by Freya Barker
“I know,” Jimmy acknowledges. “But Rooster has a second bike I’m sure he’d lend you.”
Rooster was the big, bald-headed guy, and pretty much the leader of their small motorcycle club. He’d mentioned doing some time decades ago for armed robbery, but had avoided getting into trouble since. That’s how he got the name for the MC, the Converts. He said he stopped being an ex-convict years ago and considered himself a convert instead. Interesting viewpoint, I guess, but one I’m not quite ready to adopt.
Maybe getting away for a couple of days will help me stop thinking about Robin.
“Sure. Yeah, if he’s okay me riding his bike. It’s been a while.”
“He ain’t gonna mind. I’ll call him.” He gives my shoulder a shove when I yawn again. “Go upstairs, get some fucking sleep. I’ll finish up.” He indicates the Nissan I’m just finishing an oil change on. “Fucking go,” he repeats when I hesitate.
I pull the rag from my back pocket and wipe my hands, mumbling, “Thanks,” as I walk away.
Upstairs I hit the shower, scrubbing at the grease and oil on my hands. It’s a never-ending battle, the dirt always clinging in the creases and crevices. Symbolic, somehow.
With only a towel around my waist, I pad out of the bathroom and flop back on the bed, my arm covering my eyes. I’m exhausted, but still sleep won’t come. My thoughts immediately go to Robin and the confused, almost hurt look on her face when I hightailed it out of her house the other day.
Guilt. It’s a feeling I recognize. I wonder if that is what’s been keeping me restless and awake; guilt.
I reach blindly for the cell phone I dropped on my nightstand when I walked in. I had copied her number from the blotter on Jimmy’s desk, in the office downstairs, the day after we picked up her rental in Midland. I’m not sure why, other than it gave me a sense of calm, knowing I could reach her. I haven’t used it yet.
Jimmy showed me how to text on this iPhone, but I’m having a hard time hitting the right buttons.
Me: im sorty
Shit.
Me: sorry
Me: Fot leaving like that
Fuck.
Me: For
Jesus. It’s quicker and easier just to call, which I would’ve done if she’d had an early shift. She doesn’t. I may have driven by the diner earlier, when I took one of the cars we were working on today out for a test drive. That was around three and I caught sight of her new SUV in the parking lot. It hadn’t been there ten minutes prior, the first time I drove past.
What does that say about me? That I almost run out of her house in an attempt to get away only to stalk her work, eager for a glimpse. Fucking pathetic, that’s what it is.
Me: Dinner was food
Me: good
Disgusted, both with this stupid texting and my sorry self, I shove the phone under my pillow and swing my legs out of bed.
I pull open the fridge and pull out a carton of eggs, some bacon, cheese, and mushrooms to make an omelet. My almost daily fare. Hard to cook much more on a small two-burner hotplate, but I don’t mind. I’ll never get enough of fresh-cooked food. Not like the partially congealed stuff we were fed inside.
I’ve just cracked the third egg in the small bowl when I hear a muffled ping from the bed. I drop the shell in the tiny sink and grab a towel to wipe my hands, as I dive for my phone. All I see on the screen is Robin’s name and only a few words.
Robin: Glad you…
I stab at the message to make it bigger but instead it’s asking for my passcode. I’ve punched it in without thinking enough times by now, but for the life of me, I can’t get it right now. I’m growling in frustration when at my third try, the phone finally unlocks and I see her full message.
Robin: Glad you liked it. Nothing to be sorry for. It’s fine.
It’s fine.
I don’t know a whole lot about women, but I know ‘it’s fine’ is a euphemism for ‘you fucked up good.’
Sinking down on the bed, I start typing out a message, this time reading it back before sending. I hesitate, a heavy feeling settling on my shoulders, and I use the back button to delete every last word, dropping the phone facedown on the mattress and heading back to my eggs.
Perhaps it’s best this way.
Chapter Nine
Robin
“I’m sorry, Dr. Tracey is running behind a few minutes,” his assistant apologizes when we walk into the clinic. “He’ll be with you as soon as he can.”
“No problem,” Mom returns, and walks ahead to the waiting area.
The clinic houses three doctors, so I’m surprised to see the only other person in there is a young guy with earbuds in, probably listening to music on the phone his eyes are glued to.
“Good,” Mom says, as soon as my ass hits the seat beside her. “That gives me a chance to ask you about your dinner last week. How was it?”
I’m not surprised. I may have distracted her with a funny work story Paige told me over the weekend, but Mom is as tenacious as a terrier and nosy to boot. Still, I don’t want to talk about Gray, have done my best this past week not to think of him either, although I haven’t been very successful. It hasn’t helped that the rumor mill has been alive and well at Over Easy.
I was working a shift with Donna earlier this week. The woman is older than my mother, but still works harder than some of the part-timers we have. She mentioned ‘that Bennet boy’ and that neither time nor prison had made him any less handsome than he used to be.
Finding that out hadn’t surprised me as much as one might think. Gray struck me as someone a little out of touch, maybe even unsure of his footing, and definitely socially awkward. Someone who seems to be tentatively testing out the world around him, but when he relaxed—as he had over dinner—he really came into his own.
That is until I kissed him. That is not something I’m about to share with my mother.
“It was nice. I still can’t make my goulash taste the way yours does.” I try for distraction wrapped in flattery. “Why is that?”
“Always tastes better when someone else cooks it. So, tell me more about this friend of yours.”
I should’ve known she wouldn’t let go.
“I already told you last week.”
“You’re being purposely evasive,” she accuses.
“And doesn’t that tell you something?” I snap, surreptitiously glancing at the woman by the front desk and the young man sitting three seats down from Mom. Both seem engrossed in whatever it is they’re doing.
“I just want to see you happy, sweetheart.” She puts a hand on my arm, and I immediately feel guilty for being short with her.
I soften my earlier sharp retort with a smile. “I know you do, Mom, but I don’t think Gray is the answer.”
“Why do you say that?” she asks, just as someone comes out of Dr. Tracey’s office on the other side of reception.
“Mrs. Bishop?” The woman behind the desk stands up and grabs a file. “If you would come with me?”
I hold no illusions my mother will let the subject drop, but for now I have a reprieve.
I force my thoughts to the diner, where Kim apparently finally hired a new full-time waitress, who is scheduled to start on the weekend. It isn’t easy in a town this size to find someone, so she ended up putting out some feelers in neighboring communities. Donna and I have been taking on extra shifts to cover for Shirley missing, but Kim’s had to fill in the rest of the schedule with part-timers. It’ll be nice to get back to our regular shifts, although the extra work has been good for my bank account.
I spoke to Shirley this past weekend and she seemed to be doing okay. Her sons, with the help of a police officer, had managed to pack up her personal possessions from the house here in Beaverton last week, and there’d been no sign of Mike. All stayed quiet on that front. She also found a job as a cashier at the local grocery store and sounded like she was slowly getting back on her feet. I’m sure it’ll take some time—especially with the court case against her hus
band looming the week of Thanksgiving—but Shirley sounds determined to forge ahead.
Good for her.
When Mom surfaces twenty minutes later, I’ve successfully avoided spending all that time thinking about Gray. It only lasts as long as the drive to Mom’s favorite restaurant.
The moment we’re seated in the small booth by the window heralds the end of my reprieve.
“You didn’t have a chance to answer my question earlier.”
Rather than trying to give her the runaround, I decide to tell her the truth. Maybe then she’ll give up on her romantic notions.
“Okay, look, I like Gray. He seems like a decent man, and I thought maybe there was something there to explore, but I get the sense he’s not in the same place.”
Perhaps it was a little more than a ‘sense’ when he took off like the devil was on his heels after I kissed him. Although seconds before, I sharply recall the way he kissed me back like his very life depended on it. I guess that’s why I can’t shrug it off as mixed signals so easily. It would’ve been easier if I hadn’t heard from him at all after he marched out, but there’d been that endearing message I received a few days later. Proof he was thinking about me too.
Mom puts her hand on mine across the table.
“Maybe he’ll come around or else, his loss, sweetheart.” She sits back in the booth and resolutely changes the subject. “So, what are we doing for Thanksgiving this year?”
I love my Mom.
“Paige told me this weekend she’s flying into Lansing on the twenty-sixth. So I thought maybe I’d pick you both up and bring you back to my place. Paige can bunk with me and you can have the spare. We’ll cook together. What do you think?”
I know the holidays especially are still tough for her. Heck, they are for me too; Dad’s loss seems to loom larger on those special days. It had been Paige’s suggestion to celebrate here instead of at Mom’s for a change. New traditions and all that.
“That sounds perfect,” Mom agrees. “Let’s just hope the snow holds off until after.”
We don’t tend to get piles of snow here—not like some places to the north of us—but things can get slick on the roads quickly.
“Perfect, so let’s figure out what we want to make,” I offer, glad we’ve moved on to a safer topic.
But as we’re discussing our meal options, I can’t help wonder what Gray will doing for Thanksgiving.
Gray
“How are you feeling?”
Frank looks a little the worse for wear when I walk into the bar at lunchtime.
We were supposed to meet last Sunday, but he got word to me he wouldn’t be able to make it. Yesterday he called the shop and asked if I could come today during my lunch break.
I’m still not clear why he wants to talk to me, but I guess I’m about to find out.
“I’ll live, for now,” he mumbles, leading the way into the bar after locking the front door. “Beer? I can do coffee as well.”
“Not for me, thanks. I’ll take a glass of water though.”
I watch Frank’s slow, measured movements and wonder what’s going on with him. I don’t have to wonder long.
“Two things,” he starts, after setting a glass in front of me and taking a sip from his can of Vernors. “First—and I don’t have time to pussyfoot around things—I owe you an apology.” I startle at that. “I should’a known. We’d been friends for more years than I could count, even then, but I knew he was a drunk. I knew he could be a mean bastard when he’d had a few. I just never thought he’d…” He visibly swallows, taking another sip before he continues, “He was drunk when he came in that night. Sat at this bar, crying about how she was dead. I felt for him, we all did, thinking he was talking about your sister. All those years, and I had no idea—”
“Frank.” I stop him with a hand on his arm and a lump in my throat. “Not your burden to carry.”
“Seeing you out there.” He shakes his head and his eyes drift out the window, as if he was reliving it all. “You deserved better, boy. Years I struggled when you refused to see anyone. Then when I heard you passed up on a parole opportunity, I was fucking ready to break you out of that godforsaken place. Can’t tell you how happy I was to see you back in town. Didn’t wanna spook you off right away, so I gave you some time to adjust, but I was watching.”
“Water under the bridge, old man.”
I try to stop the flow of words that hit me like paper cuts to my soul, but he ignores me.
“I’ve gotta do right by you, Gray. I let you down. Fuck, this whole town let you down. None’a that should’ve happened if we’d been payin’ attention. Which brings me to my second point.”
He takes a deep tug from his can and closes his eyes as he swallows it down. I worry when I see his hand start shaking as he pulls an envelope from under the bar.
“Are you okay, Frank?”
He doesn’t sugarcoat it.
“Dying, son. Be a small miracle if I make Thanksgiving. I would’a let you be a little longer, but I plumb ain’t got the time. The cancer got me good.”
“Jesus,” I hiss.
He shoves the envelope at me.
“It don’t make up for the time you lost, son, but I hope it’ll give you the future you deserve. I ain’t got kids of my own, but if you were my boy, I couldn’t be more proud of ya.”
Those paper cuts from earlier are now deep slices, and emotions I’ve worked hard to keep in check flow freely. It hurts: feeling.
I don’t deserve his words, and yet they penetrate deep.
“Open it.”
He indicates the envelope in front of me and I pick it up, sliding my finger under the flap.
“What is this?” I manage, my voice a croak.
“Copy of my last will and testament. You lost everything that night, boy, and I wish I could give you your family back, but I can’t. Least I can do is make sure you’re taken care of.”
As he speaks, my eyes scan the document full of legal jargon until they catch on a highlighted name:
I leave to GRAY EDWARD BENNET, sole beneficiary, all my personal belongings, including (but not limited to) the property, building, and contents at 357 Parker Street, Beaverton, MI; The Dirty Dog Bar; my apartment; and the 1965 Ford Mustang in the garage on the back of the property.
“You can’t do this,” I mutter, trying to wrap my head around what I’m reading.
“Already done,” he says firmly.
“But—”
“The bar runs itself,” he continues undeterred. “Bunker manages the day-to-day, so you don’t even have to be here unless it’s payday. Then all you need to do is sign the checks. Bunker prepares all of it. He’s been with me for fifteen years and can run this place in his sleep. My place upstairs you can take or rent out as you see fit. You can toss or keep the contents, I don’t really care.
“There’s not a single person left who’d lay claim to any of it. All I ask is that you take what I’m givin’ ya not as some consolation prize, but as the fulfillment of the wish of an old man waiting for his last breath.”
His gnarled, shaking hand lands on mine as my mind tries to keep up with what he’s saying.
“Do me this honor, son. Let me leave this life, knowing I’ve at least tried to right some of the wrongs done to you.”
Half an hour later, I walk out of the bar, dazed and overwhelmed with the magnitude of what just occurred. I signed about a dozen forms and papers Frank had prepared for me, to ensure the bar can be kept running since he’ll be moving into a palliative care facility over the weekend.
I’m not sure what to do with all this. I’m sad, the responsibility is heavy, and my mind is chaotic. I feel compelled to talk to someone—to share and help me process what is happening—but the first person who comes to mind is Robin, and that’s clearly not an option. I made sure of that.
“How’s Frank?” Jimmy asks, when I walk into the bay doors of the garage. I’d told him where I was going earlier.
“He’s…not
good,” I spill, unable to keep it all to myself.
Jimmy seems to see something in my expression because he calls out to Kyle, telling him to take over from him as he steers me to his office in the back.
“You’re shitting me?” he says, when I’ve given him a rundown of the last hour.
“I know. I don’t know what he’s thinking just handing it all over.”
“I’m talking about him having cancer. That damn old coot never said a word. I bet you he’s told no one else,” he clarifies. “Although, I’m not nearly as surprised about the will. He and I spent a lot of nights talking about you over a couple of beers at the bar, brother. Both of us worried but determined not to give up on you, even if it’s what you seemed to prefer. We shared a common guilt, wondering if there was something we could’ve done.”
I’m unable to speak; stunned to hear I’m not the only one carrying the burden of that day on my shoulders.
Chapter Ten
Robin
“Does Gray Bennet come in a lot?”
My head shoots up at those words, and I drop the cutlery I’m rolling into napkins for the dinner shift back on the tray.
The new waitress, Becca, isn’t talking to me but to Kim, and I return to my task, listening in to their conversation.
She’s nice enough: Becca. She started last weekend and seems to know what she’s doing. She’s been friendly to me, good with the customers, and it’s been a relief to be back on our regular schedule.
“He’s been in a couple of times, but I haven’t seen him recently,” I hear Kim say. “How do you know Gray?”
I glance over and catch the wink Becca directs at Kim as she leans in conspiratorially.
“He and I go back a ways,” she explains. “Wouldn’t mind catching up with him. For old time’s sake.”