Taking Charge

by Mandy Baggot

  “Don’t you think I’ve worked a bar before?”

  “You said you worked somewhere that sounded campier than Graham Norton. I’m not sure it’s a real place,” Robyn answered.

  “Who’s Graham Norton?”

  “Actually, I Googled it. Your old bar does not exist.”

  “No, not now. It got shut down and they made it into a Chuck E Cheese,” Cole replied.

  “Oh,” Robyn said.

  “But if you want me to show you what I can do, fine, bring it on,” Cole said, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.

  “I’ll have a pitcher of Bud Light, please, a Jack and Coke, and a glass of red wine,” Robyn ordered, jumping up onto a bar stool.

  “Yes, ma’am. Would you like ice in the Jack and Coke?”

  “Please.”

  “And a large wine?”

  “Regular, actually, but liking your style.”

  Cole began to pour the beer, turned around and grabbed a bottle of whiskey, added ice, a dash of Coke, and a squeeze of lemon. He found the red wine and poured a glass before the pitcher had reached the top.

  “There, ma’am, and that will be…I would tell you, but I don’t really work here and I don’t have a card for the cash register,” Cole said, lining up the drinks in front of Robyn.

  “Hmm,” Robyn said, eyeing the pitcher and the glasses.

  “What does ‘hmm’ mean?”

  “I don’t think there should be more than half an inch of foam at the top of the pitcher.”

  “There isn’t!”

  “That’s almost an inch, Cole.”

  “I don’t think you know what an inch is.”

  “Excuse me. Who is the boss around here?”

  “The boss you may be—just didn’t realize you were shaping yourself on Stalin.”

  “That’s insubordination.”

  “So fire me.”

  “You don’t have a job yet.”

  “I might decide I don’t want one, given the décor is so old fashioned.”

  “Whoa! That’s below the belt and you said it wasn’t! Is it? Tell me honestly,” Robyn urged.

  “I’ll tell you that there’s not more than half an inch of froth on that pitcher, the red wine’s good, and the Jack and Coke will be the best you’ve ever tasted.”

  “You put lemon in it, for Christ’s sake. What if I’d had a lemon allergy?”

  “I’d expect you to be wearing a big sign round your neck. Taste it,” Cole urged her.

  Robyn picked up the glass and took a swig.

  “It’s disgusting,” she said, downing the rest of the drink in one go.

  “You’re a liar.”

  “You’re full of yourself.”

  “Back atcha.”

  “Can you make another one?” Robyn asked, holding the glass out to him.

  “That depends. Do I get the job?”

  “I suppose I could make an allowance for the extra foam just this once—but don’t let it happen again,” Robyn said, shaking a finger at him.

  “Cheese and dill pickle and sliced pork and apple sauce, just like you asked,” Nancy announced as she arrived from the kitchen with a tray full of sandwiches.

  “These look great. Did you make these?”

  “No, sugar, I got a biker gang out the back with a liking for sandwich-making. Of course I made ‘em. Hey! Who are you, honey? You’re cute,” Nancy remarked, looking admiringly at Cole.

  “Cole.”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s cute. Cole, this is Nancy, Nancy, this is Cole. Apparently, Nancy’s going to be my step-mom in three months’ time. I haven’t had my bridesmaid invitation yet, but we’re trying to bond,” Robyn informed him.

  “Nice to meet you. So, you married?” Nancy asked, getting close to Cole.

  “No, he’s not, but you nearly are. Back off,” Robyn warned her.

  “So, meeting him’s fast work for someone who’s only been in town this week.”

  “We’re not dating. I’ve got someone in England.”

  “Have you?” Cole asked.

  “Oh my! Looks like this beautiful relationship is about to hit the skids,” Nancy remarked.

  “You told me you didn’t have a guy,” Cole repeated.

  “I don’t, not really,” Robyn said awkwardly.

  “You said you didn’t do dating.”

  “I don’t. I…” Robyn started.

  “So what is it then?” Cole wanted to know.

  “God, what is this! Now who’s behaving like Stalin?”

  “You said you weren’t seeing anyone, now you say you are. Which is it?” Cole asked.

  “Why do you care so much?”

  “I’m just intrigued why you’d hide it.”

  “Well, go and be intrigued by something else. Find a cure for herpes or something. That’s what you do all day, isn’t it? Or are you toying with the idea of taking a diploma in being an ass?” Robyn asked.

  “Touchy,” Nancy remarked.

  “And no one asked your opinion on it, either,” Robyn snapped.

  “Fine. I’m going to help Milo with the delivery. Enjoy your food,” Nancy said before disappearing out the back.

  “So, who is he?” Cole pressed.

  “Jeez! There is nobody. I just said that to shut her up. Man! What’s with you?” Robyn exclaimed.

  “You’re lying to me,” Cole said, watching her.

  “I’m not! I do not have a boyfriend,” Robyn insisted, sinking her teeth into a pork roll.

  “Then what do you have?”

  “I have a guy I sleep with now and then, okay?” Robyn blurted out.

  “I think that’s called a boyfriend.”

  “It isn’t like that. I don’t care about him.”

  “You don’t care about him?”

  “No.”

  “So you sleep with him, but you don’t care about him.”

  “That’s right,” Robyn admitted.

  “That doesn’t sound right at all.”

  “He’s my boss—at the garage. He likes me and, well, he looks after me,” Robyn stated.

  “Jeez, Robyn! He pays you for sex? Man!”

  “Don’t say that. He doesn’t do that.”

  “Well, that’s what it sounds like to me.”

  “I don’t want to have this conversation. It’s none of your business. Perhaps this house sharing wasn’t such a good idea if it means we have to tell each other everything.”

  “So you like this ‘having sex for money’ arrangement, do you?” Cole questioned.

  He looked angry. His eyes bored into her. They didn’t look so attractive now, they looked accusing. Robyn swallowed and looked down at her plate.

  “Listen, sometimes people have to do things to get on in life. I needed Clive to get on in life,” she tried to explain.

  How did she explain what she’d done for the last nine years? It wasn’t normal, she knew that. It wasn’t how ordinary people led their lives, but that was all she knew, and it was better than the loneliness and the complete emotional isolation.

  “And now? Do you still need him to get on in life?”

  “He’s paid for all the improvements to the roadhouse. What do you think?”

  She raised her eyes to meet his, and he shook his head in disgust. Suddenly she felt very small and very sad. She put down her roll and pulled self-consciously at her hair.

  “You’re judging me, and that’s not fair because you don’t know the whole story.”

  “So tell me the whole story,” Cole said, his tone calmer.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Robyn answered, her voice wobbling.

  How could he understand? She didn’t even understand.

  “Try me,” he urged.

  She shook her head and pulled her stomach in, trying to suppress the ball of emotion inside. How could she tell Cole she had been sleeping with her boss for as long as she could remember? She hated it, yet she needed it. And he did pay her. Okay, he didn’t leave a pile of cash on the bedside table, but he m
ay as well have. He had bought her the flat, he paid all her bills, and she earned far more than any office manager for a garage should earn. But suddenly, now that she was home in Portage, she couldn’t even bring herself to call him. She didn’t want to be that person any more, and she didn’t want Cole to know that Robyn. Back here, she wanted things to be different. Or more accurately, she wanted things to be the same.

  “You know too much about me already, now you think I’m a prostitute. Leave it at that and eat your roll,” she ordered him.

  “Robyn, if you need this guy to be financially secure, I can help you out. Don’t go back there, cut him loose,” Cole told her seriously.

  “So you can pay my way for me? No.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to sleep with me,” Cole said firmly.

  Robyn ignored the comment and took her wallet from her back pocket. She got out a wad of bills and held them out to him.

  “For Leonora, like I promised,” she said.

  “Is this his money?” Cole inquired, looking at the money as if it was dirty.

  Robyn shrugged.

  “I don’t want it,” Cole told her.

  He picked up a roll from the tray and turned away from her.

  He knocked another clipboard of papers on the floor. That was the second one of the afternoon. He couldn’t concentrate. He kept thinking about Robyn and some middle-aged garage owner, in bed together. The visual made him feel sick. He thought he knew her, but now—why would she do that? She was so beautiful, so smart and funny. Why would she want to give all that to some guy she admitted to not caring about?

  “Cole, do you have the info on the Barracol trial?” Maggie called.

  Maybe he had some hold over her. But what? She hadn’t seemed as afraid to talk about him as she had when she’d spoken about Jason and the rape. There had to be something, though. People just didn’t do that sort of thing if they had a choice. But then, who was he to talk about choices? He’d almost thrown his whole life down the drain. He wasn’t saintly enough to talk about rights and wrongs.

  “Cole, sorry to interrupt but…”

  “Do you want a coffee, Maggie? I could really do with a coffee,” Cole announced, raising his head to look at her.

  “Sure, I’ll go and get it,” she offered.

  “No, it’s okay. I’ll go.”

  He needed the walk.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “So, this is nice, isn’t it?” Pam remarked that evening.

  Cole and Robyn were barely speaking after their lunch at the roadhouse, and now they were sat opposite the Omen twins, trying to eat their way through two tons of chicken and rice.

  “It’s lovely food, ma’am,” Cole said, forking some more in his mouth.

  “Cole, please call me Pam. Can’t remember the last time anyone called me ma’am, can you Bob?” Pam asked her husband.

  “Nope,” Bob replied, drinking from his bottle of beer.

  “Are you her new boyfriend?” Sienna asked, giggling into her glass of water.

  “No,” Cole replied sharply.

  “They’re just friends, honey,” Pam added quickly.

  “Why aren’t you her boyfriend? You’re a boy, aren’t you?” Sierra continued.

  “Last time I checked,” Cole remarked.

  “He’s not my type,” Robyn answered bluntly.

  “Robyn actually already has a boyfriend,” Cole snapped back.

  “Oh, honey, do you? What, in England? You never said. What’s his name? What does he do? How long have you been together?” Pam gabbled, putting her knife and fork down and giving her niece her full attention.

  “Ages. He owns a chain of garages. He’s very successful and rich. His name’s Clive,” Robyn said quickly.

  Cole let out a snort of annoyance.

  “Ignore him,” Robyn ordered.

  “He’s married,” Cole informed the table.

  “What?” Pam exclaimed in horror.

  “I never told you he was married,” Robyn said.

  “But he is, isn’t he?” Cole continued, looking at her defiantly.

  “Oh, Robyn, that isn’t right at all. I mean, what are you thinking? Does he have children? What about his poor wife?” Pam began.

  “I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation, especially in front of the children,” Robyn said, indicating to Sienna and Sierra who were both looking at Robyn with wide eyes.

  “How old is he? Fifty? Fifty-five?” Cole carried on.

  “Robyn, he isn’t that old, is he?! Honey, this isn’t right. It isn’t right, Bob, is it? Tell her,” Pam urged, her mouth opening in horror.

  “It isn’t right, Robyn. There, I said it. Now I think we ought to change the subject and carry on eating this delicious meal,” Bob suggested to everyone.

  “Rhett, at school, his mom had an affair with the mailman. He was married, too. His mom had to move to Nevada, but Rhett and his dad kept the dog,” Sierra informed the group.

  “Well, Cole’s ex-girlfriend is having his brother’s baby,” Robyn announced loudly.

  Cole put down his silverware and sent a glare across the table to Robyn.

  “Oh my!” Pam said, dropping her fork with a clatter.

  “This is like an episode of Jerry Springer!” Sienna said delightedly, clapping her hands together.

  “That was unnecessary,” Cole said to Robyn, wiping his mouth with his napkin.

  “And your comments weren’t?” Robyn retaliated.

  “Listen, I think you two ought to take this outside, don’t you?” Bob suggested firmly.

  “We’re fine,” Robyn snapped.

  “Outside, both of you. Sort yourselves out and then come back and get along,” Bob ordered them.

  Robyn rose from her chair and stormed toward the door. She pulled it open and stepped out onto the deck.

  “Why did you say that stuff in front of Pam and Bob?” Robyn questioned, squaring up to Cole as soon as he joined her in the backyard.

  “Why did you tell them about Veronica?”

  “I asked first.”

  “I don’t like your arrangement with your married boss.”

  “I don’t like you not tightening the lid on the milk.”

  “That’s a pathetic come back.”

  “I don’t want to sleep with my boss!”

  “Then why do it? For the money?”

  “It isn’t about the money.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “I’m making it my business.”

  “How macho. You want some dumbbells?”

  “Not really.”

  “I told you about Jason, I told you everything. After it happened, I couldn’t move on, you know, with a guy. I still can’t. Not in the normal sense. I told you that. I don’t date, I don’t do anything like that, I can’t.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Jeez, Cole do I have to spell it out for you? I couldn’t get close to anyone. I wanted a new memory, something to wipe out the bad one, but I couldn’t do it. Clive was nice to me; he seemed to genuinely care about me.”

  “Yeah, well there’s only one problem with that…you kissed me just after we met,” Cole reminded her.

  “I know,” Robyn answered, swallowing.

  “So what’s that about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cole let out an exasperated sigh and put his hands to his head. He looked at her, his eyes wide and full of concern.

  “If you don’t feel anything for him, how can it be right?” he asked.

  “I sleep with him to forget the rape, to push it away. It’s not romantic, it’s not good, but it’s better than not being able to even go through the motions. And that’s all I can do with him, it’s just mechanical—I don’t feel it. But, it’s one step up from nothing,” Robyn tried to explain.

  Tears welled up in her eyes and she fought to control the urge to sob. She hated the way he made her feel vulnerable. There was somethi
ng about him that made her want to let it all go.

  He took hold of her hand and squeezed it firmly. It felt so good, the reassurance, the genuine affection without an ulterior motive. She wasn’t used to it. She didn’t know how to deal with it.

  “I know I’m damaged, Cole, but you can’t fix me. And I don’t want you to try,” Robyn interrupted quickly.

  “That isn’t your decision to make,” Cole answered, looking at her.

  She swallowed, looking into his ebony colored eyes.

  She felt his body move, just slightly, and it unnerved her. She dropped his hand like it was a scorching hot cup of tea.

  “So, how about you apologize for telling my family I sleep with a married man and I’ll apologize for telling them about your incestuous family issues. Sorry,” Robyn spoke quickly.

  “I’m sorry, too,” Cole added.

  “Great, so let’s go and see if we can kick the twins shins without them telling on us,” Robyn suggested and she opened the door.

  “Robyn…” Cole started.

  “I’ll give you first shot at Sienna,” she replied.

  The conversation was finished.

  “So, is he going to leave his wife?” Sienna asked as Cole poured Robyn some more water.

  “Sienna, we are changing the conversation. Now, tell me about this go-karting night. Is the whole team going?” Pam asked, smiling at Cole.

  “I only asked if he was going to leave his wife. Rhett said that his mom went with the mailman because he was better in bed and he had a pool in his yard,” Sienna continued.

  “Well, for the record, he won’t be leaving his wife, and I’m going to be here for a good few weeks yet. He’ll probably find someone else to sleep with,” Robyn said matter of factly.

  “So, the go-karting,” Pam said again.

  “Yes, go-karting. I’m really looking forward to it, aren’t you, Bob?” Robyn asked, grinning at her uncle.

  “Yepper.”

  “Is the married guy really fifty-five? Because that’s gross,” Sienna piped up.

  “Sienna. We’re not talking about the married guy any more,” Bob ordered his daughter.

  “Does he have really gray hair?” Sierra added.

  “Yeah and false teeth and sometimes he has to use a walking stick,” Robyn said as she kicked her cousin hard on the leg.