by Paige Powers
Ben took another sip of his drink, savoring the words he was about to say. “Well, sorry I can’t write about the important things in life like the recent dog beauty pageant they held downtown,” he said smoothly, referencing Halloway’s last article. It had been in the newspaper and Ben had laughed about it when it came out, before Mina snidely told him that it was written by one of her coworkers. But apparently it was the right thing to say then, as Jack Halloway immediately shut up, his face turning red.
The sound of a bell rang out of Ben’s pocket. Someone was calling. At first he ignored it, enjoying the sting of his insult and the look on Halloway’s face. He knew that Mina was probably furious at him and that he’d hear all about it later, but in that moment, it was worth it. But then the bell rang again, and again, and again. With a final sip of his drink, he excused himself to take the phone call.
He wound himself around all of the people blocking the space and went outside. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he saw that there were three missed calls from his mother. Immediately he became nervous. His mother wasn’t one to repeatedly call, so something must be wrong. He dialed back, every ring increasing his worry.
“Hello?” he said when he heard heavy breathing on the other line. “Are you okay?”
His mom took a shaky breath. Even over the phone, Ben could tell that she was crying. Mrs. Brindell, fighting back tears, whispered, “Your Grandpa Cole passed away, Ben. I…I just…”
“What? When?”
“It was the cancer, Ben. He passed away this afternoon.” A heavy sob escaped from his mother’s mouth. Ben felt himself overcome with sadness, both at the loss of his grandfather and from hearing his mother cry. No child ever wants to hear their parent cry. “I just wanted to let you know. The funeral is this weekend. It would mean a lot to your father and me if you would come home for that.”
“Of course, Mom. Of course I will,” Ben said. “I’ll leave tonight and come home, okay? I’ll see you soon. I love you so much.”
He hung up the phone and stood there on the sidewalk for a few seconds, trying to process the emotions that were bubbling over inside of him right now. He pushed the phone back into his pocket. It was time to leave the gala. All he wanted to do was go back to the apartment, pack a bag, and head back to Bellen as soon as possible.
As he went to leave and walk back to the apartment, a fuming Mina came storming out of the front doors, screaming at him. She was so angry that spittle was flying out of her mouth and her words were blurring together.
“Don’t you dare walk away from this gala,” she shouted, grabbing his elbow. “Get back inside right now. You’re embarrassing me. You always embarrass me.”
“You’re embarrassing yourself right now,” snapped Ben.
“Go. Inside.”
Ben yanked his arm away, sending his girlfriend spiraling away from him. Tears began flowing down his face, hot and fast. “My grandfather died today and I just found out. So I don’t give a single crap about your gala, okay? I care about my family. I’m hurt. I’m going back to the apartment and I’m leaving for New Jersey tonight. Goodnight, Mina.”
With that, he turned on his heel and marched off down the sidewalk. With the back of his hand he wiped the tears from his face, partially ashamed that he was crying. He always saw crying as a weakness. It was going to be awful saying goodbye to his grandfather. The sound of Mina’s screaming faded into the background as the deafening roar of sadness rushed into his ears.
Chapter Five:
2014 – Starla
The few days after the beating went by without incident. Starla went to work, helped her customers, and then went home. At home she cuddled with Blair, cooked his food, and cleaned up. He wasn’t sweet to her, per se, but he was much more mild-mannered than usual. It was a pleasant break from the normal routine, but Starla didn’t think it would last for long. It never did. But for now she would enjoy the simplicity of monotony, the simple day to day existence that she had grown so accustomed to.
At the diner, Starla went about her business without a hitch. She filled coffee cups to the brim with piping hot brew, handed out slices of fresh blueberry pie, and gossiped with the other waitresses. Every so often, Katie would pull her to the side and ask her if she was doing okay. Every time, Starla reassured her friend that everything was going fine and there was no need to worry.
Maybe this wasn’t the way that Starla thought her life would turn out. But if she had figured out anything in her short twenty-five years on earth it was that nothing really ever went the way people thought it would. There was no point in making plans in life. The only thing that was certain about living was the constant ebb and flow of direction.
On Wednesday, Starla walked into the kitchen to find Katie pacing back and forth, a worried look on her face. Katie looked up upon her entrance and said, “Have you heard?”
“Heard what?” asked Starla.
“Cole Brindell passed away yesterday.” Katie tapped her long fake pink nails against the wall, drumming out a nervous beat. “The funeral is this upcoming weekend.”
“Oh my god.” Starla thought back to her childhood. Mr. and Mrs. Brindell had been like a second set of parents to her. Despite all that had happened between her and Ben, she knew that she could always go talk to Mr. or Mrs. Brindell if she needed anything. She didn’t know Grandpa Cole that well, though she had met him a few times. He was a kind old man, somewhat forgetful, but always very sweet. “Mr. and Mrs. Brindell must be devastated.”
A small whir of annoyance sounded from the back of Katie’s throat. “Yeah, I’m sure they are. But do you know what this means?”
“What?”
“It means Ben is coming back to town for the funeral,” said Katie slowly, as if she was spelling something out for someone who didn’t have the highest level of intelligence. “If you and your family go to the funeral to support the Brindells, you’re going to have to come face to face with Ben.” The tapping ceased as Katie walked forward and placed one hand on Starla’s shoulder. Her nails dug into Starla’s skin as Katie gazed deep into Starla’s eyes and finished, “That could be really good, the two of you together. But you know Blair’s going to throw a fit when he finds out.”
For the rest of the morning, Starla was distracted by the idea of seeing the only guy she ever truly fell in love with, again. She loved Blair but she wasn’t in love with Blair. At least she didn’t think she was. In Ben’s case, she knew that she had been in love with him. Of that, there was no doubt. She drifted through the diner like a ghost, barely interacting with her customers except to briefly pour coffee or take an order. At one point, she tripped on the carpet and sent the scraps of a half-eaten pancake breakfast sailing across the floor.
She wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about Ben showing back up in Bellen after eight years of being gone. Of course she was excited. Starla and Ben had always had a special bond. She cared about Blair but she didn’t think she would ever feel the same way about anyone like she did about Ben. He was not only her best friend growing up but her closest ally, her original love. On the other hand, she didn’t want to deal with all of the negativity that his return would inevitably bring. She was dreading going home and asking Blair about attending Grandpa Cole’s funeral, knowing that her request would probably bring her few days of “relaxation” to an end. The thought of that conversation alone was enough to make her somewhat dread the fact that Ben was coming into town.
Would they be able to talk and catch up? Would there still be feelings between the two of them, or was Starla the only one who still felt something? Was there even the slightest possibility that Ben would bring his girlfriend back to Bellen with him as a support during this trying time? There were so many unanswered questions but absolutely no answers.
At the end of her shift, Starla made herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Two sugars, one creamer. She sipped it solemnly as she leaned against the stiff concrete wall. So many thoughts commingled in her mind that she couldn
’t find a solid grasp on any of them.
Rather than drive directly home, she took her beat up red Chevy to her old house on Firestone Drive, where her parents still lived. She parked in the driveway behind her father’s silver Jeep and her mother’s blue Honda, and then made her way to the front door. It had been a while since she had visited, she was ashamed about it. The doorbell still made the same jingling noise it always had though.
Her father answered the door with a mixed look of excitement and confusion on his face. Starla was surprised to see that he looked much older than she remembered. The years had not been kind to her father. Once a strapping young lawyer, he had his soul beaten out of him by court cases and the loss of his youngest daughter. He now wore salt and pepper hair above a wrinkled face. His skin looked like a t-shirt that had been tossed aside and left to sit in a pile for too long. Starla thought, with a slight giggle, that if she could take an iron to her father’s face she could restore it to its original perfection.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, worry in his voice. “Are you alright?”
Taken aback, Starla said, “I’m fine, Dad. Can I come in?”
“Of course, of course.” He ushered her in, staring down the street as though a potential threat could come out of nowhere. Starla wondered if he had heard about the way Blair treated her and that was why he was so nervous. But of course he had. Bellen was a small town. She was pretty sure that everybody knew the way that Blair treated her and everybody found her to be weak for staying with him.
The inside of the Bluff house looked like a tornado hit it. Clothes were strewn across the floor. Empty dishes, still crusted with the remains of last night’s meal, sat on the carpet. On the table in the foyer were a collection of half-empty folders, wrinkled papers, and single keys. Growing up, Mr. and Mrs. Bluff had been advocates of living in a clean house, saying that cleanliness was next to godliness. It was nothing less than a shock to see the house in such a state of disarray now.
Noticing the look of shock on Starla’s face, Mr. Bluff quickly said, “It’s alright, darling. We’ve just been a bit busy lately, is all. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with everything. We’re getting old you know. We can’t do everything that we used to be able to do.”
“Dad, if you need help, you can just call me,” Starla replied, concern tingeing her voice. “I’ll come over and help you clean if that’s what you need.”
“No, no, we’re alright.” Mr. Bellen cleared his throat. “So what’s going on? Are you alright? Just decided to drop by for a visit?”
“Kind of. To be honest, I just heard at work today that Cole Brindell died. I know our families have always been close and –”
Mr. Bluff nodded, his eyes growing soft and sad. “And you wanted to know if you should go to the funeral.” He propped himself up on the foyer wall, his eyes trained on his daughter’s face. He began rubbing his hands together. It was always his nervous habit. “Well, your mother and I will be going. Since the Brindell family has always been so good to us, and since you and Ben used to be so close, it would be nice if you came with us.”
“That’s what I figured,” she said. “Alright, Dad. I’m going to go home and talk to Blair. But I’ll call you and let you know what I decide, okay?”
Mr. Bluff opened his mouth as if to say something then shut it, undecided. His eyebrows wrinkled with unease. He pushed himself off the wall and walked forward, pulling his daughter into a tight embrace.
“I’m worried about you. You never pick up the phone anymore. I don’t…” He drew in a deep breath. His body was shaking. Starla relaxed in his arms, knowing that he wouldn’t let her pull away just yet. “Just be safe, okay, baby? I love you. And call a little more. I miss hearing from you. I don’t want to lose another daughter.”
“My phone broke, Dad, but I’ll try my hardest. You’re not losing another daughter. I’m right here.”
On the car ride home, she didn’t even turn on the radio. She preferred, instead, to stew in her own thoughts and feelings. It broke her heart to think that she was hurting her parents so much. Losing Lisa was the biggest blow that they had ever faced. For weeks after, maybe even months, it had been difficult for Mrs. Bluff to get out of bed, to shower, to eat. Mr. Bluff had to be the voice of reason. He spent his days trying to help his wife, never focusing on his own depression. Starla knew that her parents tried to be so strong. She felt awful that her relationship with Blair distanced her from them and vowed that, no matter what Blair screamed at her or how hard he hit her, she would go to the funeral.
Blair was in bed when Starla got home, as he was most of the time. He was one of the laziest human beings that Starla had ever met. She walked in the door and was immediately accosted with the stale smell of smoke from his cigarettes, and the dull scent of body odor. Her purse was deposited on the floor by the front entrance, along with her shoes, before she made her way into the bedroom. On the way, though, she grabbed a Dos Equis beer from the fridge as a peace offering. The beer might make him a little less enraged when she made her request.
On the other hand, the beer also made him more suspicious. The minute she placed it into his hand, he immediately started squinting at her, trying to figure out what her game was. She was nice to him all of the time and she took care of him all of the time but something felt wrong.
“What do you want?” he said, an angry undertone in his voice.
Starla plastered the widest smile she could muster on her face. “Baby, Cole Brindell died. That’s Mr. Brindell’s father. Now you know, growing up, my family and his family were very close. I was wondering if you’d let me go to the funeral. As support, you know.”
“Is Ben going to be there?”
“Well,” said Starla, “I heard he might be. But that’s not why I want to go. I really want to support the Brindells. They were basically like a set of second parents to me.”
“If Ben is going to be there, then the answer is no.”
“But baby, my parents asked me to come with them for support. You know I never get to see them anymore. It damn near crushed them losing my sister and now they feel like they’re losing me. I’m not going to talk to Ben. I just want to be there for my family.”
“No.”
Agitation set in. It was very seldom that Starla raised her voice to her boyfriend but in this instance she wanted to make a point. “I’m going to go to the funeral, Blair. This is important to me. Now I stay in all day, I make all of your food, I work hard, and I’ll be damned if you don’t let me do this one single thing that I’d like to do.”
Then she sat down on the bed, shocked. It felt empowering to scold him, albeit a bit scary. Blair looked fairly taken aback as well, though, which was interesting. For the first time in the last few years, Starla felt like she had the upper hand.
“Fine,” Blair said gently, “you can go. But I want to go with you. And I don’t want you having any interaction with Ben. If he speaks to you at all, I’m going to either tell him to fuck off or I’m going to beat the shit out of him, understood?”
Starla nodded, pleased that she got what she wanted. She went to stand up from the bed but suddenly Blair’s hand shot out and pulled her back down. He wound his fingers through her hair, making sure that he had a strong grip on her head. Yanking her hair back, her neck at an ungodly angle, he hissed venomously, “And if you ever speak to me like that again, the same thing is coming to you.”
Chapter Six:
2014 – Ben
There was no more hustle and bustle, no more honking taxi cabs, and no more tourists with their fancy cameras asking for directions to Central Park when it was only a few blocks away. Bellen was the perfect representation of small town America, of the languid movements of the day to day life. Ben had forgotten how it was when cars stopped at intersections to let others move in front of them. He had forgotten how cheap cups of coffee were at local diners or how clean the air smelled when it was free of food carts and drunk people. In a way, it was invigorating to
be back in New Jersey after so many years. It felt strange. During his time in school, his parents had always visited him, letting him drag them around the city to various restaurants and performances. But in eight years, eight long years, he had never once come back to see them.
He got back with two days to go before the funeral. Much of his time was spent comforting his parents, especially his mother, who was oftentimes hysterical with grief. Though Grandpa Cole was not her biological father, the two had grown extremely close through the years. Mrs. Brindell’s own father had walked out on her family when she had been just a child. Her father-in-law, after the wedding ceremony, had almost adopted her as one of his own.
The rest of the time he spent setting up a speech for the funeral, helping to plan the arrangements, and then spending some time by himself, reconnecting with his old town. He spent hours walking through the park. It dragged up memories of himself and Starla, the talks they used to have while sitting in the grass and watching the night sky.
On the night before the funeral, he sat down in the kitchen with his mother. It was a rare moment of composure for her. Mrs. Brindell sat with her hands wrapped around a chipped blue coffee mug, filled to the brim with peppermint tea, sweetened ever so lightly with honey. As Ben sat, she raised her glossy green eyes and met his own.
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice broke. It was as if she was forcing herself to hold it together when in reality she could dissolve into tears at any second.
Ben reached out and soothingly stroked his mother’s fingers. “Of course, Mom,” he said. Then, in a slightly softer voice, “I miss him too.”
“I know you do, baby. It’s just hard. I wish he was still here, but…” She stifled back a sob, choosing instead to lift the coffee mug to her lips and take a sip. “But it is better that he’s not suffering anymore.”
“That’s true. It’s going to be a nice funeral too,” Ben said. “Grandpa Cole would be proud.”