Growing up, Sydney had no idea she and Karen were poor. Karen made every effort to provide at least a handful of gifts at Christmas, the occasional trip to the movies, and three square meals a day. It wasn’t until she got to high school that she met kids who’d never even heard of food stamps and had all vacationed in Orlando. Sydney and Karen’s vacations consisted of a tent and tins of baked beans over a rickety portable grill.
On Sydney’s first day of freshman year, bright with enthusiasm for her new journey into high school, a group of popular girls pointed and laughed at her off-brand backpack. She looked down at her clothes—last year’s sneakers, her toes straining at the fabric, and Walmart jeans. Hot tears of shame sprung up in her eyes. Later that day, she found a part-time job to buy herself the things Karen couldn’t. From then on, she promised herself she’d never let anyone view her as less than.
Tucked inside the wooden in-box at the corner of Karen’s desk was a stack of envelopes tied together with red string. Sydney paused and peered closer. OVERDUE. FINAL NOTICE. ACCOUNT SUSPENDED. Her mouth dried up. She shuffled through the papers, hoping to see recovery efforts, but found none.
Sydney stared at the monstrous pile of bills sitting in front of her, barely able to soak in the magnitude of debt. Karen covered the rent on the store and her apartment, but everything else was paid for in borrowed money. A small-business loan, credit cards upon credit cards upon credit cards, and the cherry on the sundae—a letter from her sister in Tucson asking if Karen would be able to start paying back the thousand dollars she’d lent her last year.
The room spun, and the walls of the tiny office closed in. Sydney pressed her forehead into the palms of her hands. Not only was her mother in jeopardy of losing the store, but she was on the verge of having to file for bankruptcy. Bitter laughter rose up in Sydney’s throat, and she stared at the cork ceiling tiles. She’d actually considered asking Karen for money. They were the blind leading the blind.
Sydney abandoned the red Schwinn bike she’d ridden in on this morning and walked the long, winding road back to Karen’s apartment. Twisted, convoluted scenarios clouded her mind. Karen always talked about the store as if it thrived. What would’ve happened if Sydney had never poked around in her bills? Would Karen have silently slid into bankruptcy and moved to a different town? Shown up in New York to stay on Sydney’s couch? Lived on the streets? The air around her was cold, but she couldn’t even feel it.
By the time she entered Karen’s apartment, hot tears of fury burned her eyes. The initial anger and disbelief she’d felt at the store had built up as she walked and now threatened to spill over.
“Hi, Suds,” her mom said brightly, hunched over a crossword puzzle in her usual spot in the armchair. “How’d it go today?”
Sydney walked purposefully into the living room, trying to tamp down the emotion churning inside her.
“Mom.” Her voice trembled. “I was in the office and happened to see the stack of bills sitting there.”
She waited for her mother to look up at her in shame, embarrassment, anger, anything. But Karen kept her pencil poised over the notebook, working at her lip as she attempted to figure out a six-letter word for “flower.”
“Mm-hmm,” she mumbled. “‘Daisy’ . . . no . . . ‘peony’ . . . ‘orchid’! ‘Orchid.’ Duh.”
“Mom.” The simmering anger in her voice turned to ice.
Karen finally looked up at Sydney through Coke-bottle glasses.
“Do you have any idea how bad this is?”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic.” Karen tossed a hand at her daughter. “Do you know how far past due you have to go for them to turn off your lights? It was a slow summer, with the rain and all. Kept the tourists away. I’m going to stay open this winter and catch all those ski bunnies who come in January and February. Then I’ll be back in the black.”
Sydney’s lips parted. Could her mother be this thick? Years ago, Karen herself had told Sydney that most of the shops in Pine Ridge closed after Thanksgiving because the tourist stream all but dried up. If Karen thought the smattering of shoppers drifting through town on their way to the ski mountains was going to save her business, she was daft.
“You borrowed money from Aunt Patty.”
Now Karen looked peeved. Finally.
“I saw the letter.”
“You know,” Karen began, removing her glasses and glaring up at her daughter. “I survived sixty-four years on this planet without your help. I raised a daughter, I put her through college, I opened a business, and I kept myself alive and fed with a roof over my skull for all that time. Can you believe it? I’m glad you’re here, but I don’t need you poking around in my finances. Capisce?”
“How many of those sixty-four years were we on the verge of being homeless?”
Karen sat bolt upright in her chair, a tic in her jaw. Sydney had seen that look before—right after Sydney got caught making out with Jim Palombo in her bedroom, or the time she blew her curfew by four hours.
“We were never close to homeless.” It was as close to a growl as Sydney had ever heard from her mother. “I made sure every single day that we had everything we needed.”
“‘Needed’ is a very loose term.”
Color rose in Karen’s wrinkled cheeks, and her jaw twitched again. “Did you ever go hungry? Did we ever get evicted? I did for you what I thought was most important. Okay, so you didn’t have a cell phone in middle school or a new car on your sixteenth birthday. Who cares? You think that’s what’s important?”
The shame sliced deeper, a searing pain in places Sydney didn’t know she was capable of probing any longer. Old shame. The first shame. She ran her hands over her expertly faded denim, remembering the deal she got. Fifteen percent off. Only three hundred dollars. A steal. A second dip into the savings and they were hers.
“You were never good with money,” Sydney said. She gnawed at her lip, sure by now that it was bleeding. The feeble retort landed between them, and Karen’s jaw finally relaxed.
“You’d be surprised how good you have to be with money to raise a kid on one income and still have money left over to put into savings. I scraped every extra penny I had together, and when you were finally off living your own life, I did the thing I’d always wanted to do. The bookstore. I made it work, Suds. Me. By myself.”
The anger rose into Sydney’s throat. All those pennies and what did Karen have to show for it? A dusty shop that pulled in ten dollars a day on the verge of going belly-up.
“You’re going to go bankrupt. Not only will you lose the store, you’ll have to declare bankruptcy. You can’t pay your bills. And one person bought something at the store today. One single person. She spent ten dollars. Do you understand that? What’s wrong with you? It’s dollars and sense. No room for interpretation.”
Karen stared hard at the crossword, her eyebrows meeting in the middle. “Eight letter word for ‘dog’ . . . ‘Mastiff’? ‘Bulldog?’ No . . .”
“Mom!”
Karen turned her steel-eyed stare on Sydney and in a low hiss said, “I am done talking about this.”
The apartment squeezed Sydney from all sides. No way out. No release. Her “bed” was half a foot from where her mother sat, and the only other safe space was the bathroom, where she could only hide out for so long. In a move of desperation, she retrieved Jorie’s phone number from the back pocket of her jeans and punched it into her phone.
Hi Jorie, it’s Sydney. We met earlier today. I’d actually love to join you and your friends for a drink, if you’re still doing that. Just tell me when and where :)
Absolutely! Taylor’s in town, in about half an hour. I can swing by and pick you up if you need a ride?
“I’m going out for a drink,” Sydney said.
“Good, have a couple. Maybe it’ll loosen you up.”
Sydney snatched her purse and slammed the door behind
her.
chapter four
Thwap. The bottle suctioned against Sam’s lips as he pulled it away. Taylor’s brimmed with bodies. At least three of them he didn’t recognize. Must be a record.
“Hey, Jerk-land. You in there?” Greg’s voice shattered his thoughts.
“Really? Jerk-land? ’Cause if we’re going back to high school nicknames, Pit Stain . . .”
“All right,” Greg said. He adjusted his baseball cap and ran a hand over his paunch. “No need to go there, thanks. You need another beer?”
“Nah—” Sam had had his one drink for the night, but Matt interrupted.
“Get a bucket.” Matt hung a huge, beefy arm over Greg’s shoulders. Heaven forbid this crew walked out of a bar without a full table of empties in their wake. “Jorie’s coming, too.”
The consistent trio of buzzes coming from Sam’s pocket forced a wince. He’d given her number its own text alert and ringtone so that he’d know as soon as humanly possible when she was reaching out. He wanted to be prepared before he read whatever she had to say or before he heard her fragile voice over the line.
“Liv?” Matt asked.
Sam bit down on the inside of his lip. Guess he’d have to work on his poker face. He pushed himself out of the booth and navigated the thickening crowd to make his way outside. The cold air stung his eyes as he pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” Silence dragged across the line, his heart beating louder with every passing second.
“What’s going on? Everything all right?”
“I’m fine.” She cleared her throat. “We’re fine.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned back onto the facade of the bar. The weathered siding dug through his T-shirt, but the dull pain provided strange relief. You’re here. She’s there.
“So, uh, what do you need, then, Liv?”
“Right to the chase, huh? No pleasantries? No ‘How are you? What’s new?’ You assume I’m calling because I need something, right? I couldn’t just call to say hello?”
Hot fury rose to the surface of his skin, forcing his grip on the phone to tighten. Was she serious? He’d put his life on hold for her, and she wanted pleasantries? He forced his voice into something resembling neutral. “Is this Olivia’s Land of Make-Believe?”
“I’m trying.” Right now, she probably had a strand of bright blond hair tucked into the corner of her mouth. Stressed or drunk or both, she chewed on her hair. She’d done it since they were young. Other kids made fun of her for it, but Sam had always come to her rescue. He was still doing it now.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “I don’t want to fight with you.” In the past year, all they’d done was fight.
“I never want to fight with you.”
A sense of foreboding knocked at the back of his brain, warning him that the sweet timbre in her voice signaled a turn in the discussion. He wasn’t in the mood for casual conversation. Especially with her. He had to right the ship.
“How’s Jay?”
She breathed out slowly. “Good. Fine. I don’t know.”
Blood surged to his cheeks once more, as if he had a sunburn from the inside out. “You don’t know how your son is doing?”
“No, I mean, I know. I just can never really tell how he’s doing. He’s got his appetite back, so that’s good. His grandparents cook the most disgusting food you can ever imagine, but he’s packing it in and gaining some weight. The doctor says he’s back in a healthy range for kids his age.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Are we really wasting time talking about Jay’s eating habits?”
He tucked his arm across his chest and bit down on his lip again. If not for Jay, he’d ignore her calls completely. When he agreed to this ridiculous charade, he’d had only Jay in mind. Okay, maybe he’d also been thinking of the way Liv helped his mother. How lost he would’ve been navigating the waters of diagnosis and chemo and hospice without Nurse Liv walking him through it all. Maybe he’d thought about what a great friend she used to be and how some people deserved a second chance.
He couldn’t go there now. He cleared his throat, forcing his mind back to the task at hand. “Well, what, then? What do you need?”
“I had to pay out of pocket for Jay’s doctor’s appointment. The insurance company is going to reimburse me eventually, but it was almost two hundred dollars. I had to give them practically every penny I have to my name, and since I haven’t been able to take any shifts at the hospital because of the garbage they’re putting me through down here, I’m super low on funds. I’ll have the money soon, and I can totally pay you back, but right now, I’m just . . .”
“All right.” Money. That he could do.
“Thank you.” Her voice squeaked. “God, what would I do without you?”
Sam’s stomach churned with nerves. Without him? Lose any chance of having custody of your son.
Sam breathed in, counted to ten, and breathed out. Icy air on his tongue and teeth, past his throat, into his lungs. I’m here. She’s there. Olivia made his head swim.
“I’ll Venmo you tomorrow,” he said.
“Thank you, Sam. Seriously.”
Ser-ioussssly. Was she drunk? He narrowed his gaze, as if she stood in front of him instead of hundreds of miles away, and zeroed in on her speech patterns. The speech patterns he knew better than anyone’s. If she’d been drinking, even a single beer, he’d lose it.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“Well, yeah. I guess so.” This time, no slurring. Her words were clipped and clean. The constant analysis sapped at his strength like donating blood. She wasn’t drunk. She hadn’t been drunk since the day of the DUI. Someday he wouldn’t question it.
“I gotta go, Liv.”
“Hang on, someone wants to say hello to you.”
He dropped his gaze to the snow-covered gravel beneath his boots and released a labored exhale. Liv’s ability to rip him out of a carefree evening was unrivaled, even when she wasn’t trying.
“Hi, Sam!” Jay’s sweet voice sang across the line, and Sam grinned despite himself.
“Hey, bud. How’s it going?”
“Good. Just finished dinner.”
“Oh yeah? What’d you have?”
“Grandma made meat loaf.” Jay lowered his voice and whispered, “It wasn’t very good.”
“Meat loaf’s the worst.”
“Yeah, but I told her I liked it anyway. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
Sam’s heart split in two. This kid didn’t deserve half the shit that had happened to him in his eight years on the planet.
“Listen, bud, I gotta go. Tell your mom I said bye, okay?”
“Okay.” Disappointment creeped into the kid’s voice, but Sam couldn’t let himself sink into that world. He’d drawn the lines of this situation, and he had to stick to them.
“We’ll talk again soon, all right?”
“Okay.”
“And hey, I got that picture you drew me. Put it on my fridge.”
“You did?” His voice soared.
“Of course I did. But hey, you traced that, right? There’s no way you did that on your own.”
“I didn’t trace it! Sam, I promise, I didn’t trace it.”
Sam grinned. “You’re too good, Jay. Draw me another one?”
“Okay, yeah! I will. I’ll do it this weekend and have Mom send it.”
“Amazing. I’ll talk to you soon, bud.”
“Okay.” Jay waited a beat and said, “Bye, Sam.”
Sam ended the call, slipped his phone into his pocket, and ducked back inside. Matt’s and Greg’s narrowed eyes trailed him as he crossed the bar and slid into the booth.
“How’s Liv doing?” Matt asked.
“Fine.” Sam grabbed the bottle of wat
er Matt had gotten him from the bar, already tucking Liv and Jay into the back of his mind. He took a long drink and grimaced at the bucket of Bud Light on the table. “There’s so much good beer around here and you guys drink this piss.”
“When that good beer costs ten bucks for a bucket, I’ll start drinking that,” Greg said. He leaned his heft back in the booth, his beady eyes skipping around the room as if all three of them hadn’t seen everything there was to see in this town. “Giants are gonna take a beating next weekend. If they knew what was good for ’em, they’d bench Tahoe and start thinking about their prospects for next year.”
“Bench Tahoe?” Matt countered. “You’re out of your goddamned mind.”
“Why not? He’s—” Greg dipped his chin, lips parted, as he gaped at the front door to the bar. “Whoa. Who’s that with Jorie?”
“Never seen her before.” Matt squinted. “Is that Wainman’s sister?”
“Fuck no,” Greg said. “Wainman’s sister isn’t half that hot.”
While Sam had enough female problems to last a lifetime, he wasn’t above admiring a cute girl in a bar. He tossed a glance over his shoulder, careful not to look overly interested, and huffed. Of course. Sydney Walsh.
Among the plaid- and camo-clad crowd, Sydney stuck out like a cardinal in the snow. She wore tight jeans and a silky black blouse, her diamond earrings sparkling in the low bar light. Every male head turned to stare as she passed by, like a perverted parting of the Red Sea.
“It’s Karen Walsh’s daughter,” Sam said.
“Oh-ho-ho,” Greg said, laughing. “That explains it. Her hotness comes courtesy of a rich boyfriend and New York City plastic surgeons.”
Earlier today, when she approached Sam in the parking lot of Utz’s with her hair pulled off her face, dressed simply in yoga pants and a track jacket, he’d been caught off guard by her natural beauty. If anything about her was surgically enhanced, the doctor deserved an award.
“Hi, guys!” Jorie said, grinning at all of them but finding her rightful place snuggled in Matt’s lap. “This is Sydney Walsh; she’s Karen’s daughter. Be nice to her, and don’t try to get in her pants, okay?”
Wild Love Page 3
