“Mommeeeeee!” yelled a voice from the kitchen. Then, a bullet of blond hair and freckles careened around the corner and crashed into me.
“Hey, baby,” I laughed, burying my face in her hair. She smelled like shampoo and sunshine.
“We made cookies!” she told me, her entire face beaming.
“I can smell that. What kind?”
“My favorite! M & M cookies!”
“Mmm, my favorite, too!”
“I know!” Zoe yelled excitedly. “And Mrs. Hayes’s, too!”
“Hello, Eva,” Mrs. Hayes said warmly as she emerged from the kitchen, a dish towel in her hands. “We’re just finishing up. We even have enough cooled cookies to send some home with you, don’t we Zoe?”
“YEAH!” Zoe yelled. She was clearly pretty keyed up.
“Shhhhh, honey, no yelling in the house.” I smiled at Mrs. Hayes. “How was she today?”
“Oh, fine, fine,” she smiled back. “Maybe just a tad hopped up on sugar, I’m sorry to say.”
I laughed. “Understandable.”
“But it didn’t spoil my dinner!” Zoe yelled.
“Shhh, Zoe!” I said crossly. “That’s enough now. Come on, let’s head on home. Grab your cookies and let’s go.”
I thanked Mrs. Hayes and we walked back down the block, Zoe clutching a Tupperware container with her cookies in it.
I had known Mrs. Hayes since I was practically Zoe’s age. She had been a fixture of this neighborhood for almost forty years, since she and her husband moved here when they were first married. I had grown up in the house I lived in now, which I had more or less inherited from my mom last year when she finally succumbed to the alcoholism and dementia that had ravaged her.
I had come back to my hometown from Seattle to help my sister take care of her when things started getting really bad, and had stayed until the end, when Mom was far enough gone that we had to move her to a care facility. My older sister, Patricia, lived a little over an hour away with her husband and family. She didn’t want Mom’s house, so when we split up what little was left of the estate, we agreed that I would take it as part of my half.
So far, I hadn’t made any decisions yet about whether to stay here or sell the place and move back to Seattle. As much as I missed life in a bigger city, I liked my job and my colleagues here. And I liked the idea of Zoe growing up in an actual neighborhood, with actual kids in it, instead of having to schedule play dates all the time.
Mrs. Hayes had known my mother, of course, and had seen from a distance her slow decline. When things started to get really rough, she reached out to me and offered to babysit Zoe whenever I needed it. The two of them had really hit it off, and Mrs. Hayes had become the grandmother Zoe would never have in my own mom.
Zoe had had a very active day, and she was babbling excitedly about everything she had done at pre-K as I made us dinner. I opened a bottle of white wine, poured myself a glass and let her talk. After dinner, we played checkers. Mrs. Hayes had taught her a few weeks ago, and it was her new favorite game.
Thankfully, Zoe had had such a busy day that by bedtime, she was exhausted. By the time we finished reading her picture book together, her eyes were drooping, and I turned on the nightlight and crept out of the room, knowing that she’d be conked out within minutes.
Back downstairs in the living room, I sank down on the couch and picked up the glass I had left half-drunk on the coffee table. It was warm by now, and I made a face and set it back down after one sip. I clicked on the TV and flipped through the channels with the sound down, but there wasn’t really anything on that looked interesting. Eventually, I just left it on mute and went to the kitchen to refresh my glass.
I stared at the screen without really seeing it as I mindlessly sipped my now-slightly-less warm wine. Without the whirlwind of activity that was my daughter to distract me, my mind went inevitably back to Trig and the events of earlier that day.
The shock and anger I had felt had dissipated somewhat. In their place came a quiet ache of loneliness that I hadn’t felt in a while.
I had been a single mom for almost three years now — ever since I had finally found the strength to leave Zoe’s dad and file for divorce. My recent disastrous date with Dr. Kevin Larkin notwithstanding, I had more or less reconciled myself to being single for the foreseeable future. I just had never had good luck with men.
And most of the time, the idea of it just being me and Zoe was fine. It was a little tough sometimes, being the only parent. But it was also simpler, in a way. The only thing I had to worry about when I was at home was being a mom. Not a lover, not a wife. Just a mom.
But it also required that I more or less ignored the fact that I was also a woman.
After my date with Kevin, I told myself I was actually relieved to have “proof” that dating just wasn’t worth it. All the fantasies about having someone to share my life with were just that — fantasies. The reality was having to expend tons of energy stroking a man’s ego, in exchange for a fleeting compliment, or an hour of sexual relief now and again. I told myself it wasn’t worth it. After all, that was why vibrators had been invented. Most of the sexual satisfaction, with none of the accompanying baggage.
But of course, there was more to it than that.
What I really wanted was companionship. Intimacy. An actual adult to talk to when I got home from work. Was that so much to ask for?
If the date with Kevin had reminded me how elusive such a simple thing was to find, something about seeing Caleb again today just made it feel even worse. But unlike Kevin, who made me want to proclaim my allegiance to the Perpetually Single Girls’ Club, Caleb (Trig, I reminded myself sternly) made me long for the days when I still believed in true love. When I still believed true soul mates were possible.
The sad, sad truth was, even though Caleb Jackson had turned out to be a terrible fraud who had pinpointed all of my deepest insecurities, the afternoon we had spent at the hot springs all those years ago was still one of the most intimate, romantic moments of my life.
God. How pathetic was that?
Princess…
After we rode back to town from the hot springs on Caleb’s motorcycle that day, he dropped me off at my house. I was a couple of hours later than usual getting home, but I wasn’t too worried. Normally by that time of day, my mom was so drunk she was passed out on the couch with the TV blaring. As long as Caleb just dropped me off at the curb, he wouldn’t have to know what awaited me inside.
Unfortunately, luck was not in my favor that day.
I was saying a shy goodbye to him when the screen door slammed behind me. My mom, hair sticking out in all directions and wearing a stained T-shirt and jeans, began screaming at me from the front steps to get into the house. I turned to Caleb in horror to see him taking it all in.
She was so clearly drunk, so clearly out of control that there could be no doubt he must have been absolutely disgusted by her. All I could think to do was to get my mother inside the house as quickly as possible.
I ran up the steps without looking back at him, pausing only to hiss at my mother, “Come inside. God, the whole neighborhood can hear you!” I didn’t stop until I got to my room.
Then I slammed the door, flung myself down on my bed, and scream-cried into my pillow until I was hoarse and exhausted.
But my humiliation wasn’t over yet.
Two days later, on Sunday afternoon, I had the misfortune of running into Debbie Turner, my across-the-street neighbor whose locker was next to mine as well.
Debbie and her family had long looked down their noses at my mother and our family. More than once, I had heard her father saying to another neighbor, just loud enough for me to hear, how our unkempt lawn and peeling paint brought down the property values of the entire neighborhood.
Debbie crossed the street and walked up our drive just as I was leaving the house to go stock up on groceries for the week. I should have known right away that something was up. Most of the time, she ignore
d me as being too far beneath her to talk to.
“I noticed you riding on the back of Caleb’s bike after school on Friday,” she said, a smirk curling her pink-glossed lips.
“So what?” I tossed back. I had been trying as hard as I could not to think about Caleb after what had happened with my mother. I was too afraid to nurse the tiny, tiny kernel of hope inside me that my mother’s outburst wouldn’t change the way he felt about me.
“So, nothing,” she said. She flipped her hair over one shoulder in a practiced gesture I’d seen her do a hundred times. “It’s just that I didn’t want you to think he actually, like, liked you or anything.”
“What do you know about anything?” I challenged.
“Well…” Her expression was smug. “I ran into Caleb at a party last night. At Meredith Singer’s house? And he was telling me about what happened when he drove you back here to drop you off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Suddenly, I thought I might vomit. I should have just gotten into the car without saying another word, but I couldn’t make my body move. I couldn’t make myself leave the conversation before I heard what she had to say.
“He said,” she continued smugly, “that your mom came outside and she was acting all drunk and crazy. You know, like she does?” It was true, Debbie had seen my mother out of control on more than one occasion. Most of the neighborhood had. “And, he said you think you’re some kind of princess, but your mom is trash and you live in a trash house.” She gave me a pout of mocking sympathy. “So, you know, I just didn’t want you to think he liked you. Because he doesn’t. Obviously.”
The blood began to rush in my ears as she flounced away.
In a daze, I fell into the driver’s seat and tried to process what she had said. I knew Debbie had told me all this to hurt me; I was under no illusion about that. But it didn’t matter. I also had no doubt that Caleb had said it. Princess. It was the word he had called me when we were at the hot springs together. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
I didn’t leave my room for the rest of the weekend.
When Monday came, I couldn’t make myself get up and go to school. My mother barely noticed. On Tuesday, I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer, and trudged my way toward the campus, steeling myself for the inevitable moment I would see him again.
Caleb had the gall to act like nothing had happened when he showed up at my locker that morning. It was as though he had never said those horrible things Debbie told me he did. But I knew better. I was through being such a naive little idiot, to think someone like him would ever have been attracted someone like me. I didn’t know why he had gone through all that trouble just to humiliate me, but I didn’t need to know. All I needed to know was that he had done it.
I screamed at him to leave me alone, loudly and crazily enough that anyone around would hear me. All he could do was back away. Even though it was humiliating to have caused such a scene in front of my peers, I didn’t care. All I cared about was that he knew he would never, ever get the opportunity to hurt me again.
After high school, I fled to Seattle, spending the summer impoverished in a closet-sized room I rented in a house close to campus. I worked part-time in an ice-cream shop until school started and I could move into the dorms.
During the years I spent at the University of Washington, I rarely went home except for a week at Christmas break to see my sister and her new fiancé, and to check in on Mom, who was growing increasingly erratic and belligerent. I felt guilty for staying away, but I couldn’t bear being there, either.
Eventually, I met my future husband, David, and we married about a year after I started my first “real” job, as a PT in a private clinic in Seattle.
Things with David were rocky pretty early on in the marriage, and I probably would have left him within the first year, except I got pregnant with Zoe. I kept at it, trying to make it work so that my child would have a father, but it was no use. Not long after she was born, it was obvious that David was completely indifferent to being a father. In fact, he made it clear he resented that he was no longer my main focus.
His verbal abuse, which I had tried to tolerate throughout the short duration of our marriage, became physical one night when he came home from a bar and wanted me to have sex with him. When I told him I was too tired and he was too drunk, he threw me against a wall outside the hallway of the nursery.
As Zoe woke from the noise and began to cry, I realized I couldn’t stay in the marriage any longer. I couldn’t raise my daughter to believe that the way David treated me was the way a man should treat his wife.
A week later, I found myself hiring a lawyer and signing the lease on a small apartment near my work.
I would never have come back to Colorado at all, except for my mother’s declining health. My sister Patricia tried to help, but she had her own husband and children to take care of.
Zoe and I were relatively mobile, I had a job that was in demand, and there was a silver lining in getting away from Seattle and David for a while, so I packed us up and moved us back into my mother’s house.
A few months later, we moved Mom into a treatment facility, where she stayed until her death.
And now, in spite of my vow to never come back to my hometown all those years ago, here I was. Reliving my awkward past in the very house where I had grown up.
Sighing, I flipped off the TV and went to rinse out my now-empty wine glass. I was exhausted from thinking about all of these painful memories. I never would have thought Caleb Jackson could still have the ability to make me feel so vulnerable. But apparently, deep down inside, I was still the awkward girl I once had been where he was concerned.
Ah, well. At least now, Vanessa would be taking over as his PT.
And maybe, just maybe, it was time to think about moving back to Seattle after all. I had been letting inaction make my decisions for me, and lately had been leaning in the direction of staying here in town, but I certainly wasn’t obligated to. I still had plenty of professional contacts in Washington, so getting another job there probably wouldn’t be too much of an issue. I even had a friend who was opening up a PT clinic there, and I was pretty sure she’d be thrilled to have me on board.
Zoe would be crushed to leave Mrs. Hayes and her playmates at pre-K, but I knew kids were resilient. And maybe right now would be a good time to make the move, before she was set to start kindergarten in the fall.
Yawning, I shut off the downstairs lights and trudged up the stairs to bed. I’d think more about it in the morning.
9
Trig
I knew I’d struck a nerve with Eva when I’d called her princess. I wasn’t lying to her when I said it just slipped out. Until that moment, I’d totally forgotten that I’d ever called her that.
But as soon as the word was out of my mouth, the memory of how it had all gone wrong between us came flooding back.
And one look in her stricken eyes told me it had come flooding back to her, too.
I never did figure out why she decided over the course of a single weekend that she hated me. And frankly, she went so ballistic on me that Tuesday in school that I never even got the chance to ask.
After I dropped Eva off at her house that Friday, I rode away feeling a jumble of emotions I barely knew how to sort out. Mostly, I was bursting with elation that she had let me kiss her. The few hours I had just spent with her at the springs and on the back of my bike were some of the happiest I could remember in my life, and I couldn’t wait to see her again. I was dying to know whether the few days apart would make any difference in how she felt about me, and I was already running through different ideas of other places I could take her on my bike.
But mixed in with all that were the troubling feelings I’d taken away after witnessing that scene with her mom. It made me fucking sad as hell for Eva to get that glimpse into what must have been a pretty rough home life.
She hadn’t told me much about her family — only
that she had an older sister in college, and that her dad had divorced her mom a long time ago and wasn’t really around much. I could relate to that. My dad bounced when I was two, and I hadn’t seen him since.
But unlike Eva, my home life was mostly pretty okay. I had two older brothers who were grown and out of the house, but my mom was a rock of stability. She had worked in a vet clinic downtown as their receptionist since I was a little kid, and had always managed to get home from work in time to make us kids a decent home-cooked meal. All in all, I had no complaints.
Riding home from Eva’s house that day, I didn’t know what I was gonna say about her mom the next time I saw her. I didn’t want to bring it up and make her feel embarrassed, but I didn’t want to ignore what I had seen, either, in case she needed someone to talk to. I just couldn’t work out what to do or say to make it better.
I guess I must have been pretty preoccupied about it that whole weekend, because the next day when I showed up at a party I’d been invited to at some chick’s house, a couple people mentioned in passing that I looked kind of serious. My buddy Joe, who avoided ‘talking feelings’ like the plague, even asked me whether anything was wrong.
I brushed them all off, saying it was nothing, and tried to turn my mind to partying.
I was a couple beers and a keg stand into the evening when Debbie Turner came up to me. She was, as always, dressed to attract the eyes and cocks of every guy in the room, in a tight black mini-skirt and a white tank top that showed off her fantastic rack. But tonight she just wasn’t doing much for me. I kept thinking about Eva’s sapphire eyes and her full, luscious mouth as Debbie flashed her wide pink smile at me.
“I saw you riding out of the school parking lot with Eva Van Buren yesterday. Sweet bike, by the way.”
Debbie’s mouth was close to my ear so I could hear her over the music, and her lips grazed my earlobe as she spoke. She could be kind of a bitch, especially to girls, but she had always been pretty nice around me. We’d fooled around a couple of times, and she never got mad when I didn’t call her afterwards.
STONE KINGS MOTORCYCLE CLUB: The Complete Collection Page 41
