by Ashlee Price
I went home and made myself a cup of tea. I sat in the rocker before the windows overlooking the frozen lake waves and realized how much more dismal they suddenly appeared. I tried to organize my thoughts and to come up with a game plan. In the name of my own sanity, I needed a plan. I was still sitting there three hours later when the sun set. I rose from the chair with half a cup of cold tea in my hand. In the darkness, I went into the kitchen and made myself a salad, despite the fact that I had no appetite whatsoever. I had another life to think about now; my own was secondary.
The next morning I rose early with the sun. I was moving mechanically, driven by my plan of action. When I got home, I called the last few names on Mrs. Pettibone’s list and offered them an off-season discount. By the end of the business day, I had three appointments set up. Then I began building a website. I’d done it before, while in college, and it was actually a little pleasurable. As I got up to prepare dinner, I realized that, once again, Melanie had not shown up for work. It didn’t matter.
I was deep in thought as I heated a bowl of soothing chicken soup from a can. I knew what I had to do. I was going to have to keep the baby a secret.
There was too much at stake. If Mrs. Pettibone discovered I was pregnant out of wedlock, she would most certainly ruin me. There went my business, and shortly thereafter, my house would go, too. Without any income, I couldn’t afford to pay the taxes or heat it. So, for the time being, I would have to avoid Mrs. Pettibone, and as the pregnancy developed, I’d have to find places out of town to work. Regardless of my pregnancy, I was going to extricate myself from depending on her.
I was startled when I heard a noise behind me. It was Melanie, coming through the kitchen door. “Hi, just came by to get my paycheck,” she said as though she’d been there all along. She’d deserted me the moment I asked her to make some sales calls and hadn’t been back since, and now here she was, expecting me to pay her for the days she took off. I didn’t even know whether she had truly been sick. For all I knew she’d been at Riker’s house. I’d refused to drive by and find out for sure.
“Okay, no problem. Let me write that for you now. Oh, and by the way, Melanie… This will also serve as your severance. You’re done here. Please don’t come back,” I said as I handed her the check and turned my back to walk away. Then I stopped and turned around. “By the way, leave your key on the counter.” I stood there, my foot tapping as I waited for her to do that.
Her mouth was screwed up in an ugly line. “Well, this is a fucking great surprise. I knew you were a failure from the beginning. You only hired me because you couldn’t get clients on your own. I guess that tells you what’s going to happen when I graduate from design school next summer. You’d better get your fat ass in gear. I’ve already had a talk with Mrs. Pettibone and a few other women just like her. You won’t be the only game in town.” She slammed the key on the counter. “Oh, by the way, Riker sends his regards. I’ve been helping him out on a project, in case you’re wondering whether I was really sick. You are such an idiot, Lacy. I told you, he only wanted you for your fat body, and now he’s moved on. You got what you deserved.” She turned and walked out the door, slamming it hard behind herself. I wondered at her last remark, about getting what I deserved. Had she somehow guessed my secret?
I pulled on my coat and boots and headed to Mrs. Pettibone’s to take care of the cat for the day. I felt like poisoning it, but that would only piss her off before I was ready to dump her.
It took me exactly seven minutes to reach Riker’s house. I know because I watched the minutes click over on my phone. It was just like you see in the movies—horrible things happen in slow motion. I marched up to his door and knocked. I stood there quite a while before he opened it, wondering where he was—and who he was with.
“I need to talk,” I said, and he opened the door fully and swept his hand for me to go into the living room. He closed the door and followed me, taking me by the shoulders and turning me, bending low to kiss me. I pushed him away and saw a look of puzzlement on his face.
“Is something wrong?”
“As if you don’t know.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Since when are you using my employee and expecting me to pay her?”
“What? Are you talking about Melanie?”
“She’s the only employee I have. Let me change that, had.”
“You fired her?”
“You’re surprised?”
“I don’t get what’s going on here, but I can see that you’re really upset. Is it that time of the month or something?”
“You would say something like that, wouldn’t you?” I didn’t want to see my own face in the mirror, because I knew it was not a pretty look. I was furious inside. I was angry with myself for letting the world take me over. I was mad at Mrs. Pettibone, and now I was reaching absolutely furious with Riker. Melanie? She didn’t even register on the scale of my ire.
“Lacy, sit down. Your face is flushed and you’re shaking. Tell me what’s going on. This is some kind of misunderstanding.”
“Oh, there’s definitely a misunderstanding. I misunderstood who you were and what we were. You notice I’m using the past tense, right? Was Melanie helping you this week or not?”
“Well, yeah, she came by the job site and said you were sick and didn’t want her around to catch your virus and so she thought she’d come by and offer her help. I sent her to the store to get some floor tile and she stuck around while I laid it.”
“I’ll bet you laid it. Does her excuse even make sense to you? If I were sick, wouldn’t I stay in bed with the door shut and want her there to take care of the phone?”
“Well, now that you put it that way, I suppose so, but I believed what she told me.”
“How convenient for you. Everything is convenient for you, isn’t it? You and all your precious secrets. Like that damned door. What do you have in this house so horrible that you can’t tell or show me? Why am I on a ‘need to know’ basis? Why haven’t I heard from you in days?”
He looked at me, and I saw a flicker of anger in his eyes. But he kept his face stoic as he said in an even voice, “Well, that goes both ways. You know where to find me. I’ve had my fucking hands full with these two new boys. I can’t leave them alone for even five minutes. One would think if you hadn’t heard from me in days, you might pick up the phone and ask me if something was wrong.”
“Don’t try to twist this, Riker. If you thought I was sick in bed, why didn’t you call me to see if it was true or if I needed something?”
“I thought you’d be resting and I didn’t want to bother you. I know it’s crappy, but I couldn’t afford to catch your bug. These boys are running me into the ground.”
“Well, I’ve got some good news for you. You don’t need to worry about me taking up any more of your time,” I said as I turned away from him and headed to the door. “Don’t bother calling,” I flung over my shoulder and slammed the door behind me. My knees almost buckled as I walked down his steps to my car. I got in and jammed the key into the ignition. Once my tires actually gained traction, I tried to do a spin out, but it turned out pathetically. At any rate, I looked up at the last second and saw him watching me from his living room window. It was a cold look. It was a long, cold night.
Chapter 16 - Riker
“Jacoury, Talin, Jonas, get your asses down here!” I was standing at the foot of the staircase with the front door open. My truck, parked at the curb in front of the house, had the passenger door smashed in. I’d come in from a project, taken a short nap before starting dinner, only to wake up and find that someone had taken the truck without permission. They’d not only taken it; they hadn’t brought it back in one piece.
The three of them were standing at the railing, looking down. I was fairly sure Jacoury was the culprit—it was his MO, but I couldn’t accuse him until I was sure. Jonas was the first to react. It was all in the body language. He took two steps away from the other
two and turned to face them, leaning his elbow on the railing as he looked to them, waiting for an explanation. Talin was the less adventurous of the other two.
“Jacoury, you going to come clean on this?”
“How did you know it was me?”
“You just admitted it.”
“Damn!”
“And that just doubled your punishment. You’re off the basketball team. You won’t have time for practice because you’re going to be working with me, earning the money to fix that door.”
“You can’t do that!” Jonas and Talin had both retreated to their rooms and shut their doors.
“Come down here, I want to talk to you.” Jacoury stomped his foot but came down the staircase. I pointed to the kitchen, and he followed me inside. “Get that stool and a paring knife. You’re going to peel potatoes for dinner.”
“Yes, sir. How many potatoes?”
I liked the fact that he didn’t fight me over the punishment. He knew he’d screwed up, and maybe the punishment was even lighter than he had expected. Either way, he was in the doghouse for now. “Peel eight potatoes, quarter them and put them in a baking dish with some butter, salt and pepper. Stick them in the oven and turn it on to three seventy-five. You got that?”
“Got it,” he answered in a vanquished tone.
“So, tell me what happened.” I was trying to be matter-of-fact about it, but inside I was pretty angry. It was one thing to give these kids a second shot, but when they started smashing up my vehicle, they had to go. Jacoury had pushed himself to the edge, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to send him back or not. It all depended on the story.
“There’s this girl in school, Cyiarra is her name. She lives across town but she rides my bus. So, we’ve been hanging out at school, but I don’t get any time to see her outside of that. When I got in, you were lying down and I figured I could borrow your truck and go see her for a few minutes before you woke up and knew the difference. I hit ice at an intersection and the truck spun and hit a telephone pole. I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have done it, but you remember what it’s like to be a young guy, don’t you?”
“Number one, you don’t have a driver’s license and that means that my insurance won’t cover the damage. Number two, you’re damned lucky you weren’t hurt and didn’t hurt someone else. Number three, you don’t even know how to drive a car, and you sure as hell shouldn’t be out there in this weather. Number four, you don’t ever take someone’s car without asking. In case you don’t know, that’s called grand theft auto and you can go straight to Joliet for that.
“Last of all, you got no business making it with the girl. For one thing, you’re about half a step from going back where you’ll never see her again. Can’t mess around with someone like that. You don’t have the right. What if she got pregnant? What would you do then? Just walk away? You can’t be a man if you don’t live up to your responsibilities, you got that? Now, you’re not very far off from turning eighteen, and you might think that makes you a man, but in my book, you’re a long ways off.
“Now get those potatoes taken care of, and then you get your ass up to your bedroom. Tomorrow after school you report to me and begin work. If you so much as look at me cross-eyed, you’re going back to juvie, and when you turn eighteen they’re sending you to Joliet for two years. I’d hate to think I wasted this much time and money on a loser. If you think you can’t hack it, let me know now.”
“I can hack it. I deserve this. You’re right, I was letting the wrong head do the thinking.”
“Well, we’ll see what the right head thinks about the work this is going to cost you. Now get your ass upstairs.”
I called on the other two and gave them a good chewing out for letting him get away with it. We were supposed to be living as a family, in the loosest terminology possible. We had to be accountable to one another, and while they hadn’t driven the truck, they’d let them get away with it. All three of them lost privileges for the next month. They groaned, as I knew they would, because it was going to be a cold, miserable winter with nowhere to go. I also took away television and videogame privileges. That meant one thing. Housework. Homework. My work.
It was a bad year to live so close to the lake. The temperatures dipped to minus fifty with the wind chill, and the lake came close to freezing all the way across to Milwaukee. Any cars that weren’t in garages overnight had trouble getting started. My truck seemed to stand up to it all, despite the disfiguration of the door. I wasn’t going to spend the money to fix it, and I sure wasn’t going to turn in an insurance claim or Jacoury would be headed back to the city. I wasn’t happy.
Beneath it all, I was semi-pissed at Lacy and the way she’d lectured me without listening. It was obvious she had something going on behind that beautiful face, but I couldn’t get close enough to find out what. There were no texts, no phone calls, no visits.
Melanie stopped by a couple of times a week and made it apparent that she was available for whatever I was willing to give her. I tolerated her only because she reminded me of the time when I’d been with Lacy. Not that they were anything alike, and she was definitely not happy with Lacy after being fired.
“There’s something wrong with her,” Melanie said on one of those mornings. I’d offered her a cup of coffee and she had been camped out in my kitchen for the next two hours. I knew she would’ve jumped into my bed at the wink of an eye, so I was careful not to be suggestive in any way.
“What makes you think that? You don’t even see her anymore.”
“Well, not every day, but I see her at church on Sundays, and there’s word around town.”
“What kind of word?” I wondered whether Lacy was in financial trouble. I knew she hadn’t gotten as many jobs as she’d hoped, and I knew from my own experience that this was a slow time of year. Maybe she’d overspent her budget. Not that I thought that was the reason she’d let Melanie go—God knows Melanie should have been fired long before. Nevertheless, I wondered if Lacy’s anger was a cry for help and I’d missed it.
“People are saying she’s not long for this town. She bit off more than she could chew with that business, and Mrs. Pettibone is fed up with her. She just doesn’t know what she’s doing. I can tell she’s keeping her distance from you, right?”
I said nothing, but that was pretty much an admission that she was right.
“I thought so. She just doesn’t appreciate you, Riker. She’s letting Mrs. Pettibone influence her because she’s desperate. She’s started to think you’re a bad guy. I think she’s scared of you, to tell you the truth. I mean, judge for yourself. She’s keeping her distance, isn’t she?”
I had to admit she was right in that. But I didn’t think Lacy was scared of me. At least, I hoped not. I’d been ready to unlock the door after that last night together. I knew she was ready, no matter how squirrelly she was acting. Something had happened, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. “Why don’t you cut her some slack, Melanie? Up until the day you quit going to work, she was actually pretty decent to you. When are you starting back to school?”
She shrugged. “She paid me peanuts, and I didn’t get enough put together to go back to school yet. I might have to work at Cutler’s Market through the summer and maybe even longer to get caught up. That’s okay, though. Old Man Cutler has the hots for me and I get extra breaks, if you know what I mean.” She opened her mouth then, suddenly realizing what she’d just admitted. “Not that I take him up on it,” she added hurriedly, and I nodded knowingly.
“Well, you’d better run along. I’ve got things to do.”
“You sure? I’ll be glad to stay as long as you like. I’m all yours, if it isn’t already clear.”
“I appreciate that, but I think you’d better run along.”
The familiar Melanie pout surfaced and she left, the wilted Christmas wreath on the door popping off as she closed it. I could see from the corner of my eye that she literally stomped on it before she went downstairs. It was no surpris
e that Lacy had gotten rid of her.
I pulled my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and dove onto the couch. I had to admit that what I was about to do made me a little nervous. It could go bad suddenly, real bad.
“Hey, Lacy, it’s Riker.”
“Hello,” she said unemotionally.
Her voice sounded different somehow. “Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just a little under the weather is all.”
“You need a ride to the doctor? Or want me to bring you something from the pharmacy?”
“No. I’m fine,” she repeated.
“Well, if you need something, let me know. The reason I called was I wondered if maybe you’d go to dinner with me on Friday?”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s just not a good time.”
“When would be a better time?”
“I don’t know, Riker. Listen, I’ve got to go now. Thank you for calling.” The line went dead and a part of me died with it.
Chapter 17 - Lacy
After Riker’s call I stood before the mirror, the phone still in my hand. As miserable as I felt inside, it hardly compared to the woman I saw in the reflection. The sparkle was gone from my eyes and my hair looked limp. I knew that wasn’t because of the pregnancy; it was more about me being in a depression.
I’d been surprised that Riker had called to ask me out. In the split second before I answered, I’d processed a dozen different scenarios under which I could meet him and still have him not know. I was miserable with my decision to not tell him. He deserved to know. But there was so much at stake. So much that I didn’t have control of. If the word got out, I could never get it back. Mrs. Pettibone would ruin me, and then there was Melanie waiting in the wings to finish me off. And there were still those unanswered questions about Riker. I knew I should have pressed him for those answers, but I had run out of time. The only focus I could afford at the moment was taking care of the child within me. As soon as it was born, I would begin nurturing it into life. It was hard enough to do that for myself. I hoped I was up to it for a child.