by Mia Carson
I thought my heart was going to stop. “That’s enough! Both of you!”
“Fuck you, McCormick,” Steve snarled.
“Sorry, but you’re not my type. I prefer women, not whiny little bitches who take advantage of a helpless woman and thinks getting a girl pregnant and not taking responsibility for their kid makes them a man.”
Steve sneered. “Well, maybe if you were actually hot shit like you think you are, she wouldn’t have been sniffing around for a real man to satisfy her.” He looked at me. “Isn’t that right, baby?”
“How dare you!” I snarled. “I was drugged, you raped me, and you know it, you fucking asshole!” I yelled, my voice steadily getting louder as my anger overcame me.
“You wanted it. Everyone saw you hanging all over me. You were begging for it. You said you were on the pill. I was just giving you what you wanted. It’s not my fault you got pregnant, and the whole town knows it.”
I wanted to come over the parts counter after him, and Levi was looking at him, his eyes narrowed.
“What’s going on back here?” Mr. Goodall demanded as he stomped into the parts department.
“Nothing, Mr. Goodall,” Levi said, picking up his remaining boxes of blades. “Steve and I were just having a friendly little chat.”
“I know about you two. If you’ve got a problem with each other, take it somewhere else or I’m calling the cops.”
“Yes, sir,” Levi said. “I’m leaving.” He looked at me, and there was something in his face, something I couldn’t read. Sadness? Understanding? I couldn’t be sure. He nodded, his lips tight, before he turned and walked out.
“Here’s your belt,” I growled, slamming the package down on the counter.
“He started it,” Steve complained.
“You started it, Steve. You just kept rubbing his nose in it even after he warned you to stop.”
“Ella, that’s enough!” Goodall snapped and glared at Steve. “You need anything else?” he growled.
“No.”
“Then take your part and get out of here. I’ll put it on your account.”
Goodall glared at Steve until Steve picked up the belt and sauntered out like he owned the place. Mr. Goodall turned on me. “I don’t know what went on back here, but I won’t have you cussing out the customers, I don’t care what they do or say. If it happens again, you’re fired. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
I was burning with shame. “Yes, sir. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“It’d better not. If you have a problem with a customer, you call me. If you have a personal problem with a customer, you’re just going to have suck it up and deal with it.”
“Yes, sir.”
He glared at me a moment, turned, and stomped away. I stood behind the counter and fought against my tears. It wasn’t fair! Every time I tried to stand up for myself, I got blamed.
Marcy, a dumpling of a woman in her fifties, crept in from accounting. “Ella? Are you okay?”
Clearly with Goodall showing up, and now Marcy, everyone in the place must have heard me yelling at Steve. I sniffed and took a deep breath, trying to get control of myself. “No, not really.”
I turned to my computer and printed Steve’s ticket. Marcy usually picked up the tickets at nine, noon, and three. She was a little early this morning. She was also a terrible gossip. The joke around Goodall’s was the three fastest modes of communication were telephone, telegraph, and tell Marcy. By the time I arrived at Dolly’s this evening, everyone in town would know that Levi and Steve had tied up in front of me, I’d called Steve a fucking asshole, and Mr. Goodall had threatened to fire me. I couldn’t catch a break.
I added Steve’s ticket to the small pile and handed them to Marcy. “Steve didn’t sign his ticket, but Mr. Goodall said to bill it to his account.”
“Anything I can do?” she asked, taking the thin sheaf of papers.
I wanted to tell her she could help by keeping her mouth shut, but I might as well have asked for the sun to not rise. “No, but thank you for asking.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I lost my temper, that’s all.”
“Were Steve and Levi fighting over you?”
At least I knew how the story was going to go. “No, they weren’t fighting over me. I don’t think I’m very popular with either one of them.” I knew I was wasting my time telling her that. Marcy wasn’t one to let a few facts get in the way of a good story.
I completed the rest of my shift without incident. I clocked out and drove the few blocks to Dolly’s. I clocked in and got started.
“Where am I?” I asked Dolly.
“Take one,” she said, giving me my normal section. “I heard about what happened at Goodall’s. Am I going to have to worry about that here?”
Again I became hot with embarrassment. “No.”
She nodded, seeming to take my word for it. “I know you’ve had it rough, Ella, and I know Steve Calhoun can be a real ass sometimes, and I’m sure Levi coming home hasn’t made things any easier for you.” She paused as she looked at me, thinking something over before continuing. “You don’t get to be seventy without learning a thing or two, so I’m going to give you a piece of advice. Stay out from between those two. Nothing will make a man meaner than fighting over a woman. You don’t want to be around if it gets ugly.”
I wanted to shake my head. That damned Marcy. “Despite what you heard, they weren’t fighting over me. Steve was being a jerk to Levi, trying to get his goat. I guess he got it. I don’t know what he said because I was in the back and didn’t hear it, but Levi set him straight.” I shrugged. “After that, it got a little out of hand and I said a few things I shouldn’t have.”
“I heard you brought up rape again.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah. I guess he kind of got my goat too.”
She nodded and moved away as customers came in. “Just don’t let it happen here.”
“No ma’am,” I muttered.
It was still slow, with the dinner crowd just starting to trickle in, when Diane pulled me aside. “Is it true?”
I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them again. “No.”
“At Goodall’s this morning, Levi didn’t threaten to kill Steve for getting you pregnant?”
“No! Where’d you hear that?”
“That’s the rumor.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I hate this town.”
“I think it’s kind of sweet.”
I shook my head. Diane was only seventeen. I wondered if I was that naïve when I was her age. “That’s because you’re not stuck in the middle of it. Do me a favor, please. Don’t spread it around, okay? All that happened was Steve and Levi had a few words, they both made me mad, and I lost my temper. That’s it. Nobody’s fighting over me, and certainly nobody threatened to kill anybody.”
She looked almost disappointed. “Okay, I won’t.”
“Thank you.”
That was the last I heard of the rumors for the rest of the evening, but I knew in my bones, the stories were circulating, and they were probably getting more outlandish with every telling. Before they died out, Levi and Steve probably would have pulled knives on each other and had a duel right there in Goodall’s, probably shirtless, as I suffered a case of the vapors and passed out. I couldn’t get anyone to believe me when I was trying to find justice, but people had no problem believing Levi and Steve were fighting over me and threatening to kill each other.
I finished my shift and drove to Mom and Dad’s to get Abby. I was so tired. Tired of working all the time, tired of the rumors and the stress, and tired of people whispering about me behind my back. I’d been working my ass off, scrimping and saving every penny I could, and I had a little money put back. Maybe I could move to Abilene and start over. It was only forty-five minutes from Hamlinton. Close enough that Mom and Dad could easily visit Abby, but far enough away that I wouldn’t have to deal with all the baggag
e I had here.
My problem was I didn’t have any skills. My idea of becoming a nurse had been dashed when Abby came along. I couldn’t see how I could handle school, a job, and Abby, all at the same time. Maybe in a few more years. But for now, it was hand to mouth for us, and it appeared it was going to continue that way for a while longer.
“Here’s my girl!” I cheered as Abby ran into my arms, Theodore firmly in her grip, and I picked her up. “Ready to go?”
“Yep! Grandma let me feed the chickens!”
“Thanks again, Mom. Same time tomorrow, I guess.” I noticed her looking at me funny, and when Dad joined us in the hall, I knew something was up. “What?”
“I heard from Larry Windel that Levi was causing trouble,” Dad said, his tone low and dangerous.
I slumped. “I don’t know what you heard, but it’s probably not true.”
“He didn’t come into Goodall’s today and start trouble?”
I sighed. “Not now,” I said, nodding my head at Abby. “Let me go get her to bed, and I’ll call and tell you all about it, okay? Why do you believe this stuff?”
“I’m about sick of this. If Levi keeps it up, he and I are going to have a come to Jesus meeting.”
“Levi didn’t do anything. Not one thing, so you can get off your high horse right now,” I snapped. I was about sick of it too, and I glared at him until Mom tugged gently on his arm, silently telling him to let it go. “I’ll call you in a couple of hours, but right now I need to go. Somebody needs a bath and to get ready for bed,” I said as I goosed Abby in the ribs to make her giggle and squirm.
“Come on, Ken,” Mom said, pulling him by the arm. “They need to go.”
“I’ll call you,” I repeated as I turned, opened the door, and stepped into the darkness.
9
Levi
I tossed the last set of blades in the floorboard of my truck and slammed the door. It had taken every ounce of control I possessed not to rip Steve’s head off and shit down his throat. He’d always been a USDA Approved, Grade A, large asshole with an ego as big as Texas. Most of the town ignored him, myself included, but he’d just kept pushing.
When Ella had disappeared from behind the counter, he’d nudged me in the ribs and confessed to understanding why I’d been ‘tapping that’ and wasn’t interested in anyone else. While I fought down the urge to throw his ass through the glass front window, I calmly put the boxes of blades back on the counter and explained to him in no uncertain terms exactly what I thought of him. Ella had returned to catch the end of the exchange. While making a scene in Goodall Equipment’s parts department hadn’t been the best idea I’d ever had, what I regretted the most was Ella walking back in on it.
I was backing out of my parking space when Steve came out. He gave me the finger with a sneer, but I couldn’t care less what Steven Calhoun thought of me. All the way back to the farm I turned over in my mind what I’d seen. I’d only been an MP for four years or so, but in that length of time I’d really honed my bullshit detector. When Ella went off on Steve, his sneering response was telling. He thought he’d gotten away with something. Ella hadn’t asked him to fuck her, and she hadn’t told him she was on the pill. I didn’t know if he knew she’d been drugged that night, but he sure as shit knew it now. Ella had been telling the truth all along about the drug, the rape, all of it, and Steven knew it.
I could do nothing about it. Believing something wasn’t the same as having proof, but it had caused a seismic shift in me. All the pain and loss I’d been feeling flashed into rage in an instant. Rage at Cat and Steve, and the town for not believing Ella. Anger with my own parents for not doing more to help her. Anger at myself for not believing in her. Now I wondered if she’d ever intended to marry Steve or if that was just another rumor.
As I drove I worked hard to come to terms with my feelings. I could understand, logically, why Mom and Dad had believed the way they had, but this was Ella. They knew her, and they should have known, or at the very least given her the benefit of the doubt that something was off with the story. I’d sensed it. Why couldn’t they?
Maybe it was because I was still in love with her. Deep down inside, I guess I’d never stopped loving her. I’d tried to forget what we’d had, and though I’d buried it deep, now that I knew the truth, all those feelings came bubbling back to the surface. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone to the barn, and maybe she shouldn’t have been drinking beer. I didn’t care about those things. I expected her to be faithful to me, but I didn’t expect her to live like a hermit and not have any fun or go out with her friends. So maybe she’d made a mistake, but if she had, it’d been a small one, and she certainly didn’t deserve what happened to her.
There was nothing I could do to make it right, but I damn well could be there for her. Her grandmother had said I was part of their family, and that would never change, so it was about fucking time I started acting like it.
“Levi? What’s wrong?” Dad asked as I stomped into the shop with eight boxes of blades in my hands. He watched me a moment as I snatched tools from the tool box. “Want some help?”
“I’ve got it.”
I could tell he wanted to know more, but he was a guy and understood. “If you need anything, let me know,” he said before he left me to myself.
A lot of meaning was contained in that sentence, more than just an offer to help with changing the blades, but I wanted to be alone. I was in no mood to talk to anyone right now. I wasn’t done beating myself up for not being there for Ella as I promised her I would. Sure, I was halfway across Texas, unable to come home, but I could have called and talked to her, told her I still loved her, but I hadn’t. I’d left her to face it alone.
Working with my hands on a simple, repetitive task helped me think. I’d fucked up big time. She might not ever be able to forgive me, but I could try to make it up to her. I owed her that much.
“Levi? Lunch is ready,” Mom said from the door.
I looked up. I’d almost finished replacing the top row of teeth, but it seemed like I’d just started. “Okay. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Instead of going back to the house, she walked deeper into the shop. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
She watched me for a long moment as I tightened the two bolts holding the blade in place. The new blades were much shinier than the old, but I was going to remove the next blade and leave it off before I broke for lunch to make sure I didn’t get confused over which blades were new and which were old.
“You want to talk?”
“No, not really.”
“What happened?”
I glanced up and the look on Mom’s face stung me. She was truly worried. “It’s nothing. I saw Ella at Goodall’s. Steve came in and he and I had some words.”
“Just ignore him.”
“Yeah. It’s not Steve, it’s Ella. Mom, Ella was telling the truth about everything. The drug, the rape, all of it.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You don’t know that.”
“I do now. He was being a jerk and she jumped down his throat about the rape, the drug, all off it. I could see it in his eyes. He knew it was true.”
“That’s not proof. I think you’re letting her cloud your judgement.”
I shook my head. “No. No way. I know what I saw. You’re right, it’s not proof, but it’s good enough for me.”
“Oh, Levi,” she moaned softly. “Why do you want to get mixed up in this?”
“Because what happened to Ella isn’t right.”
“You can’t change it. Why can’t you just let it go?”
“I’m not trying to change it, but by God I can be there to help her like I promised her I always would.”
“She’s not your responsibility. I’m sorry for what happened to her, I really am. But Abby is Steve’s little girl, not yours. He should be the one to step up and take care of her, not you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about everyone think
ing Ella brought this on herself. She didn’t. How would you feel if Kamron or Rebecca was in Ella’s place?”
“They wouldn’t be. We raised you kids better than that.”
My lips tightened. “So you’re saying that someone couldn’t slip something into one of their drinks, even a Coke or lemonade, that could cause them to pass out, or are you saying even though they were drugged, you’d expect them to defend themselves, or are you saying no man would take advantage of them if they were passed out?”
Mom looked down. For the first time I think she was really considering what Ella had gone through. “No, I’m not saying that. I’m just thankful it didn’t happen.”
“I am too, but it did happen to Ella, and the whole town, you, me, and Dad included, turned our backs on her.”
“That’s not fair, Levi!”
“No? Where am I wrong?”
“There’s no proof she was drugged or anything else.”
“What if Rebecca or Kamron said they were drugged? Would you believe them?”
“Of course!”
“What if everyone else said it wasn’t true. Would you still believe them?”
She looked down. “Yes.”
“We should have given Ella the benefit of the doubt.”
“We did! Your dad and I both did. But when all the evidence started coming out against her…”
“I know. I’m not blaming you, not really. I’m blaming myself. I should have been there for her.”
“You couldn’t have known! How could you? And even if you did believe her, you still have no proof.”
I shook my head. “I know that, but I know Ella. She wouldn’t do that to me, not on purpose, not if she had a choice. I should have believed in her.”