by Melody Anne
Over the four years since graduation, I’d built up a pretty damned good business. I made a name for myself and I was the one people called when they wanted something done. I made more than enough now to move out on my own; I even thought about getting my own place, but that wasn’t really an option. With Pops like he was all these years, he needed me around to take care of him.
So I decided to get both of us out of Granite Estates. I thought maybe the change would be a good thing, but Pops had a fit. He owned the trailer and had to pay only a lot rent, and this was his home. He wasn’t ever going to sell it. He put his foot down and I had no choice.
Part of me wondered if it had anything to do with my mother, but I didn’t ask.
So it was either leave him alone, or stay.
So here I was, twenty-two, stuck living at home, taking care of my father.
Pops shuffled over with a fresh can of beer and sat down at the table. He had on an old flannel shirt that I’d washed yesterday and a pair of worn jeans. There were dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes, a side effect of sitting up all night watching TV. At least tonight he was sitting with me to eat. I pulled out a cheeseburger and fries and set them in front of him.
“How was your day?” I asked him the same question I always did during our dinners, and got the same answer.
“Damned ruckus all day. Someone moved in next door,” he grumbled. “A woman, by the looks of it. She hung up a damned wind chime first thing and it’s been making noise ever since.”
I stared at Pops. That was the longest sentence he’d said to me in forever.
“I went to the door after a couple of hours and told her to take the damned thing down.”
Shit. Now I was going to get a visit from an angry neighbor about my father’s manners, or lack thereof.
“You know what she said to me?”
I shook my head.
“She said my chi needed cleansing and that the wind chimes would help my attitude. Then she smiled and went about her business. Damned broad,” he muttered. “Don’t know what the hell chi is, but mine is just fine.”
I fought the urge to laugh. Whoever she was, I liked her already. Pops hadn’t been worked up about much of anything except his reality shows for a very long time.
I took a huge bite of my burger and washed it down with a swallow of soda. “What’d she look like?”
“Black hair, twisted into some kind of knot on her head. This long skirt that had about a million colors on it and this top that kept sliding off her shoulder. She looked like some kind of gypsy. Damned woman didn’t even have shoes on either. And bracelets, from here”—he pointed to his wrist—“to here.” He indicated toward his elbow.
I think my jaw was on the table. That he had noticed all these details was crazy. I’d made us a new kitchen table and chairs a few years ago and it was more than a year before he even noticed. Even then all he said was that the old one was just fine.
“Did you get a name?” I asked.
Pops snorted. “Why the hell would I want to know her name?” He finished his burger and grabbed his fries to take back to the recliner. He propped them in his lap, shifted the lever, and sat back with a long exhale. Jeopardy! began blaring from the TV.
I finished my dinner and balled up all the trash. The garbage was full and I knew Pops wouldn’t take it out—he didn’t do much of anything around the house anymore—so I tied it up and carried it out to the Dumpster. It was only a few trailers down and I had to walk by our new neighbor’s place to get there. The front door was open, so I could see in through the screen. The place was lit up like Christmas and a string of white lights had been wrapped around the front-step railings.
No matter that she was irritating Pops, the smells coming from the place were incredible. Spicy and sweet, and my mouth watered despite my full stomach. On the way back inside, my phone vibrated.
Feel like getting together Friday night?
Shari. I grinned and texted back, Hell yeah.
Shari was Avery’s best friend, and Avery was my best friend’s girl. We’d all hung out together for a while now, but it wasn’t like Shari and I were a couple or anything. I didn’t do the whole relationship thing, and Shari was sowing her wild oats before she settled down with some trust fund dick.
Until that happened, though, we had a pretty good thing going. Hooking up: no strings, no expectations. Just two people enjoying each other. I was perfectly happy with the casual thing and didn’t see myself ever wanting anything else. I’d seen firsthand what loving someone did to a person. It had ripped my pops in two.
And I wanted no part of that.
“You need to find a nice girl,” Seth said Friday afternoon when I met him for lunch.
I nearly choked on a bite of my gross salad. I would have chosen pizza or burgers at our favorite dive bar over this rabbit food any day, but Avery had Seth on this ridiculous “clean foods” kick, so here we were digging into these tooty-fruity salad bowls at a lame health bar like a couple of chicks. I swear, I loved what Avery had done for Seth and his life, but she had his balls in a vise and everyone knew it.
After I managed to swallow, I laughed. “I do just fine, thanks, even without my wingman.”
“I’m not talking about getting a piece, man. Something more serious. A relationship. What about Shari? You guys have been spending more time together lately. Avery mentioned it last night.”
“Don’t go there, bro,” I interrupted. “I’m happy that you found Avery and all, but that relationship shit isn’t for me. You know that. Shari and I are having fun—no strings attached. Neither of us are looking for anything beyond that.”
Seth sighed. “If anyone deserves to find someone, it’s you, man.”
“Except I’m not looking for a someone. I’m happy with the way things are, okay?” And no way in hell did I need to fall for some chick who would just turn around and walk out when everything seemed to be going great. I loved women, but anything more than messing around, no fucking way.
I was never going to be the settle-down-with-a-picket-fence guy. Seth knew that; he’d been there when all the shit with my mom happened. I wasn’t sure why he was pushing me so hard, except for that he was happy with Avery and wanted me to be that happy. He was my best friend and I loved him like a brother, but if he didn’t back off soon, I was going to gut-punch him.
I didn’t want what he had. It would only lead to heartache.
I took a bite of what I think Seth told me was arugula to cover the bitter taste in my mouth, not that it helped much. Did people willingly eat this shit? I gulped down a huge drink of flavored sparkling water and cringed.
There was a McDonald’s drive-through in my very near future.
“Not all women are like her, you know,” Seth said quietly.
Suddenly I was chewing a mouthful of sawdust. I didn’t want to talk about this shit, and Seth knew that. The topic of my mother was and always would be off-limits, even with my best friend.
“I’m not trying to piss you off, man,” Seth said. He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re just always taking care of everyone else, and I’d like to see someone taking care of you for a change.”
I finally managed to swallow and pushed the plate away. No way was I getting any more down right now. Not while Seth insisted on being a Grade A asshole.
“Oh, I’m taken care of just fine, thank you.” I lifted an eyebrow so he would not miss the double meaning. “And I appreciate the thought, but it isn’t gonna happen. I like how things are. I got decent money in the bank, a good job, and I’m not shackled to one woman. It’s the life for me.”
And Seth needed to drop this line of conversation before shit got ugly.
“I’ll drop it, okay? I just want you to be happy.” Seth reached over and clapped me on the shoulder. “If Shari helps, then keep doing what you’re doing. I won’t piss you off about it again.”
The anger faded. He had my back. Seth knew better than anyone else what my
mother’s leaving had done to me and my dad.
“I get it, man, but what you have, it’s just not for me.” I grabbed my plate and pulled it back over. I was suddenly so hungry again that even this nasty excuse for a meal was looking appealing. “So Avery’s at the club with her parents today? Without you? Her mother still hasn’t warmed to the idea of you two, huh?”
Seth choked back a laugh. “She fucking hates me. It’s awesome. I begged Ave to let me go with her, just to see the look on her mom’s face.”
I shook my head. “You are crazy.” How the hell had he gone from prison to dating the daughter of the fucking mayor? No matter, he was happy and on track to make something of himself and I was proud as shit of him. I always knew he’d be the one to get out.
Me?
I planned on making sure my old man was taken care of and that meant I’d probably never live anywhere other than the esteemed Granite Estates trailer park.
This was my life, and nothing was going to change that.
“So Sunday, concert in the park. You, Shari, me, and Ave? I hear there’s a picnic involved.”
Shari had mentioned something about that the last time we were together. Her dad was some big-deal music exec and often asked her to go check out bands with her friends. Sounded like a good time. I laughed. “Who would have thought we’d be picnicking in a fucking park listening to live music? On purpose?”
Seth laughed. “If Ave asked me to walk across a tightrope dressed in a tutu, I’d do it.”
The thing was, he wasn’t joking. He loved Avery enough to do anything she asked, and that’s what scared the living hell out of me the most.
I hated grocery shopping.
Usually Dad and I managed with a pizza or subs every night, but we still needed essentials every couple of weeks. I had my chicken-scratch list in my hand.
I’d stopped at the Discount Food Mart two blocks from our trailer park. The place was a zoo even though it was evening by now, and bored-looking cashiers didn’t seem to notice the lines of people at their registers. Typical really.
I knew where everything was and could shop blindfolded, so I had my basket of stuff pretty fast and got into the closest line. I grabbed a king-size peanut butter cup as my reward for sticking it out and for actually swallowing that sorry excuse Seth called a meal earlier.
A cute kid with blond hair, about three or so, sat in the cart in front of me and looked at my candy bar, then leaned forward and stuck his hand out.
“My candy, pwease?” He gave me a gap-toothed grin that I couldn’t help returning. Couldn’t blame him at all. Peanut butter and chocolate rocked.
And I’ll bet no one told him no with that smile.
The woman who was unloading the cart seemed distracted, muttering numbers under her breath as she shifted items from the cart to the moving belt. I realized she was adding up her total in her head as she went. She stopped for a second and barely glanced at me before she looked at the candy bar and then the boy.
“Sorry, Noah, not today.”
Her hair was twisted up in a loose knot and dark brown pieces stuck out at odd angles. She had on a light green jacket and jeans that hugged her legs very nicely. She didn’t have on any makeup, which was surprising, but I still recognized her.
I would know her anywhere.
The breath left my body.
Tess. She was standing right there in front of me. I’d thought about this moment, about seeing her again, but nothing could have prepared me for the way the ground tilted. Or when a giant invisible vacuum sucked all the sound and light from around me and left me in some black void.
“Candy?” the boy asked again.
“No candy today, Noah.” Her voice rasped against my skin, and I clenched my fingers around the handle of the basket. Her gaze barely skirted higher than my chin, but I still waited for her to recognize me. For a smile. Or a glare. Something that told me she knew who I was.
She didn’t actually look at me, but I couldn’t look away from her. It had been seven years since I’d seen her. She’d moved to Granite Estates to live with her grandmother when she was eight. Three trailers down from me. I couldn’t remember how many summers I spent sitting on her porch sipping sweet lemonade. She was the first girl Seth and I let hang out with us, and she was the first girl I fell in love with when I was fifteen and she was fourteen.
Friendship had turned into love over the years, and I was convinced that we were it. We were going to be the ones who were together forever. Then her grandma got sick and she told me she was going to live with her father. She promised that wouldn’t change anything.
The day she drove off with him, the day after freshman year ended, I believed her with all my heart. And for a while, it seemed like nothing had changed. We still talked every day. She came back to see me, and I took her out on the weekends.
When school started back up, she went to the fancy private academy where her father was a teacher. She stopped calling every day because the coursework was ten times harder than it had been at our public school.
But I still believed her when she said she loved me.
Then something changed. We barely ever saw each other, and when I would call, her father said she was out with friends. It took me six months to figure out the obvious. Six fucking months to stop believing what she had promised me the day she left Granite Estates.
I looked at the kid, Noah, to distract the direction of my thoughts. He had dark brown eyes, the same shade as Tess’s. It hit me in the gut and I almost dropped the basket. This had to be her son.
Questions burned on my tongue. I stared at the back of her head, willing her to turn around again and look at me.
“That’ll be sixty-two fifty-five,” the cashier interrupted.
From behind I saw her shoulders drop. She looked at the belt where the bagger had put almost everything away. “Could you put back the face wipes, please?” she asked quietly.
The cashier looked at the bagger, who exhaled and started digging through the bags. The person behind me groaned. Tess must have heard, because the back of her neck turned fiery red. I wanted to turn around and tell that person to go the fuck right to hell. I might not know what Tess was doing here, but I knew what it felt like to be belittled.
The bagger finally found the face wipes and the cashier swiped them, then set them under the register. “Fifty-seven twenty-two.”
Tess handed her three twenties. As soon as she got her receipt, she ducked her head and pushed the cart away. She didn’t look back at me, didn’t look anywhere but at her hands as she and Noah disappeared out the door. Again the feeling struck me that this was all wrong. She was not the Tess I remembered.
This Tess seemed tired. Defeated.
I stared after her until the cashier cleared her throat. I’d been standing there holding my basket full of stuff like a dumb-ass. I set my things on the conveyor belt and tucked the basket underneath it.
“Forty-eight eighty-two,” the cashier said. I don’t know what the hell made me do it, but before I could decide otherwise, I opened my mouth. “Add those face wipes on too, will you?”
“The ones that girl left?” the cashier asked. I could see the confusion on her face.
“Yep. And one more candy bar.” I grabbed another peanut butter cup as the woman dressed in a hideous pink velour tracksuit behind me sighed. I looked over my shoulder and smiled the most insincere fucking smile I could manage. “So sorry. Am I keeping you from your hair appointment?”
Her derisive return snort made my day.
The cashier dug the wipes out from under the counter, scanned them and the candy bar, and then gave me my new total. I paid the girl and grabbed my bags, then walked as fast as I could to the doors. I thought I caught a glimpse of a green jacket a little farther down and headed in that direction.
It was like fifteen-year-old Ryan had climbed inside my skin and was driving me toward where Tess loaded her things into a shitty white Honda. I was surprised. I’d expected her to be
driving some fancy Mercedes SUV by now.
By the time adult Ryan realized what a crap-assed mistake this was, teenage Ryan had stopped just behind Tess. She slammed the trunk shut and turned to reach for Noah.
That’s when she saw me. And took a step in front of Noah and reached into her purse. I was pretty sure I was about five seconds away from getting maced. I held up my hands, with grocery bags dangling from them, and gave her a half smile.
“Hey, Tess.”
Her hand froze and her eyebrows dipped down. For the first time, she looked straight into my eyes. I waited for the flicker of recognition. My heart thundered against my ribs. It was pretty obvious I’d made a huge mistake.
“I, ah, got these. For you.” I moved the bags to one hand, reached into one and pulled out the wipes and candy bar. Noah immediately reached for the candy and pulled it from my hand. I barely noticed. Tess was looking at me, and I couldn’t look away. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen when we were young, but now?
Now she was the most beautiful woman on the planet.
When she saw the wipes her lips turned down but her chin shot up. “We don’t need charity.”
“It was just an excuse to talk to you. A dumb mistake obviously.” I shook my head. “Enjoy the candy bar, buddy,” I said to Noah. I allowed myself one last look at Tess. I guess seven years is long enough to forget someone who never really mattered much. That burn of not being good enough, one that I had put behind me until right this second, filled my chest. “Good to see you again, Tess.”
Then I turned and started to walk away.
“Ryan?” Her voice was so low that I thought I imagined it. “Ryan.” Louder now and impossible to resist, I stopped. “It is you, isn’t it?” Her voice shook, but still I didn’t turn around. From the moment I saw her in that line, I hadn’t been thinking straight.