by Brent, Cora
But I thought about Ryan all the time. I missed him. I was more than ready to see him again. And still I didn’t stop at the bar tonight. That was a moment meant to be private, not shared in front of a crowd.
Earlier today I’d let my father know that I’d be returning. He responded via text that he and Nancy were very pleased and couldn’t wait for me to come home. His tone was far more enthusiastic than I expected, which made me wonder if he’d even written the words or if Nancy had assumed control of his phone.
The lights were all off inside the house. Only the bare porch bulb had been left on, probably by Nancy, who had officially moved in. I couldn’t imagine why any woman would agree to reside in a house that was overpowered by images of a dead wife but perhaps she had plans of her own.
I wasn’t even slightly tempted to enter the house. I went straight to the trailer, which had grown dusty once more in my absence but was preferable to the cringe-worthy energy inside the house. I hauled my suitcase inside with no plans to unpack anything and went straight to bed without experiencing any dreams, or any nightmares.
The knock on my door was early and I expected to see my father on the other side but it was Nancy Albertson.
“Leah, sweetie, I’m sorry I woke you up. I saw your car was here and couldn’t wait any longer.”
“It’s all right.” I rubbed the last traces of sleep out of my eyes and tried not to growl at her bright smile.
“Eddie’s still getting dressed,” she explained. “But we’re so happy you’re home and we’re hoping you’ll come to breakfast this morning.”
Nancy Albertson was not even slightly glamorous. Her thick gray hair was parted in the middle and brushed the tops of her shoulders, her figure could most kindly be described as ‘stout’, and deep lines were etched into skin that appeared leathery from excessive sun time. She had no children, her husband had died a decade ago and she possessed the pleasantly hushed manner of someone used to caring for others. If there was ever an anti-Luanne she probably took the cake.
Anyway, I refused to judge her for her relationship with my father. They were both lonely. They probably both needed each other for different reasons.
“Freshly baked peach cobbler,” she added. “Please come and have a slice. I know Eddie will want to see you.”
I couldn’t envision my father bursting with excitement to see me but I accepted the invitation just the same. “Let me shower and dress real quick and I’ll be right over.”
Eddie was seated at the kitchen table enjoying his slice of cobbler when I walked in. He nodded a hello and forked another mouthful until Nancy prodded him. Then he rose to wrap me in the most awkward hug ever invented.
Nancy did most of the talking while my father quietly devoured his cobbler. She asked me about Daisy and about what I’d seen in California and whether there were really movie stars in every coffee shop, all well meaning but rather forced attempts at conversation.
My father only took an interest when I announced I’d be moving out.
“Why?” he said with obvious irritation. “You don’t have to stay in that trailer, you know. You have a perfectly nice bedroom.”
“I don’t think it’s nice. I hate this house. I can’t stand being here.”
Our eyes met across the table. His included a little bit of sadness, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
“If that’s what you want,” he grumbled and helped himself to another slice of cobbler.
“Where will you be living?” inquired Nancy, trying to make the question sound cheerful.
“My friends Cadence and Tristan offered me a room at their house.” At first I hadn’t been inclined to accept. Cadence and Tristan were in love and had just acquired a place of their own. They didn’t need some sad sack lonely girl hanging out in their spare room. But Cadence wouldn’t allow the idea to die and kept messaging me while I was in California. Finally I agreed, on the condition that I would pay them a fair monthly rent.
Nancy’s peach cobbler was delicious and I appreciated the way she tried to fuss over me even if the overall mood was uncomfortable. I excused myself at the first opportunity and said I had some errands to run.
“Leah…” my dad said and then seemed to forget whatever point he’d wanted to make.
I started to move out of the room. “I’ll see you later, Dad.”
He managed a smile. “I really am glad you came back.”
I nodded at Nancy. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“Anytime,” she said eagerly and I thought maybe the addition of Nancy Albertson to our lives would turn out to be a positive thing. Before I left the kitchen I happened to glance above the door. The Luanne clock was gone.
Nancy caught up with me when I was about ten yards from the house. She carried in her hands a wooden box that looked like a miniature dresser complete with tiny drawers. I suppressed my distaste at the sight of it. Luanne’s jewelry box.
“I started going through your mother’s things,” she said. “Eddie couldn’t bear to do it and I felt like it was time.”
“It’s long past time,” I agreed.
She became anxious. “If you’d like to do it yourself-“
“I wouldn’t.”
Nancy nodded and glanced down at the box before handing it over. “I didn’t want this to get lost or accidentally tossed into a bag destined for Goodwill. You and your sister can decide what you would like to do with the contents.”
I didn’t want the box or anything in it that was tainted by Luanne. But telling Nancy as much would have distressed her so I accepted it and said thank you. I waited until I was in my car to begin peering into the drawers.
The jewelry pieces inside were mostly familiar to me, gifts she’d received over the years from my father, things that were likely out of his price range and partly led him to over-mortgage his business and house in an effort to keep up with her spending habits. In fact, considering the outstanding mortgage on the bar, coupled with current market conditions, Ryan’s purchase offer must have been unduly generous if it left Eddie with so much cash to spare.
I felt nothing as I sorted through the dazzling jewelry. Some of it I’d never seen before. I thought of Police Chief Englewood and wondered if he, along with Luanne’s other lovers, had made a contribution to the box I was now examining.
The day my father had called me with the news that the end was near and she didn’t have long, I was here within hours. Somewhere in my heart was still a crumb of hope that perhaps we had a chance for a moment of reconciliation. Even after everything I still wanted something from her. Not much. Only love. But when I knelt beside the shrunken form in her last hours she only surveyed me with the baleful eye I was so familiar with.
“Why are you here? I asked for Celeste! Go bring me Celeste.”
She’d turned away. She had nothing else to say to me.
I didn’t expect I would want anything I found in these drawers. Later I would call Daisy and ask her what should be done. She’d probably laugh and tell me to sell it all.
The next to last drawer was stuck, difficult to pry open. There was no jewelry inside, only papers. Cards, photos, letters, all of them folded excessively in order to fit into the tiny drawer. The first one I opened was a photo of Luanne and Celeste, taken when they were roughly eleven. They each held a slice of pizza and judging by the background they appeared to be at a child’s birthday party. It was before puberty, before the years would turn one into a cruel beauty and the other into a gentle legend. In the photo they were just two smiling girls. The next thing I pulled out was a birthday card scrawled with the rounded handwriting of a schoolgirl. “To Luanne, the bestest, awesomest friend any girl ever had!” The rest of the drawer’s contents were more of the same, fragments of a vanished lifelong friendship.
I’d long wondered about that final fight between them, what they’d said to one another. Had Luanne admitted what she had done to Celeste’s son? Had my mother tried to convince Ryan’s mother that he was guilty of a l
ist of terrible crimes? Or had Celeste just finally seen through the thin veneer that shielded her best friend’s true nature?
No one would ever know. Such details died with them. I closed that drawer. I opened the next one. I nearly dropped the box when I saw the object within. I’d assumed she’d thrown it away. The fact that she’d kept it nestled right beneath the memorabilia from her best friend was a testament to her degeneracy.
That was the one thing I removed from the box, the one thing I would keep.
I started my car and drove off, completely sure about where I was going. Until I got to Main Street and discovered Ryan’s car parked all alone in the parking lot of the Dirty Cactus. I parked beside it, figuring he had to be inside because I saw no sign of him out here. The sign on the door was turned to CLOSED. It was Sunday after all. I would need to knock because I’d given my key to Ryan. I didn’t have another one.
The tremble of nervous anticipation as I stepped up to the door wasn’t a terrible feeling. I wanted so badly to see him. My knuckles rapped on the glass. I couldn’t see into the dark interior within but I waved, aware that if he was in there he’d be able to see out.
The door was flung open within five seconds and I could tell he’d rushed to get to it. He’d been working with his hands. Dust caked the knees of his jeans and his gray t-shirt was streaked with black smudges. There were at least three days of bearded shadow on his jaw and his black hair that had grown out long enough to reveal its natural wave had the look of being raked through with absent minded fingers. He resembled the Ryan Jedson of yesteryear, when I’d stalked him in the streets of Emblem, my lovesick little heart pounding in my ears.
Kind of like it was pounding now.
“Hi,” I said, a greeting for the ages.
His face split into a grin. “You’re back.”
“I’m back.”
He seized me in a hug and I let him. His hands rubbed my back and I would have enjoyed remaining in his arms right there in the doorway for hours but I was the one to pull away.
Ryan stepped back from the door. “You’re coming in, right?”
Being a visitor here felt strange. I knew from Misty’s texts that the bar was in transition. Last week Ryan had closed the place for three days to deal with some plumbing issues and also to replace the heavily worn floor with a deep, rich wood that added to the country rustic vibe. The shabby old barstools that had been around since before my dad became the owner had been replaced, as had the unsteady tables that might qualify as antiques. Ryan’s choices weren’t flashy or over the top. The wood furniture was obviously good quality yet matched the subdued tone of a local bar that simply aimed to be a comfortable place to hang out for a little while.
“You’ve done a great job so far.” I meant the comment, genuinely grateful as if someone had been taking excellent care of my child.
“Yeah, it’s amazing what you can do with some money,” he answered with a touch of wryness.
I sat down at the bar in the same location I’d chosen to sit the last time I was here, the words from that emotional encounter ringing in my ears. Ryan had asked me to give him a chance. I’d kissed him in reply. ‘I’ll try,’ I’d told him.
“I got in late last night,” I said. “I drove by. It looked busy.”
Ryan stepped behind the bar, meaning I had to swing around on my stool to face him. “Looked like a typical Saturday night, right?”
“Yes, it did.”
He leaned on his elbows. So I did the same. We were separated only by inches. And the past. And the present. And everything we’d ever said and done.
Ryan swallowed, clearly searching for the right words. “I missed you, Leah.”
“I missed you too.”
“Everyone wants you to come back to the bar.”
Despite the many pretty distractions of California I’d thought about little else except him and the way we were together.
“Are you still offering me a job, Ryan Jedson?”
His hand began to crawl toward mine and then stopped before he touched me. “I’m offering you a partnership.” He exhaled. “Do you think we can start over?”
“No, I don’t.”
His shoulders sagged. I reached for his hand. I opened the palm and placed something in the center. “I don’t think we can start over. I think we have to move forward from where we are.”
Ryan stared down, dumbfounded. “Where’d you find this?”
“Nancy Albertson was eager to clear out some of Luanne’s things. She handed me a jewelry box and I found this in there.”
“You should keep it,” he argued. “I gave it to you, remember?”
I held up my wrist, where I kept my own silver medal, the one he’d left on the bar that first night he’d stopped by. “I have my own. Celeste gave you this one. It was meant to keep you safe wherever you traveled, right? You’ve traveled a long way and your road hasn’t been easy. You should have it back again.”
He closed his hand around the tarnished saint’s medal and carefully deposited it in his back pocket. Then he took my hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss while I grappled with the urge to swoon right off my freaking barstool. If he kept making moves like that my defenses were likely to crumble in short order.
“It’s Sunday,” he said. “The bar’s closed. Why don’t you come to my place and we can sit down to a nice dinner and discuss our partnership terms. Among other things.”
His voice was heated and hopeful and the concept of ‘other things’ caused my head to spin. I wanted nothing more.
I turned him down anyway.
“I have another idea. How about instead we take a walk down to the Emblem Mart and snack on crackers with fake bright yellow cheese while ironing out the details of our professional arrangement.”
He was on the verge of objecting so I squeezed his hand, speaking gently.
“Just for now, Ryan. For now. You and me, we jumped right into this high speed bullet train that will wear us both out if we keep riding it. Let’s move more slowly and savor the journey, okay?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t mind getting worn out,” he grumbled. But this was followed by a smile. “By the way, do you have any idea what’s in that fake processed cheese shit?”
“Sodium phosphate combined with crack for the human tongue.” I hopped off the stool. “Come on, boss.”
He walked around the bar. “I already told you I’m not going to be your boss, Leah. That’s not what a partnership means.”
“That’s nice. I’m calling you boss anyway, boss.”
He held the door for me. We wandered slowly down Main Street and kept the conversation casual despite the undercurrent of emotion between us.
We weren’t perfect.
There was no such thing.
There was just us.
Me and him in all our messed up, damaged, marvelous glory.
We were all we needed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ryan
She wouldn’t consider closing the bar on Christmas. She gave the rest of the employees the day off and manned the place herself for the sake of the trickle of regular customers who didn’t have anywhere else to be. When she assumed I would argue she held up a finger and smiled sweetly.
“Silent partner, remember? Or do we have to rehash the terminology again?”
“We do not need to rehash any terminology,” I’d replied, looking at her lips and imagining better uses for them than manufacturing debates. She shot me a prim look, probably guessing where my mind was. Keeping such dirty thoughts to myself was getting tougher every day.
In the five weeks since Leah had returned we’d established a routine. To my everlasting chagrin, our routine did not include seeing her naked. I badly wanted to change that.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, before the Dirty Cactus opened up to customers, we met at the bar to discuss business and whatever other challenges were on the horizon since Leah was also helping with some of the other projects I was j
uggling. On Saturday nights I helped with bartending, not because I was needed but because I enjoyed being here and hassling Leah. On Sundays she had an open invitation to dinner at my place. Then, always right about the time my dick began to urgently remind me that certain compelling needs were not being met, she would announce the time had come for her to go home. So I’d watch her drive away and go jerk off like a madman in the living room. The situation could use some improvement.
When I walked in on Christmas afternoon she was surprised. I hadn’t told her I planned to be here today. Of course I planned to be here. She was at the center of every plan I had.
“Hey you!” She beamed. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.” Last night we’d exchanged gifts. I bought her a new tablet loaded up with a bunch of those romance stories she loved so much. She got me a set of department store dishes, perhaps a message that she was sick of eating off paper plates at my house and required something more permanent. She could have something more permanent anytime she wanted.
There were exactly three people in the Dirty Cactus, including Leah. One was Mr. Goldstein, an ancient fellow who was industriously filling in a crossword puzzle all the way at the end of the bar. He looked as if he’d been in one spot for quite some time but the beer in front of him was scarcely touched. The other Dirty Cactus occupant was a woman in her thirties who sat alone in the corner and nursed some kind of fruity red drink that Leah had whipped up for her. She appeared to be texting someone, scowling all the while.
