by Merry Farmer
“I hope for your sake Haskell is just like Culpepper that way.”
“I’m told it is,” Hero replied with a shrug.
He said one more goodbye to his dad, shut the car door for him once he was seated, then waved as his parents drove away, heading to the airport. It was a special treat that they would drop their lives on such short notice to come celebrate his wild decision with him. And his mom had gotten along so well with Denise. He’d even seen Destiny chatting with his dad a few times when the unruly teen didn’t think anyone was watching. The whole thing filled him with hope, like maybe they could be a strong, functioning family someday soon.
With a smile for that thought, he thrust his hands into his pockets and started out of the drive and along the road through Culpepper to the high school. Growing up in a big suburb of a major city was so different than the kind of life he saw all around him in Culpepper. He liked how so many of Culpepper’s businesses were right there on the main drag, how they were mom-and-pop stores instead of giant, corporate chains. He liked how everything was within walking distance, if you were willing to go for a small hike. He’d heard that Haskell was bigger, more spread out, with more of a cosmopolitan feel. It was still smaller than his Minneapolis suburb, though, and he was looking forward to moving and starting his new life there.
“I hear that the houses that have been made available for employees of Paradise Space Flight were built in the nineteenth century,” he explained to Denise once he reached the school gym. “They were originally built for married ranch hands working on Paradise Ranch when it was still a real ranch.”
“Interesting.” Denise nodded, then stepped up on the ladder where she was working to hang more crepe streamers and balloons.
The entire gym was being transformed into a wonderland of old Hollywood splendor, complete with black, white, and silver streamers and balloons, string after string of white Christmas lights, and a huge projector screen off to one side of the room that would be showing old movies throughout the dance. A couple of guys worked on a portable crane to hang a disco ball from a beam in the high ceiling, but even though it wasn’t old Hollywood, Hero thought it would look nice. He would have volunteered to help with some of the heavier lifting, setting up banks of party lights or the DJ’s platform, but the actual high school kids seemed to be in charge of that. A group of them, including Destiny, worked just a few yards away, inflating balloons from a rented helium tank.
“The houses have been renovated, of course,” he went on, handing Denise a piece of tape. “They’re still beautiful, from all the pictures I’ve seen. There’s plenty of space for Destiny to have her own room, and we could probably convert one of the downstairs rooms to a bedroom for your mom, if she doesn’t want to deal with all those steps.”
“Oh, she would love that,” Denise said, sending him a smile from the top of the ladder. She had to focus on her work, though she asked for another piece of tape. “She complains about the stairs at our house all the time.”
“We might even be able to build an in-law apartment on the back of the house for her,” Hero went on, falling into daydreams about everything they might be able to do to build and expand. “I’m not sure what the laws are in that part of Haskell, but we could easily find out.”
“I’m so excited about the whole thing.” Denise finished taping her streamers and climbed down the ladder. Hero moved it to the next spot, closer to the balloons and Destiny. “I can’t wait to look for a job at a salon in Haskell, to find some senior programs for mom, to research the school there and to watch Destiny make new friends.”
“I’m supposed to start orientation next week,” Hero said.
“Wait.” Denise narrowed her eyes. “I thought you said orientation was last month.”
Hero laughed. “That was for the company as a whole. Next week is for my team. And then there’s another orientation for the town the week after that. Howard Franklin Haskell IV is really big on orientations, apparently.”
“Oh boy.”
“Anyhow, I don’t know how long it will take you to pack or if you want to put your house on the market, but we could realistically be Haskell residents by the end of next week.”
“What?” Destiny’s sharp shout knocked Hero right out of his happy planning for the near future. He and Denise turned toward her only to find her fuming. “You’re going to make me move all the way to Haskell next week?”
Hero saw his mistake in an instant, but it was too late. “Well, that’s when I have to be at my new job.” He tried to salvage the situation.
“This is so not fair!” Destiny stomped, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Three days ago, we didn’t even know who you were, and now you want to drag me away from my home and my friends?”
“Destiny, it’s not like that.” Denise took a step closer to her daughter.
Destiny held up her hands, jaw clenched. “I hate you! All you ever think about is yourself. You’re just as horrible of a person as everyone always says you are.”
“Destiny,” Hero scolded her. “I appreciate your shock, but you need to show your mom a little more respect.”
“Why should I?” Destiny barked. She was loud, and more and more people working in the gym were noticing the confrontation. Destiny’s friends stared at them with a combination of embarrassment and discomfort. “I’m not going to live with you in Haskell,” Destiny railed on. “This is my home. These are my friends.”
“Honey, Haskell is just a half-hour’s drive from here,” Denise tried to argue. “You’ll still be able to see your friends on the weekends, and once you get your driver’s license, you could even get together after school.”
“Yeah, and our homecoming game this afternoon is versus Haskell High,” one of Destiny’s friends added uncertainly.
Destiny turned to glare at her, but only for a second. “If I’m going to move away from Culpepper with anyone,” she threw at Denise, “then it’s going to be Dad.”
“Phoenix is a lot further away than Haskell,” Hero explained, even though he felt logic wasn’t going to make a dent in the situation.
“I don’t care,” Destiny snapped. “Dad cares about me. He gives me nice things. He told me that I’m a young woman, not a little girl, and that I should be treated like it.”
Hero wasn’t sure he liked the full implication of that statement. Fifteen wasn’t a child, but it was far from adulthood.
“I agree that we need to talk about this,” Denise stepped in. “But this is not the time or the place.”
“Why?” Destiny shifted her weight to one hip, full of attitude. “Are you embarrassed to have people see you treating your daughter like a slave and a child?”
“Destiny,” Denise sighed, rubbing her forehead.
“Do you want to silence me so that people can’t see how rotten you’re being?”
“I don’t think your mother is the one being rotten right now,” Hero said, knowing he shouldn’t.
Sure enough, Destiny sent him a look that could incinerate concrete. “Shut up! You’re not my dad. You don’t have a say in my life. I want my real dad.”
“And where is he?” Denise snapped. Her cheeks were pink and she’d clearly reached the end of her patience. Her question hit its mark too.
Destiny stood so still that Hero worried she would have a stroke as her face grew redder and redder and her eyes narrower and narrower. At last, when the tension in the air was so thick that it could ignite the whole place, Destiny burst into a sob. She turned away from Denise and her friends, covered her face with her hands, and ran out of the room.
“Sweetie, I’m sorry,” Denise called after her, but it was too late.
Hero put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from running after Destiny. “Give her a couple of minutes to cool off. We can talk to her later.”
Denise nodded, turning slowly back to her ladder and streamers. Destiny’s friends kept silent, lips pressed tightly shut, eyes wide. The whole scene had been a mess, but there
was nothing they could do about it now. Hero felt guilty for talking out of turn. Just because he was excited about starting a new life didn’t mean he should go blabbing about it in public.
Luckily for him, theirs wasn’t the only drama unfolding. Not more than fifteen minutes later, two adults who looked to be around his and Denise’s age stormed into the gym.
“The multipurpose room is supposed to be available for all class groups to use for their presentations,” the man—tall, handsome, with blondish hair and a pressed, button-down shirt—argued.
“That room was assigned to the fifteen-year class reunion for our photo display,” the woman—short and cute, with a thick brown braid down her back, also dressed professionally and wearing a beeper—snapped in reply. “I’m sure there are plenty of other rooms for your little Future Builders of Culpepper club to do whatever you want, but not that one.”
“I have a letter from the principal right here saying we all get to use the multipurpose room,” the man fired back. “It’s for the kids. You know, the actual, current students as opposed to alumni?”
“And I have one that says it’s reserved for our reunion.” They stopped, and the woman spun to face him, standing toe-to-toe with him in spite of their height difference.
“Uh oh.” Denise came down from her ladder, where she’d just finished hanging another spray of streamers.
“What?” Hero shifted to stand near her. “Who are they?”
“That’s Tabby Ross. Dr. Tabitha Ross. She’s a local pediatrician and my class’s president,” she explained. “She’s in charge of our reunion. She’s always been super organized.”
“And who’s the guy?”
Denise nodded to the still-arguing couple. “That’s Arch O’Donnell. He was a few classes below us. He’s an architect who just moved back to town. I didn’t know he was mentoring a student group. I know the principal was trying to get people from the community to get involved, though.”
“O’Donnell.” Hero rubbed his chin. “Oh yeah. He was one of the groomsmen at our wedding.”
Denise laughed, pivoting to face him. “You didn’t notice your own groomsmen?”
Hero shrugged, his smile returning after being lost for the past half hour. “It was a crazy day. And I didn’t really know who they were.”
“They were all Elvie’s brothers. Arch is the youngest and the baby of the family.” She shifted to look at Arch and Tabby, who were still going at it. “Everyone had a crush on the O’Donnell brothers, Arch in particular. He was so smart that he skipped a grade.”
“Wow.” Hero took another look at the arguing architect. “And I thought my AP classmates were impressive.”
“You took AP classes?” Denise’s brow flew up, and the argument at the other end of the room was forgotten.
“Yeah,” he admitted with a chuckle. “My parents don’t fall into most of the Asian stereotypes, but they score top marks in the one that says Asian kids should be pushed to excel in their classes, or else.”
“That’s a lot better than I did,” Denise snorted. “I did okay in most things, but I was in remedial—”
She didn’t have a chance to finish. The gym doors burst open, and Wes marched in wearing a faded letter jacket, surrounded by what looked like a posse of faded glory, also known as ex-jocks beginning to go to seed.
“Hey!” Wes shouted. “What are you all doing in here? The football game is about to start.”
A few of the decorations organizers sent Wes and his friends dirty looks and went back to their work. Destiny’s friends shared a few guilty whispers, then quietly shifted away from their balloon station. A few seconds later, they made a dash for the door. Tabby stopped arguing with Arch long enough to sigh as she watched them go. She then marched over to the helium tank and picked up where the kids had left off. Arch grudgingly followed her to help.
“Where’s Destiny?” Hero asked, craning his neck to see if she’d come in behind Wes.
“What do you mean?” Denise asked, but she was looking too.
Wes noticed them staring. He mumbled something to one of his buddies, then sauntered across the room as if he was still the big man on campus.
Denise didn’t wait for him to make some obnoxious opening comment. “What did you do with Destiny?” she asked.
Wes made a face like she was stupid. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Hero drew on every scrap of patience he had not to take Wes down then and there. “She ran out of here earlier and she was upset,” he said.
Wes shrugged. “So?”
“So she went looking for you,” Denise told him.
Wes snorted, adopting a posture like he was too cool for whiney teenage girls. “She didn’t find me. So what?”
“Uh, Wes, weren’t you just asking Shaughnessy about custody law at the party the other night?” one of Wes’s buddies asked.
“Shut up, Stu,” Wes grumbled, then instantly put on a smug smile. “That’s right, I was. And if my little girl is upset, I bet it was you who caused it all. You’re such a crappy mother.”
“I—” Denise’s protest died on her lips and she slumped.
It was clear as day to Hero that she did, in fact, think she was to blame. He wasn’t going to stand for that. He’d made a promise to protect her, and that included from her own self-doubt.
“Destiny is an impressionable teenager,” he told Wes, somehow managing to appear calm and collected, even though he wanted to drop the idiot like a sack of coal. “Teenagers have moods. Anything can set them off. That doesn’t mean Denise caused anything or that she’s a bad mother.”
Thankfully, at least a few of Wes’s friends looked uncomfortable backing Wes up. But not all of them.
“You always were nasty, Denise,” a squat man with a pot-belly and cowboy boots said. “Everybody knows it. I’m surprised they let you have a baby at all.”
“Excuse me,” Hero stepped in, crossing his arms and facing pot-belly down. “Who do you think you are?”
“Joe Lawson.” The man matched his tough-guy stance. “Who are you?”
“Denise’s husband,” Hero replied. “And I don’t like the way you’re talking about my wife.”
Joe Lawson had the good sense to stammer, “I didn’t realize Denise had gotten married.” He backed away, shifting so that some of the other guys blocked him from Hero’s glare.
“She married this freak the day before yesterday,” Wes snorted. “No decent man would have her, so she roped in old Chinky here.”
“Um, that’s offensive,” Stu half-heartedly spoke up again.
Wes ignored him. “It doesn’t matter anyhow, because I am going to take you to court, and I’m going to win.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Hero laughed.
Wes blinked at him, as if noticing that Hero was a real threat for the first time. “It’s none of your business.”
“Actually, it is,” Hero countered. “As Denise’s husband, my income and situation will be taken into account in any custody hearing. Couple that with the fact that Denise has been the sole caregiver for fifteen years…” He ended with a shrug.
“Yeah, well, Destiny wants to come live with me.” He threw his arms wide in a gesture as if that was the best possible argument. “End of story.”
“It’s far from the end of the story,” Hero argued.
Wes started to reply, but was cut off as someone opened the gym doors that faced the football field. A swell of cheering and band music wafted in from the sunny afternoon. It was Wes’s lucky break.
“I’m not standing around here arguing about something stupid with a fat loser and her chinky husband.” He gestured to his posse. “Come on, guys. We’ve got a game to cheer on.”
Wes gave Hero one last, threatening look, sneered at Denise and shook his head, then sauntered back across the gym and out into the crowd waiting to watch the football game.
As soon as he was gone, Hero let out a breath and shook his head. “Some people never get ov
er high school.”
Denise didn’t answer, in spite of his attempt at keeping things light. She only stared at the gym door, her face pale, her eyes wide and glassy.
8
Denise stared at the gym door, at the bright patch of afternoon sun that streamed through as Wes and his buddies made their exit. She swallowed the hard lump that had formed in her throat. Nothing about the encounter they’d just had came as a surprise to her. Not even a little. Of course Wes and his friends would be horrible and immature. Of course others would join in when he started things. It had been that way fifteen years ago and there was no reason why it wouldn’t be that way now.
Except that she had changed. Except that she had graduated from high school and continued on to the school of hard knocks. She didn’t have a fancy college education, but what she had was a mountain of experience from raising a child alone, fighting against odds that had always seemed stacked against her, and changing her life when she knew she couldn’t go on being the rotten, hurting person she’d been all those years ago.
“Are you okay?” Hero asked.
Denise took a breath, not realizing she’d been standing there, still as a statue, for so long. She started to nod and say everything was all right, but stopped herself.
“No.” She savored the word for a second. “No, I am not okay. That was not okay.” She nodded toward the gym door, still open, the sound of the marching band and cheering crowd still there. “Nothing about that was okay.”
“It wasn’t.” Hero agreed with her.
She pulled her eyes away from the door and glanced up at him. He stood by her side, wearing a hopeful smile. It was enough to make her heart turn a somersault. Even in the worst of times, Hero wore a smile. That was exactly what she needed.
“You’re worth a thousand of them,” she told him.
Hero’s brow shot up. “Funny, but I was about to tell you the same thing.” His smile widened and softened, as if she’d given him the green-light to joke. “It’s my job as awesome husband to make sure you know how special you are.” He glanced to the door. “Even if some people are too dense to see it.”
