“Of course. You know they love you. Besides, Jeff needs to bond with his children. It’ll be good for him. He’ll appreciate me more when I get back. That man forgets about all the shit I do for him so he needs to be reminded every once in a while.”
Susie parks the car, and they walk into the small grocery store. “Do we need a cart?” Myra asks.
Susie stares at Myra quirking an eyebrow. “Do bears shit in the woods? Duh, yeah.”
Myra rolls her eyes as she grabs one.
“I was thinking I could make some of my famous chili, some spaghetti and meatballs with cheesy garlic bread and let’s see, how about some nachos and some chicken quesadillas? Oh. And I can make some margaritas to go with them.”
“And how many days were you planning on staying?”
Susie glares at her as she snatches the cart away. “Go grab four pounds of hamburger. I’ll get a package of chicken,” she mumbles as she starts throwing things into the cart. “And get us a big bag of tortilla chips. I’ll be on this aisle,” she says as she gestures ahead of her.
Myra squints as she reads the signs above each aisle, trying to find the chips. She finally sees they are on aisle three so she walks towards it and turns, only to stop in her tracks when her eyes land on the back of a tall man wearing a familiar-looking black coat. Immediately swiveling around and praying he doesn’t see her, she walks – more like runs – as fast as she can back to Susie.
“You got everything?” Myra asks. “We need to go.”
“Stop rushing me. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. We just need to leave.”
“Why? Where are the chips?” Susie asks, eyeballing her suspiciously.
“I decided I don’t want nachos. Are we ready?” she asks. She tries to grab the cart from Susie, but Susie immediately smacks her hand with a loud wallop.
Myra rubs it as Susie stares at her with narrowed eyes. “Well, I want nachos and I’m going to go get the chips right now.”
“No,” Myra shouts.
“Spill.”
“Okay, okay,” Myra says as she quickly looks behind her. “The contractor. He’s here,” she whispers.
Susie’s eyes get big. “No shit? Where?”
“The chip aisle.”
Susie grins like an idiot and speeds past her with the cart as fast as she can. Myra grabs her arm, trying to stop her. “Wait. Please, please don’t embarrass me,” she begs.
“That dickhead left you by yourself after a life-altering experience. I’m in the mood to kick some ass. Or at least give him some good verbal slicing and dicing.”
“If you do this, I will never forgive you. I need this asshole to fix my house.”
Susie stares at her and Myra can see her resolve crumbling. “Oh, all right, I won’t do anything this time, but I make no promises on any of my future behavior. Got it?”
“Thank you,” Myra gushes. “Now let’s go.”
“Oh, now wait just one minute. I promised I wouldn’t say or do anything this time, but I still want to see what this guy looks like. Now which aisle is it?”
Myra’s shoulders slump. She knows they will not be leaving this store until Susie gets an eyeful of the contractor. “The next one,” she mumbles. “With the toilet paper on the end.”
Susie strategically parks the cart on the end of the aisle and with her body hidden behind the toilet paper, leans her head slyly around the corner just enough so she can take a peek.
“That’s him?” Susie whispers.
Myra holds onto Susie’s elbow and peeps over her shoulder with her. “Yeah.”
“Holy horse shit. That’s your contractor? That’s Dylan?”
“Yes, but don’t forget you said he was a fucking asshole less than an hour ago,” Myra hisses.
Susie looks back at Dylan, her eyes roaming up and down his body. He turns his head towards them, and they both duck quickly behind the toilet paper. “I did, didn’t I?” Susie asks. “Damn it.” She stares at Myra for a moment. “Well, all I can say is that he’s one delicious fucking asshole.”
“I don’t want to hear it. Besides, don’t forget he’s a smoker. And you were ready to kick his ass five seconds ago.”
“I know. But things have drastically changed in the last five seconds. That is one of the finest men I have ever laid eyeballs on. He’s like seriously hot, like a scruffy Greek god or something.” Susie shakes her head. “I know you described him over the phone and everything but that honestly didn’t do him justice. Damn,” she says as she fans herself with her hand.
“So what? He’s a mean prick. Who cares what he looks like?” Myra pulls the cart towards her. “Let’s hurry and check out before he gets over here,” she mumbles as she heads for the checkout lane.
“I’m just saying that I think I could tolerate a lot from a guy that looked like that. A prick personality? Pfft. I could deal with that in exchange for getting to look at that every day. Sure, the guy needs a good swift kick to his fine ass, and then maybe a little squeeze,” she says before giggling. “But I just think he could make the word asshole look good, like really, really good.” Susie waggles her eyebrows and continues snickering.
“Well, that’s just not me. Personality is so much more important to me than looks. It’s what’s on the inside that matters, not what’s on the outside,” Myra says, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yeah, right,” Susie retorts, rolling her eyes at Myra. “I don’t give a flip what you say, looks do matter.”
“No, they don’t. Looks are the last thing on my list,” Myra argues.
Susie raises an eyebrow. “So you’re telling me that if you met a guy with a fantastic personality who weighed five hundred pounds and had buck teeth and pus-filled zits all over his face, you wouldn’t care what he looked like, you’d just love his charming personality?”
“Yes.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
They continue arguing as they get checked out, and thankfully don’t run into Derek or Lucia. Myra breathes a sigh of relief when they pull out of the parking lot without seeing Dylan again either.
* * *
Dylan sets the bags of groceries on his crap-covered kitchen table, knocking shit on the floor. “Damn it,” he mutters under his breath as he looks under the table to see what fell. Looking at the mess there, he can’t figure out what fell, so he shrugs his shoulders, leaving it and not really giving a shit. He takes out the frozen pizzas and microwavable meals from the bags and throws them in the freezer. Tossing a loaf of bread, popcorn and chips on the counter, he grabs an apple and takes a bite as he dumps the rest of the fruit on the counter.
His phone in his pocket vibrates.
“Lawson,” he answers as he flops into a kitchen chair and stretches his long jeans-covered legs out in front of him, crossing his work boots at the ankle.
“Hi. My name is Rhonda Neil. I wanted to see if you could take a look at my garbage disposal. It keeps backing up on me for some reason; I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”
“I can come out today,” he says as he runs his fingers through his messy, dirty hair and reaches for a pen and paper from his cluttered table.
“That would be wonderful. Could you stop by around four?”
“Yep.” Dylan writes down her address and hangs up.
* * *
“Looks like Barbara’s here,” Myra says as she looks out the window and sees a car in Jim’s driveway. “Let’s go over. But I have to warn you about Jackie, Jim’s granddaughter. She’s a bit, strange. I like her and everything, but she thinks we’re best friends for some reason even though I only see her once every couple of years.” Myra smiles. “Don’t get jealous or anything, okay?”
Susie’s eyes narrow. “I see how you are. You demote me to virtual best bud and then immediately replace me. You know I can’t keep that crazy, green-eyed dragon inside of me caged. I will have to unleash her because I am your one and only bestest buddy ever, do you understand?” Susie loops her
arm through Myra’s as they giggle on their way to Jim’s house. Myra has been dreading this moment – going back to Jim’s house – so she couldn’t be more thankful that she has her bubbly best friend by her side to help her through it.
After a quick knock on the door, Barbara answers. “Myra,” she says as she pulls her into a hug. Barbara’s eyes are bloodshot and have deep, dark circles underneath them.
“I’m so sorry,” Myra murmurs gently in her ear.
“I’m so sorry for what you had to go through,” Barbara whispers back. They hang onto each other as Myra bites back tears.
“It’s so good to see you again,” John, Barbara’s husband, says. He gives Myra a warm hug but when he steps back, his eyes look sad behind his small horn-rimmed glasses.
“You too.”
“Myra,” Jackie shouts as she launches herself against Myra in a too-tight hug that almost cuts off her circulation. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Hi, Jackie,” she squeaks, giving Susie an ‘I told you so’ look.
“I’ve missed you. Missed you, missed you,” she mutters into Myra’s coat.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Myra says as she tries to extricate herself from Jackie’s small steel arms.
After introducing everyone to Susie and making some small talk, Myra finds herself on the couch sitting between Susie and Jackie. John and Barbara sit close together on the love seat. Myra’s heart clenches in her chest when she thinks of her and Jim sitting in this same spot together, him smiling and looking so happy as they looked at photographs together.
“I know this is difficult for you, but could you tell us what happened?” Barbara asks Myra softly as she wrings a tissue between her fingers.
Myra nods and through lots of tears, manages to retell the story to them as accurately as she can, leaving out the part about Jim’s blue lips.
“Did he, did dad have any last words? Did he say anything? Anything at all before he…?” Barbara asks, her voice breaking at the end as she dabs at her eyes with a tissue.
Myra shakes her head but then a thought occurs to her. “Dylan was the one that found him, though. He might have said something to him.”
“We’ll have to ask him,” Barbara says as she nods at John and wipes her wet eyes again.
“Can we bring you over a meal this evening?” Susie asks Barbara.
“Oh, that’s so thoughtful of you, but no, we’re fine. Dad’s church called and they’re bringing over a few things. Are you ladies hungry? They should be here soon,” Barbara says.
“No, we’re good, thank you,” Myra says. “We’d better get going. Let us know if you need anything, okay?”
“Of course,” Barbara says as she hugs Myra one last time and kisses her on the cheek.
* * *
Dylan grabs his tool bucket and throws it in the bed of his truck. He left the majority of his tools at Myra’s house that day… when Jim... But like any other contractor, he keeps extras in his garage. Grabbing a cigarette from his pocket, he lights it and takes in a deep drag, blowing the smoke out slowly. Reaching his hand to his lower back, he winces as he stretches it a little. He’s exhausted from not getting any sleep and feels like shit. Groaning, he climbs into his truck.
He pulls into the driveway of a small white house with pink trim.
The door opens and an older woman wearing a dark purple, V-neck sweater showing way too much cleavage smiles brightly at him. He cringes.
“I’m here about your disposal?” he gruffly asks.
“Oh. Hi. Wow. Yes, please come in,” she says, smiling. “I’m so happy that you were able to come out on such short notice. That was so wonderful of you. Do you remember me? From the gas station the other day?”
He scowls. “No.”
“Oh. I saw you there the other day and waved at you. You smiled at me.”
Dylan knows that’s a fucking lie because he doesn’t smile. He cannot believe the women in this town.
“Where’s your disposal?”
“This way,” she says as she smiles and bats her eyelashes at him. She swings her hips in front of him suggestively as she walks into the kitchen. Dylan keeps his eyes planted on the floor afraid that if he looks at her ass he might vomit.
“It’s right here. I just don’t know what happened,” she muses pitifully as she stares into the sink. Leaning in closer to look, she presses her breasts together and exposes as much cleavage as she can.
“Can you move so I can look at it?” he asks in a hateful voice.
“Oh, sure. No problem,” she responds with a giggle. She takes one small step to the side and smiles, waiting.
Dylan stares at her in disbelief. “I’m gonna need more room than that.”
“Oh, okay,” she says as she continues smiling and takes another small step to the side.
Sighing loudly, he shakes his head and runs the water, flipping on the disposal. “What’s the last thing you put in here?”
“Um, let me think. I cleaned out my refrigerator because I had too many leftovers. I always make too much food. It’s hard cooking for only one. It’s so much easier cooking for two, I…”
His eyes narrow as he interrupts her. “Answer the question.”
“Oh, well, as I was trying to say, I put a lot of stuff in there. Let’s see, I put some homemade mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, spaghetti…”
“You can’t put all of that down a disposal. Especially spaghetti. Don’t put any type of pasta in there. Use your damn trash can every once in a while.”
Squatting down, he looks under the sink. “This is an old model, not much horse power. More than likely, you’ve clogged it and it’s gonna need to be replaced.” He does some additional checking and determines that his assessment is correct.
He grabs his tool bucket, glad to be done and ready to make a fast exit. “I’ll write up an estimate and get back with you tomorrow,” he says before making his way as fast as he can towards the front door.
“I’ll be cooking tonight, and I know I’ll make too much. Can you stay for dinner?” she asks from behind him.
“No, definitely not,” he answers rudely as he grabs the doorknob and practically runs to his truck.
“Oh, well, maybe another time. We should get to know each other.”
Dylan slams the truck into reverse extra hard as he backs out of the driveway. Lighting a cigarette, he lets it hang loosely from his lips as he makes his way back home.
* * *
While Susie takes a shower, Myra’s lips turn up gently as she picks up the photos that Jim gave her. Glancing through the top few and remembering the stories he told her about them brings tears to her eyes. Wiping at her face with her sleeve, she carefully gathers the photos together and places them in a container. Opening the bottom of the china cabinet, she sets the container down with care. She’ll work on that project soon and put those memories safely in an album. Both her family’s memories and Jim’s.
* * *
Dylan’s fist shoots out and pounds hard into the bag. Over and over again. Jab, uppercut, straight punch, hook punch. Left, right. Back and forth. Sweat streams down his naked chest through the light spattering of hair coming to rest in the waistband of his black nylon shorts. The muscles in his back and arms flex and contract with the effort. His matted wet hair sticks to his forehead, and his face flushes from the exertion.
He can’t keep his thoughts in check. He usually has good control of them because he works hard on that shit to keep his mind disciplined. But he finds himself slipping. All because of what happened at Myra’s house. Images of his face keep popping up more frequently causing him to want to beat the hell out of something.
He needs to figure out a way to make this shit stop.
Out of breath and exhausted, he grabs the large black punching bag and leans on it, panting. After a few minutes, he steps away and hits it one last time as hard as he can. “Damn it,” he mutters. Stripping off his black gloves, he throws them on the floor. Leaning down
, he picks up a towel and wipes the sweat off of his face, chest and arms and pushes his damp hair out of his eyes. After rubbing the towel over his back, he reaches his hand up and rubs his painful neck muscles. He grimaces slightly when he stretches out his lower back.
After a quick shower, he grabs his phone and hits number one on his speed dial.
“Hello, mi querido.”
“Elaina,” he says. “Are you available?”
“Sure am. Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on over.”
* * *
Dressed in black from head to toe, Myra stands in front of the floor-length mirror in her bedroom, staring at her reflection. She feels a strong sense of déjà vu having just gone through this with Grampie. She does not want to go to this funeral today. Her stomach churns as she swallows hard.
“Are you ready to do this?” Susie asks softly from behind her.
She nods, knowing full well in her heart that she isn’t ready at all.
CHAPTER 8
GRAY, GRIEF
Myra shifts in her seat, tugging on her skirt. She quickly wipes her sweaty hands on the tissues she clutches as she sits on the front row of the church between Jackie and Susie. As soon as she and Susie stepped into the quaint little building for the funeral service, Jackie pounced on them and insisted that they sit next to her. Not wanting to cause a scene, they obliged, even though they’re not immediate family and felt they should not be sitting in the front row.
An elderly woman makes her way slowly to the podium and begins singing Amazing Grace in a sweet, soft soprano. Myra keeps her eyes on her hands in her lap. She tries to swallow around the lump in her throat, but when she hears a sob escaping Jackie, her lip quivers before a matching sob rips from her chest and tears begin streaming down her face.
Myra buries her face in her hands as Susie wraps her arm tight around her, hugging her close.
The small service goes by relatively quickly, but Myra doesn’t hear much of it. And before long, she stands at the cemetery, shivering in the cold, holding Susie’s and Jackie’s hands. The minister’s voice seems far away as she focuses on the red roses that adorn the gold casket in front of her. But when her gaze strays just a short distance to the tombstones of her own family, a strangled sob escapes her lips.
Color of Loneliness Page 9