“I do not smack people.” To make my point I smacked her on the shoulder, which made her laugh.
“I mean with Uncle Leo . . . you’re more like grown-ups, like my parents.”
“Leo and I have been together for a long time. We’ve already moved past the stage where you’re silly or fun or whatever.”
Logan stopped and looked right at me. “Was Uncle Leo ever fun?”
Was I really having to stand here and defend my fiancé to my niece? “You love Leo. He’s always been so great with you. What is going on here?”
“You haven’t been happy for a long time, Livie. I don’t think I noticed it till I saw you laughing the other day with Elliott. That’s all I’m saying. I think it’d be great if you could be happy again.”
I was taken aback by her comments, or maybe by her perception. I mumbled, “Out of the mouths of babes.”
We walked easily on the path as crickets sang in a wave of rhythm under the trees, low to the ground. I checked my watch, wanting to make sure we turned back toward the car before too long. Finally I said, “Elliott is just a fun person, who happens to have a girlfriend . . . I think. And I’m just someone in need of research assistance, who has a fiancé. That’s it.”
Logan didn’t respond.
We came around a bend and spotted an abandoned house set back from the path. The house had weathered to a uniform gray and the front walk was overgrown in gnarled vines. The rusted metal roof had long since caved in and was leaning at a strange angle into the second floor.
“See Lo? An adventure!”
We walked carefully up the broken front steps, across the rotted boards of the porch, and through what was left of the front door. Most of the windows had been broken and the inside of the house had a blanket of leaves and pine straw that had blown in over time. There were still pieces of furniture here and there, most of it knocked over or ransacked. Logan went over to a sideboard that was still standing against the wall and opened a drawer. She held up a stack of papers. They were old letters.
She put them back where she found them and we walked to the next room. Logan was heading for the stairs but I pulled her back and shook my head. I didn’t think the floor was safe to stand on up there.
We held hands as we walked to the kitchen. The cupboard doors were missing but the contents of the cabinets were there. Plates and bowls, napkins and tablecloths, all stacked in their proper place and covered in dust.
I realized that neither of us had uttered a word since crossing the threshold, the only sounds coming from the creaking floorboards under our feet. The house had an eerie foreboding to it and I felt like we had seen enough. Logan seemed to agree and we made our way back out to the front porch.
Tchck-tchck. Even before I knew for certain what direction the sound had come from, or had fully processed what it was that I was hearing, I was in terror. Sheer terror. Logan and I both froze, our feet planted in the last step they had taken before that unmistakable sound.
Tchck-tchck. I had never heard a shotgun being cocked or loaded or pumped or whatever that was, in real life, but I had seen enough movies to realize it was a bad sound. It was the sound the villain makes to instill fear, to make a point. I turned slowly around toward the direction of the noise with my hands where he could see them. Point taken.
Standing between the path and us was a very old weathered man in greasy blue jeans and a denim work shirt pointing his shotgun in our direction. I felt absurd doing it, but I slowly put my hands up.
“Hi . . . um, my name’s Olivia and my niece and I were just out hiking.” I slowly stepped in front of Logan and pushed her behind me with my foot. I kept smiling at the man but he didn’t make a move to lower the gun.
I kept talking. “I’m sorry is this your house? We uh, we didn’t mean to intrude.” He was still standing there staring at us with a look of complete incomprehension. I was wondering if perhaps he was profoundly deaf. I was wondering how I would explain Logan’s untimely demise to my sister. I was wondering if I was actually going to wet my pants.
Logan peeked out from behind me and in a tiny voice said, “Sir, could you please lower the gun? You’re scaring us.”
He looked at Logan and then propped the gun over his shoulder. He didn’t look menacing anymore, just sort of tired and irritated. I realized I had been holding my breath and blew out the air. The man spit on the ground, a long brown sticky spit, which I assumed was from chewing tobacco.
He motioned to the house with his head. “You’re trespassing.”
I put my arms down, took Logan’s hand, and began to back slowly away from the house. My eyes never left the shotgun. “I’m really sorry. And we didn’t realize we had gotten so far from the road. It seemed completely abandoned.”
Before I could reach the tree line he asked, “You one of Bryant’s people?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I was glad at that moment that I was not, in fact, one of Bryant’s people. “No sir, we were just out walking. We didn’t mean to intrude.” I took a step backward, pulling Logan with me.
The old man walked a few feet closer to us and squinted at me. “Goddamn, you look like a Rutledge.” He spit again, this time narrowly missing my shoe.
Logan was gripping my hand so tightly that my knuckles were aching, but this man seemed to recognize me. He must have known my mother, and if so he was the first person from this town I had run into who had known her. “Did you know Jane Rutledge, or her father Winchester Rutledge?”
The gun moved back into firing position. “Get off my property.”
He didn’t have to ask us twice. Logan and I began to back slowly out of sight from the gun-wielding mountain man. As soon as we reached the path we ran as fast as our legs could manage down the rocky, uneven terrain. I fell twice and Logan ran head-on into a wasp’s nest, getting stung several times on her shoulder. None of this made us stop. We ran until we got back to the car.
Gasping for breath I looked us over as I locked the doors then started the engine. We were both filthy and sweaty with scrapes and scratches from running through the stiff, sharp brambles. My left knee was already bruised and bleeding badly from where I had fallen. Logan’s shoulder was red with welts from the wasp stings.
I asked, “Does it hurt?”
She wiped the dirt from her hands before pulling out one of the stingers. “Yeah, but getting shot probably hurts more. Let’s go.”
NINE
After a recklessly high-speed getaway back to the town of Tillman, and a very long, hot shower, Logan and I went down to the lobby to meet Elliott and Graham for dinner.
Elliott looked us up and down, noticing the scratches on our arms, the bleeding gash on my swollen knee, and the angry red welts on Logan’s shoulder from the stings.
As Graham opened the door leading us to the waiting car, Elliott asked, “What happened to you two?” I went to get in the backseat, with Logan, but Graham beat me to it. I climbed in the front with Elliott.
On the way to dinner Logan gave a hilarious recount of our narrow escape from the mountain. She made that poor man defending his property from two nosy girls sound like the security guard of the Deliverance clan. Elliott was laughing so hard his eyes were watering.
It all seemed very exaggerated now that we were safe and sound and back in civilization. But when I remembered the sound of the shotgun behind me I still shivered.
I said, “I think he recognized me, or I mean I think he recognized my mom in me. I look a lot like her. He must have known her.”
Logan piped up from the backseat. “Yeah, and he clearly didn’t like her.”
We pulled up to something called the Circle J, parked in the crowded parking lot, and Graham and Logan jumped out. Calling this place a roadside shack would be a generous description.
Elliott said, “Hang on.” before I could climb out of the car. He leaned over me, leaving a trail of the scent of soap from his skin, and opened his glove compartment retrieving a first aid kit. He too
k out a piece of gauze and taped it to my bleeding knee.
Graham and Logan walked toward the restaurant leaving us alone in the car. Elliott gently rubbed the edges of the bandage over my knee to make sure it would stay put. I said, “Thanks. I can’t get it to stop bleeding.”
Elliott took his hands off my leg and sat back. “No problem.” He smiled, making the car seem as if it were getting ever so slightly smaller. Then he teased, “It’s pretty nasty. I don’t think I want that thing oozing out while I’m trying to eat dinner.”
I climbed out of the car. “Oh, are you telling me they prepare food in this dive?”
“You better be careful. If anyone hears you talking about the J that way they’ll take out your other knee.”
I followed him into the Circle J, which looked like it had once been a gas station. There were large bay doors that were rolled up and open to the terrace where a patio had been created using potted plants to delineate the edges. The chairs were plastic and so were most of the tables.
The patio was full of families with young children, so we elected to sit inside. This was obviously more of a bar area so Logan and Graham were very happy to be allowed at the adult’s table.
The walls were covered in rusty old road signs and gas station logos. It looked like the kind of place that had slowly and lovingly been built out of garbage over the years. The resulting pastiche was actually pretty charming.
The long bar had three televisions above it all tuned to different baseball games. The floor was covered in a slight layer of sand; I wasn’t sure why.
Elliott said that a visit to Tillman would not be complete without dinner at the Circle J, which supposedly had the best food in town. This was one of those dives that locals always adored. It made one feel terribly authentic to think the “best food in town” was served at an old gas station.
The place was pretty crowded but most of the bodies were at the bar so we didn’t have any trouble finding a table. Elliott seemed to be either related to or good friends with half the patrons in the bar. I was trying to listen for familiar names. I was starting to wonder if I was distantly related to any of them too.
It looked as if Logan and Graham were on a date and that Elliott and I were serving as chaperones, which technically we were I suppose. So it was all legal in my opinion.
We ordered food and then the waitress dropped off a bowl of peanuts. Graham said something that sounded like “bald peanuts.” I went to take one and Elliott snatched the bowl away from me.
“Have you had these before?” Elliott had a mischievous smile on his face.
“Peanuts? Uh, yeah.”
“No, boiled peanuts.” Oh, boiled not bald.
“Why would you boil peanuts?” I asked.
Graham butted in, saying, “Because they’re awesome,” grabbing some from the bowl.
Elliott picked a few peanuts out of the shell, turned to me, and said, “Open up.”
“What? No. You’re not feeding me.”
“You have to trust me. These have to be experienced cold the first time without knowing what you’re in for.”
“Eww. You’re not making it sound very—” he popped it in my mouth. It was cold and wet and salty and mushy. It was, in a word, disgusting. “Good lord! That’s foul. Why would you do that to a peanut?”
I don’t think anyone at the table heard my protestations about the blasphemy that had been done to that poor little nut. They were all laughing at me.
Elliott said, “Those are a Southern tradition.”
“Yeah, like marrying your cousin. Not all traditions are good things.” I washed away the taste with the last of my drink.
A band started playing in the corner. The lead singer was a red-faced, potbellied man wearing a multipocketed, khaki fishing vest. He got about two slurry lines in to some country song when I turned my head slowly toward Elliott, eyebrows raised as if to ask, What’s with the band?
Elliott leaned in to me so he could speak into my ear. “It’s karaoke night.”
“It’s kind of loud.”
He said, “What?”
I just shook my head.
I limped up to the bar for another round and as I waited for the drinks I was surprised to see Graham and Logan take the stage. This seemed so unlike her. For so long she had been the quiet girl in the corner trying desperately to be invisible. I guess when you’re in a place where no one knows you, you’re free to reinvent yourself. She looked so cute up there with her little sunburned cheeks and a smile plastered across her whole face.
Ben, the drummer from the band, came over to our table and sat with us between sets. I was losing track of which ones were Elliott’s cousins and which ones were just old friends. I had never been in a place where so many people were so interconnected.
The drummer stood up to head back to the band and looked around our table. “Which one of you is going next? Eli?”
Logan slapped my back causing me to choke on my drink. She said, “Aunt Livie is next.” I was coughing and shaking my head. Logan looked at Elliott and said, “She won’t shut up in the shower and she practically lost her voice singing on the drive down here.”
I politely declined the offer to sing. “No thanks, Ben. I’ll just watch.” Then I kicked Logan under the table.
Ben let me off the hook and made his way back to the stage, scooping up one of the waitresses on his way. He twirled her toward the microphone, and the crowd broke into rowdy cheers. She was obviously a local favorite.
I used to love to go to places like this, joints out off the highway. When was the last time Leo and I had been to a dive bar? We had to attend so many dinners for his work. And they were usually at some pretentious restaurant. Some new “it” place. Leo had become such a food snob in the last few years.
I tried to think back to the last time I had been someplace that made me feel this comfortable. Not just this bar, but this whole town. I felt like it was my choice that brought me here and there was so much contentment in that. How had that feeling of driving my own life just slipped away? Without a struggle or a fight or even a whimper? It had just vanished.
I was realizing more and more that I was just letting life happen to me. Letting it flow downstream and take me with it. I wasn’t participating in its course correction anymore.
The waitress had a deep, raspy voice and was singing soulfully about the end of an affair, the loss of desire. I missed having desire. Maybe it was because of what Logan had said earlier but I was suddenly very aware of what I didn’t feel about Leo. I was lost. And discovering that my mother’s entire childhood was sitting underwater somehow made everything in my life just feel—shaken.
The whiskey-soaked lyrics that the waitress was belting out were hitting a little too close to home, and I realized I was getting choked up. Dammit, who gets emotional while listening to karaoke? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to settle myself so I didn’t actually start crying like an idiot.
The waitress finished the song, lamenting about the loss of love, the lack of desire, the fading away of any need to keep going. She was singing out the exact thought that had begun to trouble me about Leo. I just hadn’t been able to put my finger on it. Until now.
I had to excuse myself. I needed a minute away from the noise. What was wrong with me? I went outside the door and stood off to the side, gulping in fresh air. The muffled sounds of the band and the bar clatter were drumming in my head.
I really was a mess. Maybe this was some kind of posttraumatic stress thing. I did lose both of my parents in the space of two years. And I had stood in the burned-out remains of my mother’s mysterious childhood one day and been chased down a mountain at gunpoint the next. Maybe that was it. My breath caught as I finally started crying.
I heard someone come up behind me and turned to see Elliott. “Are you escaping?”
I wiped at my eyes, trying to pretend like I wasn’t wiping at my eyes. “Sort of. It was getting a little smoky in there.”
&nbs
p; He noticed that I was crying. “Hey? You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Maybe. I don’t know.” I rubbed my eyes and smiled at him. “That’s not much of an answer.” He stayed silent, waiting for me to continue. “I just—I’m just feeling like everything is a little bit messed up right now.” Then I did that really embarrassing thing where a sob sneaks up on you and chokes out without you knowing it was coming.
“Oh man. You are a mess.” He pulled me into a hug and let me cry on his shoulder.
See, Logan, I thought. He’s just a nice guy. Just a nice guy who’s easy to talk to. One of his arms was wrapped around my shoulders, holding me tightly as my head cradled into his neck; the other was slowly and gently stroking my back.
The part of my brain that handles the reasoning function was scolding me right about now and urging me to pull away. But the more primitive part of my brain coldcocked the reasoning part and I sunk into him a little bit more. Now Elliott smelled like smoke and fried food from being in the bar. I stayed there just a beat too long I think.
I finally pulled back and laughed a little at myself, embarrassed. He wiped my cheek with his thumb and stared down at me. We were standing close, too close, and I surprised myself by not moving back.
Then the door to the bar opened and we jumped away from each other.
I apologized. “God, sorry. I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.” I began to fidget and rub at my eyes.
“I understand.” He ran his hand through his hair.
Out of habit my right hand rubbed at the pale white circle of skin on my left hand where my ring should be.
He asked, “Do you . . . want to talk about it? Tell me anything?”
Then I said something that was probably a mistake. “No. I mean, let’s just . . . not. Not tell each other all of our . . . stuff.” We were just research partners looking for a good story, right?
There was an unspoken understanding. He wouldn’t have to explain the unanswered phone and I wouldn’t have to explain, well, anything. He nodded and said, “Alright then. Let’s get back in there before Graham drinks all our beer.”
Cancel the Wedding Page 9
