by Reid, Penny
“I’m in—in the backyard,” I yelled, not wanting him to get fed up and leave. It’s finally happening.
Billy twisted at the waist to glance behind him, stiffening when he saw who it was. Whereas I didn’t need to look to know the voice belonged to my father.
Billy’s gaze cut back to mine, his eyes wide but not worried, kinda like he was asking, What do you need me to do?
Shoot. I needed a minute to think, but I didn’t have a minute.
“Jennifer? Who’s that with you?”
“I’m back here, with—uh—Billy Winston,” I called, stuffing my work gloves into my back pocket. My eyes were definitely wide with worry as I whispered, “Follow my lead, I guess.”
He gave me a single nod, seeming to understand without me needing to say anything else, tranquility flawlessly slipping into place as he moved to stand next to me. I marveled at his composure, but then I supposed having all those siblings, Billy often had to play a role and play along at the drop of a hat.
Shaking my hands in front of me, I struggled to pull myself together and remember all the questions needing answers. At the last second, just before my father crested the corner of the house, Billy grabbed one of my hands and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, covering it with a steady palm as though to lend me some of his serenity.
“Daddy,” I said when my father appeared, surprised at how calm I sounded. I thought about saying something else like, It’s good to see you, or, What are you doing here? but swallowed the urge. He probably wouldn’t believe the former, and the latter would make me sound nervous.
“Jennifer.” He gave me a nod, his eyes on Billy as he reached out his hand. “Billy Winston, good to see you.”
Smoothly, Billy transferred my fingers on his elbow into his hand, accepting my father’s shake. “Mr. Sylvester, it’s been a while. How are things?”
“Mighty busy, actually.” He beamed at Billy, looking proud of himself, but also more than a little enamored with the second oldest Winston brother’s presence. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Oh, well.” Billy glanced at me, a small smile playing at his lips. “I like to check on Jennifer.”
“Do you?” The older man’s attention came to me, appraising. “That’s kind of you. I’m sure she’s grateful, aren’t you Jennifer? Tell him how grateful you are.”
Billy’s hand holding mine tensed at my father’s words, and his eyes seemed to narrow a smidge, but the benign smile on his features didn’t budge.
“I’m very grateful,” I said softly, slipping so easily back to that other version of myself, the quiet avoider, the dutiful puppet, the shadow.
My father grinned, beaming approvingly, and my nerves settled and firmed, changing from liquid anxiety to solid steel. And quite suddenly, I was very, very angry.
“That’s my good girl.” He looked between us, seeming to enjoy the view of us standing together, but then abruptly frowned. “Jennifer. What are you wearing? Are those overalls?”
I glanced down while he continued, sounding exasperated. “Come on, baby girl. A man doesn’t drive over special to see a woman like that.” Then to Billy, he sighed, rolling his eyes. “She knows better than to look a mess. Next time, my daughter will be properly attired for your visit. You can count on that.”
A fair amount of Billy’s composure had begun to crumble, his lips pulled back resembling a baring of teeth rather than a smile, and so I tugged on his arm, forcing his eyes to me.
“Thanks again for coming by, Billy. It means so much to me.” I hated the voice I used, it wasn’t me, but it was who my father would trust.
“Anytime. Anything you need.” His words were halting, as though he chose them carefully.
“And yes, I’d love to go out tonight. Shall we say four thirty?”
“Perfect.” He nodded, playing along, but I sensed his reluctance to leave.
“I’ll see you then.” Lifting to my tiptoes, I whispered, “Call me in one hour if you don’t hear from me, and tell Cletus everything,” hiding the action by giving him a kiss on the cheek.
With a terse smile and a terser departing wave for my father, Billy excused himself.
My father watched him go, waited until Billy was out of sight and the sound of his footfalls had ceased, and then stepped close to me, his tone hushed yet bursting, “Well done. I couldn’t have been more surprised when I saw him standing there. Good timing on the split with his brother—is that why? How long have you two been seeing each other?”
I opened my mouth to respond but didn’t get the chance.
“No matter. You did what you had to do, and in the end, it worked out. No one will judge you for upgrading, that’s for certain.” He’d grabbed my upper arm and pulled me toward the back door of the house. “I would’ve come to see you sooner, checked in last week once I heard what happened with your momma at the bakery.” He made a sound that was part laugh, part grunt. “Elena told me to wait, she and that sister of hers wanted to make sure you’d really quit, but I knew better. Between you and me, it’s jealousy. But you’re my daughter, and I’m basically the majority holder in the business, more or less. I should get to decide. And who could blame you? I’m surprised you put up with that woman as long as you did. It’s a testament to your angelic temperament, such a good girl, my daughter. You came to your senses, didn’t you?”
We were now inside, and he’d released me in the kitchen, walking around and inspecting the space.
Without looking at me, he flicked his wrist, a vague movement in my direction. “Make me coffee. Eggs too. I haven’t eaten yet. Three, but just the whites. Well, you know what I like.”
Squelching the instinct to tell him to make his own damn eggs, I painted a pretty smile on my face and did as ordered while everything Cletus had said about revenge—a notion I’d rejected at the time—came vividly into the forefront of my mind.
"Is this about getting revenge? If it were, I promise I would understand.”
When Cletus had asked, I’d said it wasn’t about revenge, and I’d meant it. But now? Right now? This moment? The desire to utterly humiliate my father burned brightly within me, incinerating any and all altruistic intentions. How had I put up with it, with his nastiness, for so long?
“Tell him how grateful you are.”
“Next time, my daughter will be properly attired for your visit.”
“No one will judge you for upgrading.”
“Such a good girl.”
As incredibly demeaning as it was to hear myself discussed in such a way—a way I’d been indoctrinated to all my life and had once accepted as my lot—it was also liberating to feel outrage rather than surrender and dejection.
“You’ll change while I eat.” I heard the scrape of a stool. “There are some people I want you to meet, and we have to be there at noon, though you know them already. Or you know of them, and they certainly know of you.” He chuckled, clearly considering what he’d just said to be supremely funny. “And there will be jealousy, but it is what it is. I can’t let an opportunity like this one pass me by. You still control your social media accounts? Those are yours, right?”
“Yes, Daddy.” I prepped the eggs and poured them into a waiting nonstick pan, no butter, no spray.
“Good. I’ll need the passwords—I’m assuming you changed them? When you quit the bakery?”
“No, Daddy.” I walked to the cabinet and pulled out a mug, filling it to the top with coffee while wishing iocane powder were real.
He made a sound of aggravation, sneering at me as I placed his coffee down in front of him, knowing he liked a spoon even though he didn’t use cream or sugar. “Jennifer, I don’t know why your lack of brains continues to surprise me. Baby girl, you need to change those passwords A-S-A-P. Those accounts belong to me now, and I can’t have that woman thinking she still has any control, got it?”
“What are you going to use the social media accounts for?” I tilted my head to the side, inspecting the thickness of hi
s neck rather than reaching across the countertop and strangling him.
Scanning my face, his screwed up in disgust. “Don’t you have any makeup on? You’re a beautiful girl when you wear makeup.”
“Just a little.” I touched my face. “But I was fixing to work in the yard.”
“None of that anymore. You look awful.”
Turning back to the stove, I folded his plain, egg white omelet. “I can change the passwords, that’s no problem. But why do you need the—”
“Advertising. Everything is online now. It’s the digital age. But you don’t need to worry your pretty head about that. I’ll do everything, and I got a good photographer who’ll take your photos.” He chuckled again, once more thinking whatever he’d just said—or was about to say—was hilarious. “Oh man, I can’t wait to see your momma’s face when she realizes you’re working for me now.”
“What will I be doing?” I served the omelet to him on a warmed plate. He didn’t like his eggs to touch a cold plate. I’d been reprimanded for cold plates on many occasions.
“What you do best: baking and looking pretty. Why? You know how to do anything else?” He snorted and smiled at his own words.
Red filled my peripheral vision as I watched him pick up his fork, cut into the omelet, and grin as it sliced neatly. “My, my. I’ve missed this. You’re going to make Billy Winston a very happy man.”
I wasn’t listening to him. I was busy remembering what Cletus had said two weeks ago.
“And if it’s about revenge, there are so many things we can do to make him suffer. I have ideas, lists of ideas, libraries full of ideas. No need to go undercover in order to ruin his life.”
The words helped me focus and keep hold of my calm, the promise of suffer-inducing, life-ruining ideas, and I—
Wait. Wait a minute.
When had I become so vicious and bloodthirsty? Was this really me? Was this Cletus’s influence? Was this who I wanted to be?
“No one makes an egg white omelet like my baby girl.” My father moaned his approval of the food, but his smile fell again as soon as he looked at me. He lifted the tines of his fork to inches from my face. “Go change and look proper. I can’t have you embarrassing me, now can I?”
I turned, the smile on my face evaporating but the steel in my veins holding strong, and I felt certain of two things:
Yes, this change in me, the ability to contemplate revenge as a course of action, was most certainly Cletus’s influence.
And yes, this vicious, bloodthirsty version of myself was absolutely who I wanted to be.
* * *
My cell rang while I applied the last of my mascara. The unexpected buzz had me jumping half a foot before I realized what made the noise. But then I remembered I’d told Billy to call if he didn’t hear from me within the hour.
I lunged for it, swiping to answer, and pressing it against my ear with shaking fingers. “Billy?”
“It’s Cletus, I’m using Billy’s phone, and he’s right here. He told me what transpired this morning. What is happening now?”
Pressing my fingers to my forehead, I fought the fluttering and flustering and general ruckus of emotions vying for my brain’s attention, including a fair measure of heavy, hot longing. The last time I’d talked to Cletus, he’d made me orgasm with just his sexy voice and his scandalous suggestions. Therefore, speaking with him now aroused a spectrum of complicated and contradictory . . . feelings.
“Jenn? Are you there?”
“I’m here,” I whisper-squeaked, and then blurted, “I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” His voice held both sweetness and grim resolve. “Tell me what’s happening.”
I shuffled backward until I fully entered the bathroom, closing the door behind me and telling myself to focus. “He, my father, wants me to go with him this afternoon, to meet some people.”
“Where?”
“He hasn’t told me. He said he knows you and I split up, he assumes I’m with Billy now, and he heard about the fallout with my momma.” I proceeded to fill him in on the rest of our conversation as best I could remember, leaving out the insulting details and sticking to the facts.
“Wait, do you know what he meant when he said there would be jealousy? Who is jealous?”
“I’m thinking he’s talking about Tricia, maybe? It seems like he’s convinced himself I’ll be baking for the farm stay business, which will give him access to my social media accounts to publicize the whole thing. Maybe Tricia thinks she’ll be baking . . . or something? I don’t know. But I assume I’ll find out more when we go to wherever we’re going this afternoon.”
“I don’t like this,” he said darkly, his frustration obvious. “We don’t have any idea where he’s taking you, it could be hours away.”
“Can you track me? Where I’m going?”
“I can and we are. When Billy imparted the details of this morning’s events, I asked my friend in Chicago to—uh—trace your phone. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not, I don’t mind at all.” I tried to keep one ear pointed toward the door, just in case my father walked into my bedroom, impatient to get going.
“But there’s no time to wire you. I asked him to use the trace to leave a live line open and record everything that’s said through your phone.”
“Wait. Your friend in Chicago—Alex—can tap into my phone and use it as a recording device? Without me knowing?”
“I’m telling you right now. Technically, you do know.”
“But he can do this to anyone? Without them knowing?”
“I can’t say that he doesn’t or does have the ability to not do something such as, but not including, however similar to, should the need arise, and only under duress or not.”
“Cletus.” I rolled my eyes heavenward. “That sentence made no sense.”
“Point is, we’ll be listening the whole time. Keep your phone out if you can, on the counter or a table, say you’re checking the time because you don’t want to miss your date with Billy tonight.”
I scrunched my face. “Billy told you about that?”
“He did, good quick thinking. Gives you a reason to be back in town. And if you need us to come get you, or you feel unsafe at all, you should have a code word, or a phrase.”
“Where will you be?” I thought I heard movement in my bedroom, so I crept toward the bathroom door and pressed my ear to it.
“Wherever he takes you, we’ll be less than a mile away, listening in.”
“We?”
“Billy took the day off work. I did too.”
“Oh.”
“And Beau.”
“What—”
“And Shelly.”
“Who’s at the auto shop?” I whispered, turning my back to the door again.
“We closed it for the day.”
“Cletus—”
“All hands on deck. We have the two Buicks as decoy getaway cars, Shelly in one and Beau in the other.”
“I’m not foreseeing a need for a getaway car. It’s not like we’re dealing with the Wraiths, just my father and a bunch of bakers.”
“‘Bakers’ is one vowel away from being ‘bikers,’ and at least one of these folks you’re meeting today murders chickens, bees, and attempts murder on ladies.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“Discover what you can, then get out of there.”
“I will. And Cletus?”
“Yeah.”
I twisted my fingers in the skirt of my dress. “After this, after this meeting, I’m not undercover anymore. This was foolish and I’m done, I’m so done. I miss you. I’ve been thinking about last night when we—”
He coughed loudly, sounding like an old man with advanced lung disease. I heard someone—not Cletus, maybe Billy—clear their throat and ask, “You okay there, Cletus?”
I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead to the cool tile on the wall. “I’m on speaker, aren’t I?”
“Cor-rect. Let me just—excus
e me, will y’all?”
Something clicked, the faint buzz of background noise I hadn’t noticed until now ended.
Cletus, his voice sounding clearer, said, “You still there?”
“Yes.”
“I took you off speaker.”
“Thank you.”
“They needed to hear the plan and putting you on speaker was most efficient.”
“I understand. I just wanted to say, the ruse is done this afternoon, once the meeting is over. I’m finished fixing other folks’ problems. I’m letting the authorities handle things from now on.”
He said nothing.
I waited.
When his silence persisted, I said, “Cletus?”
“I’m here.”
“Did you hear me?”
“I did.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Jenn. Loveliest, cleverest, gentlest, excellentest Jenn. I know you, I love you—deeply, ceaselessly, greedily—so of course your statement is something I want to hear. However, at the end of the day, it’s you who must confront the insomnia of regret, whatever form or shape that regret takes, whatever the cause.”
“I miss you, and I can’t sleep because I miss you so much.”
“And I miss you— deeply, ceaselessly, greedily—but as Grandmother Oliver used to say, ‘Make choices that allow you to sleep at night.’”
I pressed my forehead to the tile again and sighed. “That’s really good advice.”
“That’s the only kind of advice she gave, good advice. My dearest, I want you with me always, of course.” I heard Cletus inhale, and his voice lowered, softened to its most earnest as he added, “But I also need you to be well rested.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
*Jenn *
We decided on, “Goodness, where has the time gone?” as my emergency come-get-me phrase, and then my father knocked on the outer bedroom door, irritated I’d taken so long.
