by Avery Stark
Emily and Mitch took seats opposite of each other.
It was easy to reminisce in the vinyl-covered chairs that squeaked with even the slightest movement. There were so many times that she and her friends had sat right where they were and just talked. How many conversations had there been? What did they ever talk about, anyway?
Much of it, as it happens, had been lost in the ether.
Mrs. Easton's body fingers patted Emily's back.
"How have you been, darling?" She continued without waiting for an answer, "I heard about what happened to your folks. It's a shame, honey, a damn shame."
"Thank you," the young woman replied. "Things are starting to get better."
While it wasn't really true, Emily didn't want to talk about it anymore. Not right then, anyway.
"Well I sure hope that continues. You're a good girl, Em. Just remember that."
"Thanks."
"And you, Mitch," she slapped the back of his shoulder playfully. "You've grown up quite a bit since I last saw you. How long has it been?"
"Uh," he rubbed his smooth chin, "around four years."
"Too damn long if you ask me," the waitress retorted.
Her aged hand dipped into the front pocket of her apron and came back up with a pen and a tiny pad of paper.
"What'll it be?"
The ancient waitress never waited for anyone to look at the menu. If you were eating at Boro's, chances were good that you had been there a hundred times before.
Emily answered first, "Water and some fruit, if you can."
"I can," she tapped the end of her pen on the frayed paper, "but whether or not I will is another matter all together. You need to eat better than that."
"Okay then. How about a sandwich?"
"What kind?"
"Surprise me."
Mrs. Easton turned to Mitch, "And you, honey?"
He interlaced his fingers and rested both palms on the cool table.
"Hell, give me the same thing. Emily here needs a strong cup of mud, though."
Natasha shoved the writing utensils in her pouch and replied, "You've got that right. I'll get you two a new pot."
She turned and left them. There was nobody else in the usually crowded restaurant, making every smack and metallic bang in the kitchen painfully audible.
"So," Mitch tapped his thumbs on the table top, "where do we start?"
Emily sighed and leaned back in the chair.
"Look, I'd prefer if all of this stays between you and me for now, okay?"
"Of course.
"Well, I guess my mom was drinking and lost control of the car."
Mitch seemed genuinely shocked.
"No! Your mom?"
"Yeah. They found empty liquor bottles-those little ones-in her purse and everything. I mean-"
The waitress interrupted in her harsh drawl and slammed a full pot of coffee onto the table.
"Here ya go, kids."
"Thanks, ma'am," Mitch replied.
Just after she turned to leave, Natasha spun back around on her heel and stood to face them with both hands on her hips.
"You know," she tapped her fingers on her uniform's stiff linen, "I'm happy to see you two together again. Me and Harvey always said that you were perfect for each other."
Emily's cheeks flushed.
"No, no. We aren't dating."
"Aw well that's too bad. You really would make a lovely couple again."
With that insightful comment muddying the already tense air between them, both shifted in their seats.
"So anyway," Emily said with a forced smile, "what have you been up to?"
It looked like he had been waiting all day for her to ask that question.
"I've already been recruited by a firm in Boston. They are going to pay for me to finish my degree out there and I start at the beginning of September. It's exciting."
"It sounds like it."
"Oh yeah. Get this: they already gave me a thirty grand signing bonus."
"Looks like the Parker name is going places."
He nodded and poured each of them a cup of the steaming brew.
"Of course it is," he said with a hint of arrogance that made Emily cringe.
Some things never change.
For a while, the only sound filling the silence between them was the spoon Emily was swirling around in her hot cup. It tinkered up against the sides rhythmically.
Mrs. Easton appeared from behind a swiveling door with both hands clamped onto some plain, white plates. Even in her haggard state, she moved through the cramped restaurant with a finesse that was beautiful in its own right. Her narrow hips slipped past the chair backs with only millimeters to spare while her small feet navigated a floor that she couldn't even see.
She lowered the plates down and asked, "Do y'all want anything else?"
Emily glanced over to Mitch and replied, "No, I don't think so. Thanks Mrs. Easton."
"No problem, honey." She started to leave but stopped without turning around and added, "Oh and it's on the house, doll."
She disappeared back behind the saloon-style door, leaving Emily and Mitch alone again.
Even though she wasn't that hungry-she hadn't been in days-Emily forced a few bites and several sips of coffee into her stomach. Mitch wasn't nearly as timid about it. He scarfed down his half sandwich and chugged the entire mug sitting to his right.
He grabbed a paper napkin out of the dispenser and wiped the crumbs off of his face.
"I don't know what it is about the sandwiches here, but I always end up coming back for more."
Emily smiled, "You've got that right."
Even though the issue at hand wasn't a deep one (how deep can a sandwich be?), the bond that she and Mitch shared became glaringly obvious in her mind's eye. Both of them were tied to the town, to the area and, ultimately, to each other. She didn't know if it meant anything, but all of the experiences that they had shared made her instantly feel close to him again.
"You ready?"
"Sure," she pushed the plate away.
On the way out, the ancient waitress hollered from somewhere in the back, "Bye kids! Come back and see me soon!"
"Thanks again!"
Once back in the car, Mitch wasted no time gunning the engine and peeling out in a somewhat embarrassing spectacle.
Beyond the shining dash, the bright light of day was quickly giving way to the reds and violets of twilight. The slick sports car zipped down the two-lane road, its headlights casting blue-white globes onto the pavement. Neither one of the former lovers spoke during the long drive back to the Inn. There was too much to say and, yet, there were no words for them to express how they were feeling.
Emily, of course, was far more afflicted by the inadequate vernacular.
When they finally parked near the back of the lot, near Emily's bedroom window, she was more than ready to go inside and spend some time to herself. There was too much to think about; too much to decide.
She flung the door open and walked to the back of the car where Mitch was already waiting or her.
"Thanks for coming by," she said. "It's been nice."
Just as she turned to walk away, he grabbed her arm softly and spun her around to face him. In that instant, their bodies slammed together and they were left standing there, face-to-face.
"Come with me, Em."
She was stunned to the point of silence.
"Come on," he shook her shoulders. "A change of pace would be good for you. Not to mention the fact that running this place alone is going to be way too much work."
"Mitch, I-"
He leaned forward and pressed their lips together, effectively silencing her.
Though she wanted to fight back, and even as her mind screamed for her to stop, the burning need for affection -for someone who could take her away from the brutal reality of it all- overtook any resistance that she might have had.
By the time she managed to pull herself away from his vice-like grip, her heart felt li
ke it was going to jackhammer its way out of her chest.
"Mitch, I can't right now."
"Why not?"
"I, uh, I have to go inside."
He let go of her and twirled his sparse key ring around his finger.
"Suit yourself." He took a couple of steps toward his car, "I leave in a week. Think about it?"
She didn't know what to say, so instead she watched silently as his car growled back to life and sped off into the night, flinging up clouds of dust in its wake.
When the brown puffs were no longer visible a few minutes later, Emily pulled herself back onto the porch and through the front door. Behind it, she saw Adam sitting on one of the lounge chairs with all but one small light switched off.
"Adam? What are you doing?"
"Nothing," he answered curtly.
"Were you watching me or something?"
He shook his head.
"No, but I was going outside right when you and Prince Charming were busy swapping spit. What was that all about?"
His somber disposition made her even more frustrated. She hadn't asked for any of it.
"Why do you care?"
He got up from the chair and walked over to her.
"I don't trust him. Don't you think that maybe he's taking advantage of you?"
Emily could feel a bubble of anger growing in the pit of her stomach. The very last thing that she needed was to be treated like she couldn't make her own decisions.
"And what about you?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you," she took a step closer and pointed at him with a shaking finger. "You can't tell me that anyone on the outside looking in wouldn't say the same kinds of things about what you have been doing here. And where does that leave me, Adam? You're sitting here acting like my savior, when I honestly don't know what the fuck your intentions are."
He seemed taken off guard.
"My intentions have been nothing but honest. You know that."
"How?" She struggled to hold back the tears. "How do I know? The few things in my life that I thought were guaranteed are gone now and I have no god damn clue which way is up anymore. And if I can't believe in the very basic things, how can I blindly believe in you?"
She realized the harshness of her words as soon as they left her lips, but the fact of the matter was that she was speaking from her heart.
By then, small beads of water began to skitter down her cheeks.
"Fine," he threw his arms in the air. "That's fine. Just do me a favor and remember who was there for you when shit went down, okay?"
While she might have conceded to his point under any other circumstances, Emily's blood was boiling.
"Look," she clenched her hands into fists, "this is not the time to lay this kind of shit on me. Don't you think that I've been through-"
The lights overhead snapped on, forcing both of them to shield their eyes and stop mid-sentence. From somewhere beyond the blinding yellow light, Tex's voice bellowed out.
"What's going on in here?"
"Oh," she said as her eyes slowly adjusted to the brilliant wash of light, "nothing. I was just about to go to bed for the night."
Not wanting to explain any part of what had happened, she hurried past everyone and into her parents' room, where she slammed the door shut and swiveled the lock into place.
What are you thinking, she questioned herself, running around with these guys?
Emily fell back onto the bed and twisted her finger around her dad's favorite chain. Right next to her head, the loud-colored binder covers only made her feel worse. With all of the choices for her to make, the idea of adding one more to the pile was almost too much to consider.
She reached over and bunched up a pillow under her head. There wasn't much time left for her to decide. It was a bitter fact that peppered her dreams with nightmares that night, rendering her more and more dead to the world that was crumbling around her.
Chapter 8
The plastic-tipped ends of Emily's shoe laces tapped quietly on the porch's wood planks. Guided by her fingers, the stained ropes ducked in and out of one another and eventually came to rest in a lopsided bow that matched her other sneaker.
She took a deep breath of the cool morning air and pulled both arms up over her head, allowing small pops and cracks to emanate from her stretching spine. For a while she stayed that way, leaning her body from side to side to pull on every tired muscle in her back and taking slow, calming breaths.
In those hours just before the area's creatures came back to life, her sliver of Earth was serene. It always was, even from the tender age of six, Emily's favorite time of day.
"Okay," she dropped her hands down and pulled her neck on each side, "let's go."
Her sneakers-a pair she'd found stashed away in her closet the day before-slapped down onto the steps as she started to jog away at a brisk pace.
Almost instantly, the smooth bouncing of her knees and the sensation of her long ponytail swinging across her shoulders took her back to high school. She had been very active in sports (as much as you can be in a small town like hers) and excelled at almost everything, especially cross-country running. Something about the solitude-the way that her pounding heart ticked away a beat that matched the rhythmic pounding of her shoes-put her into a trance. For a while, that was the only time that Emily could find even the tiniest shred of peace.
Many, many mornings in her teen years, though she wasn't even out of them completely, had been spent greeting the sleepy sunrise.
The early rays of orange fanned out and embraced the closed flowers like a mother's arms, coaxing them from their slumber. Emily, dressed in some gray shorts and a white tank top, could feel the sun's heat starting to penetrate the cool, still air. The entire left half of her body was bathed in the warmth coming from the east.
Though she was moving along at a brisk pace, her wandering thoughts were running quite a bit faster.
What if I did go with Mitch?
The lure of security was very tempting. With him, she could sell the Inn, go to Boston and start a new life. There would be enough money for her to live, though with Mitch it probably wouldn't be necessary. He was, by all accounts, already very successful, not to mention the fact that he would likely give her anything that she wanted.
But did she want to settle down at all? That, it seemed, was the crux of the issue. Did she want the predictable assurance that Mitch could easily provide, or was she willing to risk it all to be with the mysterious artist who had taken up residence with her?
None of it was black and white.
There were so many questions without clear answers that it made her huff and puff just a little bit harder as she traveled along the shoulder. The small pebbles under her feet crunched with a quick rhythm.
Emily turned back onto the main road a few hundred yards from the house just in time to see Gary and Barbara's rental car pulling out. She waved her hands over her head to get their attention.
The silver boat of a car rolled up and Gary lowered his window.
"Where are you kids heading today?" she asked.
"I thought that we should go to Richmond for a couple of days. You know, to see the sights before we have to go home."
"So you won't be back tonight?"
"Nope," Barbara replied cheerily from the passenger seat. "We are going to stay out there and come back tomorrow."
"All right." Emily patted her hand on the door, "Have fun."
Gary rolled his eyes very briefly before her gave her a plastic smile and started the car back down the road.
He seems a little grumpier than usual.
She walked the last few yards to the Chickweed Inn's parking lot and was surprised by the sight of Tex standing by the porch with several bags at his feet, including several long ones for his guns.
"What," she gulped in the air, "are you doing?"
Tex pushed the brim on his hat up with his finger.
"I hate to tell ya, but I have to check out a little earl
ier than I expected. I'll still pay for the entire stay, of course."
Money was the last thing on Emily's mind. Instead, she was struck with a sudden onset of panic. He had been like a rock to her through all of the painful things that happened and losing him so soon made her scared.
"I don't want you to go," she said.
"Now why's that? The summer is already almost over, anyway."
"Because," her voice wavered, "you've been there for me. You always seem to know what to do."
The old cowboy chuckled and scraped the bottom of his boot against the ground.
"You might be surprised at how rarely that's the case."
"I don't believe that," she responded in a surprisingly curt tone.
"Emily, nobody has all the answers."
"But…I'm afraid."
Tex sighed sympathetically.
"I want to tell you something that my family has passed down for generations."
The sudden memory of Anish regaling her with fantastic tales so many years ago was brought to the forefront of her mind, dragged back to the surface by the scene that was unfolding. In a way (though she didn't realize it until right then), she always knew that things would come back to it; to the one story that had moved her so deeply.
She felt her lips move but couldn't hear the noise. The only thing that she could register was Tex's twangy drawl.
"You see," he said as he sat down on the steps with a grunt, "my bloodlines in America run mighty deep. Our family has been here since almost the beginning. Why, we go far enough back to have had very close ties to the native people which, in a way, have a big part in this story."
Of course it would be Indians again, she thought.
"Wait, wait, wait. Are you going to tell me about some half-man, half-beast thing, too?"
Tex scoffed, "Now why the hell would I tell you some nonsense like that?!"
Emily shrugged her shoulders.
"Anyway, my distant uncle, Buck, eventually learned some of the Cherokee language, which allowed him and the tribal elders to share stories-and booze-around the fire at night. There was one beast in particular that they spoke of, called 'Yo-na', that was said to be the enemy of the Cherokee people: an eight-foot tall bear with claws like knives, teeth like bullets and an insatiable appetite for human flesh. They said that it stalked their homes at night, looking for the easiest victim to prey on as it had for generations.