by Wendy Silk
Amanda nodded silently. She knew that Hailey was teasing her, but she was too miserable to speak aloud. That was what she had been thinking, wasn’t it? After that last hot night together, she was sure they were more connected than ever. But if he was gone, maybe it was her fault. She must have come on too strong, behaved too passionately. Weren’t there games she was supposed to play to get a man interested? She had never really bothered with that, but maybe there was a price to pay for ignoring those rules.
“I’ll just keep looking for him,” she heard herself say to Hailey. “Maybe he’s had a cold, like I did. I know I’m being silly. We hardly know each other anyway.”
When she returned to her dorm, however, she found another folded note from Billy in her mailbox. It read, “Amanda, meet me out front tomorrow at noon. I want to take you to a friend’s house with me.” She couldn’t decide whether this style of communication was pleasantly mysterious or just irritating. A text would have been a more normal way to reach her, and it certainly could have come without a week’s wait.
Overall, though, it was reassuring to hear from him. At least he was making contact. He wasn’t ditching her; on the contrary, he wanted to spend more time together, even introducing her to a friend. It was a big step forward in their relationship to meet somebody that was important to him. Here she was thinking she was keeping secrets from Billy, when in fact he knew more about her than she did of him. She’d arranged the evening with Hailey, letting him meet one of the most important people in her life. Perhaps now she’d get to learn more about Billy. Was there more to him than he had so far allowed her to see?
Chapter 17: Secrets
At noon the next day, Amanda was waiting on the wide front porch of her building, dressed in perfectly fitting jeans and a plain black t-shirt with matching black espadrilles. She had tried to put together something as simple as possible, while still looking neat and pretty. Were they meeting somebody important to him? Was he going to let her into the life that he had so far insisted was his private business?
Billy arrived exactly on time and bounded energetically up the steps to where she was sitting. He wore his usual clean jeans and a button down shirt, just as he had done every time she saw him when he wasn’t engaged in physical labor. He kissed her quickly, then led her to his serviceable red pickup truck. Just as the last time she had been in it, the day they drove to the lake, the truck was impeccably clean. Years of wear showed, though. Rust along the side of the truck bed and a good-sized dent to the driver’s side door were hard for Amanda to overlook.
“I like your truck,” Amanda chirped awkwardly. “I mean, it’s kind of exactly what I’d picture you driving.” She could have kicked herself for saying something so transparent. Maybe she had thought that when she first saw the truck, but why on earth was she sharing it now?
Billy glanced at her as if he knew what she was thinking. “Yeah, it’s a good vehicle. Gets me where I need to go.” He was more taciturn today that he had been the last time they were together. It was as if he needed to tell her something, but didn’t know where to begin.
Billy walked Amanda around to the other side of the truck and gave her his hand to help her up. As they touched, she leaned into it. To her surprise, Billy did the opposite. His grip on her hand was almost impersonal, a far cry from the way he had caressed her on other occasions.
He walked around the front of the truck and sat down next to her, not touching her at all. Once they were alone in the cab of the truck, she found out what was going on. As he started the engine, Billy turned to face her, his words tumbling out.
“Amanda,” he spoke quietly. “I’ve lost my job. That’s why I haven’t been around campus. I wasn’t sure if you’d be looking for me, but I thought you might. I know I’ve missed seeing you staring at me while I worked.” He smiled at her in spite of himself. His hands expertly turned the steering wheel as he pulled out into traffic. Wherever they were headed, he wasn’t going to let this news stop them.
She was stunned. This wasn’t at all what she’d anticipated he might say. More than anything, it was reassuring to know that his absence was only work-related, not about a desire to avoid her.
Before she could ask questions, Billy continued. “I’m not sure if I should even tell you this, but my boss, Ron, told me that I had been seen socializing with a student, and that he had to let me go. Somebody reported us, I guess.”
“That’s crazy!” Amanda was outraged. “We can date if we want to--it’s no business of his.” But she knew that she was out of her depth with this topic. She found herself admitting it out loud, a thing she never would have done a few months ago. “Billy, I don’t really know anything about what you might be going through. Was this a hard job to get? How much do you need it?” The last question sounded rude once she had spoken it.
Billy glanced away. “Oh, you know how it is,” he replied vaguely. “There are always other jobs out there, though.”
Amanda didn’t know how to answer. “But it’s my fault that you lost this job. Because we were together.” She knew she hadn’t meant to do anything like that to him, but a sense of guilt grew within her. “What can I do to help? Should I talk to your boss and let him know you weren’t bothering me? Or would that make it worse?”
Without warning, Billy pulled into a driveway and stopped the truck. Amanda hadn’t even realized that they were close to their destination. His news of having lost his job had distracted her from even asking him where they were going. She looked out her sparklingly clean window, noticing that it had a fine crack in one corner.
They had arrived in a shabby section of town, not far from the university, but on the wrong side of the interstate. The houses were all small and single storied. Most were in need of several coats of paint; some had plywood covering windows, with portable air conditioning units jammed in. The yellow house where they had parked had four other rundown vehicles already in the long driveway, including one marked with the logo of the landscape company that took care of the university’s grounds.
“Where are we?” Amanda wanted to ask but she thought she already knew.
“This is Ron’s house,” Billy replied grimly. “We go way back--I’ve been here many times. Today isn’t a social call, though. I thought we’d stop in so I could tell him what I think about him letting me go from the company.”
“Billy, I’m not sure this is a great idea. I would have said that you were somebody who never got angry, but I can tell that you are right now. You need this job, don’t you? Why don’t you wait for a better time to talk to him, when you’ve calmed down?”
Billy shot her a look that she couldn’t decipher. “No, there won’t be a better time than this,” he answered. “This is something that I can’t just let happen. I need to get some information from him about what’s going on, and I want you to be there too.”
Amanda couldn’t imagine any way that this would go well, but she saw that Billy was determined. She stepped down from the cab of the truck, reaching for his outstretched hand. As they stood on the plain concrete slab of a porch and rang the bell, she began to think this was insanity. On the overgrown lawn beside the porch, she saw some scattered beer cans and a roll of paper towels that had been left out in the rain. A dark brown tree roach scuttled across the concrete near her fabric shoe. She tried not to flinch, but it was so large that she would have sworn she could hear the sound of its small legs rubbing together as it ran. Billy was impassive.
A man who managed to be both scrawny and pot-bellied at the same time answered the door. He tugged his greying t-shirt down at his waist as he looked at them. He didn’t look surprised to see Billy, but the sight of her made him take a step back. He stared warily at her as if she might explode.
Billy spoke first. “Ron, how are you? Haven’t seen you in a couple of days, since you told me you wouldn’t need my help anymore.” His tone was firm, even antagonistic. He didn’t sound like a penitent employee trying to make amends with his boss. He sounded ang
rier than he had at the pub, that night he had jumped up to stop Michael’s spy from taking pictures of them.
Ron ducked his head, discomforted. He may have been the boss, but he didn’t look like he knew anything about handling a man like Billy. His hair stood in unwashed spikes, becoming even more disordered when he ran his fingers through it. He opened his mouth to answer Billy, then closed it again, darting another glance at Amanda.
Finally, he mumbled, “Come in, you two. Sorry about the mess.”
As they entered the shabby little house, Amanda hardly knew where to look. They had stepped right into a living room in which the cheap brown couch was dwarfed by an enormous and apparently new television. The carpet looked like it hadn’t been shampooed as long as she’d been alive. There was a dirty dog bed in the corner, where the lack of animals present had no effect on the smell that lingered in the room. The most prominent characteristic of the room, however, was the beer. Empty cans were everywhere, emitting a skunky smell that suggested they had been there for days.
Billy didn’t bother to take a seat. His broad shoulders were squared toward Ron as he addressed him. He was slightly taller than his boss, with a clarity to his gaze that emphasized their difference in sobriety. Ron, who had been on the verge of sitting in a brown easy chair, straightened himself and faced them.
“Ron. I think you know why we’re here.” Billy’s words came out evenly. “I got your message the other day. You don’t want my labor anymore? I know you need me. You’re broke and the business is failing. Anybody can see that. Look at you; I can see you’ve been drinking since you woke up. You’ve got the damn work truck parked out front where everybody can see it, but you haven’t cut your own grass in weeks. It’s like you’re trying to run your own business into the ground, no matter how your friends try to help you.”
Ron stood there, silent and passive in his own house. His eyes drifted aimlessly around the room as if he wasn’t sure where he was. “You’re right, of course you are. But I think I have a lead on something that will change that. I can turn my business around if I can just get the right investor. I know I can get it right this time.” He cleared his throat roughly. “But I can’t keep you on, Billy. I can’t have you work with me if you’re screwing students.”
Amanda flinched at the coarse language. She knew that it was accurate, although she hoped fiercely that she was the only student in Billy’s life. She would do anything right now to catch Billy’s eye so they could leave. She shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.
Billy became even more still, if that was possible. Although he didn’t look her way at all, she knew that he was angry on her behalf. He bit out the words, “But Ron, it’s not just any student, is it? It’s this particular one.”
Amanda had no idea what he meant, but she could see that Ron did.
“Well, yeah,” Ron answered tersely. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything to you about it, but here you are in my house, asking questions. Don’t you know that’s not what you should do right now? You should leave town, Billy.”
Billy scoffed at the idea. “Ron, you’re in over your head. Let me guess. You’re so desperate for money that you took it when somebody offered it to you. You thought they were a friend? There’s a deal, right?”
Ron nodded, scratching his belly. “The deal is that you and...her,” he jerked his head toward Amanda, “are supposed to break up. I’m doing that; I’m splitting you up, and I’m being paid damn well to do it. You’d be a fool to work against me on this. In fact, you might even get paid too, if you work it out right. I’m talking about a person with an awful lot of money.”
All at once, it made sense to Amanda. This repulsive man, who Billy seemed to count as some sort of friend, was in league with Michael. She thought she might scream. She wasn’t just being observed by the agents of her controlling fiancé. He was actually manipulating her at this very moment, even across the distance that she had put between them. He had blackmailed her to force her agreement to their engagement. Why should it surprise her that he would bribe somebody here in Austin to keep her confined to the behaviors he deemed acceptable? She had finally found something special for herself and now Michael was going to separate her from the best thing that had ever happened to her.
Chapter 18: Mistakes
Amanda drew a deep breath, blindsided by this betrayal. Was Billy actually considering accepting money to stop seeing her?
“Billy,” she rushed to speak. “Don’t listen to whatever this man says. I know you needed this job. I know you need money. But you’d never be able to live with yourself if you made a deal like that. We have something special. It’s more important than any of that.”
Ron smirked at her, leaning forward so that his beer breath wafted toward them. “Something special, huh? That sounds like rich girl talk for ‘I like sex with working class guys.’ Is that right? Am I getting close?”
Billy exploded into movement. He pushed Ron against the yellowed, smoke-stained wall. His left arm pressed against the shorter man’s chest and his right hand pulled back into a fist. The room was silent, save for the ragged breath of the man whose house they had blithely entered. With an effort, Billy compressed his lips together and lowered his fist. He dropped his left arm as well, shaking it out as he moved backwards, back to Amanda’s side.
“I’m not here to brawl with you, Ron,” he said. “I don’t have another spare minute to spend on you. I can’t believe I ever thought I did. All I can say is that you’re as dumb as a post to think that you’re on the right side here. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” As he gently gathered Amanda’s arm in his and started for the door, he added, “You’ll never keep this business without me. You were going to lose it anyway, but now you’ve made sure of it.”
Amanda resisted Billy’s efforts to steer her out, now that he had spoken his last words. She wasn’t quite finished yet.
“Ron,” she spoke his name gingerly as if it was a beetle crawling out of her mouth. “Ron, are you saying that somebody paid you to break us up? That sounds like some kind of a movie plot. Did you just watch that on TV?” Whatever happened next, she couldn’t let Billy know that Michael existed. He could never love her if he knew everything she’d done. Blackmail, cheating, lying...her life had in fact taken on qualities of a cheap drama.
Ron had finished speaking to them, though. He had retreated to his dirty couch, where he sat with his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees.
Billy was drained of the anger that had coursed through him when he pushed Ron, but he still almost quivered with alertness. He stood next to her, his hand still on the doorknob.
“Amanda,” he said, with a terrifying patience. “Are you saying that you don’t believe what Ron’s just said? Because I do. He’s not smart enough to make up anything like that. And just look at him: you can see that cash is the only thing he responds to anyway.”
Amanda’s arms came forward in front of her as she crossed them in a defensive stance. She replied, “No, I don’t know what he’s talking about. It’s a crazy idea to think that somebody would be trying to break us up. We don’t even know any of the same people. It makes a lot more sense that Ron just couldn’t keep you on because it’s a rule with the university that you can’t date students. He must have made the rest of it up to try to get at you.”
Billy looked at her in disbelief. “You can see perfectly well that he’s too drunk to make up anything right now.” He looked keenly at her. “Are you really telling me that you don’t know what this is about? You don’t know of anybody that would offer a bribe to keep you from being with me?”
Amanda knew she was trapped. For some reason, Billy believed this story and placed no credence in her idea that Ron was imagining it. He wasn’t going to let this go. She realized that Hailey had been right. She wasn’t used to trying hard for what she wanted. Falling back on the easiest path she could think of, she switched into high society mode. Without meaning to, she lifted her chin and pursed h
er lips in an unconscious impression of the snottiest dowager she had ever met on one of her mother’s charity committees.
“You think you’re pretty smart for a landscaper,” she spat out. At her full height, she was still much shorter than Billy, but she made up for it with attitude. “I have to say, you haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. The people in my world are simply not the same as the people you might know.”
Amanda was all but sneering at Billy now. She lashed out with her icy tirade. “Nobody in my life would even bother with people like Ron. We live at a different level. This story of bribery is straight out of the kind of low-class movies that your type of people might watch. It has nothing at all to do with me.”
Heedless of the disbelieving look that Billy gave her, Amanda continued headlong with her borrowed persona. She held herself with a dainty yet tense precision, as if she could not believe the mess she had found herself inhabiting. Her air of disassociation included both men.
“Billy,” her voice sliced through the air with her best Park Avenue attitude. “We need to leave this place now. We simply can’t stay here another moment. Whatever money this man has taken, it couldn’t possibly matter. I have much more. If you need money, for goodness sake, just let me know. I can have my banker send you a check at any time.”
Billy and Ron were now both staring at her. Ron looked like he didn’t know that a beautiful young woman could command his attention like that. He was reassessing her, she could tell. Billy, however, looked at her like he thought she was a giant pain in the ass. Now he was stuck with two former friends in one room, she could see him thinking. One who would take money to screw him over, and one who he had thought mattered to him but was in fact nothing more than a rather stupid, spoiled rich girl.
His eyes searched hers. She hated herself as she knew with certainty that he didn’t like what he saw. “Amanda, are you offering to pay to have me date you?” The words sounded ludicrous as he uttered them. Then, with a sinking feeling, she realized that she had indeed just made such an offer.