Bass-Ackwards: A Wrong-Way Romance

by Eris Adderly

  Today was living room day. Today she’d widen a path from the bedroom to the front door.

  Christina flipped on a beat-up little radio she’d found and set up on her tiny counter space. There would have to be music carrying her along, or she’d never make an inch of headway.

  Boxes and bins stood in towers around the room. Cobwebs sagged from the corners of the ceiling. The air was still and hot, even at nine in the morning, and there was only one Christina Lee Dodd here to dig a way out. Pops had no one else, and it was the right thing to do.

  She went to work.

  Somewhere after a sweaty noon, she was dragging another reinforced trash bag full of nonsense to the dumpster she’d rented out at the street. Worry about rental fees and credit card debt could come later. There was no way she was making a hundred trips to the dump in the Bronco.

  Hair fallen loose from her ponytail stuck to her forehead. Her arms were starting to ache from lifting and pawing through junk. Near the corner where her granddad’s street intersected the next one, a couple kids in their early teens were jumping bikes over a pair of low makeshift ramps while their friends watched and hollered. When a blue truck stopped at the corner and turned, Christina looked away and heaved the bag into the dumpster. She needed zero reminders of Bill right now.

  The sound of tires slowed, though, when it should have rolled past. Stopped in front of the house. An engine cut out.

  She wasn’t going to get a reminder of Bill, because it fucking was Bill. Stepping out of the Ram while she stood there, hands on hips, squinting into the bright sun, at yet another thing showing up to sap her energy.

  “Bill.”

  Hi name was a question, an accusation. Confusion. Here he was in jeans and an Oilers cap that looked older than Christ, stuffing his keys into a front pocket and making his way in her direction.

  “Christina.” He stopped a few feet away, at the walk that ran from the street to the porch and gave her a nod.

  “Um … did you need something?”

  Of all the times. There was just too much weight. Too many things to focus on, without this particular disaster jockeying for position.

  “You, uh …” He cleared his throat. Looked at the open front door of the house. “I’m guessin’ you need help. With this.”

  She wanted to scream at him. She didn’t need his goddamn help. Hadn’t needed anyone’s help this whole time. And every time she got ‘help’ from Bill, it came with a price.

  The rebuke rose up from some deep, angry place, long-ignored and well overdue, ready to scald him hairless, but it died in the back of her throat.

  It was too much. She did need help. Even if it came with angst.

  Christina’s shoulders sagged. She frowned. “I probably do,” she said. “Don’t suppose you brought gloves?”

  He reached behind himself and lifted a pair of work gloves from a back pocket or maybe his waistband.

  “All right,” she said, both resigned and incredulous at once. “I’m warning you, though. It’s not a pretty picture in there.”

  Bill dipped a nod and followed her up to the house. “I been in places like this. Cop, remember?”

  She did remember. Christina remembered every single thing about every encounter she’d had with Bill over the last couple months. In graphic detail. One thing she didn’t remember, though …

  “How’d you know where to find my granddad’s house?”

  “Neighbor of his came in and rented a leaf blower,” he said. “She’s the one who brought up—well. That he was havin’ trouble.”

  Thanks, Carol.

  They passed through the front door and into the hoard. She’d made a dent, but no one else just wandering in would know it. To Bill’s credit, he made no comment about the state of things when he entered the living room. He just stood there, gloves in one fist, eyes sweeping the space. The look was all logistics and no judgment, and Christina knew the smallest measure of relief.

  “Sorry about what happened to him,” he said. “Always comes a point when ‘So-and-So fell’ starts being a lot worse news. When you hear it about older folks.”

  So he even knew about her granddad’s fall. Probably more gossip from Carol. She sighed. “Yeah. He fractured his hip. They just replaced it. I’m trying to get this place in some kind of shape before the hospital releases him.” Christina surveyed the living room. The kitchen. “He’s gonna hit the ceiling that so much stuff is gone when he gets back. I don’t know what else to do. It has to happen. He’s not going to be able to get around.”

  “I get it,” Bill said. “So you got a plan? How you’re tackling this?”

  She did. And she told him, gesturing around the room while he nodded. And there on a day when they should have both been at barbeques and getting drunk, Christina Lee Dodd and her boss—who she was no longer fucking—dug into years of pack-ratting at a rate of at least twice what she’d been going.

  The dumpster got fuller. Shirts got dark under their arms. Christina had to step outside for more than one coughing fit from puffs of disturbed dust. Sometimes Bill hummed along with the radio. Dealt with spiders on her behalf.

  “Hey,” she said, wiping a forearm over her brow. “You want water?”

  Bill righted himself from where he was leaning over a milk crate full of god-knew-what. “Sure.”

  Christina loped outside to the Bronco, where she had a mini-cooler with water bottles. There was no way she had the intestinal fortitude to see what was going on in her granddad’s fridge just yet. Let alone think about storing anything in there.

  She came back and handed him the bottle. Regret followed right after. The sight of his throat moving mirrored the night at his house. When he’d shared that water with her after that time on his couch.

  And now here he was.

  This was work like moving was work. Probably worse. This was the kind of work where all your friends magically happened to be out of town that weekend, when you even mentioned what your plans were, forget asking out loud for help. Sweaty, thankless, exhausting work.

  None of her cousins or aunts and uncles had ever lifted one finger. Hadn’t been up here in years, like there was some void on the map where Ashland, Texas, ought to be and Grandpa Dodd just wasn’t part of their reality.

  Bill was here. Doing it. Asking for nothing.

  Why did every damn thing have to be broken?

  “Bill,” she said, leaning her tailbone against the counter, “I didn’t … feel like you were taking advantage of me.” When those brown eyes met hers, she swallowed. “You didn’t know,” she went on. “And that last time, at your house …” Her hand made some encompassing gesture with the water bottle.

  He shook his head. “It’s, uh …” Tossed his empty bottle into a nearby trash bag, and his brow pinched like his thoughts hurt. “Let’s just … let’s just clean right now. Okay?”

  Christina’s mouth came into a line and she exhaled through her nose. “Okay.”

  It was not okay. But she was too drained to want to enter a struggle. They set back to it, the radio useless now as a distraction.

  By the time Christina decided to call it a day, the sky was purpling past sunset. The living room looked like … well, like a storage unit that someone was probably also trying to live in, but Pops would be able to move around in it. Was the point.

  “Bill, I really appreciate it.” She stood on the front porch, peeling her gloves off. Her fingertips had pruned white inside them. “This woulda taken me … I don’t know how many more nights after work.”

  “It’s all right.” He pulled off his hat and raked fingers through his hat hair. “We got it done.” Then glanced over his shoulder through the door. “Well, a bunch of it done, anyway.”

  “Yeah.” Just so awkward. “Thank you.”

  ‘I, um …” Hands went into his pockets and he eyed his truck. “I should probably get home. Get Daisy fed.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  They were going to have to talk about it at some po
int.

  “All right, well. See you, uh … see you at work tomorrow.” He met her eyes with some mustered smile.

  Just not today.

  “Yeah,” she said. “See you tomorrow, Bill. Thanks. Again.”

  “Yup.” He was already off the porch, down the steps. “Have a good night.”

  Christina just stared at the Ram as the headlights came on. As he pulled away from the house and the truck made its way out of the neighborhood.

  The first of the night’s fireworks were exploding in the sky across town, from the high school stadium. Too far away to account for the boom in her chest, but she was going to blame them, anyway.

  ✪

  A cold, wet nose greeted Christina at the Haul Ash on Wednesday. Daisy’s tail swished in lively arcs as the mutt followed her to the time clock.

  “Brought the dog today, huh?” Casual—she’d decided that morning while in the shower—would be best.

  “She didn’t like the fireworks at all,” said Bill from the front counter stool. His eyes never left the monitor. “Idiot kids in my neighborhood are still settin’ stuff off. Thought I’d bring her in, let her be around people and calm down.”

  “Probably a good idea,” said Christina. She turned and leaned down to scratch Daisy’s back. “Are you a good girl?” The tail wagging turned into whole-ass wagging. “Yes. Yes!” Mouth open and tongue lolling in full dog grin. Why weren’t people this easy?

  Bill stood and grabbed a set of keys from the board on the back wall. When he made for the door to the back half, it swung inward before he could go for the handle.

  “ ‘Scuse me.” Jonah slid past him and headed for the bin of that day’s rental agreements to thumb through the stack.

  “I’ll be out in the shop,” Bill said, and the door fell shut behind him.

  Daisy stared after him for a beat, but when her new human didn’t reappear, she made a couple toenail clicking circles and flopped down at the end of the counter; a hairy endcap.

  “Someone’s in a mood today,” Jonah said.

  “Mm?” Christina shoved her purse under the counter and pulled the stool out to sit.

  “Bill,” said Jonah, extracting what he wanted from the pile of papers. “Been a cranky-ass all morning.”

  Her eyebrows made a wry twist. “That’s called ‘Bill’.”

  “Nah, more than normal. I been keepin’ my head down.” Stapled paperwork in hand, Jonah headed for the front door. “Just a heads up.” The little cowbells clunked after him, a scatter of punctuation that told her nothing.

  Christina logged into the scheduling software and tried with all her might to keep the thought down. Like a rambunctious puppy in a box. The thought that Bill’s mood had something to do with yesterday.

  He had a life, too. All kinds of things could be going on. Not everything had to be about her.

  It nagged, though.

  It nagged and poked while she reviewed the schedule. It skipped around her periphery like a child needing attention while she dug into the call list.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  Shit.

  She’d zoned out while a customer’s phone had been ringing. Hadn’t even noticed when the woman answered. “I’m sorry, hi, this is Christina from Haul Ash Truck and Trailer, calling to confirm the car carrier you were going to pick up tomorrow?”

  After that call, she slipped into the back half for her bottle of water, hoping the cold liquid would somehow wake her up. Pull her head out of this fog of ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs’.

  But water wasn’t going to be enough. Christina could tell, even as she set the bottle to the left of the keyboard and tried to focus on the damn call list again.

  She needed to corner him. Today. She needed him to explain just what the fuck he expected to happen, now. They were supposed to do what? Forget any of it ever went down? Rock on their collective heels and whistle when her paycheck was half again its old size? Act like there wasn’t tension enough for tightrope walkers to be doing cartwheels all up and down the place?

  Christina could work with him being an asshole. That was a known entity. This? Silence? This was impossible.

  When Jonah left for the day, she was ready for the confrontation. The minute Bill came back into the office would be Go time.

  She swiveled on the stool and scrolled through the list, fussing.

  As soon as he came back in here.

  The ac kicked on, muting some of the sounds from outside while she made herself busy.

  Any minute now.

  But ‘now’ turned into the rest of her shift. No Bill. Daisy let out the occasional sleeping dog groan. No more customers came in that afternoon. She could have gone out to the shop on her lunch, but the longer Christina waited, the weirder everything got. Her doubt mountain piled up high.

  Probably making ten times bigger of a deal out of this than it really is.

  The punch of her time card was the click-clack of a seat belt fastening.

  Buckle up, bitch, here we go.

  “C’mon, Daisy.”

  The dog scrabbled to her feet and trotted after Christina through the front door. Out toward the open roll-up door to the shop.

  Bill’s feet were sticking out from beneath a truck.

  “Hey, Bill.”

  “Yeah.” His voice filtered up from under tangles of metal. There was a ratcheting sound and then the clank of some tool on concrete.

  “I’m gonna head out,” she said. “Daisy’s out here, now, with you. So you might want to keep an eye out.”

  “Okay.”

  “I didn’t lock the office,” she said to his boots. “In case you need back in there.”

  “All right.”

  Christina stood there, her purse hanging between her elbow and ribs. Frowning.

  “Bill.”

  “Yeah.”

  Hell, it was like pulling teeth around here. “I need to talk to you.”

  The subtle leg movements from active work went still, and then the creeper he was lying on came rolling out from under the engine bay. Her boss pushed himself up to lean on a filthy palm. Looked at her, waiting. Christina took a breath.

  “We need to sort this shit out, Bill,” she said. “We can’t act like nothing happened.”

  His face was grim. “It is sorted out. You needed the money in the first place, and now I’m not using you to make you get it.”

  “So you were using me?” she said. “Even that last night at your house?” Why was he making this fucking difficult?

  He shoved the fingers of the less-dirty hand back through his hair. Closed his eyes like he had a headache. “Christina … that doesn’t excuse any of it.”

  “So what, Bill?” She made an exasperated gesture with her free hand. “People fuck up. They do weird shit. Stuff that’s wrong. I’m not worried about two months ago. I’m talking about now.”

  Daisy circled around Christina to shove a yellow muzzle in Bill’s face and start licking. He dodged but scratched at the dog’s neck. Sighed with his gaze on the concrete. “I don’t know … I think you’re looking for reasons why any of this is okay. It isn’t.”

  The heat was coming into her face.

  Why? Why?

  “I’m looking for reasons to talk to you,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going on. With us.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” He met her eyes at last, and it was like a slap. “I was an asshole. Everything needed to stop. And now it is. That’s it.”

  And now the sting was in her eyes. She was … she was going to be stupid.

  No.

  “So you get to decide, huh?” Christina’s knuckles were white around the handle of her purse. He was not going to see her break. “Fucking figures.” She turned on her last words—spat like a curse—and strode toward the Bronco.

  There was no getting out of the gravel parking lot fast enough. No avoiding the knot in her throat or the ugly shapes her mouth turned as she refused to give in to a sob. Refuse
d to be fucking weak because of Bill Goddamned Marshall.

  I can’t take it. I can’t do this.

  This whole thing hurt for a reason, and Christina needed to get as far away from that reason as fast as she could.

  Bill was wrong, though, if he thought he was going to decide. She would decide.

  ✪

  Christina was late.

  Way late. Her shift started at nine. It was—Bill glanced at the clock—ten-thirty.

  No call. Nothing. She’d never been this late and not told someone.

  And he was here, holding down the front counter, because neither Jonah nor Travis were scheduled to come in that day.

  You could call her.

  No. That would make it worse, right?

  All he did was make it worse.

  He fought with the inventory software to get the week’s pos ready. Something Christina normally did. She’d do this little ass-wiggle dance on the stool when she was waiting for the reports to generate, and she thought no one was looking. He’d caught her doing it just before he’d handed that documentary back to her. Touched the back of her knuckles. Breathed in her scent while he leaned over her like a lech.

  It had been the right thing to do. Hadn’t it? He’d been in the wrong, and he’d finally called himself on his own bullshit and put a stop to it. There was all this ‘maybe, maybe, maybe’, but people didn’t deserve rewards for being assholes.

  Tires crunched over gravel and his heart thudded in place, but when he looked up from the monitor, it wasn’t her. A customer in a silver Tundra.

  “Hi there,” Bill said when the man pushed through the door. “What can I do for you?”

  The man wanted a truck way bigger than anything the Haul Ash rented, and left frustrated and annoyed, despite Bill giving him the name of a place closer to town he might try.

  “Well ‘fuck you’, too, pal,” he grumbled after the receding pickup. Nobody liked anything he had to say these days, did they?

  Maybe because you’re too busy being worried about what’s ‘right’ than what it is the other person wants.

  He scowled at the computer. Didn’t need any fucking life lessons from grumpy customers right then, thank you very much.