Hated (Hearts of Stone #3)

by Christine Manzari

  I pushed back my chair suddenly, and it emitted a loud screech as the metal legs scraped across the tiled floor. All around, people turned to stare, but I didn’t care. I was already on my feet and pushing the chair back in. My father eyed me in confusion and held his hands out like he was expecting me to explain.

  “You’re leaving? That’s it? A few ridiculous questions and you’re done?”

  Four years ago, that would have made me feel guilty. Not anymore. I pulled my shoulders back and lifted my chin. “It’s not my fault you answered poorly. Bye, Daddy.” I took a few steps back, forcing myself to watch as his laid back charm melted away into incredulity. He opened his mouth to speak, but I was done listening. I spun around on my heel and headed for the exit knowing one thing for sure. This was one time that I didn’t regret walking away.

  ***

  “I’m impressed,” Pauly said, looking around Nana’s yard. The porch had been repaired, and most of the work inside was done too. Today was the day of the yard sale which was bittersweet. I’d done a lot of work to get to this point, but once this was over, there wouldn’t be much left to do. I would have no reason to stay in Maryland, and too many reasons to return to Texas.

  Pauly scanned the tables of items and picked up a few things to look them over before laying them back down. When he reached the section with the furniture, he rapped his fingers on the top of the kitchen table. “I’m not looking forward to seeing this go,” he muttered. “Although to be honest, we’ll probably have to pay someone to take it off our hands. It’s not in very good shape.”

  He was right. It was beat all to hell, but to me it looked perfect. Deep down, I was hoping no one would buy it.

  “There’s a lot of stuff I hate to see go,” I admitted, running my hand along a few things, “but what are we going to do with it? You and Tommy don’t want it and Jimmy doesn’t have room in his house. And it’s not like Nana has anywhere to put it.” I took a deep breath. “Or that she’d remember most of it anyway,” I added sadly.

  “I know. It’s just—” Pauly picked up one of Nana’s old bells. “I didn’t think it’d be so hard to let this stuff go. Most of it’s worthless, but it’s also full of memories.” He shook the bell, and it made a delicate ringing sound. “I remember when she won this one off Ms. Rose that night they decided to try poker instead of Canasta.” He laughed at the memory. “Remember? Nana came home with a box of old lady shit that she won off her friends. They’d put random yard sale crap into the pot instead of money.” He rang the bell again, grinning.

  I took it out of his hand and set it gently on the table. “I miss her,” I told him, unwilling to meet his eyes.

  “Me too.” Pauly put his hand on my shoulder. “At least she remembers your name. She can barely remember that Beth is married to Jimmy most days.”

  “I know. The doctors…” I looked up to meet his eyes. “The doctors think with the right therapy, she could get some of that back though.”

  “Yeah,” Pauly said evasively, looking down.

  We stood in silence together, staring at the table of memories, but not seeing it. A few cars pulled up, and I glanced at the time on my phone to see it was almost eight o’clock.

  “We should—”

  I was interrupted by Pauly calling out a greeting, and when I turned to see who it was, my heart leaped into my throat to see Austin there, still sweaty from his morning run. I hadn’t even known he was home.

  I let Pauly finish saying hello as Austin jogged up to shake hands with him and then I asked, “How was your visit?”

  Austin locked eyes with me, and I could see the truth in his gaze even though he said, “Good. She was healthy and in good spirits. We played cards.”

  I didn’t have the heart to ask him if Nana had recognized him. He glanced over the tables of things, his jaw clenching when he saw some of Nana’s most prized possessions lined up in rows with price tags on them. I expected him to give me a biting remark, to berate me for getting rid of her things, but thankfully, he didn’t.

  “When did you get back?” I asked, pulling his attention away from the tables.

  He cut his eyes to me again and put his hands on his hips. “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “Oh,” was all I said. I hadn’t seen him and he hadn’t walked over to join me for my ride on the trail.

  “I got here last night. Why didn’t you come over?” Pauly asked, punching him on the shoulder. “I would have taken you out for a beer. It’s been years, man!”

  As if sensing my disappointment, Austin said, “I had some business to take care of in town. I went there straight from the airport. I didn’t get home until after midnight.”

  Pauly opened his mouth to answer, but a woman approached, holding a chainsaw from the table of tools and he excused himself to help her.

  Unsure of what Austin was thinking or what I should say to relieve our awkwardness, I turned to the table and needlessly straightened the items on top. Like Pauly, Austin picked up a few things and inspected them as if sucking all of the memories out of them before they were sold off.

  Just as I was trying to come up with something clever to say, my phone rang. Which was unusual. Not only did I hardly ever get phone calls, but if I did, it was later in the day. Panic seized me as I realized the only kind of call I could be getting this early was one that was delivering bad news.

  Nana. Or Beth.

  A wave of sickness rolled over me, and I fumbled with my phone as I yanked it out of my pocket.

  “Hello?” I answered nervously. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Austin look up in concern at the tone in my voice.

  “I’d like to speak with Miss George,” the woman on the other end said.

  Instantly, I knew the call wasn’t serious. My heart rate nearly screeched to a halt, the rapid beat slowing into something close to normal, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes. This is Allie George.” My eyes flicked up to see Austin. He was giving me his full attention, and when he heard my stage name, his mouth flattened in displeasure.

  “I’m so happy to have tracked you down, Miss George,” she tittered eagerly. “This is Bernadette Michaels from Under Armour. We were given your number by the Woodsbrook Gap Motocross Park—I hope it’s okay that I’m contacting you here. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks.”

  “You have?” I couldn’t hide the surprise in the words I spoke.

  “Yes,” Bernadette said cheerfully. “We’re expanding our advertising into some extreme sports markets and we’re really interested in trying to reach the female audience in our new marketing campaign. We think you’d be a great fit with us. That is, if you’d be interested in a sponsor. We heard that you were competing on the open circuit this year, and this could be a beneficial partnership for both of us.”

  “You want to be my sponsor?” I repeated. What did this mean? A sponsorship? With Under Armour? That was almost Nike-level endorsement.

  She laughed. “Well, yes. If we can come to an agreement. I’ve been told that you don’t have a manager and since we’re on a time crunch here to be able to get things ready in time, I need you to come in to meet with us. Today. Our home offices are in Baltimore, and we were told that you were in town.”

  “Today?” I frantically glanced around at the yard which was beginning to fill with more people. “I…uh….”

  An endorsement was a big deal. It could mean the difference for me. For Nana. For my entire family. But there was no guarantee that if I went there, I would get a deal. And right now, I had an obligation here. To…

  Austin grabbed my elbow to get my attention. He must have seen the panic and indecision in my expression because he tapped his chest with his fingertips and then motioned with both hands at the table, mouthing the words, “I’ll stay.” He pointed at me and said in a low voice, “You go.” Then he dropped his gaze to the phone that was still pressed against my ear before meeting my eyes again.

  “Yes. Yes,” I repeated more confidently, “I can mee
t you today. What time?” I lifted my eyebrows in question at Austin to make sure I’d understood him, and he nodded in agreement.

  Bernadette let out a sigh of relief. “Oh good. You don’t know what a relief this is. The board members want to meet you, and since I hadn’t been able to track you down earlier, we’re now short on time. How soon can you get here?”

  I did the calculation quickly in my head. Shower, change, drive like a bat out of hell to Baltimore. “About an hour and a half.”

  “Perfect.”

  Bernadette gave me the information I needed and as I repeated it, Austin snagged a sheet of paper from underneath my money box and wrote it down. When I hung up, he handed me the paper.

  “A sponsor? That’s pretty serious.”

  I swallowed down my excitement, trying not to let myself get too used to the idea before it was even a reality.

  “It could be,” I admitted. “This could change everything.” I clutched the paper in my hand. Despite my effort to not get too excited, I couldn’t stop the barrage of hopeful “what ifs” that spooled through my mind.

  Austin grinned, and I wondered if he could read my thoughts. “Go,” he said, pushing on my shoulder. “I’ll stay here and help Pauly.”

  I looked at the address on the paper and squealed before throwing caution to the wind and wrapping my arms around Austin’s shoulders and kissing him on the cheek. He stiffened at first like he wasn’t sure whether to push me away or pull me close. Finally, he hugged me back.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  I held on a little too long and then he reached up to release my grip and gently pushed me away. I stepped back, but he still held my hands. “Go. But go as Frankie DiGorgio,” he pleaded. “Not Allie George. Frankie DiGorgio is the girl who earned that endorsement.”

  I chewed on my lip as I felt my brow furrow and nodded, wondering how many of my other secrets he’d unearthed down in Texas. Clearly not all of them since he was still willing to do me a favor.

  “I will. And you make sure all of this shit finds a good home,” I said, nodding toward the yard.

  “You sure you want to get rid of all of this?”

  “It’s not a matter of whether I want to.” I spared the kitchen table a glance. “I need to.” Then I dropped his hands and jogged toward my house, yelling, “Thanks, Austin,” over my shoulder.

  I took the stairs in the house two at a time as I hurried to my room. My heart was racing, beating hard behind my ribs like a prisoner trying to break free. I put my hand on my chest to try to calm myself down and finally realized what this unfamiliar feeling was that was causing my blood to thrum inside me like a tornado.

  Hope.

  For the first time in years, I had hope.

  I reached for my closet door, and when I opened it, a flood of ping-pong balls cascaded all over the floor, bouncing merrily under all of the furniture as I screeched in surprise. A note fluttered past my face from somewhere above and settled on top of my foot. I stared down at it:

  At least it’s not glitter.

  The ping-pong balls were still bouncing and rolling, doing their best to turn my floor into a mine field of possible twisted ankles. Despite my minor annoyance at the current state of my room, I laughed. When the hell had Austin done this? Pauly and I had been in and out of the house all day putting together the yard sale. Had I even been in my closet this morning? Had Austin done this in the middle of the night?

  I shook my head in disbelief. I hadn’t thought it possible, but the goddamn prankster was out-pranking me! I grabbed an outfit out of the closet and rushed to the bathroom. First things first…I had an endorsement deal to get. And then I had to up my prank game if I wanted to save my pride.

  And maybe. Just maybe I could find the courage to give him the answers he deserved.

  — AUSTIN —

  16. SALT IN MY WOUNDS

  “Did you hear that?” Pauly asked, coming up beside me and looking around in concern.

  I heard it all right. It was the glorious sound of 1,000 ping pong balls tumbling unexpectedly out of a closet.

  “No worries. Just a little surprise I left for Frankie.” Little my ass. Her entire floor was probably covered. I chuckled. Ping-pong balls might not be as hard to get rid of as glitter, but they were infinitely more satisfying.

  “Where is she?” Pauly looked around. “I hope she doesn’t think I’m doing this by myself.”

  I threw a scowl in his direction, but he had his back turned to me, still searching out his sister. I wanted to remind him that Frankie had been doing a lot all by herself for weeks, but it wasn’t my place to get involved in sibling politics. Even if Pauly had often felt like an older brother when we were kids.

  “She got a call from a possible sponsor, but she had to meet them this morning. I offered to stay and help,” I said.

  Pauly lifted an eyebrow. “You really want to spend your Saturday selling my family’s junk? Man, I don’t even want to be here.” He had on his typical DiGorgio tough guy attitude, but I saw the way he looked at the items around us, at the many individual meaningless things that when put together meant everything—Nana’s home.

  I lifted my hands and shrugged in mock carelessness. “Hey, if you don’t need my help, I can go hang out by the pool. It’s gonna be a hot one.”

  Hot was an understatement. It was already eighty-five degrees, and it was barely eight in the morning. That didn’t seem to be phasing the hard-core yard sale shoppers, though. They had already descended upon the DiGorgio yard like ants at a picnic.

  “You’re a dick.” From Pauly, that was almost a compliment. He tossed a glance in the direction of my pool, probably remembering all the times my mother refused to let him, and his brothers, come over to swim.

  I slung my arm over his shoulder. “First we sell, then we swim,” I told him.

  Pauly adjusted his baseball cap and gave me a grim smile. “Deal,” he said, eyes scanning the flurry of activity around us. “And thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

  “Sure,” I said, heading off to one of the tables. “I didn’t have anything planned today anyway.”

  What I didn’t want to tell him was that I would do anything to see that look of hope on Frankie’s face that she had when she answered that phone call. I’d almost forgotten how much I liked seeing that expression. And if suffering in the heat for a few hours could help make that look a permanent fixture on her face, I’d willingly suffer it.

  ***

  “What do you think is taking her so long?” Pauly asked as he lounged on a raft, one leg hanging in the water while he drank a beer.

  I shrugged. “I’m guessing it’s going well. If they didn’t want her, she would have been back already.”

  Pauly huffed. “Or else she’s taking out her aggression on the trail somewhere.”

  I grabbed a beer from the cooler and settled onto a lounge chair in the shade. “Nah. She wouldn’t go out alone. Besides, her bike is still in the garage.”

  I started to peel at the label on my bottle, refusing to let Pauly see how anxious I was. Pauly had called Frankie as soon as the yard sale was over, but she hadn’t answered. Which wasn’t unusual for Frankie. At least from what I remembered. She was never a big fan of the phone, always preferring to talk face-to-face because she said she wanted to see the facial expressions of the person she was talking to.

  “People can’t lie,” she said with conviction, “if you’re staring them in the face.”

  “Sure they can,” I argued. “I’ve seen your brothers lie to Nana a thousand times. Every time they get caught breaking a rule, they tell her they didn’t do it.”

  “Yes,” Frankie admitted. “But she knows they’re lying because she can see the lie in their eyes.” She pointed two of her fingers at her own eyes and then at mine, as if to make her point.

  Pauly kicked his foot, splashing water in my direction and pulling me out of my memory. “Oh, really?” he asked in a sweet, teasing lilt. “You know where she kee
ps her bike? Isn’t that precious. Still got it bad for my baby sister, don’t you?”

  I glared at him over my bottle of beer. “I live next door, dipshit. It’s not too hard to hear her lugging that thing in and out of the shed every day.” I didn’t bother to tell him that I’d been right next to her using his bike to ride with her.

  He just gave me a knowing glance and made a huffing sound of disbelief. Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head back. We sat in silence for a while, the heat of the sun becoming more bearable as afternoon gave way to longer shadows and the creeping coolness of the early evening air settled around us.

  Pauly finished his beer, and when my eyes roamed across the yard and fell on the familiar silhouette of the DiGorgio house, I couldn’t stop myself from asking. “So you and your brothers are okay with selling Nana’s house?”

  He sighed and took a deep breath but didn’t open his eyes. “Wouldn’t matter what we thought. It’s not our house or our decision to make.”

  I drained my beer and set the bottle on the ground, the glass making a hollow clank on the concrete. “Well, Nana doesn’t seem to be in the right state of mind to make that decision. It’s not really fair to leave it up to her.” I felt the heat of my anger and frustration climb across my shoulders and up my neck. I shifted uncomfortably.

  “It’s not her house either.”

  My brain fired through a dozen different meanings for that comment and it still made no sense. “What?”

  Pauly sat up a bit on his raft in the pool, the water sloshing over his waist with the movement as he nearly toppled himself over. After regaining his balance, he heaved out another heavy breath and said, “The house doesn’t belong to Nana. It hasn’t belonged to her in years.” Pauly had to have seen the confusion on my face because he didn’t wait for me to ask another question. “A few years ago, the house had gone into foreclosure. Right around the time you went out to Vegas. Nana never told my brothers and me, but Frankie found out.”

  Pauly paused for a moment to let that sink in, but it only birthed another flurry of questions. I had so many things I wanted to ask, but I didn’t know where to start. He saved me the trouble of trying to sort through my confusion.