Summer Girl

by Sophie Hill

  “No, Slade, no. Don’t ever think that. You’re not weak. I know you, I know you would have died to save her if it were physically possible at all. You were a teenager, your father was a grown man.”

  “I hate that bastard. I hate him so much. But he’s part of me. I’m part of him. I’m just like him.”

  “You are nothing like him! Come on. You told me you’ve never raised a hand to a woman. You never would.”

  I cried harder, cried until I was dry, sobbing and sobbing into her shoulder. I missed my mother every day. I just hadn’t let myself know that until now.

  Agony roared through me, and I couldn’t take any more. I had reached the end of my rope. “Heather,” I groaned. “I really need a drink. Just one. I need it. Please get me a drink.”

  “I’m not getting you a drink. I will be here with you every step of the way; I know you can get through this. I can’t be with you if you drink again, Slade, I’m really sorry. I’m so, so sorry for what happened to your mother, but if you drink…I can’t be here. I love you too much to watch you kill yourself.”

  She loved me. Despite everything, she loved me. I wrapped myself around that thought and curled up on the couch, hugging myself, a wretched, shivering ball of misery, as every cell in my body screamed for the sweet oblivion that I could only find at the bottom of a shot glass.

  On the second day of my red hell, or maybe the third, I woke up in the emergency room, with Heather pressing a cold wet cloth on my forehead.

  “What happened?” I wheezed.

  “You had a seizure,” she said. “I heard banging from inside your room, and when I went to check on you, your eyes were rolling back in your head and your arms and legs were flying around. I thought you were dying.”

  “I’m sorry,” I groaned. “I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about. You’re better off being here. You’re getting i.v. fluids and anti-seizure medication and some sedatives. It’ll help you get through this faster. ”

  The next couple of days were a blur. I remember being moved from the emergency room to a hospital room, and the beep-beep-beep of the machines, and Heather always by my side. I remember my uncle coming to visit me.

  “Hey, kid.” He reached down and squeezed my hand.

  “Larry. Sorry I was such a prick when you came to visit me the other day. Tell Jason I’m sorry too.”

  “You call that being a prick? You’re an amateur.” He grinned at me, and I could see the relief in his eyes.

  “You’re still off the sauce?” I asked him.

  “I am. Going to A.A. meetings twice a day. I haven’t been able to go back to work yet, can’t be around all that liquor, so Jason’s helping out.” I looked up at him. He looked a little better now. He’d always have the drinker’s nose, the strawberry full of burst blood vessels, but his eyes looked less watery and his face wasn’t as red.

  “Feels horrible, doesn’t it?” I groaned.

  “It’s hard,” he agreed. “It’s very, very hard. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better example for you.”

  “You took me in and put a roof over my head and clothes on my back. I would have been in the foster care system if it weren’t for you,” I said. “I was 16 when I moved in with you. I was old enough to make my own choices.”

  “If you want to go to meetings with me, just say the word. And if you can’t work at the bar any more, I understand.”

  I managed a nod. “Let me give it a try.”

  “All right…” he looked doubtful.

  “Jason can follow me around all night and tattle on me if I touch even one drop. We’ll see. I can’t really think straight right now…” I closed my eyes and drifted away.

  I felt half-way human by the time they released me from the hospital. Heather came with me. When we got back to my house, I found that Veronica had gone grocery shopping and filled my cupboards and refrigerator with food.

  She left a hand written note taped to the refrigerator. “If you hurt my friend again, I will fucking murder you,” she’d written in her delicate, flowery script. She dotted all her i’s with smiley faces.

  Heather laughed when she saw it. “I love that girl,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you want me to try to cook something for you? Or do you prefer to live another day?”

  “I’ll make us lunch. I can’t let her pay for all this food, though,” I said. “I have to pay her back.”

  “Are you going back to work at the Sand Bar?” There was fear in Heather’s eyes.

  I sighed. “I kind of have to. I haven’t worked in two weeks. I can’t take charity, and I have to support the both of us. Yes, I do, don’t argue.”

  She tried to protest and I laid my finger across her lips, and shivered as I felt desire crackle through my veins. “I am here to take care of you,” I told her. “I know you’ll find another job. I know you’re an independent person and you’re going to have a career and contribute. But I’m the man in this family, and I have to be able to take care of us.”

  She kissed my finger and I shuddered at the sweet heat that flared up inside me, and moved my hand to cup her chin, tilting up her face and staring into the blue oceans of her eyes.

  “I’m afraid that working at the Sand Bar might be too much temptation for you,” she said. “I don’t know…can you maybe just drink socially?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “It’s too risky. I’m not the kind of person who can just have one drink. And I can’t protect you, can’t be the man that I need to be, when I’m drinking.”

  “Would it help if I was there? If I came and hung out for the night?”

  I folded her into my arms and felt her melt into me. “Babe, it’s always better when you’re there.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I found Heather sitting at a bar stool, chatting with Veronica and Veronica’s date. A group of college boys were eyeing them, and I forced myself to tamp down on the anger that swelled up inside me, the temptation to lash out and attack. I was on probation because of the DWI. I couldn’t afford to get in any more trouble; if I had to do serious time in jail, who would protect Heather?

  I walked up to them, and Heather threw her arms around my neck and kissed me on the lips, and I felt a flush of sweet warmth. The college boys lost interest and started scanning the crowd for better prospects.

  I shouldn’t have been so pleased that Heather was making a big show of the fact that she was with me, but I was. I’d never cared before if a woman liked me or not, cheated on me or not…but the thought of Heather being with anyone else made me burn with anger.

  “Hey, beautiful,” I said, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close. Yeah, I was like a dog marking my territory. I couldn’t help myself.

  “How’s your night going?” she asked, smiling up at me.

  “You know, I’m almost afraid to speak too soon, but…” I glanced around the room. There were drunken college boys pawing at sloshed sorority chicks, testosterone and hormones fogging the air. “Being sober here is a whole different experience. I’m watching people who are staggering around drunk off their ass, acting like morons, and I don’t want to be one of them.”

  “Is your uncle going to come back?”

  “I don’t know yet. It’s different for everybody. He still can’t be in a room with alcohol without having to fight temptation. Then again, he’s got a habit of 40 years that he’s got to kick.”

  I saw her eyes flick across the room, and I followed her gaze and felt my stomach tighten.

  Barron was standing there, with a couple of friends. They were watching us.

  “What a loser,” Veronica said. “He’s been sitting there all night. Just staring at us.”

  I felt a whisper of unease. “Has he bothered you guys at all?”

  “No,” Veronica shook her head. Heather agreed with her. “No, he’s just sitting there and being creepy. It’s so freaking stupid; he never loved me. It’s just his ego that’s hurt.”

  “If he says anything, if he
bothers you at all…”

  “Don’t worry,” Veronica rolled her eyes. “I can handle him.”

  “You don’t need to. Call me if he gives you any grief.” I walked away, a nagging feeling of unease tugging at my gut.

  Heather

  “Remember, Splenda, not sugar in the iced coffee.” I was standing in line at the Beanbag, a coffee shop on the main drag downtown. Veronica, who apparently has so much money that she could burn it for warmth all winter long, had already bought a new BMW and insisted that I borrow it, so I’d driven in to town that morning to fetch her some coffee as a very, very inadequate thank you.

  Slade had made it through the whole night at the Sand Bar without getting in a single fight, without touching a drop of alcohol. The things that he’d done to me when we got home…I kept playing last night in my head again and again, a secret smile forming on my face. I ached in all the right places.

  I stared at my cell phone. “You really called me just to tell me that? You’ve taken your coffee the same way since we were in high school.”

  “No, not just that.”

  Uh oh. Could I just have a whole day without bad news? Just one day? Apparently not.

  “Hit me,” I said, resigned.

  “Well, it’s your mother. One of my friends’ mother heard some gossip on the grapevine that she got pulled over for impaired driving, and barely got out of having a ticket, and now she’s back in rehab.”

  “Jesus Christ.” I groaned. “I can’t believe this. That’s why she never called me back. I was so, so sure, that she was finally ready to…oh, forget it. I don’t even know. Why can’t she be like your mother? Your mother gets divorced every five minutes.”

  “I know, right?” Veronica agreed. “What’s so hard about it? Another day, another husband.”

  “Oh well. Iced coffee, large, Splenda. Veronica, am I going to turn into my mother when I grow up? Tell me I’m not.”

  “Not unless you marry my brother and live the rest of your life drowning your misery in a sea of prescription medicine.”

  “I’d sooner marry a rabid warthog. So I guess I’m safe. All right, be there in a few.”

  Glumly, I bought our two coffees and two bear claws, and headed out to my borrowed BMW. I felt like a half-deflated balloon. I should have known better than to trust my mother.

  “Hey, Heather…do you have a minute?” I turned to see Dottie walking towards me.

  “I guess,” I shrugged. It was the first time that I’d seen her since I’d been in the hospital.

  “I know I was a total bitch the other day. I’m sorry.” The hot sun beat down on us, and she shielded her eyes with her hand.

  “I’m sorry I said what I did,” I said. “It was a cheap shot. But yes, you were being a bitch, frankly.”

  “I know. I know. It’s just…” Dottie stared at the ground. “It was killing me seeing how Slade was falling apart.”

  “And you blamed me?” I said indignantly. “You actually think it was my fault that he was trying to commit suicide by alcohol over a pack of lies?”

  “No, god damn it. It was killing me because he was falling apart over you. If I got run over by a truck, I don’t think he’d shed more than a tear or two. I mean, most of the time when he’s on a date, he couldn’t even tell you the girl’s name. But you…losing you just about ruined him.”

  I stared at her. “I didn’t know you still felt so strongly about him.” My anger started to fade. “I’m sorry. That must really hurt.”

  “It does, but that’s my problem, not yours. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Or Chuck. I apologized to him, I told him I’d been a bitch, and all he said was, yeah you were, and then he walked away.” She stared down at the sidewalk, at the shimmering waves of heat that boiled up. “I was hoping that he’d still want to see me, but…”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “I finally realized that the reason that I kept going back to Chuck was not just because he’s convenient. It’s because I really liked him. But now it’s too late. Serves me right, huh?” Her laugh was low and sad and self-mocking.

  “No, it isn’t too late. You just haven’t tried hard enough,” I said angrily.

  She glanced at me, startled by my vehemence.

  “He doesn’t want to talk to me,” she said.

  “Listen, when Slade decided he wanted me back…if he just walked up to me and said, hey, sorry I was kind of a jerk, do you want to give it another go? I would have told him to drop dead. No matter how much it hurt me. I had to know that he really, sincerely, knew that the way he’d acted was wrong, and that he’d changed.”

  Dottie squinted at me in the sunlight.

  “I’m baking. Let’s move into the shade,” I said. We walked over to an alley, standing in the shadows between the coffee shop and a used bookstore.

  “He needs to hear that you’re really, really sorry. You need to grovel. A casual old ‘oops, my bad,’ isn’t going to cut it,” I told her. “If he’s that hurt and angry – it means that he really cared for you, which I could have told you anyway. You need to go tell him what you told me, that you just now are realizing how much he meant to you all along, that he’s the best thing that ever happened to you, that you’d be devastated to lose him, that you’ll never treat him like that again.”

  “Wow.” Dottie’s eyes were wide with surprise. “Can you write all that down?”

  “Seriously!” I was half laughing, and she was laughing, and she threw her arms around me.

  “Please tell me you’ll be my friend again,” she said. “I’m just now realizing how much you meant to me all along, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, I’d be devastated to lose you-“

  “Shut up!” I was laughing for real now. “Promise me you’ll go tell Chuck all that, and the friendship is back on.”

  She held up her hand, with her pinky sticking straight up. “I pinky swear.”

  Then she grew serious. “There’s something that I need to tell you.”

  “Okay…” A tremor of unease jittered through me.

  “I found Consuelo.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “You what?” I gasped.

  “I found Consuelo. She’s a pretty unusual looking girl; there aren’t too many Hispanic girls with ice-blue eyes. I’ve lived in North Carolina my whole life, I know a lot of people. I started asking around if anyone had ever seen a girl like that, aged around 12, in any of the surrounding towns, and I ran into someone who’d spotted a girl like that in downtown Hilltop. It’s a little dot on the map, a little nothing town about two hours northwest of here.”

  “Oh my God.” I leaned against the wall. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I drove out there a couple of times and I asked around, and somebody gave me an address. She lives in a mobile home off a road in the woods.” She looked me in the eye. “You’ve been looking for answers. We could go there now.”

  “Oh,” I said dumbly.

  I couldn’t even speak. I was stunned. After all this searching, after running into countless dead ends without finding a mention of this girl anywhere...I’d just about given up. I’d started to think she must be dead and buried somewhere.

  And now Dottie had brought her back to life.

  “I could…I could go myself,” I said, my voice shaking.

  She shook her head firmly. “Nope. I was a crappy friend before. Not again. You’re not driving anywhere by yourself; it’s not safe. Do you want to get Slade?”

  “Slade’s at his uncle’s house doing some handy man stuff. I have to bring Veronica this coffee, and then we can go.”

  Of course, Veronica insisted on coming with us, and bringing her canister of mace. I drove the BMW, she rode with me, and Dottie followed us in her beat-up old Toyota Camry.

  “I seriously hope nobody else tries to kill me when we get there,” I said to Veronica.

  “Me too. You’re going to get frequent flyer miles from the emergency room. They must know your whole life stor
y by now.” She waved her can of mace. “You’ll be fine. There’s three of us. If anything looks sketchy, we’ll bolt.”

  We finally pulled up on a narrow dirt road in front of a tin box of a mobile home that looked like it was held together with duct tape. Rusting car parts were scattered among the weeds out front.

  A tiny, hunched over old woman in a faded floral print dress was slowly picking her way through the yard, and a skinny young girl followed behind, with two young boys next to her. As I got closer I saw that the little boys were twins, dark-skinned boys with mops of dark hair. They looked like they were six or seven.

  The girl froze in place and stared at us as we climbed out of our cars. “Let me go talk to her first,” I told them.

  It was her. There was no question about it. She was the little girl from the picture, older now, probably 12. She stared at me with her ice blue eyes, wary as a deer during hunting season. If it weren’t for the little boys and the old woman, I think she would have bolted.

  “Consuelo?” I said gently. “I’m your older sister. Heather.”

  “My sister?” she echoed, her eyes fearful. She glanced down at the little boys. “Did you…did you come to put me in jail? Are you taking them away? Please don’t take them away!” Sensing her fear, they shrank against her, clinging to her legs.

  “Of course not,” I said, shocked. “Why would I put you in jail? Why would I take them away?”

  She pressed her lips together and just stared at me, her bright blue eyes round with fright. She wore a bleached-out pink t-shirt that was too small for her, and shorts that were too big, with a rope snaked through the belt loops holding them up.

  “You sent a letter to my father asking for help,” I said.

  She gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. We’re okay, really. We don’t need anything. Please don’t put me in jail. Please don’t take them.”

  “I swear to you, I only came to help you! I’m your sister! Look at me – we have the same eyes!”

  She glanced at my face, mistrustfully. Somebody had her really scared.