by Sadie Allen
I reached back over to the nightstand and picked up my phone again, shooting a text to Sunny before I gave myself an opportunity to think about it. For a second, I thought about asking her about Thursday, but chickened out and sent another text instead …
Sunny
IT WAS LATE, AND I had just gotten home from work. I was in the middle of unlocking the new locks Judd had installed yesterday, when I heard footsteps on the steps behind me.
I froze, panic seizing me, flashbacks of the other night running through my mind. Then I whirled around, keys positioned between my fingers at the ready. If my father had somehow gotten out of jail, I was not going down without inflicting some damage.
Instead of my father, I was face-to-face with Molly.
Molly jumped, clutching her chest while my body slumped in relief.
“What the fudge, Blackfox?” she screeched.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“Oh, it’s you? Nice to see you, too, Sunny.” She rolled her eyes, feigning exasperation.
“You’re the one sneaking up on someone who was attacked over the weekend.”
The color drained from her face. I regretted the words almost instantly.
“Sorry … I wasn’t thinking,” she muttered.
“It’s okay, Molls. It’s been a long day, and I’m cranky.”
That was an understatement. If one more person stared at my face, asked me about my face, or whispered about my face, I would scream.
I turned back to the door and finished unlocking it. When she didn’t say anything after we walked inside, I asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
She stood in the middle of the living room, surveying the space, and said two words, “Bar brawl.”
“Y’all have one of those at least once a month. You usually don’t get off work because of them.” I shrugged off my backpack and jacket, letting them drop to the floor. It was as good a place as any since I didn’t have anywhere else to put them anymore.
“I do when someone calls the cops and they close the place down,” she stated matter-of-factly.
Before the other night, it had been a while since I had seen Molly. In high school, we were together all the time. She was either at my place or the diner. She hated being alone and preferred hanging out with me somewhere, even at work, than at her dad’s place. Then she graduated last year and started working for her dad, and our schedules changed. Even then, we usually had a streaming text conversation going, or she would stop by the diner a few times a week. For the past month, though, her replies had been few and far between, and she hadn’t shown her face at Sally’s.
“Yikes.”
“Pretty much.” She was still looking around, and I had a feeling she was doing that to avoid looking at my face. I was about to call her on it when she said, “The reason I came by instead of going home and going to bed early is that I got a lead on a couch.”
Just like that, my concern over my face was forgotten.
Molly was great at finding deals. If she found me a couch, it would be something good but cheap.
“How much?” I asked.
“A hundred bucks. Sonya is getting a new one.”
Sonya was one of her dad’s girlfriends, the crazy one.
“I’ll take it!” Not that I really needed it, but I would like to have something besides folding chairs to sit on in the living room, especially if Judd came over again.
“Good, because it’ll be here any minute now,” she said as she pulled her phone from her back pocket and looked at the screen.
What?
As if on cue, there was a knock at my door.
Molly walked over and opened it while I stood there like a dork.
A male face I didn’t recognize peered in over Molly’s head and asked, “Where do you want it?”
She looked over to me, and I shrugged. I mean, where else could they put it except in the middle of the living room. The trailer had a fairly open floorplan when it came to the living and dining area.
“Just put it in the middle of the room,” she told the floating face as she opened the door wider to let them inside.
He turned and picked up one end of a bright red couch that had been resting on the porch.
“That’s Harry. He’s a bar back,” Molly said as she jerked her thumb toward the tall, skinny guy who held up one end of the couch.
He maneuvered it through the door and was halfway in when another man walked through, carrying the other end. He was taller and broader than the first guy.
“That’s Rex. He’s a bouncer.”
“Hey,” Rex greeted, flashing me a smile.
The one called Harry hadn’t called out a greeting. He just kept walking backward, complaining, “Why am I the one who has to walk backward? You’re bigger than me.”
“Because I’m bigger than you … And I have bad ankles.” He shot me a wink.
We watched as they lined up the couch in the middle of the room and lowered it to the carpet with a loud thunk then backed away.
Molly plopped down on the bright red monstrosity, spreading her arms out along the back and rubbing her hands along the fabric. “Y’all can run along now, fellas!” she called out.
Harry again walked through the door without a word while Rex followed, a swagger in his walk, and left with only a “Ladies” before closing the door behind him.
Molly rolled her eyes. “You have to watch out for that one. He gets more panties to drop to the floor than any guy I know, including your boyfriend.”
I walked over and plopped down beside her. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I could feel my face turn the same shade as the couch.
“Didn’t look that way Saturday. He was all up in your biz-ness.” I could feel her looking at me, but I refused to turn her way.
“We’re just friends,” I told her firmly.
“Sure, sure.” Her tone was anything but believing.
“Speaking of friends …” I looked at her from the corner of my eye and saw that she was still sitting in the same position as before, except she was angled in my direction now. “Greg quit the diner. Why didn’t you tell me he was leaving for basic?”
Her faced closed down, and she dropped her arms from the back of the couch. “Why would I know something like that?” she asked, her eyes fixed somewhere on the floor in front of her.
I shifted my body so that now I was the one facing her. “Uh, well, y’all are friends. You’re the only person I have ever seen him say more than one word to.” I watched as her face twisted for a minute, before she seemed to catch herself. Then she blanked into the mask of indifference I was used to seeing when she didn’t want to talk about something.
I was about to call her on it, when my phone sounded with a text alert. Confused because the only person who ever texted me was sitting beside me, I got up and retrieved my phone from my backpack on the floor.
Judd: Hey.
One simple word, yet I felt a smile curve my lips.
“Yeah, sure, he’s not your boyfriend.”
I looked over at the couch to see Molly watching me from over the back.
“He’s not.” I felt like I had said that too many times in the last five minutes.
I typed out a response to Judd then carried my phone with me back over to the couch. When I sat down, the phone went off again in my hand.
Judd: I thought you’d be asleep. What are you doing?
I couldn’t keep the smile off my face if I tried, even after I heard Molly snort.
Me: Nosey.
Judd: Yeah, so what are you doing?
Me: Talking to Molly. She brought me a couch.
“So, if he’s not your boyfriend … do you like him?”
I looked up from my phone and saw her still watching me.
“Like I said, we’re just friends.” I shrugged, trying to play off my reaction to Judd’s texts.
“That doesn’t answer my questi
on.”
I didn’t want to answer her question. I could barely admit to myself that I liked him, let alone say it aloud.
“Why haven’t you answered any of my texts lately?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
It was her turn to shrug. “Been busy at work. And when I’m not working, I’m sleeping.”
I got the feeling there was more to it than that. Something was going on with her. I was about to ask, when my phone went off again.
Judd: I thought we’d check out flea markets this weekend.
Me: No need! All I really wanted was a couch.
“Well, I’ll let you talk to Judd Jackson. I need to go home and go to bed.”
She always used that mocking tone when she said his name, which was starting to annoy me, so my protest was only half-hearted when I told her, “You don’t have to leave.”
“Yeah, I have to study …” she said, and I raised my eyebrows, “the back of my eyelids. See ya later, Sunny Sunshine!” Then she was out the door.
I got up and locked the door behind her before sitting back down on my new couch—well, new to me—thinking that maybe Judd would text me back. When five minutes went by without a word, I got ready for bed.
As I laid in bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about Judd and Molly. Something was up with Molly, and I didn’t have the first clue as to what it could be. Then I wondered if Judd was upset with me, which made no sense. Why would a guy want to take someone he barely knew to a flea market? If anything, he must have been relieved he didn’t have to take me. I decided he must have fallen asleep and that was why he hadn’t texted me back.
On a whim, I picked up my cell phone and typed out a quick text.
Sunny: G-nite ;)
Then I fell back into bed and into an exhausted sleep.
Judd
IT WAS LUNCH, AND I was hovering in front of the library as I debated whether or not to go inside and see if Sunny was there. I felt stupid for not texting her back last night. Of course I wanted her to get a couch. I should be happy about it. It was just that I had been looking forward to taking her somewhere. I wanted to do something for her and was disappointed, and maybe, if I was honest, a little pissed that Molly had snatched that opportunity away from me.
I hoped she wasn’t mad at me. It had been late when I had texted her, so maybe she would think I fell asleep.
I looked around the deserted hallway and still saw no sign of her. Friends ate lunch together. I wasn’t doing anything creepy by waiting for her outside the library. We were friends, right? Why did it feel like it was something more, then?
I shook my head. That was all I could ever give Sunny, and who said she would want more than that with me, anyway? Why did these thoughts have to run a constant loop through my brain? Man up, Jackson!
A knock on the window next to the door interrupted my internal castigation. I looked up to see Sunny’s face framed in the glass, smiling at me. Her bruising was still pretty bad, but it looked like the swelling had gone down.
I hadn’t gotten a chance to see her before class this morning since I had been late. I had somehow turned the snooze off on my phone without realizing it. I missed my morning workout and would have to do it after work tonight. If Mom was passed out on the couch when I got home, her ass was staying there.
Sunny opened the door, smile still in place, and motioned me in.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” she said as she shut the door behind me.
“Mrs. Grayer doesn’t mind you being in here?” I looked around, not seeing anyone else.
“She hasn’t said anything to me yet, but I do reshelf some of the books if I have time.”
“Oh.”
I felt awkward, like someone was going to come out and ask me to leave at any moment.
“Or it could be that Mrs. Grayer was a friend of Grana’s.” She chuckled, and I felt a tentative smile curve my lips.
“You know, I have a question …” I took my tray over to the table that already had one on it and sat down across from Sunny. “How did you end up calling your grandma Grana? I’ve never heard that name before.”
Sunny quirked her lips to one side and looked at me for a moment before she answered, “It was actually my granddad’s idea. I don’t remember much about him since he died when I was really little, but she told me that, when I came to live with her, she knew she didn’t want me to call her mom, even though that was what she would be to me. I had a mom, and she didn’t want to replace her even in name. So, she couldn’t decide between grandma or nana, and Granddad said, ‘Why don’t you have her call you grana?’ and that’s what she did.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Not a really cute or exciting story, but there you go,” she said with a shrug.
We were quiet a beat, and then I asked, “So, how’s the new couch?”
“Hideous.” Her nose scrunched up like she had smelled something bad, and her lips were twisted to one side of her mouth.
I laughed, because I shouldn’t have found the look attractive, but I did. The chick was seriously cute.
“But it’s a couch,” I replied, my mood lifting. It might be petty, but I was glad she though the couch was ugly.
“It’s a couch. Even though it’s hideous, it’s good to have something to sit on besides the floor.”
We sat there for a while, not talking. I didn’t feel awkward like I had when I first walked in, and I guessed that was because no one came in while we ate our lunch.
It was while we shelved some of the books from the cart by Mrs. Grayer’s desk that I saw my shot to ask her about practicing our presentation at my house. I didn’t know why I was so nervous about it. It wasn’t like I had never had a girl come over. Ashley used to come over all the time … but that was before.
My life could basically be divided into two sections: before my dad was outed and after. In this new life—the after—I hadn’t had anyone come over to the house.
“So, I was thinking …” I glanced over at her as she paused, book in hand, and raised her brows at me. I cleared my throat and went back to putting the book in my hand on the shelf, not looking at her when I said, “We’re going to need to get together to practice the presentation part of the project.”
“Yeah …?”
“So, I was thinking …”
“So, you said already.”
I cut my eyes back at her then quickly looked back at the shelf in front of me like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “How about you come over to my place Thursday night and we can go over everything?”
I could feel her eyes on me, and that was making me sweat. It wasn’t hot in here, yet I could feel my palms getting wet.
I didn’t recognize the guy I was right now. Judd Jackson didn’t get uptight talking to girls … unless they were pretty girls with dark coffee colored eyes; long, shiny, soft looking hair; and knew their way around a kitchen.
I was in so much trouble.
“Yeah, okay. What time do I need to meet you there? I know you have a shift after school.”
“Seven sound okay? I can try to cut out earlier,” I said around the lump in my throat.
“No, no, no. Seven’s good.”
I chanced another glance in her direction. She wasn’t watching me anymore. She just stood there with an open book in her and a small smile on her lips.
She never made another sound, but I had a feeling that she was laughing at me just the same.
I pulled into my driveway around six-thirty Thursday evening. Sally had let me go a half an hour early when I had mentioned the project we had due tomorrow. I told myself that I would work extra hours to make up for Sally’s kindness to me today.
Mom had left last night so she could check into her hotel and be ready for her conference that had been early this morning. After I had gotten home from work Tuesday, I had made sure her clothes were in the laundry and ready for when she had to pack. I had even cleaned the house without trying to be obvious
about it, but if she had noticed me picking up and wiping things down, she had never said a word. She had been too busy sucking back a glass of wine to notice anything outside the rim. Like always, she hadn’t said thank you or apologized for anything she had done the night I had to scrub puke from the carpet. She had just bitched about having to leave town.
I made one last sweep through the house to make sure that everything looked clean and nothing embarrassing was left lying around. And I was pulling out a full trash sack that definitely had too many bottles clinking together inside when a knock sounded. I quickly tied the bag up and put it in the garage before I walked to the door and opened it.
Sunny was standing on the doorstep, still wearing what she had worn to school that day with her backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Come on in. You caught me taking out the trash.” I went back into the kitchen, replaced the bag, and washed my hands. When I turned back to where I had left Sunny, she had shed her jacket and was digging in her backpack. “So, you want the fifty-cent tour?” I cringed internally at how lame that sounded.
“I don’t have fifty cents,” she said, her tone teasing.
“Oh well, that’s just something I heard my mom say …” My face was hot, and I figured I was blushing. I felt like a little kid with my first crush.
“Yeah, I’d love to see y’all’s home.”
Something inside of me relaxed. I was smiling when I turned and told her to follow me.
The house I grew up in was nothing special, just a regular ranch house design that could be found all over the country. The floorplan was simple. A two-bedroom, one bath. Before my dad left, it was a home, like something out of a Norman Rockwell picture. It was the perfect picture of an American middle-class home with the perfect all-American apple pie family. Now it was a place I didn’t recognize.
It had warped and twisted into a place that I felt trapped under. The bone-crushing weight of responsibility came down on me every time I walked through its doors. It wasn’t the safe place it had been back in the fall.
After I showed her the living room, I walked her back to my room. I was pretty proud that it wasn’t a total disaster like it used to be when my mom actually took care of the house.
