by Cora Brent
Cadence dumped a heap of sugar in her lemonade. “Sounds like you two have a history.”
“Yes we do.” I stuck my straw in my mouth so I wouldn’t need to talk.
If I said anything else I would say too much.
Chapter Five
Ryan
Rence Corsica briefly played in the NBA two decades ago. Now he was the kind of lawyer you hired when you were evading the law under an assumed name and had a lot of money that needed to be filtered appropriately.
Actually, not to boast, but I’d played fair to earn every penny to my name. Technically the earnings were accrued under the name Greg Holbrook but all were legitimate real estate ventures. After I landed in Florida and had to start signing my name a different way I was short on career options so I took what I could get. I probably could have fudged a high school diploma and even a college degree but I figured if my life had already gone so wrong before I reached age twenty-one then I had a lot to learn. I enrolled in a class to obtain my GED and then proceeded to community college classes. It turned out I had a head for business and I quickly put that newfound ability to work. A real estate seminar gave me some ideas. With a bit of borrowed cash and the help of my uncle, who put me in touch with Rence Corsica, I started building a house flipping empire, then moved into commercial properties. I still owned more than twenty properties, both residential and commercial, most of them in Dade County, all under Greg Holbrook’s name. Rence was helping sell them off now that I’d returned to being Ryan Jedson but they couldn’t all be dumped on the market at once without raising a few bureaucratic eyebrows.
I thought the reason he was calling me first thing on Monday morning was to give me a basic real estate rundown but that wasn’t it at all. I was in the middle of testing out the new weight equipment I’d just had delivered to one of the many empty rooms in this ridiculous house when Rence’s ring tone blared so I wiped the sweat off my face and took the call.
“I have some news about a particular project you’re interested in,” he said in his booming, vaguely southern baritone. “If you’ve got time.”
“I’ve got time.” I headed for the kitchen and grabbed an energy drink out of the built in commercial grade fridge while I listened to Rence confirm some things I’d already anticipated. Given the privacy laws pertaining to financial institutions I had no idea how he came by this information but I didn’t need to know how. I had no doubt it was all correct.
“I’ve asked you this before,” Rence said. “But I’m going to ask again, and not just for the sake of your uncle, god rest his soul. As your lawyer and your friend I want to make sure I’m looking out for your interests. So are you sure that it’s a good plan to buy up so much space in a zip code where the market keeps sinking?”
He was right to ask that. From an investment point of view, Emblem wasn’t a prime selection. But that had nothing to do with my reasons.
“I’m sure,” I said.
“What are you trying to do, take over the whole town?” Rence asked and he sounded genuinely curious.
“Just certain pieces of it,” I said. “One piece in particular.”
He chuckled. “I won’t pretend to think it’s a great idea but it’s your money, fool.”
“Thanks for calling with the news,” I said.
“You want me to approach the owner myself? See if he’s even willing to sell?”
“Nah, let me. He’ll be willing to sell by the time I talk him into it.”
“I believe you,” Rence said and then he said he had to break up the call because he was expected for a meeting, which may or may not have been true.
The view from the wide living room window was as good as it got in Emblem. From here I could see the haphazard sprawl of the trailer park to the west, the mountains to the east and the roofs of Main Street’s brick buildings to the north. Way in the distance I could barely make out the flat roof of the high school. The prison was nowhere in sight but if I left through the front door, jogged down the hill and turned right then the glimmer of the barbed wire would be unavoidable.
After grabbing a bag of trail mix and pouring a handful into my mouth I stared out at the landscape. The place where I’d grown up, a tidy little trailer on the edge of the Brandeis property, was not visible from here either. I used to wonder why Luanne, who cared so much about fine things and appearances, would agree to plant a humble trailer within view of her stately home. Sure it was parked far behind the main house, straddling the very edge of the property line, but it was still something of a blemish in comparison.
Once I really got to know Luanne I thought I understood the reason a little better. It was a sarcastically noble gesture for her, a way to reinforce the pecking order to her oldest friend. I don’t think Luanne said three sentences to me for the first fifteen years of my life. My mother and I moved into the trailer when I was eight. I knew the Brandeis family of course since my mother and Luanne were still close. Daisy was a willful pain in the ass, Luanne was beautifully bitchy, Eddie was either working or gazing adoringly at his wife.
And then there was Leah.
Small for her age, quiet, a kid who achieved the goal of blending into the background. Having Leah around didn’t bother me though. My mother knew she’d never have a little girl of her own because she’d nearly died giving birth to me so when Luanne’s child began regularly knocking on our door, aching for someone to notice her, my mother was happy to oblige. She’d sit Leah down at our flimsy kitchenette and serve her a homemade snack. After a little while Leah’s worried expression would vanish and she’d start chattering away about some butterfly she’d spotted or the gold star she received on her spelling test. Like I said, she wasn’t a bad kid. And because my mother always begged me to ‘be nice to Leah’ I went a little bit out of my way to indulge her. Besides, it amused me, the hero worship on Leah’s awed face as she straggled after me. Who was I to deprive the poor girl of her idol?
My dad split for good before my sixth birthday and thereafter only sent checks when he felt like it. There wasn’t much to him anyway. He could rarely stay employed for more than a few months at a time and was always gambling away what he did have on some get rich quick scheme that ended badly. And he liked women, especially women who weren’t his wife. He didn’t take much notice of me. But I still had my mom. She worked a lot, maybe too much. And her job at the domestic violence shelter five miles down the road paid a wage that was barely above starvation. Between my dad’s unsettled debts, my mother’s meager salary and the severe lack of decent places to live in Emblem, I knew why my mother accepted Luanne’s offer of the trailer even though my mother hated trailers. She’d grown up in one of Emblem’s trailer parks and had always acutely felt the sting of being a trailer park kid. She didn’t want that for her son. But this opportunity was different. This was a chance to live in a nice neighborhood for very little rent. She probably didn’t expect to remain there for as long as she did but by the time she began talking about moving us somewhere else I’d taken a rebellious turn, dropping out of school and getting involved with both Emblem’s crime scene and Luanne Brandeis.
Neither one of those things made me proud.
My mother wasn’t aware of everything I was up to but she had to know enough to feel anguished that the son she’d raised so carefully and loved so completely was turning out to be a good for nothing loser like the man who fathered him. The last time I ever saw her she was crying. No matter how many years I’ve got left on this earth I’ll never forgive myself for that. I suffer for it every day. But I’m not the only one who deserves to suffer.
I’ve gone over it in my head so many times. One changed step might have made all the difference.
Harry Beckett was a small time dealer. He owed me some cash after I spotted him some herb a month earlier. He was also a garbage person who’d done time for statutory rape. Whenever we ran into each other he had eighteen excuses as to why he didn’t have his hands on the cash yet. He lived in a single wide piece of cra
p parked on a dirt lot on Old Farm Road. I only stopped by that afternoon to persuade him that locating the money he owed me would be a healthy idea. I wasn’t planning to rough him up. At least not all that much. Harry was a softie; soft in the middle, a little soft in the head. One or two shoves would send his sniveling ass scrounging for the cash. But when I go there the aluminum door was hanging open, the top hinge broken, an ugly splatter of blood clearly visible on the dingy white countertop inside. The smart thing to do would have been to back the fuck out of there before I dropped my DNA all over everything but the sound of a painful moan sent me inside to investigate.
Harry no longer looked like himself. His nose was pulp, both eyes were swollen shut and blood leaked from the right corner of his mouth as his rattling breath indicated his injuries were even worse than they looked. Broken ribs most likely, and maybe some internal damage. Harry’s trailer sat on unincorporated land outside town limits and an ambulance would have taken too long. I picked him up as carefully as I could, laid him across my backseat and sped like a demon the whole way to the hospital. I wasn’t the only one Harry owed money to. I heard he’d gotten into a scuffle a few nights earlier with a couple of guys from Grande down at the Cactus. They must have grown tired of waiting for Harry to settle his debts.
A wheelchair was sitting out front at the hospital and Harry was semi-conscious when I deposited him there. Some dude in blue scrubs appeared and barked a series of questions at me but then he took a good look at the mess Harry was in and decided it made more sense to wheel him inside than to stand there and yell.
I remained out front for a minute, long enough to watch the approach of a young Hispanic couple. She was obviously in labor, her hand resting on her distended belly while her pained breathing contorted her face. He kept a loving arm around her waist as he shepherded her to the door. They noticed me in the same instant and the girl recoiled at the sight of the blood on my clothes while the guy kept a cautious eye on me until they’d reached the safety of the Emergency Room.
I should have just gone home to the shitty studio I’d been renting. A man’s blood was literally on my hands and I felt sick. This wasn’t the first time I’d ever seen someone get fucked up the way Harry got fucked up. The sight of blood didn’t usually bother me. But that evening I kept seeing the face of that young woman who was about to push a child into the world, a child who would be the recipient of all the hope and love she had to give. She’d flinched at the sight of me, this dangerous looking man lurking at the hospital entrance. If she gave birth to a son then she would be terrified that he would turn out like me. And if she had a girl then I would be the kind of guy she’d tell her daughter to stay away from. I was a loser, crawling around on the underbelly of a shitty prison town and on my way to nowhere. Usually I avoided thinking about how I’d disappointed my own mother but at that moment, as I stood outside the hospital door, I was deeply ashamed. Twenty years ago my mother had walked out of this very hospital with a newborn son in her arms and all her hopeful dreams in her heart. I’d done nothing to honor her.
My mother wasn’t home. A few times I’d asked her why in the hell she kept living in Luanne’s fucking trailer but she was puzzled by the question. Why shouldn’t she live there, so close to her best friend?
I couldn’t tell her why. But I should have known she wouldn’t be there. Now that I wasn’t around at home anymore she lived for her work at the shelter.
But there was Leah. Sad little Leah, who had once been my shadow but had been left behind a long time ago. She was well into her teens but still looked like a little kid to me. She must have absorbed some of her older sister’s defiance because I could remember Luanne complaining that Leah would rather pull out her own fingernails than cooperate with anyone. And then there was the time she’d hacked off all her hair and sent Luanne into hysterics. I’d seen Leah around town and even when she had friends with her she still seemed like she was alone. Some trashy mean girls were hassling her one day at the Emblem Mart and I almost went to give her a brotherly hug because I knew that would shut those girls up real fast. But she clenched her fists, glared at them and stalked away and I thought good for her for refusing to be provoked.
She lit up when I gave her the St. Christopher medal and for the first time I saw that someday she might be very pretty. Giving it to her had been an impulse. My mother, a devout Catholic, had pressed that thing into my hand on my thirteenth birthday, promising that the patron saint would keep me safe in my travels. Since then I hadn’t traveled much of anywhere. Literally or figuratively. I’d stayed right here and done nothing. Leah had more potential, the chance to do something better with her life. In any case a daughter of Luanne could probably use the help of a few patron saints.
Leah disappeared when her mother came sashaying out of the house. I thought I heard a door slam and assumed she’d run around behind the orchard to enter the house through the back door. I should have made sure.
Luanne was grotesque in her drunken decadence. But she was also still sexy as shit and my head was all fucked up so for a minute I forgot that I fucking despised her. Then I felt her mouth on my dick and the revulsion nearly made me puke on her head. Luanne was angry. I didn’t care. She couldn’t force me back into her bed. And she didn’t have anything to gain by broadcasting our dirty deeds at this point, not when I’d turned my back on her. What did it matter if she decided to get butt hurt because I wouldn’t fuck her? She said ugly things and I snapped back with some ugly words of my own, both knowing and not caring that she would never forgive me for saying them.
Luanne was already back in the house when I heard a noise, a strangled cry, so soft it might have been a small animal fumbling in the brush. But it wasn’t. It was Leah.
When I realized that Leah had seen and heard everything my heart damn near shriveled in my chest. I knew she had a thing for me in her childish way. I would never have wanted to hurt her. Not ever.
I called her name. I told her I was sorry, so fucking sorry. I was. I’d never been sorrier about anything. In that moment it seemed like every misguided step in my miserable life had led me to that low point and when Leah Brandeis said she hated me I knew I deserved it. The kindest thing for me to do was to leave her alone so I did. I drove away and hoped that even if Leah could never forgive or forget what she’d seen that it would somehow make her stronger, more capable of facing the challenges of a cruel world.
There was no way to justify Leah’s next move. She did something motivated by petty jealousy and she destroyed lives. But she was a kid, a kid who’d been confronted by a sight that had probably turned her life upside down. Considering the fact that she was Luanne’s daughter I doubted she’d spent the last six years drowning in guilt for what she’d set in motion. But I’d been wrong before. I might be wrong about her.
So I made up my mind that I’d give her a chance. One chance to look me in the eye and admit what she did. If she didn’t take it then all bets were off. I wouldn’t feel an ounce of shame over messing up her world.
I’d enjoy the ever loving shit out of the process.
Chapter Six
Leah
“You look pretty,” Sharon noted when she stopped by to pick up her paycheck. She sounded surprised, and a little curious.
“Ah, it’s just lip gloss,” I said, now wishing I hadn’t spontaneously applied some makeup before leaving the house this morning.
Sharon still stared at me. “And you curled your hair.”
“A little,” I admitted. I’d dug out the curling wand I hadn’t laid a hand on since I set foot in Emblem. I hadn’t done much, just turned the ends a little so they didn’t hang down in lank curtains but from the look on Sharon’s face you’d think I’d just stepped out for my big reveal on one of those extreme makeover shows.
Sharon offered a kind smile. “It suits you, Leah.”
“Thanks,” I said, resisting the urge to explain that I wasn’t actually makeup averse. When I was up at school I enjoyed looking good
and going out like any other college girl. Since returning to town my life had been dedicated to the bar. There wasn’t much time for lengthy beauty routines and there was no one I cared to impress. I barely glanced in the mirror every day so it’s not like I’d get much out of any effort I put in.
The fact that it never occurred to me to get dolled up for the guy I’d actually been sleeping with might have been worth a little introspection but that wasn’t happening today. Anyway, I’d decided that whatever had been going on with Terry needed to come to an official end. It’s not like we were ever really together in the official sense anyway. We’d never had a single date. I just hoped he wouldn’t quit.
“You have a hot date later?” Sharon asked, with a bit of wistfulness. She and her husband were currently separated while she had sole custody of their five year old daughter. Between parenting and working two jobs she didn’t have time for romance. I made a mental note to give her a comfortable raise if I ever figured out how to inch out from under the Cactus’s many financial woes.
“No such luck.” I handed over her check.
“Terry’s not here?” she asked, still fishing for information.
“No. We’ll be slow so it’s just me and Misty tonight.”
“I’m sure our new girl knows how to smack skulls together if anyone misbehaves,” Sharon said, referring to Misty’s not so distant past as a naked mud wrestling champion. She waved her check in the air. “See you in a few days.”
“Bye, Shar.”
On a typical Tuesday night a handful of the everyday customers would come in and suck back some drinks while complaining to each other about the women in their lives. I hadn’t seen so much as a hint of Ryan Jedson’s shadow since Saturday. His vow to stop by again real soon may or may not have been serious. He’d kept his distance for over a month since his return. Another month might very well go by before he came around again.
