Unlikely Friends

by Sahar Abdulaziz

  Now, after working at the restaurant and seeing everything that went into running a successful business, Darren admired York more than ever. The man worked hard—harder than anybody Darren had ever seen. He also took pride in his work, making sure each plated dinner left the kitchen designed to perfection. He individually hand-selected every vegetable or fruit, ensuring the right amount of crispness and color. Darren also marveled at how York, without complaint, got up at the butt-crack of dawn every day to make the two-hour drive to New York to purchase fresh meat and fish. The man was a machine.

  Darren’s route to and from work led him directly past the library. He still needed to speak with Harper alone. Get her to listen to reason, get her on his side. Help him convince her mother to give him another shot. But with the way things stood now, he’d find himself released without a home to go to, and the prospect of sleeping on the street scared him to death.

  Over the past two weeks, desperation had begun to set in. More than once Darren felt tempted to go inside the library in search of Harper, but the one time he got close, the sliding doors opened and revealed the old librarian guy at the front desk, casually chatting with his trio of crazy.

  Darren changed his mind and chickened out. He couldn’t afford to screw up and get into another argument, not now when finally things were going so smooth. Jay had stopped busting his chops, York seemed happy enough with his work, and he finally had a few dollars in his pocket. Not too terrible. Even the counseling keeping him from using again seemed to be working—not that he didn’t want to. Every stress led back to him wanting to, but for now, Darren thought he had the monster contained.

  His walks to and from work gave Darren time to think. He had mixed feelings about Olivia that kept interjecting themselves into his mind uninvited. Many of which he could barely unpack without turning bitter and angry all over again. For all his tough talk, he could not equate his sense of abandonment against the callousness of his actions. Nor was Darren near ready to take responsibility for what decisions he had already made, driving Olivia to bolt in the first place. Ownership of those behaviors required humility, and that emotion still stymied him. Not so with York, who at one point felt compelled to call Darren out on his hypocrisy one night when they were alone after work.

  “Have you decided on what you plan to do after you finish at the halfway house?” York asked while busy prepping vegetables.

  “I plan to go home.” Darren wiped down one of the counters. “Be a family again.”

  “Ah huh.” York nodded and sliced through an onion. “So I take it Olivia’s good with that?”

  Darren pursed his lips and turned his head away. “I don’t care if she is or isn’t.”

  York stopping dicing and shook his head. “Crane, Crane, Crane.”

  “What?”

  “Will you never learn? You’re still playing the tough guy as if you’re in a position to call all the shots. You know what?” York asked sardonically. “You’re hardheaded.”

  Darren shook the rag out over the sink to let the crumbs drop. “I’m not hardheaded. I just don’t have a lot of choices right now, and Olivia’s being a bitch and standing in my way.”

  York stopped, flummoxed. “Not from where I stand.”

  “Oh?” Darren jutted out his chin.

  “Nope. Looks to me like Olivia is leaving you alone. That’s a whole lot different than being a bitch standing in your way. Uh-huh. No, I think what’s got your panties in a twist is that she doesn’t want or need you like she used to. So you’re hurt. Or maybe I should say your ego hurts.” York slid the cuttings into the garbage pail. “I like you, Crane. We go way back, and I consider you a friend, but you know me. I’ll call bullshit when I see it.”

  Darren sneered. “Fair enough,” he agreed, rinsing off his hands in the sink. “But you don’t know her.” Unwilling to meet York’s stare, Darren took his time drying his hands off.

  York put his knife down and wiped off his fingers on his apron and turned. He leaned his massive frame on the counter and crossed his muscular, tatted arms over his chest. “You’re right. I don’t know her. Never laid eyes on the woman, but I sure as shit know you. I’ve known you for years, Crane. I’ve listened to you talk and moan and complain. Shit, I’ve even listened to you cry yourself to sleep when you thought nobody else could hear you. But there’s one thing I never heard you say in all the time I’ve known you. Can you guess what that is?”

  Darren side-eyed him. “Pffh, nope.”

  “I know you can’t, and here’s why.” York leaned over the edge of the table and clutched the counter. “Because you only think of yourself.”

  Shift over, Darren grabbed his coat from his locker. “Yeah, well, we all can’t be you.”

  York clapped his hands. “And there it is. I’ve hit a nerve.” York’s face turned deadly serious. “Deflect all you want, my friend, but you know I’m speaking the truth. You can stand there and tell yourself whatever lies you want to believe, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t make it true.” York marched over to the fridge and pulled out a head of lettuce. “Olivia made it clear to you when you were inside. She’s done, man. Finished. You need to be too.” He slammed the head of lettuce and snapped it in half with his bare hands. “Move on. Close the door and cut your losses before you find yourself knee-deep into something you can’t climb out of.”

  Darren didn’t want to hear it. “I gotta go.”

  York shrugged. He picked up his knife and began slicing again. “I need you here early tomorrow…by ten.”

  Darren zipped up his jacket. “Later.”

  “Mmhm.”

  Darren stomped down the hall and out the door to begin his late-night walk back to the halfway house. Most of the time he enjoyed the time spent alone. The roads were still and fewer people, but not tonight. Tonight, despite the nippy temperatures, people seemed to be out and about. Luckily, York fueled Darren’s irritation enough to keep him toasty warm.

  Who does York think he is lecturing me like that? Because he gave me a job? Shit, last time I checked, employment didn’t grant anybody license to hound a person on their personal life.

  Darren crossed the street, straight past the block he’d turn down if heading to Olivia’s.

  Don’t stop.

  Darren kept walking.

  That guy doesn’t know the first thing about Olivia or our relationship except what I might have told him inside, and even that’s not the whole story.

  Darren thought about York’s comment, that supposed one thing he never heard Darren say, but he couldn’t figure out what the hell he was talking about. But then again, York always spoke in riddles, still basking in his past role as his prison guru. But instead of sitting high up on some throne or mountain, York preferred to pontificate to the disadvantaged from his kitchen, hiding behind a damn apron.

  Darren sucked his teeth. He didn’t appreciate anybody looking down on him, thinking they were smarter or better than him. Much like how Harper’s librarian did the other week; another condescending stuck-up guy who thinks his education and job status entitles him to judge others or interfere in their life.

  He strode past the library’s parking lot, now empty having closed hours earlier. Darren recalled how as a kid, he’d spend time in the library reading. He preferred keeping a distance from the noise of the street and the troublesome pull of his friends. Away from his doped-up mother and her crowd, forever dropping by and stinking up the house with their foul, unclean bodies and drugged-up stench. It had never occurred to Darren before now, but perhaps Harper used the library for the same reason. He wondered if the temptation of drugs also beckoned her to stray and indulge much as they had done with him and Olivia.

  Olivia.

  Damn! I’ve done her wrong so many times.

  Dragged her down into the gutter with him when the bottom fell out. But hadn’t she gone willingly? Didn’t she bear any responsibility for what she did? Harper didn’t seem to think so, but it was a question Darren contemplated
over six, long miserable hard years. It was a question he wished he could ask Olivia—and now Harper—if either one ever decided to talk to him again.

  What was I thinking?

  Showing up at the house the way he did, like some badass.

  Showing off…asserting my way into places I’m not wanted and then losing my temper when I don’t get my way.

  He felt terrible for smashing Olivia’s mother’s vase. Darren felt terrible about a lot of things he did and said.

  Ten more minutes to go, but tonight Darren didn’t linger about or take his time walking back. His body ached. His head pounded. And he felt lonely. He was ripe to slide, desperate to numb the pain away. Get high and forget everything and everyone. To hell with them all.

  Just keep walking.

  He hurried past old haunts. The bar. The alley behind the food mart…past places he used to cop.

  The familiar aroma of alcohol strained this reserve, luring him to succumb. He kept stepping, pounding the pavement. Faster. Faster. Straight past the apartment building where he spent many a night lost in a drug-induced fog, plastered out of his mind. Waking up half the time pissed, pissed on, and pissed off. Worst part, it never stopped him from doing the same thing the next night, and the night after that, and all the nights soon after.

  Darren swiped a bead of sweat from his forehead but made sure to keep his head down and eyes diverted. Inside, his heart raced. The vicious craving cycles his counselor warned him about had arrived, yanking him into a downward spiral. Darren wished he could eliminate the urges, quiet the temptation to go back to using. The cravings were strong. Almost too strong.

  One, two, three, four, he mumbled, counting each step forward. Twenty, thirty, forty…

  He thought about what his counselor had told him.

  “To recover and maintain sobriety won’t be easy, Darren. This process is going to take a conscious effort on your part. It won’t disappear on its own.”

  Think of something. Anything else.

  Darren fixated all his thoughts on the warm bed waiting for him. He concentrated on the goals he wanted to reach. He imagined one day sitting in Olivia’s kitchen enjoying a meal, trading stories with her and Harper. The deflection almost worked until another surge of old sordid memories crept its way in.

  Alcohol. He fondly remembered the tinkling sound of ice hitting against the side of a glass. The cooling sensation of a cold beer coating his parched throat.

  Darren lowered his gaze as he strode past three teenagers hanging out behind the Shop Smart Mart. The sweet aromatic fragrance of marijuana assaulted his shaky senses, feeding into his ever-growing craving.

  He pushed harder. Walked brisker. Anything to thrust the thoughts of escape or numbing out of his head.

  Resist.

  Although dead quiet, Darren checked for oncoming cars before crossing the road.

  Almost there.

  Once across Main Street, he headed straight down the shadowy block.

  Keep going.

  Darren’s struggles were rewarded soon enough when his eyes latched onto the soft glow coming from the front porch at the halfway house. A welcomed respite from a grueling, arduous journey through temptation.

  Relief.

  Fighting the panic, Darren briskly pressed the bell three times. He was about to push it a fourth when someone inside released the lock.

  Darren tugged the door open and practically jumped inside, winded but temporarily safe. He nodded to the guy staffing the front desk and headed straight upstairs to his room, determined to make the haunting particulars of his crumbling life wait for introspection at another time. For tonight, his only plan was to sleep his anxieties away.

  ***

  In the morning, a light knocking on the door awakened a slumbering Darren.

  “Crane?” said the voice. “Crane! Open up.”

  Jay.

  Darren threw his covers off and trudged to the door wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.

  “Yeah?” he said through the closed door.

  “Get dressed and meet me downstairs in ten. We need to talk.”

  “About?” he shouted in reply, but by then, Jay had already left, halfway down the tiled, bland hall.

  What now?

  CHAPTER 15

  Olivia

  Olivia read the document over again until the words bled into her brain. This time, there were no mystical rabbits to pull out of the bag, no quick fixes, barely any options left.

  She stared, transfixed on the court eviction notice. The official document declaring her unworthy of this home. It stated in bold print that she had one week before her hearing, and by the way things stood, she had no legal leg to stand on.

  Truth be told, this latest kick to the gut hadn’t come as a total shock, just a miserable one. Olivia had repeatedly been late with paying the rent, short a few times and remiss once over the past four months. She suspected the stories she told to the landlord, while all true, had worn out the last of his patience, and by the look of these court papers, he was all too ready to kick them to the curb.

  Most places expected at least one month’s rent and one month’s deposit before handing over the keys. With money tighter than ever, it had been impossible for Olivia to save.

  Eyes glazed, she folded and unfolded the letter, while her fried brain tried to figure out what to do, but whatever she decided, she’d have to do it soon. Housing availability in the Poconos for the working poor—a hot topic of debate in the local papers—had expounded on the lack of anything affordable or available in the area. Added to that the pressure of finding a decent place in the same school district so Harper could graduate with her friends next year.

  With less than nineteen days before the sheriff showed up, Olivia had to either convince the landlord to drop the case against her or come up with the extra money to move. Both options looked as unlikely as Olivia letting Darren move back in. Or maybe not. Darren’s income combined with hers…they could afford a way nicer place than this one…and in the same district.

  “Damn it,” Olivia groaned, slamming her fist on the table. “What the heck is wrong with me?” She shook her head, disgusted. “Harper will kill me if I do something that stupid.”

  ***

  “Thanks!” Harper’s chipper voice carried from outside.

  Since the memorial service, Irwin had been giving Harper regular lifts home from the library with Olivia’s blessings, although according to Harper, he insisted she remain seated in the backseat. But Harper said she didn’t mind. Even teased him that he was “Driving Miss Daisy,” but Irwin pretended not to get the reference. Cornelia, on the other hand, explained to Harper in comical detail Irwin’s propensity for decorum. She said that to others, his behavior may appear old-fashioned or even archaic when, in fact, he merely acted out of a strong sense of decency. Harper said she found Irwin’s idiosyncrasies charming.

  Olivia heard Harper open the front door.

  “I’m home,” Harper shouted.

  “In the kitchen,” answered Olivia, pocketing the notice in her sweater pocket.

  Harper raced in to join her, all smiles and carrying a hefty-sized take-out bag. “I come bearing gifts, otherwise known as dinner,” she said, pulling out two large containers of shrimp lo mein and rice. “And before you lose your mind and yell, Irwin insisted.” Harper tugged off her jacket and tossed it on the back of the chair. “I’m starving,” she said as she zoomed past her mother to grab plates and forks. On the return trip, she placed a kiss on the top of her mother’s head before joining her.

  “Smells good,” said Olivia, ignoring the lump growing in her throat.

  Harper reached down into the bag and produced two cans of soda and a small bag containing two shrimp rolls. “One for you and one for me,” she said playfully, doling out the goods. “And one for you and one for me.”

  “This is too much food,” said Olivia.

  “I know. I told him the same thing, but Irwin never listens to me.” Harper bit into
the shrimp roll. “Mmhm,” she moaned. “I love these things.”

  “You should have invited Irwin to eat with us.”

  “I did, but he already ordered food for him and Cornelia.” Harper stuck her finger in the air to indicate her mouth was too full to talk. “Get this. Cornelia made him pick up a container of sweet and sour shrimp for Bones.”

  “For the cat?”

  “Yep.” Harper giggled. “Irwin grumbled and complained, but he did it.”

  “That’s hilarious,” said Olivia, masking her anxiety. Harper looked so happy these days, she didn’t have the heart to crush her daughter’s spirit with a new set of problems that, frankly, weren’t hers to solve.

  “Oh, before I forget.” Harper twisted around and retrieved an envelope out of her jacket pocket. “Here.”

  “For me?” asked Olivia. “From who?”

  “Cornelia.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t she be?”

  “No reason.” Olivia shrugged. She recalled Cornelia’s strange, empty, glazed stare at the store when they were picking stuff up for the memorial, struggling to remember why they were there. Cornelia had snapped out of it quick enough, and at the time, Olivia contributed the odd response to grief. But still…

  “Anyway, Irwin told me to give it to you.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Again, no idea. Believe me, I was itching to read it, but Irwin told me to stop minding your business.” Harper bit into her roll and side-eyed her mother’s. “Are you going to eat yours?”

  Olivia swiped it playfully away. “You bet I am,” she teased, snatching it out of Harper’s reach, but then slid it back. “Kidding. You can have it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Olivia nodded. “Go ahead,” she said, her appetite crushed by the looming bad news currently sequestered to her sweater pocket. Olivia read the note.