she always kept perched behind her ear and used it to jot some notes inside her folder. “He seems pretty knowledgeable. Pretty together. Your dad found him.”

  I leaned my elbows on the table and let my head fall into my hands. I was tired of not sleeping, tired of being upset. “I’m not buyable.” I looked up at my boss. “Are you?”

  She let out a ragged breath that sounded as if she’d been holding it for years. “I’m not young, Katie. None of us involved are—except you. I don’t want to lose my diner, but we all have a price. They just haven’t named it yet. We all reach the point where the fight isn’t worth what we could gain if we’d just lay our anger and expectations down and surrender.” The eyes beneath her wrinkled lids watched me close. “Do you understand that?”

  I swallowed against the lump in my throat and picked up my fork, slicing my cinnamon roll into bites. But I had no stomach for it.

  “Speaking of waving a white flag, I have something I’m supposed to give you.” Loretta dug into her folder of papers until she found the ones she wanted. “My sister said to hand this to you. Said you’d know what it was.”

  I took the offering and knew what I was holding upon reading the first word. It was pages of auditions Mrs. Hall had printed from sites with theater job postings. Three pages of Broadway roles. Two for Chicago. Two for touring companies. With a red pen, my former drama teacher had circled some she thought were especially note-worthy. A few entries even got smiley faces.

  The instructions were all the same. Show up for the audition. Have an audition piece prepared. Bring picture and resume stapled together. And how far would I get without my London history on my own resume? Or worse yet, with it?

  “Well?”

  I looked up from the listings. “Well what?”

  “Are you gonna go on those auditions or not?”

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “You still can’t balance three plates on each arm.”

  “No man will ever marry me now.”

  Loretta’s cracked lips quirked. “You need to go live your life, Katie. What’s for you here in In Between?”

  “The Valiant. My family. A sweet-tempered boss.”

  “And what if the Valiant gets razed to the ground? Then what?”

  The very thought sent hot needles of panic through my system. “I’ll figure it out then. Right now I want to focus on saving the—”

  “You heard what the lawyer said. Our odds are terrible. You need to face that and get a plan. I’d give anything to have my whole life in front of me like you do.” She tapped her pen to Mrs. Hall’s list. “What’s really stopping you from going after this?”

  “A lack of talent?”

  “I’ve seen plenty of your high school productions. You’ve got something.”

  “I think they call it mediocrity.”

  “Well, if f fear is what’s stopping you, it’s a dumb excuse. When you get old like me, you realize how many chances you let pass you by because you were afraid—of looking stupid, of rejection, of failing. Take it from me, you’ve got more to lose by not giving this acting thing a shot than by going out there and falling on your face.”

  “I thought Mrs. Hall loved her teaching job.”

  “But she’ll always wonder. What if she had tried to make it on Broadway? Where would she be now?”

  “I’ve had my taste of it.”

  Loretta folded her arms on the table and leaned toward me. “And how was it?” She let that question soak in for a while. “How did you feel up there on that big stage in front of all those people? How did that applause sound?”

  I could picture myself there. Standing in the spotlight. Delivering that first line.

  Listening to the crowd laugh at my character’s witty barbs.

  “It’s a high.” I couldn’t afford to recall every blessed nuance. “There’s no feeling like it.”

  “You know what that sensation is?” Loretta asked. “It’s what it feels like when you’re doing exactly what you were put on this earth to do. Katie, if a dream grabbed you fiercely with its mighty teeth, then don’t let it drop you. Don’t let this go. Because nothing else will satisfy you. And if you think you’re bitter now, you just wait until twenty years pass by. Because that bitterness only grows by the day. There’s no greater waste than a life unfulfilled.”

  “I’m truly not good enough
.”

  “Says who?”

  “People who know what they’re talking about.”

  “I want names.”

  I chuckled lightly. “I can give you names, newspaper reviews.”

  “You can’t be a total genius right out of the chute. You got a lucky break getting that big role right out of school, but maybe it was too much too soon. Maybe what you need is practice. Experience. You think I could flip those omelets in the pan on the first try?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I could, but I’m just freakishly gifted.” She chortled and swatted my arm with her big hand.

  “I should get back to work.” I stood and pushed in my chair.

  “Katie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Your drama teacher?” Loretta pushed her pen back into her hair, and her gaze held no more teasing. “She bought a bus ticket to New York when she was seventeen. Our daddy found out and called her three kinds of a fool. Told her she was wasting her time, that few people would ever make it, and she wouldn’t be one of them.”

  “Did she go?”

  “No,” Loretta said. “No, she didn’t. She went to college and got married to the first boy who told her yes. But what if she’d gone?” The questions rang with a reverb in my ears. “What if she’d made it? What if she had followed her passion . . . instead of her fear?”

  I didn’t have the answers.

  And I didn’t know if I ever would.

  Chapter Twenty

  “How can I get married without a dress?” Frances asked when I met her at Vivi’s after my shift for my very last fitting. “What kind of bride am I if I can’t even make this simple decision?”

  “Don’t panic yet.” There was no need. I was panicking enough for both of us.

  “I’ve still got the one from that shop in Dallas, but it’s not the one. Remind me never to get married again. I’m terrible at this.”

  “I’m sure it’s the nerves. You have a lot going on all at once.” I pulled open the heavy glass door and walked inside. “How’s Joey holding up?” Let the record show I was trying. I wanted to like my best friend’s future husband.