by Nancy Moser
As she turned the corner she heard the pulse of familiar music and saw the boys. She turned back to go around the block the other way. She wasn’t in the mood to meet up with—
“Hey, Sim!” It was Moog.
Just keep walking. Pretend you don’t hear.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sim saw Jered jump from the bed of the pickup and walk toward her. There was no escape.
“Hey! Girl! Don’t ignore us.”
Sim stopped walking. “Hi, guys.”
“Hi, nothing. Where you been all day?” Darrell asked.
Sim took a step away. “I’ve been working. At the library.”
Jered coughed once. “What?”
“At the library. I’m helping out Merry.”
Darrell chucked Jered in the gut. “Hey, isn’t that your job?”
By the quick way Jered averted his eyes Sim knew his next words would not be the truth—at least not all of it. “I quit. I didn’t want to work in any library. Where’s the fun in that?”
“Exactly,” Darrell said. “Who wants to be a bookworm like loser-girl here?”
Moog flicked a lock of Sim’s hair. “You got a job, you got money. You owe us for the beer you drank.”
Sim thought of the money in her pocket. She glanced toward the pizza place.
As if Moog read her thoughts, he pointed down the street. “Go order us one, Simmy girl. We’re hungry.”
“But I—”
“Or are you a mooch? Sponging beer, not wanting to pay us back?”
She had the urge to toss the money in their faces and call it even. But she knew these guys wanted more than cash. They wanted an act of loyalty. And though she didn’t want them as friends, she certainly didn’t want them as enemies. She glanced at the library. So much for her idea of sharing pizza with Claire.
But what choice did she have?
Sim stretched out in the back of the pickup. She was glad they’d run out of beer. Her mind was fuzzy, and every time she moved, her eyes dragged her vision a half-beat behind. Besides, if they got any drunker, Jered would sing even louder—and it was loud enough as it was. Actually, his singing was good—but loud. The whole town could hear.
“Hey, Elvis, hold down the ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or you’ll be put in the jailhouse to rot for disturbing the peace.”
Sim laughed at her own joke, until Jered grabbed her pant leg and yanked her so hard her head hit the truck bed. “Don’t make fun of my singing!”
Sim resumed her position, rubbing her head. “I wasn’t. You’re good. It’s just that your singing is awful—”
“Awful?”
Sim was caught in a whirlpool from which there was no escape. “Not awful. Just awful loud.” Ever since she’d told them she worked in the library, Jered had been testy.
Moog laughed. “You are that, Jered.” He belched. “Loud.”
Jered suddenly stood above Sim and pointed down at her. “Nobody, nobody makes fun of my singing. I’m going to be famous someday. And I’ll do anything to get there.”
Darrell snickered, and Jered whipped in his direction. Darrell lifted his hands in surrender. “Hey, Jer, I don’t doubt your talent, I just doubt the odds. Besides, we all know what your dad says.”
“My dad can go to—”
Sim interrupted. She didn’t want Jered to finish the sentence. She’d said such spiteful things about her own parents off and on—and look what happened to them. “What does your dad say?”
Jered sat back and smashed a beer can against his upraised knee. “He wants me to work with him in the restaurant.”
“Yeah, a singing waiter.”
Jered flashed a look, cutting Darrell’s laugh short.
“What do you want?”
At Sim’s question, Jered looked past them, his eyes seeming to focus on something far beyond the here and now. “I want to sing in front of tons of people. Compose. Have people know my name.”
“Hey, rob a bank and they’ll know your name,” Moog said.
Jered’s shoulders heaved. Sim felt sorry for him—and envious. “It must be great knowing what you want to do.”
“I know what I want to do.” Moog belched louder and winked in Sim’s direction. He kissed the air between them.
She ignored him. “I think you should go for it, Jered. If you don’t, you’ll always wonder.”
His eyes lit up and he sat forward. “That’s what I keep telling my dad.” Then he sat back with a huff. “But he won’t listen. He’s so proud of that stupid restaurant, as if a town like Steadfast needs such a place. The food at the diner’s good enough for me.”
“Don’t you have any brothers or sisters?”
“It’s just me and my dad. My mom left us when I was little. Haven’t seen her since.”
“Shouldn’t you leave Steadfast if you want to get famous?”
“Can’t leave without money. And then it takes more money to get a music company to listen to an unknown. Money and connections.”
Connections. Sim thought of her uncle and aunt. They lived next to a guy who was in the music business. Jamison Smith. Sim wasn’t sure exactly what Jamison did, but she’d heard her uncle talk about the guy dealing with gigs and dates and—
Sim opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. She couldn’t hook Jered up with anybody back home. If she did, the neighbor would call her uncle, and they’d find out where she was, and—
Jered kicked Sim’s foot. “What? It looks like you got something to say.”
Sim let out a breath and shook her head. “No, it’s nothing. I wish you luck, that’s all. It’ll happen. You’ll get your chance.”
For a moment, Jered’s eyes cleared, and Sim saw a spark of innocence and hope she hadn’t seen there before. “You think?”
“Yeah, right.” Moog waved his hand in the air. “You’ll get your chance to clear the tables and wash the dishes. Serve people like some peon.”
Jered drilled an empty beer can at him. Then he dove across the truck bed and got in Moog’s face. “Shut up! Shut—”
Sim scooted to the tailgate. “I gotta go.”
Jered put a foot on her hand. “No, you don’t. The fun’s just beginning.”
Sim looked at the storm in Jered’s eyes. The innocence and hope had been replaced by frustration and hate. Sim wanted to look away but couldn’t.
Darrell jumped to the ground. “Jered’s right. Let’s do something. We gotta show our mascot some excitement.”
Sim carefully moved Jered’s foot aside. “Don’t knock yourself out. I really gotta go.”
“There!” Moog pointed. “Old Harold. We can have some fun with him.”
Harold hurried across the street.
Moog finished the last of his beer and tossed the can onto the ground. “We can’t let Harold be a party pooper, can we?”
The boys jumped to the ground. Jered held out a hand for Sim. “Coming?”
“What are you going to do to him?”
“What do you care? He your dad or something?”
“He doesn’t hurt anybody.” He knows Shakespeare and likes licorice. He can read an entire book in one night.
“He hurts my eyes. And that dive he lives in is a disgrace.”
The boys took a few steps away from the truck. They stopped and turned to Sim. “Coming, Simmy girl? Or do you just take advantage of our hospitality and then not want to play our games?”
She jumped down from the truck.
The boys turned the corner, following Harold, hiding behind trees and trash cans like they were on enemy reconnaissance. Sim spotted Harold turning onto a street that was full of empty lots with overgrown weeds and junk cars without any tires. He knew they were there. He looked back and scurried faster, hunched over his sack of groceries. Sim tried to stay hidden.
His sack slipped to the ground. He bent to retrieve it. The boys pounced.
Moog grabbed a can of beans. “Ooh, my favorite.” He hurled it into the street, denting it.
Sim took tw
o steps back, but Moog grabbed the edge of her sleeve and pulled her close. “Don’t go soft on us, Simmy. You’ve got a past lurking behind you out there. I may not know the details, but I feel it. You want to belong in Steadfast, then you do things the Steadfast way. Got it?”
The boys rifled through the sack. Darrell ripped open a box of macaroni and cheese, letting the pasta rain over the toppled Harold. Sim picked up a can of corn. Jered pulled the top off a carton of yogurt, grinning at Harold like some kind of gargoyle.
Harold stumbled toward a house with a screen door that was missing the bottom screen.
The boys let out another volley, the yogurt coating the sidewalk. Then apples flew through the air, hitting Harold, the door, and the porch, some splatting open. He fell on the steps and pulled himself into a fetal position, covering his head.
Sim threw the can into the yard where it did no harm. Darrell noticed. He tossed Sim an apple. “Throw it!” He looked to the others and laughed. “Get a bull’s-eye and win a prize!”
Moog made clucking noises. “Come on, little girl.”
Harold peered out from beneath his arms.
“Throw it!”
Sim tossed it underhand, but it still hit Harold on his back. He winced.
Screaming with laughter, Moog slapped Sim on the shoulder. “Way to go!”
With that, the boys turned and ran away. With a last glance at the cowering man on the steps, Sim followed Moog and his goons, her steps as heavy as her heart.
Sim read Claire’s note. She’d gone out to dinner with Merry. Just as well. She didn’t want to face her. Face anyone.
Sim didn’t line up the chairs to make a bed. She didn’t deserve even that comfort. She moved to Harold’s chair and sat. When she realized she’d curled into the same position as Harold on his front steps, she began to cry.
Ten
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
PROVERBS 13:12
“CLAIRE! HAVE YOU COME BACK to work for me?”
Claire had feared Bailey Manson might give her a hard time when she showed up at his restaurant. “I’m here to dine tonight, Bailey.”
“But if we get busy?”
She smiled. “I’m here to dine tonight.”
“C’est la vie.”
Merry came in the door and Bailey’s face lit up.
“Hey, Claire,” Merry said. “Bailey.”
“You two know each other?”
Merry nodded at him. “Claire’s been spending a lot of time at the library, doing a paper on Michelangelo.”
Bailey’s left eyebrow raised. “A waitress who’s studying Michelangelo?”
“Give her a break, Bailey. Give both of us a break.” Merry glanced into the dining room. “Think you can find us a table?”
He seated them next to a window. “If there’s anything I can get you, let me know.”
It was an innocuous comment, but when Bailey put his hand on Merry’s shoulder and smiled down at her, it took on added meaning.
As soon as he left, Claire studied her companion. “Are you and Bailey dating?”
Merry glanced up from her menu. “Oh, please.”
“He’s interested. Surely you noticed?”
Merry made a turn-the-key motion in front of her lips. “I refuse to talk about men until after the Caesar salad. What happened to small talk? Work talk? Or even a compliment, like, ‘That’s a nice outfit you’re wearing, Merry’?”
Claire glanced at Merry’s attire: a nondescript challis skirt and a blouse that was too big for her, as if she’d lost weight and hadn’t gotten around to buying new clothes. She was a pretty woman, but her hair had no real style and hung straight from a center part. Her makeup was minimal and could be done more effectively to bring out her beauty. Merry Cavanaugh was a perfect candidate for a makeover.
“Uh-oh.” Merry grimaced. “I see judgment in your eyes. I must warn you, I avoid dining with the fashion police.”
Claire kept her thoughts to herself and looked at the menu.
Merry sighed. “Okay. Out with it. Tell me my fashion faux pas so I can drown my embarrassment in some decadent dessert.”
Claire studied her, trying to choose her words carefully. “Have you lost weight?”
Merry turned up the cuff that hung halfway over her hand. “You sound like Blanche. She’s been trying to fatten me up. She brings food over all the time.”
“I’ll leave the food to her. But I’d love to take you shopping. I’m good at shopping.” Or I used to be good at shopping.
“Is it that bad?”
Claire shrugged. “Hey, every diet deserves a celebratory shopping spree.”
Merry kept her eyes on the menu. “The grief diet. I don’t recommend it.”
Claire pulled in a breath. Fool! “Oh, Merry. I didn’t mean to be flip.”
“You weren’t. It wouldn’t be a proper woman-to-woman dinner without talk about our diets.”
Claire wanted to change the subject. She remembered Bailey. “And men?”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“So you are interested in him?”
She shook her head no. “It’s not just him…it’s any man.”
“But if you found someone who’d slow dance to Johnny Mathis you’d give it a shot?”
Merry laughed. “I’ve never heard Johnny Mathis cited as criteria for a relationship.”
“I adore love songs, and Johnny’s written some of the best. Swooners, all of them.”
“You swoon often?”
“Not nearly often enough.”
Merry looked across the restaurant to where Bailey was chatting with some other diners. “I guess I should be flattered by Bailey’s interest, but…” She shrugged.
“it’s too soon?”
“It’s more complicated than that.” She let out a snicker. “Bailey Manson is not my husband. He’s not Lou.”
“Does he have to be? Should he be?”
Merry stared over Claire’s shoulder, as if there were a cheat sheet there. She finally looked back. “Lou was down-to-earth. He was flannel shirts and country music, meatloaf and sitting on lawn chairs watching Justin catch fireflies.”
“That sounds nice.”
“He was nice. Too nice.”
Claire blinked. “You’ll have to explain that one.”
Merry closed her menu. “Have you ever had the most scrumptious piece of apple pie sitting right in front of you, where you could smell the cinnamon and see the ice cream melt over the crust?”
“You’re making me hungry.”
“But have you also eaten that pie so quickly or so distractedly, that you suddenly realize you’ve just taken the last bite and you don’t remember eating it?”
“Too often.”
“That’s what I feel regarding Lou. He was the most delicious piece of homemade apple pie. I should have savored every bite, but I didn’t. I let our life together slip by, and I got so distracted with my own thoughts of dissatisfaction—thinking about eating a slice of cheesecake or a piece of something exotic, like tiramisu, that I didn’t notice what I had in front of me until it was gone—he was gone. It was too late. Now the taste of our life together is something I can’t hold on to, something that with each breath grows a little less distinct, until I find it hard to remember it at all.”
Claire put a hand on Merry’s. “That was quite poetic.”
Merry jerked her hand back, shaking her head. “There’s nothing poetic about being unappreciative and selfish.”
Claire was at a loss. There wasn’t anything in her own life that could compare with Merry’s loss.
Merry looked up, her eyes brimming. “Because I didn’t appreciate my life God took it away. My family died because of me.”
Claire stared at her. “Don’t say—”
“Just because it sounds horrid doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“God wouldn’t take your family away to punish you.”
/>
“Then why did He take them?”
Claire closed her mouth.
Merry nodded. “You don’t have an answer to that one, do you?”
“I…”
It was Merry’s turn to touch Claire’s hand. “I don’t mean to jump on you like this. Your intentions are good. Everybody’s intentions are good. But in seventeen months I’ve yet to come across someone with a satisfactory answer to my why question.” She shrugged and sat back. “That’s because there isn’t an answer.”
There has to be. Doesn’t there?
Merry opened her menu again. “The veal is good.”
Claire had a question but was afraid to ask it. Merry must have sensed her hesitation because without looking up she said, “Go ahead. Ask.”
Claire leaned on her arms. “Maybe Bailey’s your next piece of apple pie. Maybe he’s your second chance.”
Merry glanced in Bailey’s direction. “He’s a hundred miles from apple pie.”
“Then maybe it’s time you try some of that tiramisu.”
Merry shook her head and returned to the menu. “Bailey has his own appreciation problems. He’s too much like me. Too wrapped up in himself.”
“What doesn’t he appreciate?”
“His son.”
“That Jered kid?”
Merry nodded. “Jered’s a good boy at heart, but I see him running around town with the wrong crowd. I’m trying to encourage his music dream, but sometimes I think I’m more determined than he is. Right now I see him being in a boat without a paddle.”
“Music’s a hard dream to have. The odds—”
“Are astronomical. He knows that. And Bailey hounds him about that. Which is why I help.”
“Bailey’s not supportive?”
Merry laughed and leaned close over the table. “Bailey Manson? Supportive of anyone else’s dream? He’s too wrapped up in his own dream of being a high-class restaurateur in small-town America.”
Claire had thought that was kind of strange.
Merry continued. “The point is, he hurts Jered. Repeatedly. Not physically—that I’ve seen—but mentally. Bailey seems intent on breaking his son’s spirit.” She sat back, shaking her head. “And when he does, we’d better stand back.”