My Best Everything

by Sarah Tomp

  All my life Daddy had talked to me about leaving. He’d told me not to get stuck in Dale. Whispered stories about distant, shiny places. When I started dating, he’d warned me against falling in love. Told me getting stuck here would be the worst thing possible.

  “But how?” he asked. “Where will you get the money?”

  This was the part I was dreading. “Savings. And work.”

  “Is that why we received a statement from the university? I thought it was a mistake.” His eyes narrowed. “Is Sal meddling in our business? I won’t have you owe him, Luisa.”

  “No. He’s not meddling in my business.” I was shaking. The secrets and worries about Mom and Sal were too slippery to hold. It felt like my insides were melting and leaching out through the sweat dripping down my back and sides.

  “I’m taking care of it, Daddy.” My voice sounded unfamiliar. Hard, like steel. “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “There’s nothing to take care of. I canceled your account, Luisa.”

  Everything stopped.

  I felt like I’d had my feet swept out from under me. Like the river surged and was washing me downstream. There was nothing to grab ahold of, no way to catch my bearings. In a flash of a moment, all that I’d worked for slipped away.

  I sat, with a crash, on the top stair. Stared at him. I shook all the way down to my clenched fists. Finally, I choked out, “Why?”

  Because it never occurred to him that I might actually try to go.

  He’d told the truth. He really had canceled all my payments. He’d told USD I wasn’t coming, that I needed to defer my acceptance. He’d requested they send a reimbursement of all funds.

  “That’s my money, Daddy. I earned it. I worked hard to get it.”

  “Our situation goes beyond your schooling, Luisa. Money is tight.”

  “How can you trash my future? What gives you the right to throw my life away?”

  “I’ll make it up to you. Someday.” His shoulders slumped, and worry lined his face. “Your mother has charged a lot of expenses on her credit card.”

  Some of those charges were mine. I’d bought jars and other supplies using her card. So, even though I felt betrayed, I still had my own guilt mixed into the situation.

  I was too bewildered and dizzy to think straight. Feeling completely knocked over and beat up, I went to work trying to clean the only mess I could.

  I tried to wipe down the garage. I was a whole lot better at making messes than cleaning them. The smell and the heat made me seriously woozy as I scrubbed. I had some glimpse into what you must have felt when the mash hit you so hard. The glop had snuck into every crevice and crack. Throwing our past in the trash seemed like the best idea.

  Grabbing the garbage can, I tossed out boxes of old broken toys. A bag of expired seeds that Mom had ordered but never planted. Roller skates I didn’t use because all the roads were too hilly and rough. All the past disappointments dumped in with the rubbish.

  My future was there to keep it company.

  As I climbed in your truck that evening, I felt the slop of the day slipping off me. I told the story about the mash exploding in a flip and silly way to make you laugh, trying to keep my hysteria at bay. You were surprised and confused that I’d made mash, but I still hadn’t told you about hearing Mom coo behind the office door either.

  When I got to the part about Daddy canceling my school account, you frowned. “Well, you gotta call and tell them to un-cancel it.”

  What with my head all discombobulated, I hadn’t thought of that.

  It was three hours earlier in California. Their office was still open. So while you drove us down to the river, I called San Diego. The woman on the other end of the line struggled to understand my jumbled words. It was hard to talk with my heart thumping in my throat. “It was a mistake,” I said. “I’m coming. I’ll be there in September.”

  “I think we have a bad connection,” she said. “I’m having a hard time with your accent.”

  I felt like a country bumpkin. I took a deep breath and said as slowly and clearly as I could, “Could you please reactivate my account? I’ll be making another payment soon.”

  She sighed. “I can put a note on your record to freeze your account instead of canceling. We’ll hold your place. You won’t be able to make any official adjustments or payments until you’re eighteen. Then you’ll need to pay the full amount.”

  I thanked her and hung up.

  The only thing that could settle my restless limbs that night was wrapping myself in you.

  It was a pretty spot where we parked, but we weren’t looking at the view. I’d never been one to make out in a car. Besides worrying about things getting too out of hand, it’s cramped and awkward. That didn’t matter that night. We fit together well. And getting out of hand wasn’t anywhere close to the top of my multitude of worries. You and your lips and your hands and your sweet little whispers in my ear, the feel of your skin on mine made everything else slip away.

  Until the rap on the window set my nerves on fire.

  You threw my shirt over me. It was a tiny thing that fit me snug and scooped low. Useless in that moment.

  You pulled on your shirt, adjusted your jeans. “Keep the doors locked, Lu.”

  “Who is it?” I struggled into my bra, then wrestled with my shirtsleeves and the buttons that had come undone so easily yet didn’t want to cooperate now.

  “They don’t have a warrant. They have no right to search the truck.”

  This was so much worse than getting embarrassed and scolded for fooling around on the side of the road.

  You slammed the door behind you. I rubbed a small circle in the steamed-up window and peered out where you and two figures faced off.

  They didn’t look official. There was no way they were the police, which might have reassured me, but their menacing stance made my stomach drop. I felt like I couldn’t get a deep enough breath. Not in the good way I’d been with you before the knock. This felt closer to drowning.

  I couldn’t hear what was said. You held your hands up, palms out, as if looking to soothe them. At first you seemed to back away, but then, with a flash, you punched the shorter guy. Then I couldn’t tell who belonged to what fists and legs. The wrestling clump of you moved along the road, out of my line of view.

  I was already on edge that night. Fed up with trouble butting in and knocking on the window. Mad at everyone and everything except you. I was going to count to a hundred, but at fifty-seven, I reached under your seat and found your gun.

  My heart pounded and my hands shook as I made my way around your truck out to the road. I should have known it was Seth and Peanut. As I crept closer, holding the gun the way you’d taught me—the only way I knew how—the punches and thuds of skin on skin slowed and the gasps and grunts grew louder. Peanut fell to his knees and stayed there. Seth sucked air while you circled, bouncing on your toes. Each of you wore bruises and cuts. Your bloody nose looked dramatic, but it seemed like Seth’s swollen eye had to hurt worse.

  “Enough?” you asked.

  Seth backed away. Wiped his mouth, then bent over, breathing loud and raspy. His hiccups shifted, turned deeper. Somewhere along the way his gasps had turned to laughs. “You still fight like a damn weasel,” he said.

  “Yeah. Well, you’ve gotten slow.” You started laughing too.

  I watched; bewildered by whatever weird spell had taken over.

  I realized, suddenly, Seth missed you. That’s why he was always coming around. It wasn’t a matter of owing. It had nothing to do with moonshine or money. It was you he wanted.

  That was something I could understand.

  I must have made a noise, because you all saw me then. And saw what I held in front of me. I wish I didn’t like how you all froze.

  “Give me that, Lu.” Your voice was eerily calm, but I’d lost the ability to move. I couldn’t remember how to lower the gun.

  “Should have got a babysitter, Cuz.”

  Peanu
t laughed.

  To them you said, “Y’all better get out of here. She can’t aim for shit.”

  I guess they believed you, because they took off running.

  Back in your truck, my hands felt slick but gritty too. You didn’t speak the whole time you cleaned your face with a rag from the back. Then you burst out, “Did you even check to see if it was loaded?”

  Thing was, even if I’d checked, would I have wanted it loaded or not?

  “What were you thinking, Lu?” I’d never seen you so agitated. “I tell you what. You weren’t thinking. For someone who’s supposed to be smart…”

  “I thought they were beating you up. It’s not fair two on one.” It was crazy-making how you looked so confused. “How was I supposed to know that was fun? I thought you were in trouble. What did they want?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why are they following you? Why’d they sneak up on us? That’s not normal, Mason.”

  You sucked air through your teeth. “We don’t have the same normal.”

  That’s all you said until you parked in front of my house. You stared straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel. Then said, “He’s my cousin, Lulu.”

  “I know. But I thought…” I trailed off. You were right. I hadn’t been thinking. “Okay. Maybe I overreacted.”

  You shook your head at my understatement. I hoped you might laugh. But then, barely louder than a whisper, you said, “I was alone, Lu. Before you came along.”

  Me too.

  I moved in close to kiss you. Smelled worry and dirt on your skin. You kissed me back at first, then pulled away. “Thing is, I didn’t mind.”

  It’s impossible to miss what you don’t know.

  “But now,” you said, “now it’s going to be hard to go back to that.”

  “Don’t work for Seth,” I said.

  “I’m not.” You rubbed your jaw like it was tender. “But it’s not like I’m working at the club anymore. And I’m doing fine being around moonshine.”

  “What about the junkyard? Sal would hire you.”

  “With all those broken things?” You looked betrayed.

  “We’ll figure something else out. You can take the money we’re making and—”

  You cut me off. “Lulu, you gotta get out of this town. You’re right. You don’t belong here.”

  I felt you pushing at me that night. Sending me on my way.

  I was filled with a reckless, wild wish that you’d come with me. Pictured us driving into the sunset, never stopping until we reached the Pacific Ocean. But that was crazy. Impulsive. Like pulling out a gun on a group of old friends, or thinking a fixer and builder like you would ever be happy dismantling and destroying.

  Impossible.

  29

  I’d never gone a week without talking to Roni before. She answered my texts with short and simple replies. Otherwise she avoided me. She really didn’t want me in her head. She blew off work, let my calls go to voice mail, and didn’t show up when Bucky called a business meeting in the gas station parking lot.

  Waiting for you, I asked, “How’s Roni?” What I meant was Is she pregnant? What now?

  “Did you know Virginia Tech has apartments for married couples?”

  “Is that the plan?”

  He shrugged. “Still looking at options.”

  Once you rode up on your bike, Bucky told us about his conversation with Tommy and Jimbo Queen. My impulsive question at the river—along with the warm Gatorade bottle mixed in with our poison—had set in motion a plan for us to sell moonshine at their party.

  Bucky said, “They see this as a real business opportunity. Those Queen boys know what they’re doing. We could make a serious chunk of change.”

  You didn’t like the idea. “There are already way too many people involved.”

  “Who would you like to kick out?” Bucky asked, putting you on the spot. “Personally, I think Lulu is the wild card at the moment. Can’t begin to guess what she’s going to do.”

  Mad, I said, “What does that mean?”

  Bucky held up his hands. “Whoa. Don’t shoot.”

  I shut up and he went on. “Roni is honestly pretty useless. But you and Roni are awfully cozy good friends these days, aren’t you, Mason? So, maybe you mean me?”

  You shook your head. “I meant you talking to the Queens in the first place.”

  “That was started by Lulu. Again, can we all say ‘wild card’?”

  Bucky and I were always in the same classes, same track, same learning groups. We’d worked together on numerous projects, starting with the first-place blue-ribbon all-county vermicomposting exhibit we created for the fifth-grade science fair. Roni probably told him as much about me as she told me about him. So, it makes sense that Bucky knew precisely how much I’d changed that summer. He didn’t like it.

  “I don’t like face-to-face sales,” you insisted.

  “The Queens don’t either. And they don’t like the little rat poison jars.”

  I protested, “But that’s good marketing.”

  Bucky shook his head. “They don’t want a bunch of broken glass. Also, they don’t want to worry about copyright infringement.”

  If Roni had been there, we would have laughed at that.

  “One person takes the money, another pours, and someone else hands them out. No direct exchange of liquor for money. It’s smart and simple.”

  You weren’t convinced. “I have another sale lined up. Talked to him this morning. It’s a big one. The guy owns several bars.”

  “All right,” said Bucky. “We can wait and see how that goes.”

  Sal and his questions had been weighing on me. “We might need to bring Aunt Jezebel back to Sal’s when we’re done,” I said.

  You both looked at me like I was as deluded as I was.

  Bucky moved on. “We also need to switch to a sugar-only recipe. No more corn. It’s too expensive.”

  “Hold up,” you said. “That’s a bigger shift than you think.”

  “We need to cut costs, make as much cash as possible.”

  “I can’t take sugar-shine on the road. I can’t stand behind something like that.”

  Bucky stared at you like he didn’t speak your language. Then said, “It’s good enough for the Queens. Tommy’s the one who suggested it. He can’t believe we wasted money on corn.”

  Sometimes the simplest answer is the hardest to see. The night of the Queens’ field party, way back at the beginning of the summer, that was the night of my big idea.

  Everything would be different if I’d gone to the Queens to make money. That’s what they do. The parties they hold in their field can’t be any more legal than selling moonshine. Not that legality is something that can be weighed on a scale, but those parties are a business. They aren’t playing hosts, they’re working. They make money off all those drunken people stumbling around in their overgrown, rutted field.

  There must be some kind of payoff to the police. Everyone in at least three towns knows when they’re having a party, and you never hear about any busts. But how many DUIs have been issued down the road out of there? It’s some kind of deal that works.

  It doesn’t matter. No matter how much money I might have made working with them, it wouldn’t have equaled working with you.

  30

  When it came time for the sale to Claude, I invited myself along. Each and every sale felt crucial to me, but this one mattered to you in a different way. You wanted to prove to Bucky your way was the right way. That the payoff was worth the extra expense up front.

  Claude’s home was a mishmash of sleek and ominous. Outside, his mangy dogs eyed us mistrustfully from the shade, while the inside looked clean to the point of sterile. You had a sample jar of our liquor inside a brown paper bag. No whiskers or tails kind of packaging here. It was a different expectation altogether.

  I wasn’t expected at all, but Claude has slippery-smooth social skills. He greeted me with a toothy smile, then raised his eyebrows in
question to you.

  We walked in on the top level like we were in the treetops. High ceilings, shiny floors, big furniture; his house reeked of money.

  “Sweetie, you watch TV in here while we talk business downstairs. Sorry Barbara Jean isn’t here to keep you company, but it was too nice a day for her not to go spend my money.”

  I started to protest, but I caught the ever so slight shake of your head.

  I grabbed a magazine from the white wicker basket and sank into the cushy leather couch.

  Claude upped the volume on the TV before leading you downstairs. I got the message, loud and clear. I wasn’t supposed to hear whatever was being discussed.

  Almost immediately, before I even got restless, you were back upstairs. Your eyes were set, firm and hard. “Let’s go,” you said. “Deal’s off.”

  At the front door I forced you to look at me. “Is it because I’m here?”

  “They don’t trust the liquor because I won’t drink it.”

  “That’s all?”

  You shrank at least a couple of inches. “I can’t, Lu.”

  But I could. I was dressed like a shiner that day. Wearing jeans and my heavy leather shoes. I pulled my hair out of its ponytail, unbuttoned my shirt two buttons’ worth, and dragged you downstairs, stomping every step—that’s not the kind of crowd to surprise.

  I swallowed the queasiness I felt seeing six large men, all over fifty, sitting in the dark room that smelled of smoke, musky aftershave, and lemon furniture polish. They sat in a circle of plush chairs and couches. A long waxed bar lined one wall, and the rest of the room was for the game tables—pool, Foosball, and air hockey.

  “Hey, y’all,” I said, being one of Sal’s best girls. I ignored their silence and plopped myself into the seat opposite Claude. I smiled and tossed my curls. “I’m awful thirsty.”

  “Lu,” you said, standing behind me. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Have to?” I kept my eyes on those old men. “You mean get to.” I grabbed the paper bag from you and pulled out the bottle. “You gentlemen at least gonna give me a glass?”