His Uptown Girl

by Liz Talley

  He’d feared her all these years, even after he’d gone to work for her. He still couldn’t figure out why he’d walked into her store that day months ago. He’d had no intention of applying for a job. No intention of engaging Eleanor in any way. But it had to have been a God thing—that’s what Big Mama would say.

  And walking into the Queen’s Box for the second time had changed his world.

  Now it was time to give back to her what he’d taken in desperation.

  Because it was time to move on. He’d grabbed on to hope with both hands and he wasn’t letting go of a future for himself.

  Night was a cloak for activities no one wanted anyone to witness, but it was also a dangerous time on these particular streets. Years ago, Tre had worried about his bright T-shirt standing out in the darkness. This time a wiser Tre had worn dark clothes and old sneakers. He carried an empty sling backpack he’d scored at a health fair and Big Mama’s .38 Special in the waistband of his jeans.

  If he got picked up with a concealed weapon, his phone call would have to be to an attorney rather than Eleanor. Of course, his boss had been in Florida for the past several days….

  Tre circled the abandoned building, his ear cocked for any weird sounds. Hearing nothing out of the ordinary, he slipped toward a bottom window that looked to have been jimmied and carefully camouflaged, likely by a homeless person, or maybe even some kids buying and selling drugs.

  Tre pulled himself through the window, grimacing as it creaked, and cast a quick glance up at the flaking fire escape, which he’d climbed down years ago, holding Shorty D like a football, ignoring the gunfire above him.

  He balanced for a moment, wincing as the metal window stop pressed into his stomach, before sliding into the building and landing with a thump on the warped subfloor.

  “Shit,” he said, breathing in deep, but wishing he hadn’t. The room smelled musty with mildew, though he could see the place had been mostly gutted. Tufts of green shag carpet still clung to carpet strips along the wall, and plaster hung from the ceiling. In one spot, he could see up to the second floor through a yawning hole, the splintered wood resembling fanglike teeth.

  Not wanting to spend any more time than necessary, he pulled a small Maglite from his pocket, sprang to his feet and spotted the doorway leading out into the hall.

  When he shone his light to the right, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  The stairs were intact.

  Even though he wanted to get the hell out, he took a moment to breathe, begging the panic to stay curled in a ball in the pit of his stomach. If he couldn’t control the anxiety, he might freak out.

  As he approached the stairs, the memories slammed into him.

  Get your ass upstairs, Tre, his mother shrieked, her voice full of suffering, full of fear.

  Tre shook out the memories as he climbed toward the place that haunted his dreams each night.

  Run, bitch. G-Slim’s voice echoed in the stairwell.

  “Go away,” Tre whispered to the ghosts, putting one foot in front of the other as he climbed toward the third floor.

  But everything he’d tried so hard to suppress roared back. The screams, the cursing, the sound of the gun, but most of all, he heard his mother screaming for him to run.

  He hesitated on the second floor, trying to control the short puffs of air pushing from his lips into the darkness. He felt cold all over.

  In. Out. Breathe.

  You can do this, Trevon. In, out, breathe.

  Sucking in the stale air, he continued until he stood outside the door to his old apartment. The hall was empty and covered in pieces of plaster and old bottle caps. A scurry of feet indicated mice were the only residents. Otherwise, eerie silence surrounded him like a heavy cloak.

  “This is it,” he whispered, reaching for the doorknob, summoning all the reason he possessed.

  This is not the past. You are not a boy. You are a man, a man with a future, the man your mama wanted you to be.

  He turned the knob, but the door was locked.

  Tre nearly laughed aloud at the irony. He’d done all this—faced his giants—and the damn door was locked. He hadn’t thought about that. But he’d come too far to turn around, so he lifted his foot and kicked in the door.

  The crack sounded uncannily like a gun firing, and Tre closed his eyes for a moment.

  Then he opened them because now he needed to be quick. That sound could have been heard from outside, and who knew who lingered around the old block.

  Not G-Slim.

  He’d died right where Tre stood, or at least that’s what the police report said. Big Mama had demanded an accounting of her daughter’s death and Tre had pored over the report the detective had given the family. G-Slim had bled out from a gunshot wound to his leg. Talia had shot him, nicking his femoral artery, but then G-Slim, or maybe one of his homies, had shot his mother. Five times.

  Talia Jackson had died in front of the old couch.

  Tre’s eyes moved to the spot and his stomach clenched.

  Sweat pooled at his back and he felt his heart ratchet up, galloping as though he’d run a race. He knew it was an irrational fear, a sort of post-traumatic stress symptom like soldiers got after war. PTSD. Yeah, he’d gone through the same kind of hell right in this room.

  Clearing out all he’d felt then and now, Tre crept to the closet. No door was attached, and the apartment’s carpet had long since been torn out. But the subflooring in the closet was intact. Tre dropped to his knees with a thud and felt for the chipped wood that allowed for the tip of a finger. Using the flashlight, he found it easily. One yank of the stubborn wood, and it lifted.

  Tre shone the light around the inside of the hidey-hole.

  Empty.

  Disappointment punched him.

  Damn, he’d hoped. The thought of recovering what he’d taken from Eleanor had weighed on him for so long. He’d somehow thought it could make everything right again. If he could give Eleanor back her past, she could move on with her future…and Tre could move on with his.

  But it was unfinished business that would stay unfinished.

  Tre sat back on his heels for a moment before crawling forward and swiping the light toward the front of the hole.

  There.

  A piece of brown flannel.

  He reached inside and tugged, pulling out the old bundle he’d shoved inside seven and a half years before.

  “I’ll be damned,” he whispered, tugging his backpack off his shoulders and pulling open the drawstring. He shoved the bundle into the depths of the bag, reshouldered it and rose. With one last swipe of the flashlight around the place that haunted him, Tre walked out of the apartment.

  Ghosts had been met and dealt with, and as Tre descended the old stairs of the housing project, which contained the last vestige of the past holding him back, he knew a new tomorrow was on the horizon.

  And as he climbed out the window and dropped to the hard ground beneath his old world, the first rays of the morning sun unfurled over the city.

  *

  ELEANOR HAD JUST POPPED the toast onto her plate and sat down facing the sliding glass door that showcased the Gulf of Mexico, when the doorbell rang.

  “Ugh,” she moaned, running her hand through her bed head. “Who in the hell?”

  She padded past the rental house’s bright kitchen, grimacing at the gritty sand on her bare feet. How did it get in? She vacuumed each day before bed, but still sand coated her feet.

  She twisted the lock and the door pushed in.

  “Oh, my arms,” Pansy said, shuffling toward the counter with an armful of bags brimming with what looked to be junk food.

  “What are you doing here?” Eleanor said, the door still open, bright beachy rays filling the foyer.

  “I’m bringing the Oreos, chips and hot sauce…oh, and tequila.”

  Eleanor slammed the door. “I don’t drink tequila.”

  Pansy started pulling things from the bag. “Well, you should. Makes your clothes
fall off.”

  “Not what I need,” Eleanor groused, heading back to her toast and the tropical motif living/dining room with the amazing view of the ocean.

  “Ha, that’s kinda the problem, huh?” Pansy cracked.

  Eleanor ignored her and bit into her toast.

  “But I bet you enjoyed every minute of sans clothes with Mr. Dez Batiste.”

  “Don’t,” Eleanor warned, wondering why her friend thought she could show up with junk food and be welcome at Eleanor’s pity party. It was by invitation only. Exclusive. Private. Intended for one sad sack.

  “Don’t what? Talk about Dez? Talk about taking clothes off?”

  Eleanor banged her coffee cup. “Did you drive all that way to poke sticks at me? By the way, I’m totally fine.”

  “Yeah, you look it,” Pansy said, slamming cabinets and rattling crap in the pantry. “I came because it’s time to kick your ass up between your shoulder blades. I’ve given you a couple of days to sob and throw yourself into the ocean.”

  “Well, you can turn right around and go back. Just leave the chocolate-covered raisins.”

  Pansy walked over to the table. She wore capri pants and a long-sleeved hoodie with starfish on it. She looked ridiculous, but somehow like home. Eleanor liked Pansy’s zaniness…and she loved she had a friend who would drive five hours to bring her crap that should never be put in anyone’s body. “Hell, no. Half those raisins are mine.”

  Eleanor pushed the plate of toast away. “Screw toast. Where are the cheese puffs?”

  Pansy grabbed the bag and tossed it to her. “So I’ve been thinking about you, my friend.”

  “Oh? About how I screwed the pooch on this whole ‘stepping outside’ myself?”

  “You screwed a dog?” Pansy cracked, snagging a few puffs.

  Eleanor gave her the look.

  Pansy smiled. “Seriously, I have been thinking about you and this whole mess you’ve gotten yourself into. And I’ve come to a conclusion.”

  “Do tell.”

  “That day before you met Dez, you said you wanted to get back the old Eleanor. Remember?”

  Eleanor shrugged.

  “But here’s the deal—you don’t want the old Eleanor back, honey.”

  “That’s what you drove to tell me?”

  Pansy sat back, licking the orange off her fingers. “Yeah. I did. Because you’re punishing yourself for being who you are. But it’s not too late to change. It’s not too late to grow up.”

  Eleanor shook her head. She’d spent the past few days doing some heavy thinking. When she left New Orleans, she’d loaded up all the old family albums she’d painstakingly put together in her scrapbooking group. She’d spent hours trimming, cutting and pasting the albums together, striving for perfection, but had never really looked hard at the life within.

  Then she’d driven to Seaside, picked up her key, groceries and wine, and dived into sand, surf and memories. As she turned the pages of her life, the tears fell and a strange thought lodged in her brain—she’d been so angry, so traumatized by Skeeter’s betrayal and death she’d never mourned the man she’d married and loved for nearly fifteen years. As she touched the pictures of them young and in love in Scotland, or the tender pictures of Skeeter holding his newborn daughter, the tears had fallen, mixed with sobs. She saw pictures of herself with Blakely’s soccer team, wearing her little Ralph Lauren polo dress and Tory Burch sandals; her and Skeeter at cookouts, wine in hand, and Christmas at the Theriots’, smiling, faking happy. It made her terribly sad for the Eleanor in those pictures.

  But wading through the albums had been necessary.

  Finally, after two days of memories, crying and fighting the depression that dogged her, she’d let go of the anger. She’d taken the plain gold band, snatched from her jewelry box before she left home, and flung it into the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, satisfied it would sink into the sands with lost gold doubloons and relics.

  Eleanor had finally grieved her past.

  She hadn’t gotten to the present and future just yet.

  “You’re right,” Eleanor said, picking up her coffee mug. “Let’s go outside.”

  Pansy pulled the door open. The whump, whump of waves pounding the sugary sands of Seaside Beach greeted them. People frolicked in the cold water, determined to taste the ocean on their spring break. A few people strolled along the shoreline, searching for shells as children dogged their vanishing footsteps.

  Pansy inhaled. “Ah, so restorative.”

  “Yes, e.e. cummings was right—you find a piece of yourself here.”

  “Yeah, whatever, but I have some more thoughts.”

  Eleanor sat because Pansy would have her say. Better to let her get it out so they could move on to watching sappy movies and eating Little Debbies.

  “First, it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to want to step back from a relationship. I understand.”

  “Thank you,” Eleanor said, trying not to smile at Dr. Pansy McAdams, relationship therapist, no PhD or any other degree. She supposed Pansy’s lessons were given by life.

  “You’ve lived your life trying to please everyone around you, and when you engaged in a love affair with a young, hot, ethnic musician, you broke away from pleasing people and instead pleased yourself. And then when all those you loved, except moi, got pissed at you and tried to punish you, things got heavy. It was harder to be the woman you thought you wanted to be.”

  “Yep,” Eleanor said.

  “And then when Dez basically poured out his heart in a song that everyone got to hear before you, it was like a dam broke, and you reverted to the old Eleanor. You shut down. Closed the windows. And ran.”

  “I didn’t run. I’d already paid for this place and I needed a vacation.”

  Pansy eyeballed her.

  “Okay, I ran. I’m weak. I’m stupid. I hate myself.”

  “I wasn’t going to go that far.”

  “Why not? It’s true. I effed up in a big way. I took something genuine an amazing man felt for me, tucked away my own feelings for him and pretended everything away. And, guess what? I’m not better off. Blakely still hates me, my parents think I’m cracked, and, well, I could give a rat’s ass about what the Theriots think, but—”

  “Aha! There it is. Giving a rat’s ass. That’s the difference. Why do you care what anyone thinks, Elle? If Dez loves you and you love him, what’s in your way? Your own insecurities? You’re going to let uncertainty and old wounds ruin your future? Dictate your life?”

  Eleanor didn’t say anything. What could she say to that? Pansy was right, but it didn’t fix what was broken…which was her relationship with Dez.

  “Baby,” Pansy said, “no one likes a pansy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Not me, the euphemism thing. A wimp. A patsy. Someone who gives up without a fight. Are you that girl? Are you the old Eleanor?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Look, I wanted to be bold, to carve out the life I wanted to live, but it was harder than I thought.”

  “No shit. Sometimes life’s hard. Thing is, there are no rules for life. The people around you who try to tell you there are rules are the biggest liars on the planet. There’s no right man, there’s no right car to drive, there’s no right job to have. You do what makes you happy, and you don’t destroy others’ happiness in the process.”

  “I made others unhappy when I chose to love Dez.”

  “No, you exposed their own insecurities, their flaws. No one was destroyed when you fell in love with Dez, and there should be no shame you earned his love in return. The idea of his song out there, something so beautiful and intimate, isn’t something to be ashamed of. It’s nothing like what happened with Skeeter. What Skeeter did was ugly—there’s nothing ugly about what you’ve shared with Dez.”

  Eleanor swallowed her tears. “I know, but I panicked.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” Pansy said softly. “In fact, there’s someone with me who wants to tal
k to you.”

  Eleanor’s heart skipped a beat. Had Pansy brought Dez?

  “Mom?”

  Eleanor turned. Blakely stood inside the open doorway, her blond hair blowing back from her face.

  “Blakely,” Eleanor breathed, her hand clutching the stretchy yoga shirt she wore. “Baby, what are you doing here?”

  “Pansy and I had lunch yesterday, and afterward I told her we should come down to see you.”

  “Oh, God,” Eleanor said, looking at Pansy. “Who’s minding the Queen’s Box?”

  “Eddie and Tre,” Pansy said, turning to face the ocean breeze, pointedly—and politely—tuning Eleanor and Blakely out.

  “Mom, can we take a walk?” Blakely asked.

  “Of course.” Eleanor opened the wooden porch gate as Blakely pulled off her boots and socks. Rolling up her jeans, her daughter followed her down the stairs onto the boardwalk. Minutes later they sank their toes into the white sand.

  Blakely reached out and took Eleanor’s hand as they headed west, away from the rising sun. Just like she’d always done when they walked at the beach. Eleanor’s heart lurched and her throat became scratchy. How long had it been since Blakely had sought her touch?

  A long time.

  “I’m surprised to see you,” Eleanor said, lifting her gaze to her daughter’s beautiful face. Blond peach fuzzies curled around her face as her hair whipped behind her. Blakely’s eyes were the same shade as her father’s, crystalline blue with dark rings around the irises. Her stubborn jaw was square and her nose aquiline and slightly haughty. She was a true beauty.

  “I am, too, because I was so mad at you. So embarrassed.”

  Eleanor sighed. “So why are you here?”

  “Well, it’s strange, but after I heard that song, something stuck inside me. Everyone, like, heard the song. All my sorority sisters remembered Dez and then he used your name. They’re not all fluff, you know. They figured it out quick.” Blakely clutched Eleanor’s hand tightly.

  “But strangely the song made me think, like, heavy stuff. And then I went with Grandmother to New York, and every time she mentioned you, she belittled you. I guess I’ve always ignored it, but this time I really listened. It was crazy. Like she wanted to plant thoughts in my head about you. Horrible things about how Daddy should never have married you, and about how stupid you were to date someone like Dez. She said ugly things, and the more she said them, the more pissed I got. And then I started thinking about how you’d lived these past years. All the stuff you did for Daddy, all the stuff you did for me, even tolerating Grandmother because I wanted you to.”