The Lonesome Young

by Lucy Connors

  I held my breath, waiting for the rest of it, but thankfully my mother did not share with Pa that my lunch date had been Victoria Whitfield. It was better that way. When he wasn’t looking, she actually winked at me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Tomorrow is the Founders’ Day gig,” I began tentatively.

  “You can forget that, son,” Pa said, pointing a finger at me. He shot a look at my mother. “I guess we’ve decided that you were in the right, defending a girl from a bully, no matter what her last name is, but I’m not about to let you flaunt yourself around the town celebration when you’ve been suspended from school.”

  “Melvin Scott is a wussy little bureaucrat who doesn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground,” Mom said sharply. “He should have given Mickey an award, not suspended him.”

  I looked at the level of wine in the freshly opened bottle and wondered if she’d had a little bit too much. An award?

  “Hey, Mom, I love that you’re sticking up for me like this, but I should have just taken Victoria away from the situation instead of wading in, fists flying,” I said, because even if I would have done the same damn thing if it came up again, she’d raised me better than that.

  Pa, shockingly, was grinning at Mom.

  “You’ve always been a mama wolf about that boy,” he said admiringly. “Remember how you stood up to Anna Mae when she tried to give him a whiskey-soaked rag to teethe on?”

  She shuddered. “That woman. Just because we had to interact for the sake of your children was no reason I was about to let her get her evil clutches on my son.”

  Pa put his hand on hers. “You’re a tough woman, Julia Rhodale.”

  She smiled at him and actually batted her eyelashes. “Don’t you forget it, Jeremiah Rhodale.”

  Okay.

  “This is getting too lovey-dovey for me, so I’ll stack these in the kitchen and do the cleanup after homework,” I told them.

  Pa waved a hand at me. “No worries. Do your work and get an early night. We’ll clean up here. You’ll need your strength to clean out the garage tomorrow.”

  I froze. “The garage? Pa, that’ll take days.”

  He grinned at me, and it was an evil, evil grin. “Yep. I figure the two days of the weekend plus the two days of your suspension ought to do it. Might make you think twice the next time you decide to get in a fistfight at school. Be sure to wear really old clothes. It’s filthy in there.”

  I groaned all the way up the stairs, but then my phone rang and I forgot about tyrannical fathers who used their sons for slave labor. It was Victoria.

  She gave me the bare bones of what had probably been a pretty ugly blowup at her house, so I took my cue from her and didn’t press her on it. Instead, I told her about Pa and the garage, and she told me about Sisyphus and his boulder, and I watched through my window as night fell and the stars came out to the quiet music of her voice.

  Chapter 27

  Victoria

  Gran came downstairs slowly, holding tightly to the handrail. She seemed to have aged dramatically since the uproar with Dad over the firing. I smiled brightly to hide any sign of what I was thinking.

  “You look beautiful,” I told her.

  That much was true, anyway. She wore a lavender suit with brocaded accents of deep purple that was gorgeous with her snow-white hair and blue eyes.

  She smiled at me.

  “There hasn’t been a Founders’ Day party in Whitfield County without Lucinda Whitfield in attendance since I first married your grandfather,” she said, straightening her spine and suddenly looking like the belle of the ball again.

  Dad rushed into the room, muttering.

  “Where is your mother? It’s bad enough you’re not coming, but she has to be late, too,” he snapped at me, looking anywhere but at my bruised and swollen face.

  This morning, nobody had even tried to make me go to school. The ice and arnica gel had helped, but anybody looking could tell I’d taken a punch. Even without the visual evidence, the blistering headache would have kept me home.

  I’d run into my mother at breakfast, when she’d headed straight for the espresso machine before catching sight of me and flinching.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I ran into a door,” I’d said calmly, knowing that Dad wouldn’t have told her about the incident at school and wondering when I’d become such a good liar. Wondering how many lies were in my future. Wondering why the prospect of continuing deception didn’t bother me more than it did.

  The day had dragged by, but now they were all getting ready to go to the big party, leaving me with a study date with Denise to go to—yet another lie—and Melinda in charge of Buddy. Pete would be escorting Gran, and Mrs. Kennedy had gone to her sister’s for the weekend, so Melinda would be alone with Buddy. Which scared me.

  A lot.

  But the liquor cabinet had magically disappeared, and the wine fridge had been emptied out, so though I was still waiting on Dad to sort through the rehab options I’d researched and presented him with, there’d been some progress since the dinner from hell. Not enough, though, for me to feel happy about leaving Buddy with Melinda. She was an alcoholic. She wasn’t going to magically get better without some serious help.

  For about the tenth time, I considered postponing my date with Mickey. For about the eleventh time, I decided against it. We’d been through a lot. We deserved this date. How much trouble could Melinda and Buddy get into with popcorn, sodas, and the Pirates of the Caribbean movie collection?

  “I’m here,” Mom said, appearing at the head of the stairs.

  She looked too glamorous for a county festival; more like she was heading to a cocktail party in the city, but I really couldn’t fault the black sheath dress she wore. It was more the way she wore it than the dress itself. Priscilla Whitfield had a patrician elegance she wore like a second skin, and she somehow always managed to outshine everyone around her.

  I had the uncomfortable epiphany that maybe that’s why her two daughters always tried to escape the pressure of living up to the Whitfield image—me through worrying more about being smart than pretty, and Melinda through partying. We’d grown up with a mother who was coldly perfect; we could have looked to her as either a role model or a terrible warning—and we’d both seen her as the warning. Melinda wanted to escape everything, especially her own emotions. I worried again that maybe this wasn’t the best time to leave her alone with Buddy, but he was nine, not four, and pretty self-sufficient these days.

  “Victoria, you look hideous,” Mom said sharply.

  “Gee, thanks. It’s so great to always have you on my side.” I rolled my eyes, but she was kind of right. I’d spent the day in sweats, my hair was a mess, and I wasn’t wearing any makeup. That plus the bruising, and I probably looked like an escapee from juvenile detention to my fashion-conscious mother.

  “Who cares what she looks like? She’s going to study with a girlfriend. They’ll probably paint each other’s nails and eat junk food,” Gran said, grinning conspiratorially at me.

  I felt a pang of guilt for lying to her. She was the one person who always told me the truth. I didn’t want to hurt her, though, or involve her in my plotting. She’d just get caught in the middle later or—almost as bad—feel compelled to say something to my parents.

  Pete showed up to escort Gran, Mom and Dad followed them out, and I watched the two cars head down the driveway before I allowed myself to believe they were really gone. For the first time all day I felt like smiling. I ran up the stairs to my room and headed straight for the shower.

  • • •

  My door banged open, and Melinda walked in, her face set in stormy lines.

  “I can’t do this,” she said. “I’m flying apart, Victoria, I can’t do this.”

  I took a deep breath and put the mascara wand down so I didn’t stab myself in th
e eye with it—or turn around and stab Melinda. My patience with her had been running thin, which made me feel even guiltier. I knew she was going through a lot, but sometimes I wished that, just once, she’d wake up and realize that other people had problems, too.

  “I want to go to the party,” Melinda said, her eyes darting around the room. “I need to get out of here, Victoria. Are you sure you have to go out? Maybe you could stay here with us.”

  “I really need to go. It’ll just be for a few hours,” I said, closing my eyes and sending up a little prayer that she wouldn’t have a meltdown. Not tonight.

  Please.

  She drifted over to my bed and picked up the green dress I’d been planning to wear.

  “You’re wearing this to a study date with Denise?” She stared from the dress to me and back. “Does Denise have a hot brother I don’t know about?”

  “No, of course not. I thought if I wore something pretty, I wouldn’t feel so hideous with my face like this,” I said, which was actually the truth. Mickey had seen me yesterday, if not quite as black and blue, but this was our first real date. I might not be as image-conscious as my mother, but I certainly had enough feminine vanity that I wanted to look pretty.

  I wanted to see admiration in his eyes instead of pity.

  Melinda forgot her pouting and rushed over to me. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Of course you do. Sit down and I’ll do your makeup.”

  “Melinda—” More guilt washed over me—this time for thinking she was entirely self-absorbed—and I realized I’d been spending an awful lot of my time feeling guilty lately.

  Maybe I wasn’t cut out for a life of crime, or even deceit. Maybe this was a bad idea.

  She took the mascara wand and swirled it around in the tube. “Sit. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  I sat.

  “Just remember that moderate is key with me, please? Last time you did my makeup you made me look like Cleopatra-gone-wild.”

  We cracked up at the memory, and it was the closest moment to normal that we’d had between us in a while.

  “I love you,” she said unexpectedly, and I had to blink back tears.

  “Stop that, you’ll mess up the makeup I’m getting ready to put on you,” she said, laughing. “We can’t have Cleopatra with raccoon eyes.”

  When she was done, I was beautiful. I almost couldn’t believe it. Not only had the bruising disappeared, but the swelling was camouflaged, and she’d used some trick of eye shadow magic to make my eyes look huge and almost exotic.

  It was so not me, and yet it was—it was the me I’d like to be.

  A girl beautiful enough to belong inside a fairy tale, instead of on the outside looking in. I’d always secretly thought that if all those stories had been real, I would have been cast as the supporting player—the girl who came in later and fixed things. Somebody would have had to hire a new cleaning staff after Cinderella headed for the castle, find a gardening book to figure out what to do with the beanstalk, and organize new housing for all those dwarfs.

  Practical, smart Victoria would have stepped in and saved the day; she would have been quite happy to get a glimpse of the handsome prince from afar, thank you very much. Handsome princes were way more trouble than they were worth.

  But now there was Mickey. He was larger than life—he’d never have been content to take on a supporting role in any story. He wasn’t Prince Charming, though.

  He was Prince Dangerous.

  I shook my head, smiling at my own silliness, and Melinda grinned at me.

  “Now I’ll do your hair.”

  By the time she was done with me, I looked amazing, and I held my breath, almost unable to believe the version of me I was seeing in the mirror. The dress looked better on me than it ever had before, and I slipped on a pair of ballet flats, glad that I’d hidden my heels in my bag earlier.

  Melinda would believe a lot of things, but that I’d wear high heels when I had any chance to avoid it was not one of them.

  By the time I’d dressed, pulled on a nondescript cardigan to tone down the effect a little, at least until I got out of the house, and stuffed my cover-story books in my bag, she was flaking out on me again.

  “Victoria. Vivi,” she began, using the name she hadn’t called me since I was maybe in first grade. Mother didn’t approve of nicknames.

  “What is it, Melinda? I told Denise I’d be there by eight, and I still want to stop and buy some snacks to bring with me,” I said, glancing at the clock and feeling my stomach twist. More lies.

  Mickey would be waiting for me in the side parking lot at the school in approximately thirty-three minutes. A thrill of anticipation winged through me, but I was careful not to let it show. Nobody in the history of the world had ever been this excited about a study date. Even Melinda would figure that out, eventually.

  “I just don’t feel . . . right,” she said softly. “I wish you could call this off and stay here with me tonight. With us. My insides are churning, and I—”

  I seized on that. “Of course they are! You haven’t had anything to eat since lunch. Mom said to order pizza. Do you remember the phone number? It’s on the list on the fridge.”

  “I don’t think it’s hunger,” she said, twisting her hands. “It’s just—”

  I whirled around and put my hands on my hips. “It’s just what? Please tell me, so tonight can be about you, just like every other night, Melinda. I’ve only lived here a short while, and already everybody hates me. I’m not going to stand up the one friend I’ve made because your hunger pangs are making you anxious.”

  When her face started to crumple, I immediately regretted every word. I was the worst sister in the world.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and I hugged her.

  “No, honey, I’m so sorry. I think I’m hungry, too, and low blood sugar is making me cranky.” I dropped my bag, feeling my hopes for the evening hit the floor with it, and tried to smile.

  I couldn’t quite manage it.

  “If you really feel like you need me to be here, I’ll stay. Give me a few minutes to call Denise.”

  Melinda blinked away the tears and raised her head. “No. Of course you shouldn’t do that. We’ll be fine. We have pizza, popcorn, and pirates. It’s going to be great.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, and I decided to take her at her word. I hugged her again, afraid to stay any longer in case she changed her mind. I called out a good-bye to Buddy and hit the stairs running. It almost felt like I should have a carriage, or at least a convertible, but I’d have to make do with the old farm truck I’d been driving.

  I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Fifteen minutes. I kept my lips clamped shut, almost superstitious, until I’d pulled out onto the main road, but then I couldn’t keep it in anymore.

  “Yes!”

  There may even have been happy seat dancing involved.

  Chapter 28

  Mickey

  I’d had to scrub beneath my fingernails three times to get all of the grime that had built up in there during ten solid hours of cleaning out the garage. We were either going to have a yard sale or I was taking a truckload to the dump, because there was no way I’d hauled all of that crap out of there only to turn around and put it back. Broken equipment and tools, rusty parts, half-used bags of lawn fertilizer and potting soil—it was a nightmare, and I’d only made it through about a quarter of the job, so Pa hadn’t been kidding about the four days.

  Damn it.

  I grabbed a shirt out of the closet and did a smell check to be sure it was clean—usually, the ones on hangers were—and threw on a newish pair of jeans and my boots. I’d heard my folks heading out for the party just before I got in the shower, so nobody was around to wonder why I was getting all dressed up. Usually I’d be wearing one of the dozens of free T-shirts vendors left us at the gas station
and my oldest jeans to kick back on a Friday night, but I didn’t think a motor oil shirt would impress Victoria.

  I froze, suddenly realizing I’d been about to comb my hair. I was trying to impress Victoria. I dropped the comb and watched as it seemed to fall to the floor in slow motion.

  I was out of my league with this girl. League, hell. I was out of my fucking mind. Any day now, she was going to wake up and realize that she could do a hell of a lot better than me. Her folks probably had a bunch of rich horse-people friends with sons named Biff and Chad and what-the-hell-ever who’d make a lot more sense for her. Guys without the baggage I carried around with me from my family and my name.

  “Fuck that,” I said viciously, and I kicked the comb across the room. “They’re not getting anywhere near her, and I’m not trying to turn myself into somebody that I’m not. She’ll have to take me as she finds me.”

  I closed my eyes and groaned. Talking to myself in an empty room. Yeah, I was losing it.

  The sound of motorcycles roaring up the street knocked me out of my crazy thoughts, and I walked over to the window to see that Ethan, Jeb, and a few of their flunkies had pulled up to my house. Worse, Ethan was getting off his bike and looking up at my window.

  Pretending I wasn’t home wouldn’t work, or at best would only delay the confrontation, so I headed downstairs and met him at the front door.

  “Pa’s not here. I’m on my way out.” I stepped out on the porch, because there was no way I was inviting him inside. “What do you want?”

  He’d been drinking, or sampling his own product, or something. His eyes were wild and aggressive, and his body was bunched up and twitchy all at once.

  “I want you, little brother. Got a party going on tonight.”

  I pointed at Jeb, who was drinking a beer right there on his bike. “If you’re thinking of crashing the Founders’ Day party, I’d think again. Pa won’t like it if you guys show up wasted.”