by M. Mabie
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said and turned up the radio.
She knocked my ball cap off and walked back through the house. As she hit the front door, I heard through the open windows. “Seriously, Rhett. Don’t you have a fucking iPod though?”
I did, but to hell with it. I was content, listening to WDKR and entertaining my imagination with an old friend.
“One more, and I’m done,” I hollered at Dean from down the bar. Soon, Sally would be giving us last call.
Dean was getting up early the next day to ride to the hospital with Darrell, but he liked the band. So, he’d told me he wouldn’t drink much then drive me home.
“Whatever, you old cow,” he shouted back.
There were only a few people in town who treated me like an actual person. Even in a small town, when you’re in the public eye—or ear—they seemed to have a little more gumption to say whatever they liked to your face. I was used to it, though. Besides, I was an old cow—at least that’s what I’d told pretty much everyone I’d seen all night. The drunk old cow I was.
I didn’t want to be the old chick at the bar, dammit.
I looked around, and I wasn’t the oldest by far, but I was one of only two women around my age who were there and single. BethAnne didn’t count though because she was a ho.
I’d thought about my earlier conversation with my mother all night. I bet my mom loved that I was considering another boring-ass date with Mike. He lived in Gilbert, another small town about twenty minutes away. But, he’d had a graduation party; otherwise, he probably would have come over for the band. Either way, we weren’t at that point where you always called to confirm rendezvous points.
That night I felt old and damn near desperate, and that was no fucking good.
I didn’t want to be the old chick.
I wanted to be the love-drunk twenty-one-year-old who’d danced all night then rode her boyfriend piggyback out of the bar about half an hour earlier. Now she was having fun.
God, I craved something like that. A relationship with a thrill. Something spontaneous. With arguments and hot as hell make up sex. I wanted laughing and lounging, staying up and sleeping in with a guy who was my best friend.
Basically, I was drunk, delusional and tiptoeing into a sad place where drunk girls cry for silly reasons. But, seriously, how had I missed the pivotal step that everyone else had seemed to fall right into?
Quickly, I realized I didn’t need any more beer.
“Wait. I’ll take a Coke for the road,” I told Sally.
She looked at me funny. There was a party out at Smiths’ farm, not far from my station and house, which I would typically hit. Yet, I just didn’t feel up to it.
“Dollar,” she said and slid it over to me. “Dean driving you home?”
I loved that old gal. She’d driven me home a few times. Not that I was a drunk or anything, but when you’re single in a small town, there’s just not a lot to do on the weekends. I wasn’t about to wreck or get a ticket. I always returned the favor on her few and far between weekends off.
“Yep, we’re heading out now.”
She looked down at Dean and he shrugged when he caught her eye.
Dean was such an old soul. I may have considered him as dating material at one time, but he’d been hung up on Hannah since we were kids. At our current ages, it would have been like kissing my dad. He mostly hung out with the old guys in town, and although he was a great guy, he didn’t do it for me. Surprise, surprise.
I didn’t do it for him either. Earlier that night, he’d told me my dancing looked like a frog on a hot sidewalk. Then he’d told me he was running home to poop—but he’d be back.
We were definitely just friends. To hell with it, we got along and were in the same damn boat. Up until that day I’d thought of us as the “loners,” but I’d been wrong. We were the old “loners.”
“Let’s go, Dean-O,” I said and we left.
He drove slowly to miss the places where the water was standing on the road.
“Is it ever going to stop raining?” I asked.
“God, I hope so. We went down this morning and pulled out Hannah’s boat and dock. They say the river is going up, but they have no idea about a true crest yet.”
Living in a river town, we were all used to it. There was a minor flood about every few years, but this had already changed from minor to something more serious. The Corp of Engineers had already checked levees and hauled in the first of many truckloads of sand for bagging into the bank’s parking lot.
“You need your car in the morning?” Dean asked.
“I’ll probably go to Mom’s for lunch. She can pick me up. I’ll get it then.”
“Okay, that works,” he said as he pulled into my long drive, past the station, and up to my little brick ranch house. “Oh shit, Sunny. Looks like you lost a pretty good limb over there.” I looked out his side of the Cherokee and saw what he was talking about. It was hard to tell, but there was definitely a lot of brush. “Damn. There’s another one up there on the station roof, too,” he added.
It was difficult to see through the rain, but the security light showed there was some damage. I turned the volume up on his radio and nothing came out over the airwaves.
“Fuck.” I was really winning.
“Do you want me to check it out?” he asked, but it was still coming down like a cow pissing on a flat rock out there.
If we’d lost power, the security light would have been out. It had to be an antenna issue, and I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do about it. Good thing the town electrician had been working on our old radio station as long as we’d been on the air.
“Nah, nothing we can do tonight. I’ll get on it in the morning.”
I mentally added it to a long shitty list. I was old as fuck. The town kids weren’t kids anymore. There was basically a whole tree laying over in my yard, from what I could tell. I was probably going to keep seeing Mike, the just okay guy. And my radio station was fucked.
Not a good day for Sunny Wilbanks.
“Text me pictures of Sawyer tomorrow,” I reminded him for the third time before I got out.
He groaned, my repetition annoying him, and replied, “I will. Let me know if you need anything. Help cleaning up or whatever.”
“Oh, I’ll have my dad do it,” I said as I hopped straight into a mud puddle, soaking straight through my shoe. Perfect. “Night, Dean.”
“Later,” he said as he put the SUV in reverse and backed out of my driveway, slowly studying my mess.
After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I hopped into a tank top and shorts. Then, I crawled into my bed with Andy and flipped the TV onto the music channel.
Tomorrow would be a better day … although, I didn’t really believe it.
“Mom, it’s freaking huge. I need to get it cleaned up so Eddie can come look at the antenna,” I explained to her over the phone the next morning.
I wasn’t the only one who had damage. There were a few trees down in town, too. The ground was so saturated, and the wind gusts we’d had the night before were just enough to uproot a big tree between my parents’ and the Frys’ houses.
“He’ll be out there when he can, hon. It’s a mess here, too. A lot of the tree is in the driveway, Sunny. He can’t leave until he gets that moved out of the way first.”
She’d sent me pictures. I knew there was nothing they could do for me at the moment. They couldn’t even come get me to help them with their garage blocked by the tree. And I couldn’t drive into town because I’d left my car at the bar.
It was what it was.
I gave Andy a scratch behind his ear and told her, “Okay, I’ll go do what I can and just wait.”
Eddie, the electrician, told me he’d be out when he could get to it, but a few people in town were without power and he was going to try to get them back on before he headed my way. It wouldn’t be until later anyway.
Andy and I had already done a walk around to see
what was damaged. Luckily, it was just a smaller limb that had fallen on the station. I was thankful no windows had been broken out and that there wasn’t much visible damage. From the ground, nothing on the roof of the station looked too smashed up, just knocked over a bit.
Most of the mess was from a much, much bigger limb that had fallen in my yard. That sucker alone was the size of a full freaking tree.
I put on sunglasses—happy to need them for once—and headed back out. There wasn’t a lot I could do, aside from cleaning up some of the smaller pieces, but even that was a chore on the two acres my house and the station shared.
I was relieved when I heard a vehicle coming down the gravel. Maybe my dad had gotten a ride out to help me. Andy was sleeping on the cement just inside my garage, but looked up to see who was coming.
I looked in the vehicle’s direction, but it wasn’t my dad. It was Kent Caraway and—oh my God—Rhett creeping up my drive. They stopped, and I walked over to Mr. Caraway on the driver’s side.
“Good morning,” I chimed, unable to hide the distress in my voice.
He looked at me sympathetically. “Morning, Sunny. You got a mess out here, too,” he stated, rubbing his whiskery chin.
“I know. My dad is supposed to be out, but they have a tree down there, too. What are the odds?”
Lately, I’d been carrying my luck around in a bucket riddled with holes. So the odds were actually pretty good.
He nodded and his eyes backed up his agreement. “Yeah, we saw that. But your dad said you had some damage, and, since he’s tied up, he asked if we could give you a hand.”
Rhett sat ramrod straight, arm hanging out the passenger window, adjusting the side mirror. He wore an old t-shirt with the arms cut off, leaving big gaping holes on the sides, showing off his body underneath.
Stop it, Perverella. He’s a kid.
“You don’t have to. I’m sure you’re busy. I can wait for Dad,” I said, looking down at my sneakers, avoiding nice Mr. Caraway’s son.
Before I could protest any more, I heard Rhett’s door open and close. Then he swiftly lifted a chainsaw out of the back and headed for the limb.
I looked at the man behind the wheel; he winked then turned off the ignition. I backed up a step so he could open the blue Ford’s door.
“Looks like we’re staying,” he said.
I hadn’t talked to Rhett since we were kids, but even more than his crazy physical transformation from boy to man, his personality had changed, too. When I was in high school, there wasn’t a time when he wasn’t trying to get my attention. Now in the snap of just two days, he had all but ignored me twice.
It was confirmed: I was an old maid who’d lost her allure.
A green penny left out in the rain for too long.
Washed up.
I was in a funk.
Andy and I stayed out of the way while the Caraways worked. Rhett cut down the huge limb, piece by piece, as his dad carried brush to the back and put it in a pile.
“Sunny, whatcha got planned for all this wood?” Mr. Caraway asked a few hours later.
I hadn’t thought about it, but I really didn’t need it. My house didn’t have a fireplace, and, even though I loved a good bonfire, I’d probably never have one—especially not by myself.
“No clue. Do you want it?” I asked him as I handed him a cold bottle of water from the refrigerator in my garage. Giving them the firewood was the least I could do for the help.
“Yeah, we’ll take it off your hands, if you don’t want it.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief before he opened the bottle and took a long drink.
“Help yourself.”
I watched Rhett, now shirtless, standing on the thickest part of the limb, gliding his chainsaw through it. There was no way he’d be able to hear us talking—let alone hear the wicked things I was thinking in my head.
Mindlessly as I stood by Kent, I opened the extra bottle of water I’d brought out for the hot, young man cleaning up my yard and cooled myself down with a chug from it.
Mr. Caraway patted me on the back, startling me out of my thoughts. Water spilled out of my mouth about the time Rhett made eye contact with me for the first time that day. Not that I was gawking, but I totally was.
He was so handsome. And strong. And sweaty. And that backwards hat. And those boots. And the way he effortlessly tossed the wood like it weighed nothing. And the way his white t-shirt hung loosely out the back of his jeans like a white flag of surrender.
I lost my mind and asked, “How old is he?”
Mr. Caraway chuckled and took a few steps away. “Oh, I’d say you two are about the same age now. Aren’t ya?”
He’d lost his mind too, and I shot him a look that told him so, but he just laughed and went back to work.
For a while, I poked around in my garage. Watching. Okay, pretending like I wasn’t watching.
The more I looked at the radio station, which was in the same direction as Rhett, the more I thought I could reach the part of the limb that hung over the side—if only I had a little height. I grabbed a stepstool and hauled it across the yard and set it up about a foot away from the brick. I climbed to the top, only gaining a few feet, but it was just about enough to reach some of the leaves that lobbed over the edge of the roof. On my tiptoes, the stool rocked atop of the soft ground, but I was close so I leaned forward.
“Don’t do that,” I heard coming up behind me. “Get down.”
I looked over my shoulder at a very determined looking Rhett Caraway.
“I just thought…” I began as I started to back down off the stool. I stepped aside and he didn’t even stop as he took the stepladder in one stride. He braced himself with a hand on the wall, and with ease, yanked down the limb I’d been struggling to reach. It fell in the opposite direction of where I stood.
“Thanks,” I said.
He didn’t say anything, but he gave me a slight nod and turned to head back where they’d been working since they’d arrived.
“Hey, I said thanks,” I called as I followed him. He didn’t have to be so short with me.
Still, he didn’t stop or turn around. His dad continued cutting and kicking away the manageable chunks.
“Hey,” I yelled, growing more frustrated.
He turned around and adjusted his cap, then looked at me to say something, but didn’t.
“Aren’t you going to talk to me?” I asked.
Something familiar clicked, and I saw a hint of the look he used to give me.
“Yeah,” he answered, but that was it. Yeah.
“Well, say something then.”
He bent down and picked up the biggest piece at his feet and tossed it into the back of his dad’s pickup. His jaw tightened, but his eyes laughed. Then Rhett said, “Thanks for the wood.” He laughed under his breath and got back to work.
I’d walked right into that one, and it made me laugh, too. His wit was sharp and I couldn’t resist myself when I countered, “Well, you can only have it if you stop ignoring me.”
His dad stepped around him into the bed of the truck and made room for more pieces. They exchanged a look I couldn’t read as Rhett said, “All right then.”
I marched back to the house feeling disappointed and reminding myself that I was old and he was not.
Yeah, she’d given us a truckload of wood, but what I was really talking about was the chub I worked up watching her ass reach for that limb on the roof of the radio station. A distraction like that wasn’t what you needed while working with a chainsaw, and I was lucky my dad took it from me when he did.
After handing him the Stihl, I automatically went in her direction. I was halfway there when I realized she was damn near tipping the flimsy stool over. I didn’t like seeing her in harm’s way, which remedied the tightness in my jeans.
I was probably imagining it. If not though, she’d been staring at me all day. I didn’t mind, but my dad was there, and I didn’t feel like hearing shit about it until the e
nd of time.
I’d known something must have happened at her station the night before when the music went silent in the middle of a song, but thought it was probably a power thing. So when I was on my morning run—past her place, on my new and purely coincidental morning route—I’d seen the mess.
When Dad picked me up to head over to Coach Fry’s, and we’d seen that they had all the help they needed, I was relieved when Mr. Wilbanks asked us to stop by Sunny’s to help her. I was going to do it anyway, after we helped Coach, but at least it wouldn’t have seemed like my idea.
Sunny helped where she could and stayed out of the way when she couldn’t.
We were about finished, and she was in the house, when Eddie pulled up.
“Hey fellas,” he called, as he hopped out of his old-ass work van, flicking his cigarette into the gravel drive.
“Eddie,” my dad hollered back. “Busy day, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. Wasn’t nearly as bad as I reckoned it was gonna be. She’s my last stop.” He pulled his ladder off the top of the van and walked it over to the wall of the station.
I leaned against the truck bed, and my dad followed Eddie to give him a hand.
We’d cut up the massive limb, but her yard was pretty wrecked. Leaves and sawdust everywhere. I felt bad leaving it the way we were about to, but I reminded myself it wasn’t my place.
Feet crunching across the gravel behind me caught my ear, but I didn’t turn to look at her like I was compelled to do. I was doing well with not looking like a fool so far, and therefore challenged my cool streak to continue.
“I really appreciate y’all coming over to give me a hand. Dad said they’re almost cleaned up, too. Now, if Eddie can get me up and running, I should be good to go.” I noticed how different her voice was when she spoke to me—as opposed to when we were younger. The difference between speaking to a child and a man.
She stood at my side, and just like in the truck stop, I was reminded of how little she was compared to me. Her head barely topped my shoulders.
“Glad we could help,” I replied, looking at the sky to avoid looking in her blue eyes. We weren’t supposed to get any more rain that day. The forecast said we might get a shower or two that night, but the weather could only distract me so much.