The River Valley Series

by Tess Thompson

  “We’re going to be shut down for a couple of months,” said Lee. “There will be plenty of work getting this place ready if anyone’s interested.”

  She turned to see Billy amble to his feet. “Yeah, well, thanks, Lee.”

  Billy and Cindi headed for the door, and Lee followed them. “Wait a minute.”

  They turned towards her. “You two think I don’t know what’s going on here?” said Lee. “That you’re proud and intimidated at the same time. Look, I grew up in this town. My mother was a drunk and we were on food stamps and government cheese and every other humiliating program you can think of.” She choked, tears springing to her eyes. “The only reason I got out is because I got a couple of breaks along the way. Y’know, a chance, someone who saw something in me and that’s what this is. A chance.” Her mouth filled with the saliva of unshed tears. “I’m no different than you.”

  They stared at her.

  Billy wiped his forehead again. “You think maybe I could work for the chef? Learn how to be a real cook?”

  “I do.” She swiped at the corners of her eyes. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Cindi cocked her head. “You’ll be different now, that’s what happens when people become the boss.”

  “Believe it or not, I was a boss before I came here and my employees liked me a lot.”

  “I thought you were leaving here soon anyway,” said Cindi.

  “Do you know why I came here?”

  “Not exactly,” said Cindi.

  “My husband killed himself and left me penniless and pregnant.”

  Cindi’s face softened and she stared at Lee’s stomach. “You’re having a baby?”

  “In September. So, I’ve got to get this place up and running before the baby comes.”

  Cindi crossed her arms and shook her head. “You hear this, Billy? You ever do that to a girl I’ll kick your ass.”

  Billy pulled on his shirt where his soft middle protruded. “I don’t even have a girl.”

  Cindi put her arm around Billy. “I know, but you will. Lee, I raised a baby on my own after my no-good husband ran off. He was a worthless son of a bitch too.” She gestured to the board. “This bar, it’s gonna be real drinks?”

  Lee nodded.

  “I always thought about being a bartender. People always telling me personal stuff as it is.”

  “We have enough time for you to go to bartender school before we open. We’ll pay for you to go if you’re serious.”

  Cindi nodded and placed her hands on her hips. “Maybe. Yeah, maybe.”

  * * *

  After they left, Lee sat at the table and shuffled through the business plan. She knew getting this restaurant ready to open and the staff trained would be difficult even for someone with actual experience, like Linus. Experience she obviously didn’t possess, given the interaction with the staff just now. She stared out the window, wondering what Linus would do. She ached for her old life, especially for Linus. She picked up her cell phone just as the kitchen doors swung open. Zac walked in, hands in the pockets of his long shorts. “My dad said to come see you.” He paused and then added in mock reverence, “Boss.”

  “Have a seat.”

  He sat down across from her, tipping back so that the two front legs of his chair were several inches off the ground. “Look, all that stuff I said before about this place, the truth is I hated running this joint. I was just doing it because the old man wanted me to. Go at it.”

  “Your dad thinks you should work here.”

  Zac put the chair down on the floor. “I know.”

  She sighed and looked at him for a moment. His hair was graying at the temples and there were fine wrinkles around his eyes. She flashed to what he looked like in high school and thought how disheartening it was to see someone from your youth beaten down by life. She wondered if he saw the same in her. The thought softened her. “Zac, do you know what I used to dream about when I was in high school?”

  He squinted and shook his head, like he was ready for battle. “Haven’t a clue.”

  “I wanted to feel safe and live in a beautiful home with someone who loved me and have work that meant something to the world.”

  “Yeah?” His voice was softer than usual and she knew he was listening even though he still assumed the posture of someone who didn’t care, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, the macho guy thing she remembered from high school. “You get any of those things?”

  “I thought I did. But, I’m here, trying to make a new life for myself.”

  He flicked the sleeve of his jacket with his thumb, looking at the table. “Yeah, that’s all you can do, I guess.”

  “What did you dream about in high school?”

  He shrugged and grinned. “Getting laid, probably.”

  She laughed like it was funny. “What do you want now? Please tell me it’s more than that?”

  He gazed over her head. She saw a glimmer of regret about a life gone irretrievably in the wrong direction cross his face. “What I want you can’t possibly give me.”

  “Try me.”

  He blinked and stared at her. “You really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  “I want to leave this town and never come back. I want to learn to surf in the ocean. I want to feel good instead of this fucked-up feeling all the time. I want to give a shit if I get out of bed every morning.”

  She flattened her hands on the tabletop, leaning forward a few inches. “Why don’t you go?”

  He tossed his head. She saw the fear in his eyes, the uncertainty that he would ever go. “I’ve got plans to get out of here but I need a few more months.”

  “I understand.” She opened her folder and picked up her pen. “There’s a position in high-end restaurants called the Food and Beverage Manager.” She almost smiled, thinking the beverage part was perfect for him. “You want me to tell your dad that’s your job? I’ll just call if I need you?”

  He smiled and his shoulders relaxed. “But you won’t call, right?”

  “Exactly. It can be our secret.” Her left eye twitched. She ran the tip of her pen along the fake wood pattern of the plastic table. “There’s only one thing you have to do for me.”

  He raised his eyebrows and winked. “I thought Tommy was in line for that job?”

  She managed not to cringe and shook her head. “No, not that. I’ve seen you with your little baggies of goodies out the back door. It makes me nervous. I’m afraid it’ll keep customers away.”

  His demeanor changed to dark in an instant, his face purple, eyes hard. He laughed without mirth, yanking at the lobe of his ear. “Quite an imagination you’ve got.”

  She didn’t answer. Her silence seemed to enrage him. He jerked from his seat, the chair flying behind him, towering over her, smelling of the inside of a seedy bar, inches from her face. “Don’t get in my business.” He put one hand on the back of her chair. “Understand?”

  “Isn’t there someplace better than the parking lot of this restaurant?”

  He shook his head and started tapping the back of the chair with his fingers. “No, no, no. Why are you talking about this? It’s none of your concern. I have it all figured out and you can’t mess this up for me. I have a plan, do you understand?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re doing this at all. Your dad would do anything to help you—”

  “Shut up.” He yanked her off the chair and slammed her against the wall. “Just shut up about my dad. You don’t understand how he is, how nothing I do is good enough, how every single day of my life I’ve been a disappointment to him and finally I don’t care. So, just shut up about my saintly father because you have no idea how it feels to be a fuck-up.” He had one hand on her neck and the other squeezed the top of her arm, his teeth clenched. “I’m gonna finally get out, live at the beach. Get the life I was meant to have. You can’t get in my way.” He pushed on her neck and his eyes glistened with tears. “Or you’ll be sorry. You’ll be very, very
sorry.”

  She couldn’t speak with his hand on her neck but nodded like she understood.

  He let go of her and rested his forehead on the wall, next to her face. He spoke like he was exhausted and she held her breath in order to hear him. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’ll move to another location if you want, if you’ll keep your mouth shut to my dad. He doesn’t know and I don’t want him to. We can’t ever talk about this again. Ever again.”

  She made her voice soft, soothing, like she was talking to a child. “It’s alright, I won’t tell Mike, if you stay out of the parking lot.”

  He pulled his forehead back from the wall, the front of his hair flopping in front of his eyes, his skin glistening with sweat. “I don’t want to be someone who hurts women.”

  She touched her neck, her eyes focused on the collar of his shirt. “I know.”

  “Lee, I would stop if I could, but I’m in too deep. Do you get it?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  He nodded and wiped under his nose with the back of his sleeve. “I’ll see you around, then.” He left through the kitchen door like a blind man without a cane.

  Lee slumped into a chair and folded her hands together to stop them from shaking. She looked at the clock on her phone. It was 3:00 in the afternoon but it might be midnight for how tired she felt. The afternoon sun streamed through the front windows into the spot where the checkout counters had been when her mother worked here thirty years before.

  Her mother had worked at the register while Lee sat hidden at her feet, listening to the voices of the customers and her mother’s breathy voice in response to their questions. Lee was inconspicuous and so obedient that she was invisible and the world went on above her, without her. She began to draw with her mother’s Bic pen, stick figures with big round heads in varying haircuts, Christmas trees and suns with lines that reached out to the very edge of the paper.

  By the time she was seven there was schoolwork to do and books to read. The hours passed with the smell of ripe fruit and cardboard in her nose. She was safe. But one day her mother picked up a box of canned tomatoes and screamed from pain, clutching at a spot in the middle of her back. Eleanor couldn’t work after that and told Lee about a word called disability for people who got hurt at their job. Now Eleanor’s back ached all the time. She drank clear liquid with ice after breakfast and wore her bathrobe all day. “Can you get me more ice from the shed?” Eleanor asked Lee each day when she came in from school.

  Now, Lee looked around the empty room. She thought of Tommy then, with his contagious smile and inquisitive eyes, the citrus smell of his skin that filled with her with longing. Without thinking, she pulled up his name on her cell phone and dialed, telling herself that she could allow kindness into her life.

  Tommy answered on the first ring.

  “It’s Lee.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice tentative, hopeful.

  “I’m at the restaurant. Will you come get me?”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter 16

  Tommy’s house was a surprise. It was newly constructed and full of light, perched on beams and jutting out over the grassy bank of the river. The main level was a great room with a kitchen on one end and a slouchy comfortable lounging area on the other. Guitars stood in one corner, with a brown leather chair and an old upright piano on the eastern wall. Sun came in from the picture windows that opened to a large deck.

  As her eyes took in the open rafters and extended ceiling, she said, “Makes me think of a ski lodge.”

  He followed her gaze, shoving his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and rocking on his heels. “Had it designed for light and comfort. Oh, and the view.” He pointed to the river. Across the water was a flat sandy area with two lawn chairs.

  “You own this place?” she asked him.

  “Yep. Bought the property years ago when prices were low. Moved here three years ago and had the house built.”

  She must have looked skeptical because he went on, somewhat defensively, as if offended he had to explain it to her. “Listen, I sold a song to a female singer that hit the country top ten and the royalties paid for this house.”

  “I thought you came here because you couldn’t make it in Nashville?”

  “Who told you that?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, flushing.

  He laughed then and seemed to relax. “What did you think? I was just some loser musician?”

  “I guess I figured the EMT thing was your steady job.”

  He nodded. “It is. The life of a songwriter, you never know when or if you’ll sell another song, so I like to keep my bases covered. Let’s just say I’m conservative with money.” He paused and sank into the couch, resting his feet on the rustic-looking wooden coffee table. “Although, women in my past have referred to it as cheap.” He sighed and raised one eyebrow in a gesture that made her wonder what those other women were like. And how many were there? Crossing his arms, he grinned. “This make you like me better?”

  Her voice was dry. “Where you live has nothing to do with who you are.”

  “I agree,” he said.

  Lee’s gaze drifted to twin paintings of red poppies that hung over the couch. “The paintings are nice.”

  “Thanks. One of my sisters painted them.” His voice was soft but wary. She understood he was worried he might frighten her away. “I’m glad you called.”

  She imagined sitting on his lap, feeling his arms around her. “I’m sorry about the other day,” she said.

  He put up his hands. “Don’t apologize. It was my fault. I’ve been kicking myself ever since.” He glanced at his guitars and then back to her. “I can’t stand to see you cry. To think I caused you any further pain, it makes me crazy.”

  “Not you. Never you.” The tears were there again, in the back of her throat.

  “I don’t ever want to be the person who makes you cry.”

  “I know,” she said, gently.

  He was quiet for a moment and when he spoke his words sounded thick. “Lee, why did you call?”

  “I wanted to talk. Not to just anyone. To you.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  She smiled. “You’ve worn me down. What can I say?”

  “I say I love it.”

  “Zac came by about a job and we had a little episode, so to speak.” She pushed her hair behind her ears.

  He sat up, swinging his feet to the floor. “Your neck is all red. Did he do that to you?”

  She pushed her fingers into the soft skin of her neck, mildly surprised to find it tender. “Yes, but it’s fine.” She told him then what happened with Zac, sparing no details. He listened quietly, becoming absolutely still when she told him that Zac threatened her.

  After she finished he got up and began to pace behind the couch. “You have no idea how I want to take him behind the restaurant and beat the crap out of him.”

  “Tommy, I’m not telling you this so you can beat him up. I’d like to share something with you but it’s hard to say. Especially when you’re moving around like a caged animal.”

  He stopped and looked at her. “Anything.” He put his hands on the back of the couch as if that would keep him from moving.

  She took a deep breath. “Something in Zac’s eyes made me think of my husband. And my mother. You see, Dan conceived and developed a game for our first company based on a world view of randomness. In the game, metaphoric life threw you unexpected joy and tragedy and your job was to maneuver around it and if you were clever and hard-working enough you could win. But his second game, Deep Black, was based on the world view that no matter what you did, your weaknesses combined with chance would destroy you and there was nothing you could do about it.”

  “Sounds fun,” said Tommy sarcastically.

  “He thought for gamers it would be the ultimate.” She went to t
he window. “But in the irony of ironies, he couldn’t get the damn thing to work. And ultimately it destroyed him.”

  Tommy was staring at her now, a helpless quality on his face. She went on. “There was this darkness in Dan that I pretended not to see, this way of looking at the world that made him feel defeated even in the midst of all the fortunate things that happened to us. My mother was the same. She gave up hope of ever winning the game, succumbed to this idea that everything was stacked against her so why do anything but drink? They were afraid and I’ve been too, all the time, even before Dan died.” She put a hand on her stomach and saw Tommy’s eyes follow her movements and then fix back to her face. “I had my lists and my work and my perfectly ordered home with the coordinated hangers in my closet, all to manage my fear.” She paused, trying to find the words to say what she meant.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She gazed at the rafters of his living room, steadying her voice. “For the first time this afternoon I understand what went wrong with their lives. They gave into the fear. And I felt compassion for them, maybe even forgiveness.” She threw up her hands. “And I don’t know where that leaves me, except really sad.” She stopped talking, as suddenly as she started, and stood with her hands poised in the air as if she might go on but instead closed her mouth and gazed at Tommy.

  He moved to the couch and sat with his hands folded in his lap. His eyes were open and seeing. “What else?”

  She paused for a moment, trying to find the right words. “I wonder if there’s something in me that made the two most important people in my life turn dark and hopeless?”

  He inched forward to the edge of the couch as if he might stand. He brushed his hands through his hair. “Lee, their demons had nothing to do with you.”

  “Do you have demons? What keeps you up at night?”

  He smiled, running his middle finger along the top of his lip. “The thought of you keeps me awake lately. But my demons were put to rest a long time ago, with God’s help. Now I find peace everywhere.”

  “What does that even mean?”