by Claire Adams
“Ready,” she said.
She wore a long blue skirt and a gray cardigan, and she looked sort of like a crazy librarian. We got into the truck, and she told me to drive back toward town.
“So, how’s it feel?” she asked. “Being a free man.”
“Going all right so far.”
“I keep imaging the day when Jackson’s a free man, just like you.”
I kept my eyes on the road and didn’t say anything. The chances of Jackson ever getting out were zero and zilch. He’d gone to Denver one night, and when he’d come back to his truck, he found two teenagers trying to break into it. He beat the shit out of them both and then got his antique Winchester out of the truck and shot them as they tried to run away. According to Jackson, it later came out that the kids were on meth, but that didn’t matter. He’d shot and killed two kids who’d been trying to escape.
“Did you have somewhere in mind that you wanted to go?” I asked Paula as we approached town.
“I did.”
I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “Care to share the plan with me?” I finally said.
She was looking out the window as though she hadn’t heard me, humming something under her breath. Was she a little crazy? Was this why Jackson had asked me to check up on her?
“There,” she said suddenly, pointing. “I want to go there. The food’s great, and the coffee’s even better. And hey—it’s got the same name as you.”
The restaurant she had pointed at was called Ollie’s, which must’ve opened up while I’d been in prison. The last I knew, it had been the Red Hen Café, which had okay food and mediocre coffee.
“This woman opened the place almost five years ago,” Paula said. “I don’t go out too much, but when I do, I like to come here and get the chicken pot pie.”
“That sounds good.”
“You should order it.”
I wasn’t the least bit hungry. “Maybe I will.”
We went inside. I’d only been in the place once or twice when it was the Red Hen, so I only had a vague recollection of it, but the place now seemed completely transformed. The sunlight poured in, and the white walls gleamed. The memories I did have of the Red Hen were of a dark, shabby sort of place, so this was quite a contrast. The bar had been reconstructed, the chipped Formica replaced with gleaming hardwood. The counter stools were also wooden, and the tables and booths had been redone to match. The place felt both quaint and chic, and I was immediately overcome with the feeling of not belonging.
But Paula marched right in, waved to one of the waitresses, and sat herself down at a corner table. I followed and sat across from her. Luckily, there weren’t many people there.
“Try the coffee,” Paula said. “Everything here’s good, but the coffee’s excellent.” She peered at the menu.
The waitress came over, carrying a coffee pot. She was slightly overweight, had washed out blond hair, and was wearing a shade of lipstick that was a little too bright.
“Hi there,” she said with a big smile. “Nice to see you again, Paula. It’s been a while. Nice to see you…” She paused, looking at me. “I don’t think I know you.”
“I’m Oliver,” I said.
“Pleased to meet you, Oliver. I’m Lena; I’ll be your waitress today. Can I get you guys some coffee?”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Paula said.
Lena’s smile never wavered as she poured us each coffee and then said she’d give us a few minutes with the menu.
Paula took a big sip of the coffee, made some strange moaning sound that I guess was supposed to indicate how good it tasted, and then looked up, over my shoulder, scanning the dining room. “The owner’s not here right now,” she said. “This girl named Wren. She’s a looker, but you don’t want to get involved with her.”
I drank my coffee. “Okay,” I said, as though getting involved with someone was even an option. It wasn’t, as far as I was concerned. Not now, anyway. Not for a long time. I couldn’t even begin to start to think of being that settled into my life that I might actually have a girlfriend.
“No, I mean it.” Paula leaned across the table toward me. “I know you grew up around here, but you’ve been gone for so long it’s like you’re new in town again. And I might not go out a lot, but that doesn’t mean I’m not privy to the sorts of gossip that goes around.”
“I’m not that interested in gossip.”
“Most men aren’t. Not much of a surprise there. She’s a nice girl and all, Wren, but she gets around, if you know what I mean.”
I shrugged. “It’s really not any of my business.”
“I’m just letting you know.”
I kept expecting to wake up and find myself back at Reynolds, that this whole experience of being released from prison today had just been a dream. I’d open my eyes and be lying there on that cot, staring up at the concrete ceiling I’d become so familiar with over the years. Today would in fact be the day I’d be getting out, but instead of Garrett being there to pick me up, I’d take the bus somewhere. I’d be an anonymous face; I’d probably have to sleep under a bridge somewhere.
But that didn’t happen because this, it seemed, was actually reality. I was sitting here with Jackson’s wife, at a restaurant that had the same name as me, owned by a woman who apparently got around.
“I need to be getting back,” I said.
Paula leaned across the table again and peered into my cup of coffee. “You’re not done yet.”
I picked up the cup and swallowed the remainder, and it was still hot enough that is scorched my mouth and my throat on the way down. “There,” I said. “All finished.”
For a second, I thought she was going to refuse; I thought she was going to insist that we stay there and order food, more coffee, talk to everyone who walked into the place. If she did, I’d have to leave her there. Except no, I couldn’t do that, not to Jackson’s wife.
Luckily, though, she decided not to do that. Maybe she could see that I was on the verge of losing my shit if we didn’t get out of there, maybe she herself was just ready to go, I didn’t know, but she pulled her wallet out of her pocketbook, left a few bills on the table, and then we left.
“I’m sorry,” I said once we were outside. “I wasn’t trying to rush you or anything, but I just needed to get outside. Maybe I should’ve waited a day or two before coming to see you.” That probably would have been the smarter idea. “But I promised Jackson I would.”
After I left Paula’s, I drove back to town, trying to find a store to get some clothes. It seemed like most of the stores had changed, or moved, in the past seven years. New shops, new restaurants. I didn’t even recognize the name of the bank. The coffee made me feel jittery, but I parked and wandered into a few stores. I bought a toothbrush and toothpaste at the drug store, and then I went into a clothing store that had the jeans I was looking for. I got a couple pairs, as well as a few work shirts. I needed a new pair of boots. I didn’t have enough money for Luccheses, which was what I used to wear, but the Ariat boots were on sale, and I found a pair in my size. What had happened to those boots? I hadn’t worn them when I went out that night; I’d left them by the front door at my mother’s, where I was always left them so I didn’t track dirt and mud all through the house. Those boots had fit like a glove; this new pair would be far inferior, but it was the best I could do, considering I was buying them with money I hadn’t yet earned.
Chapter Three
Wren
No way to escape.
I’m trapped.
It’s that guy, I know it’s him even though I can’t see his face, and he’s got me pinned against the wall. We’re not outside in a parking lot, though, we’re in some sort of container, with slick walls and a slippery floor, and I’m trying to keep my balance, but I can’t. The feeling that I’m about to fall is constant, but the falling part never comes. There is a pervading sense of sickening dread and nothing I can do to escape it. There’s no one coming to save me this time
, and I can’t even seem to move my arms or legs. My brain is screaming at my limbs to move, but they won’t so all I can do is stand there and wait for him to—
My eyes flew open, heart in my throat, pulse racing. The sheets were a tangled, sweaty mess. The dull gray light seeping in through the closed blinds told me it was early morning, but late enough that I could get up. There was no going back to sleep after those sorts of dreams, anyway. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, though Dr. Mike said it didn’t matter how many times you had a recurring nightmare; it could feel just as scary as the first time you had it.
Awake, though, I could steel myself to the outside world. This didn’t mean closing myself off or being rude for no reason; it meant slipping on that irreverent, slightly sarcastic personality that I felt somehow protected me, that kept anyone from getting too close. At the same time, guys seemed to find it appealing, so there was never any shortage of dates, though I refused to ever let them go past the first one, no matter how good that first date had gone.
And if I wanted to, it’d be easy enough to be completely swallowed up by work, to not have time for anything else. I didn’t need to be there first thing in the morning; my line chef, Shaun, was fully capable of opening the place every morning, without requiring my presence, but I liked being there. I’d whip up a few batches of muffins, and they’d be hot and fresh right out of the oven just as the first customers started coming in.
It wasn’t like going back to sleep was an option anyway. Even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t—it was better to be tired than to have another one of those nightmares.
The tiredness was taking its toll, though. I knew it when Lena gave me a concerned look after the breakfast rush was over. I was wiping down the counter, but she came over and took the rag from me.
“You go sit down for a minute,” she said.
“What? Why? I’m fine.”
“You look exhausted. You look like you’re not even going to be able to make it through lunch. Sit. Let me do this.”
Normally, I would’ve insisted that everything was fine and I didn’t need to sit, but I gave in this time. I left the rag and sat on the other side of the counter.
“You’ve been having those nightmares again, haven’t you,” Lena said. She reached over and poured me a big cup of coffee.
I nodded, even though they’d never actually stopped—they’d been happening all along, I just decided to stop telling her about them.
“Maybe you need to get away from this place,” she said. “Not that I want to see you go, but if something like that ever happened to me, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to stick around in the same town afterward.”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” I admitted, though I’d long ago made the decision to stay. I loved Carmel. I’d loved this town ever since middle school, when we’d taken a field trip and stopped at a little café for lunch. The state highway ran right through Carmel, and there were the usual fast food restaurants and chain stores. But as you moved further away from the highway, things took on a much quainter feel, and by the time you reached downtown proper, it was like you had taken a step back in time, with the white clapboard general store, the one-room post office, the gold-gilded movie theater with its faded marquee. I’d wanted to live here ever since then. Perhaps not the grandest of ambitions, but it was what I’d always wanted.
“I don’t really have anywhere else to go,” I told Lena. “It’s not like I’d go back home. I shouldn’t even call it that, really.”
She gave me a puzzled look. “I thought you said you got along pretty well with your folks.”
“I do. But that doesn’t mean I want to go back there. There’s a reason you’ve never met my parents, you know.”
“I have wondered why they never visited.”
“They’re afraid. They don’t leave the town if they don’t have to. Honestly, I don’t think they’ve left in over ten years.”
Lena widened her eyes. “You’re exaggerating,” she said.
I frowned, doing the math mentally in my head. “No, that’s pretty accurate, actually. They’re both just fearful people. They’ve always been that way, but it got even worse after this one time my mom and I went to Denver. I must’ve been . . . ten, I think. It was around Christmas, and we were going to see the Nutcracker. It was a big deal, us going into the city. It took us a while to get there, and my mom didn’t like driving long distances. We were even going to spend the night in a hotel. I was so excited. We had to stop for gas just outside of Denver, and I asked my mom if I could go with her and pick out a snack when she went inside to pay for the gas. I was standing in the front of all the candy when this guy came in wearing a mask, holding a gun, shouting for the clerk to empty the register. There was one other person in there besides us and the clerk, and he made us all get down on the floor on our stomachs. People had tracked a bunch of snow and mud and slush in, and I remember how it felt soaking through the front of my dress. My mother was crying the whole time. The guy got the money from the cash register and left, the police came, and no one was hurt. But we turned around and headed right back home.”
“Oh my god.” Lena’s hand went to her mouth. “Wren, I had no idea. That’s terrible.”
“And that’s why I never told my parents what happened. They don’t even have a computer, so it’s not like they’d ever find out otherwise.”
“But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t welcome you back home.”
“I know. I know I’m always welcome back there, and that they’d be happy to have me. But I don’t want to live in fear like they do. And I like it here. No, more than like it—I love this place. This is like my home. I’m not going to let one bad experience chase me out. No way.”
“Well, I am happy to hear that part, anyway,” Lena said. “I like having you around. I wouldn’t want you to go anywhere.”
I didn’t want to go anywhere, either, yet I also hated that this thing had happened to me that I couldn’t seem to forget. I wanted to move past it, I wanted to be free of it, I wanted it to not affect me the way it did.
Chapter Four
Ollie
It was strange being back on the ranch. How many nights had I lain on my cot, dreaming of this place? It was a hard thing, to be the sort of person that was used to spending most of his time outside to suddenly find yourself allowed an hour a day in a fenced in area. I felt like an animal, but not one of the horses out on the ranch, not even one of the cattle that got herded to the forest pastures every summer; I felt trapped, like something waiting to be slaughtered.
But it was hard to sleep. It was too quiet, everything too still. I was alone in this little cabin, when I’d become accustomed to sleeping in the presence of hundreds of guys. In prison, you never allow yourself the deep sort of slumber you did before you went in; now that I was out though, it didn’t seem like that was going to happen either.
When I finally did manage to fall asleep, I dreamed I was back there at Reynolds, except the cell was open on all sides, there were no walls, just bars keeping me in. Everyone that I’d ever known was there, outside of the cell though, looking in at me. I had done something awful, I knew it, but I couldn’t recall just what it was. No one would speak to me, not my mother, not Garrett, not Jackson, who was also there, in civilian clothes, looking just as pissed off at me as everyone else was.
Finally, someone broke the silence. My mother.
“You’re an awful person,” she said, her face contorted in anger. There were murmurs from those around her, everyone nodding their heads in agreement.
“Awful!” someone shouted.
“You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“You don’t deserve to be out, walking amongst us!”
Everyone started screaming then, and I couldn’t make out any one specific thing; it was just this horrible onslaught of noise that there was no escape from. There was nothing else in the cell with me, nothing to hide under or to shield myself with, so all I could do was stand there. I
couldn’t turn to face the wall because there were no walls; I was surrounded by angry, seething faces, all people that I knew, that I loved, or at least liked.
I woke up, but was unable to shake the feeling. I got dressed and went outside, where it was still dark, the sky to the east just beginning to lighten. The boots were rubbing my heel in a way that was going to leave a spectacular blister, I could tell right away, but I ignored it. They’d take some time to break in, and the pain would be good reminder that I was outside, working, not shut up in a prison. Garrett had told me to take a few days, but I needed to work. I needed to do something, and sleeping sure as hell wasn’t one of those things.
I walked down to the barn, the familiarity of the routine immediately coming back to me. It was like muscle memory, really, something that I’d always remember no matter how much time passed. I went past the barn to the first corral, and I whistled, one short high note followed by one low longer one. I didn’t know if it would still work, if he’d hear it, and if he did hear it, if he’d remember, but sure enough, a few seconds after that whistle, I first felt the hoofbeats through the ground, then heard the muted thumps as he approached.
“Hey, boy,” I said. Bebop came right over to me and pushed his head hard against me. He nickered, but didn’t push his nose into my hands looking for treats; he knew better than that. He raised his head and looked at me, and I swear, it was like he was glad to see me. It felt good. In fact, it was the best I’d felt since I got out.
I patted his neck and then clucked to him to follow me as I opened the gate and went back to the barn. I didn’t have to bother with the crossties; he stood while I went over his coat with the curry comb, followed by the stiff-bristled dandy brush, then the softer body brush. I brushed out his tail and then used the metal comb on his mane and forelock. I had just grabbed the hoofpick when I heard a voice behind me.
“Whoa, what’s going on?”
It was a male voice, not hostile, exactly, but it startled me, and I dropped the pick and jumped up. Bebop swished his tail and pinned his ears back, but he didn’t move.