Games We Play

by Ruthie Robinson

“Really? Where have you been?” Kendall repeated.

  “Head down and working. Hank who?”

  “I don’t know his last name. Are you okay?” Kendall said, watching Celeste sit suddenly.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t know,” she said.

  Hank was stirring up trouble, huh? Surely he wasn’t here for her…

  #

  When Cooper walked out from his office, he spotted Kendall in conversation with Old Man Simpson. It was their routine for her to arrive here at the end of her day. He smiled at the sight of her talking to his customers. They were a family of sorts for him, the people who stopped by to check on him and the business, the ones who’d purchased memberships and took the operation of the Brewpub seriously. He wasn’t the only one who loved beer or what the Brewpub had become to the town. Yes, they were a family of sorts…his family.

  He admired many things about Kendall, and high up on that list was the ease with which she met and talked to people. He noticed she dropped her professor speak, his name for her typical word choices, depending on whom she was speaking to. It was her way of making the other person comfortable in her presence, and he liked that about her, that she thought more about others than of herself. Alex walked up beside him.

  “I like her. Can we keep her?” his chef said, chuckling.

  Cooper laughed.

  “No, really, can we keep her?” Alex asked again, still laughing as he walked away, heading for his kitchen.

  He had known her almost two months now. They were a couple if he was honest with himself. What had he been doing with Celeste? ’Cause it hadn’t been this. This was love, the Real-Deal-Holyfield, and it was the first time he’d felt this way. He needed to tell her soon. She’s starting to suspect, anyway, he thought. He caught her looking at him, as if he were a puzzle to solve. She smiled when he caught her watching, but she’d never asked him more questions about his past. Could she handle the answers? He gut said yes, but there were doubts too.

  He’d have to tell her anyway. The odds were in his favor. She was so much like her aunt that she could have been Myra’s daughter. Both were made of some sturdy stuff. He’d fallen in love with a woman like his second mother. Celeste had been more like his first.

  It wasn’t looking like Hank or his proposal would be leaving town anytime soon, and for the life of him, he still couldn’t understand why Hank, a big-time developer in Austin, hadn’t gotten past his need for revenge. Senior was long since dead, and he and Hank had once been like brothers. If it had been up to Cooper, they would have remained that way. Hank was the one who had pulled away.

  He was this close to driving up to Austin, finding Hank, and either kicking his ass or thanking him for showing him what Coopersville stood for now. There was no doubt in his mind anymore. Things were changing, and it wasn’t all young people either. His hope was growing stronger as each day passed, and one person after another stopped by to offer their support. It was what he’d told Kendall he needed to see. A sign that he and Myra weren’t in this alone, that the town would fight with them, that the people wanted to move forward. And he knew without a doubt that they did.

  #

  Fourth week in July, Sunday morning

  “Park anywhere you want,” Aunt Myra said.

  They were at church early. Her aunt worked in the nursery here on Sundays.

  Kendall nodded, smiled, and pulled into a spot near the church’s side door. It was a small church compared to the church she attended in Austin when she went to church. After the morning service, they would head over to the potluck lunch in the church’s fellowship hall. She’d made her aunt’s favorite cake last night for dessert, and it sat in her lap in its carrying container.

  “You alright over there?” Myra asked, bringing Kendall’s thoughts back to the present.

  “Yes, I am. I was thinking about how much I’ve grown to like this town, its people, and how much I’m going to miss it when I leave,” she said.

  “We aren’t going to let you leave,” Aunt Myra said, smiling at Kendall. She reached over and squeezed her niece’s hand. “Vivian managed to raise a very kind young woman, one who I’m proud to call my niece.” She slid out of the SUV. “Don’t forget my box in the trunk, and I’ll see you inside.”

  Kendall sat and watched her aunt make her way over to Mavis. She smiled, pleased that she was here, getting a peek into her aunt’s life, a peek into this small town. The closeness that was shared between her aunt’s friends, between most of the citizens of Coopersville had impressed her. If she had to live somewhere other than Austin, this could be a pretty good choice. Yes, this could be home permanently if someone thought to ask me to live here, she thought, which brought her mind back to Cooper.

  He was golden in so many ways, particularly how he cared for her aunt and the people around him. He’d had an awful start. She’d heard some of what was being said about him, the things that had transpired at the Quarry golf course late at night.

  She wished she could tell him that she understood, that she could handle the bad, all of it, whatever it was. But she couldn’t. He would have to trust her enough to tell her himself. She had been her mother’s daughter for too long to ask him for more, and maybe he’d spent too many hours with women who only saw the financial benefit to having him around to tell her. Please let it work out, her silent prayer.

  #

  Third week of July, Wednesday

  Portia didn’t come to the pub too often, saving it for special date night. She and Alicia had those, although not as frequently as she would have liked. They had kids and work to maneuver around. She was worried tonight, her stomach a mess of churning nerves after the Proctor men’s visit a little over a week ago. A week of not being sure how best to approach Cooper to tell him some of the things that the brothers were spreading to anyone who would listen, as well as those who wouldn’t. Not-so-nice things about him, mostly about his past. What assholes and nothing to do about it. They were a part of this world as much as people wanted to wish them away.

  What they’d told her hadn’t taken her by surprise, but it did help explain Cooper better. At any rate, she felt compelled to visit as his friend, to tell him what they’d said, to make plans to fight back against all the meanness that had reared its ugly head. She considered him a good friend, one of the few who had helped her and Alicia get started. He also spent some of his free time with their daughters. She didn’t know how he could have been the boy whom Proctor brothers had described, but even if he was, he was a much a different person now, and that was more than she could say for the old coots Hugo and Stanley.

  She looked around the bar, no sign of Cooper. She looked over in the brewing area, the part that was visible from the restaurant, and spotted him. He was standing and looking into one of those big pots that she knew nothing about. She made her way over, opened the door, and stepped inside.

  Cooper looked up and smiled.

  “What brings you here? It’s too early in the day for date night.”

  “Hugo and Stanley paid me a visit last week,” Portia said, and watched Cooper lose his smile.

  “Really,” he said, his voice a monotone, with no sign of interest.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry, you and I are still good,” she said, smiling. “But you should know the things they’re going around telling folks about you,” she said.

  “I know what they’re saying.”

  “Good. I hope you’re not thinking about selling anything to this Hank person. I hope you know it hasn’t affected your good friends’ opinions of you.”

  “It has affected some.”

  “I said your good friends.”

  He smiled at that.

  “It’s good what we have here, the kind of town we are building, don’t you think?” she asked.

  “I do,” he said, looking at her again, his smooth, old-Cooper smile in place. It was a thing of beauty. It spoke of confidence—sexy, with just a touch of humility.

  “Good. I just wanted to make sure
. We don’t want the kind of town this Hank person seems to want. No going back to the good old days. We’ve organized, and we’re behind you. A group of us, larger than I’d even imagined, will be in attendance at the upcoming committee meeting, and we’ll do whatever it takes. I thought you should know that you have support in this town, way more than you think,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You’re welcome. I mean it. Whatever happened in your past should remain there. I’m glad for it, I think, because maybe it’s help shape you into a man you are today, the man who does so much for the town he loves. So thank you, and I’ll let you get back to what you were doing,” she said. She turned at the door, swiveling to face him again.

  “I like Kendall too, by the way. She can handle your past, in case you were wondering if you should tell her,” she said, a smile on her face.

  He chuckled as he watched her walk through the door, moved by her words and by the words of the others who’d stopped by to lend their support. Portia, the Colonel, and the list went on…And it sounded as though they were only a trickle of a much larger stream of people who were personally in his corner, come what may. It was both overwhelming and comforting. It was past time for him to talk to Hank. He’d put if off long enough. But he needed to do something else first. He needed to talk to Kendall. Portia was right. She could handle his past.

  Twenty-Three

  “What’s up?” Kendall said, standing in the doorway to Cooper’s office. She was here tonight, just like she’d been last night. He smiled.

  “Close the door and come in here,” he said, with an expression she couldn’t decipher. He pulled her into his lap when she reached his desk.

  “You look entirely too serious,” she said, looking into his eyes.

  “I used to belong to a white-supremacy group,” he said, and she could feel the tension flow through his body at the release of that sentence. She felt his eyes on her. He was searching for a change in her expression, a sign that she was repulsed by his words. A few minutes of quiet passed before she spoke.

  “I know,” she said, which surprised him, took all the remaining words right out of his mouth. He felt a little light-headed, as if an unconscious weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Who knew that he’d been carrying it around?

  “I suspected there was more to you…your story from the beginning, and then I met Jeremiah, and you felt you had to distract me. I was curious. And after Hank showed up, I began to meet the other people of Coopersville, people who were nowhere near as friendly to me, and it all pointed in that direction,” she said.

  “How long have you known?” he asked.

  “A couple of weeks.”

  “When were you going to say anything to me? Why didn’t you ask?”

  “Would you have told me?”

  “No, maybe, I don’t know…Why didn’t you ask?”

  “I was waiting, hoping that I wouldn’t have to. That if I was important enough to you, if our friendship was important enough, you’d tell me yourself.”

  “What if I hadn’t?”

  “Then it would have told me something about you and our friendship,” she said.

  “So how much do you know?”

  “All of it.”

  “How?”

  “I asked the Proctor brothers.”

  “You did what?” he said; not in any lifetime would he have thought that was possible. “When?” he said, totally flummoxed. Of all the things he’d expected her to say, this had not been on his list.

  “It was one of those nights that you were in the back doing something, and I was sick of them staring at me. They were carrying on with their usual whispering about how I didn’t belong here, about how you and I shouldn’t be together. Although they never did a good job of whispering. They wanted me to hear, so usually I just did my best to ignore them. That night I was tired of it, I guess.

  “So I went over and sat next to Hugo, the less scary of the two. It was funny actually. You should have seen their expressions of shock. They had plenty to say on the subject of the Coopers, particularly Cooper Three’s penchant for hanging out with the riffraff—Juan, Luis, and now me. There are loads of riffraff living in this town,” she said, laughing. “But I listened to what they had to say, which was plenty. He told me your whole history—the things your father did to you, leaving you after he’d beaten you, living with that old nigger man and his wife.…I can only assume they were referring to Aunt Myra and Uncle George with that comment,” she said, shaking her head and chuckling. “You got to love the Proctor brothers,” she added, chuckling still, “what you see is truly what you get with those two.”

  “They can be dangerous,” he said.

  “I know. I’m not stupid, but I’m also not afraid of them.”

  “I know you’re not stupid. Still, please don’t underestimate them.”

  “I won’t.”

  “So what do you think about what they told you?” He asked.

  “You’re not that boy anymore,” she said, leaning over and placing a kiss on his nose.

  He laughed and pulled her close and lost himself in her kiss for a while, a place he now knew he needed to be. He loved her, all of her challenge and spirit.

  “I can’t believe you talked to them,” he said after he pulled away from her kiss.

  “They weren’t too bad to me, not in a room full of people.”

  “True.”

  “I can’t allow them to bother me. African Americans have lived through some pretty unimaginable things at the hands of people like Stanley and his brother. Some of it was really, really painful, and I totally understand how it’s hard for some to move beyond that period. I totally understand the anger, the resentment, and the hate that comes from living through what my ancestors had to live through. I get it. I acknowledge it. But I can’t live that way. And I especially won’t let it interfere with you and me, or me and anybody else I want to date. I don’t want to live my life hating or holding on to hate.”

  “Myra and George became my refuge before my fork in the road.”

  “Your what?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “That’s my name for what happened to me that night my dad beat me. Before that happened, I used to sneak off to see the Millers when Cooper One and Two came calling. My dad hated that I would choose them over him. He did his best to make life difficult for them, but your aunt and uncle stood up to him, and they wouldn’t back down. They saved my life.”

  “What happened to Hank? Why does he hate you so much?”

  “I don’t know, really,” he said. “We were buddies—me, him, Juan, and Luis spent our time golfing and doing whatever else we could get into. Hank lived with his mom and dad. His father was the town drunk, and Hank’s mother…

  “Hank’s mother was a horse of a different color. She was unhappy with her life, and she wanted more than her husband could provide, always had. She was mean too, mean to Hank and his father, but she was very beautiful. She started sleeping with my dad, because she thought he could give her more of the life she deserved,” he said.

  “Your father? Oh,” Kendall said.

  “Yes. Oh.”

  “Where was your mother?” she asked.

  “She was gone by then.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Another story for another day,” he said.

  “Cooper One and Two loved women, and in this town, they both usually got whomever they pursued. It was hard to pass up all that money, not that they were ever going to get any of it, but the allure made more than a few put up with more than they should have,” he said.

  “You didn’t like your father.”

  “I hated him, and if it’s any consolation, he hated me too, or so I thought. At the end, when he was dying, he started to regret some of what he’d done. But I think he knew I was different, knew it from the start.”

  “So your dad and Hank’s mother…” she prompted.

  “Got together, right under Hank Sr.’s and Jr.’
s noses. Made no attempt to hide it. And as it turns out, it wasn’t their first time together. She and my father had a history. They’d been together the year before Hank was born, and off and on since then. She told Hank Jr. that Cooper Two was really his father, but that he should keep it a secret.”

  “That could not have been nice for either of the Hanks.”

  “It wasn’t. Cooper Two was a bully who took pride in rubbing the whole thing with Hank’s mother in his dad’s face,” he said.

  “Is Hank your brother then?”

  “No, he isn’t, but until DNA testing became available, we thought he might be. He went with us everywhere, and Senior tolerated him at first. He started to use him more after the fork-in-the-road incident, treating him like his long-lost son until he grew tired of Hank’s mother’s continued attempts at blackmail. It was a hard blow to Hank Jr. not to be a Cooper. My father was a better choice than his alcoholic one, which isn’t saying much at all, but he really wanted to be Cooper Two’s son. Way more than I ever did.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh,” he said, and went silent for a few minutes. “His mother moved on to greener pastures, and left him behind to live with his newly confirmed biological father, Hank Sr. As you can imagine, that didn’t turn out so well for him.”

  “So that ended your friendship?”

  “It didn’t survive that, no. He’d started to stay away from us—me, Luis, and Juan, that is. He began to believe he could be the next Junior, replacing me. Hank didn’t have much, and he wanted to be better than his parents. But by the time he left town, which was right after he graduated high school, he hated anything and everything Cooper.”

  “Too bad,” she said.

  “Yes, too bad.”

  “So this is like some type of revenge, the reason he’s back?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. Although I would have thought any reason for revenge would have died with my father,” he said.

  “So you help Myra now? You’re the one who provides the financing for her projects?”

  “Most of them, yes. I satisfied my desire to give it all away at once by giving it out more slowly. Didn’t think we Coopers deserved any notice.”