All I Want (A Farmers' Market Story)

by Helm, Nicole

  Really nice butt.

  Designer jeans.

  Couldn’t win them all. The fact of the matter was, cute and flirting or not, he was the type of guy she’d known all too well growing up. The nice clothes and expensive watch, that serious business resting face.

  He was a type—a type she had no interest in.

  Oh well. It didn’t hurt to look, especially when the chances of him returning were slim to none. When her phone chimed in her pocket, she stiffened. The text from her mother wasn’t unexpected, but it felt cruel. Mom surely considered it efficient, but the timing, the brevity...

  The funeral will be Thursday.

  Grandma was gone. Meg hadn’t been allowed to be in the hospital for fear she might “upset people.” Even though Grandma had been the only one to stand by her. Even though Grandma had set her up with the farm after Meg got out of rehab, and even though Grandma had supported her through every setback.

  As though that hadn’t been bad enough, every offer of help with arrangements had also been rebuffed. Because it was what they wanted. No one in the Carmichael clan was thinking about what Grandma wanted. Would have wanted. All they could think about was appearances. What people might think.

  It had been drilled in them for generations, Meg figured. This strident need to show only perfection and success.

  To them, Meg would always be a failure. Always be imperfect.

  Meg blinked away tears and forced her lips to curve upward as two women passed. “Good morning! Goat milk soap has many skin benefits. Can I offer you a brochure?”

  Suck it up. Smile. Pretend nothing is wrong. Mom would be so proud.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “OBVIOUSLY WE’LL OFFER you a reference as this isn’t a reflection of your abilities.”

  Charlie sat in the cushy chair of his new boss’s office, which had been his old boss’s office, but now...

  He blinked, trying to make his thoughts follow a straight line. This wasn’t out of the blue. He’d known this possibility existed. But now it was here and he somehow couldn’t wrap his brain around it.

  “We’d like you to stay on for a few weeks, ease us through the transition. You’d be compensated, naturally. Alisha here will go over your severance package once that’s done.” Mr. Collins nodded toward the human resources woman Charlie had never met because she’d come from this new company.

  It didn’t matter who she was or what she went over, he was being let go from the position he’d worked his ass off for. He’d poured ten years of his life into this company and what did he have to show for it? A severance package?

  “I’m sure you’ll land on your feet. You’re sharp. I’m sorry we couldn’t keep you, but you know how these things go.”

  Mr. Collins held out his hand, the same dismissive gesture Charlie had extended to others in the past. But always for performance reasons. He’d never had to lay off a member of his team just because.

  But Charlie had been businessman professional too long not to smile politely, take the offered hand and let Alisha usher him down the corridor to her office. An office that had belonged to Marissa, a mother of three, not that long ago.

  This new woman’s office was spare and efficient, absent of a million hand-painted drawings with goofy magnets along the edge of the filing cabinet. No giant bowl of hard candy at the edge of her desk either.

  Things like this had been happening for weeks, and he was shamed to realize how it’d failed to hit him until he was the one getting the ax. Change usually meant a person’s life was being upended. The changes that had been sweeping through the office hadn’t been voluntary or easy for most involved.

  But he’d been too wrapped up in himself, in how much he deserved to stay, to notice how it was affecting people, and that shamed him too, deeply.

  There was paperwork to fill out. Alisha spoke in gentle, patient tones, so he nearly felt like he was back in kindergarten, complete with her escorting him back to his office.

  His office. His.

  “You’ll want to start notifying your clients,” Alisha said in that elementary school teacher voice. “Before they hear from anyone else.”

  Right. Work to do. Clients to notify so the company that was firing him—no, laying him off—didn’t lose any business. He would need to prepare everything to turn over to his replacement, whom he’d meet tomorrow. It didn’t matter that he’d been let go, there was still work to do.

  For the afternoon, he worked as diligently as he had the previous ten years. Making sure clients understood nothing would change, readying files and binders. He efficiently and methodically worked to make his job something he could simply hand over to someone else.

  It was a long day of continuous surrealism; none of it really sank in. Because he had a few weeks ahead of him, of training someone else to do his job. He had weeks of making sure things were “in order.”

  So, at the end of the day, when he shut his laptop down, he thought this would feel the same too.

  Instead he stared at the blank screen. His usual next step was to snap it shut, slide it into his briefcase, check his phone one last time for emails or messages and then walk out. Most Thursday nights he ate dinner with his parents. It wasn’t a day to stay late in the office, like he did every other night.

  But the IT Department had asked him to leave the computer so they could prep it for his replacement. He didn’t know how to walk away from this extension of himself that was going to be handed off to someone else.

  His replacement.

  He looked around the office that had been his for almost two years. He wasn’t a knickknack kind of guy. There were some awards on the wall, a picture of the Wainwrights from Lainey’s first birthday on his desk next to his Stan Musial–signed baseball.

  It would take him ten minutes tops to erase himself from this office, and he didn’t know what that said about him, or his job, or his life; he only knew it felt like it meant something—something not particularly good.

  * * *

  MEG PACED THE SIDEWALK outside the church trying very hard to breathe through the sobs that racked her body.

  She couldn’t hear what was happening inside, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She didn’t want the prayers or priest’s words telling her Grandma was in a better place. What better place was there than here—at Meg’s side?

  Meg tried to mop up her face, but she’d neglected to bring tissues, so she had only the collar of her dress and the backs of her hands. And she just kept crying, so it was a completely useless exercise anyway.

  She might not want to be in there, but she knew she should be. Grandma would want her in there, would consider it the right thing to do.

  But she also wouldn’t want a scene, and if Meg tried to get in a second time...

  The broken sob was impossible to swallow down. How could they turn her away from the funeral? How could they ban her? Grandma wouldn’t have wanted that. Grandma had always loved her.

  No matter what.

  Meg knew, in a way, this was her fault. She hadn’t planned well and the black sweater she figured she’d throw over her tattoos had boasted a giant hole in the armpit when she pulled it out of her closet.

  Meg had spent ten frantic moments pawing through her closet trying to find something acceptable to her parents that would also cover her arms and match and be suitable grieving colors and she’d just...given up.

  What was the point of scrambling through your closet when your grandmother was gone and your family was going to snub you anyway? To her parents, the tattoos were the visible slap in the face of all Meg had thrown away, all the shame she’d brought to their doorstep. In the world of her parents, appearances were everything.

  So she’d accepted that Mom would sneer at the simple black dress that allowed some of her tattoos to be visible. She’d
accepted that she’d probably have to sit alone, maybe even toward the back of the church.

  But she’d never imagined it possible, not in a million years, that her parents would bar her from her own grandmother’s funeral.

  The church bells tolled and Meg felt like she was eight again, alone outside this church, not understanding what was wrong with her—why her parents would rather pretend she didn’t exist than hug her.

  She’d run out of church one Sunday, determined to just run. Because the priest could talk all he wanted about God’s love, but it hadn’t been infused into her parents. All they’d ever cared about was what their friends might have said behind their backs, or to their faces. The deals Dad might have lost if certain business partners found out he couldn’t control his daughter. The Carmichael name.

  “I won’t go back there,” she muttered aloud, no doubt looking like an insane person. But surely this couldn’t be the worst behavior anyone had ever seen at a funeral.

  The stately church doors opened with a groan, and everyone began processing out. Red eyes, tears, handkerchiefs. Some people didn’t look twice at her. A few of her distant relatives touched her arm briefly on their way to the cars that would take them to the cemetery.

  But everyone knew not to stop and talk to Meg. Meg the addict. Meg the failure. Meg the giant black splotch on a proud and old-moneyed family.

  When Mom approached, her eyes held more fury than grief, and all Meg wanted to do was leave to find a drink. Find oblivion. It had been a long time since she sincerely wished for something else to take her away, but that wish was so deep, so big, it was all she could think about as Mom bore down on her.

  “You are not wanted,” Mom hissed.

  “You made me miss the service, but you cannot bar me from the cemetery.”

  “Yes, I can, because I care about how this family looks. Do you really think your grandmother would want you here reminding everyone how you’ve continually thrown your life away?”

  Meg wanted to speak, wanted to yell, Yes, she would want me here. I know she would want me here. But she couldn’t form the words, not in the face of her mother’s righteous fury. Meg’s decisions as a teenager had been a betrayal to the Carmichael name that Mom would never forgive.

  “You are not welcome, Margaret,” Mom said, before smiling at an elderly couple who walked by them.

  Margaret. Meg’s hated given name. “All I want is to say goodbye. I will stay out of your way,” Meg said, trying to be strong.

  Dad stepped between them, easily clamping a hand over her mother’s elbow. “That’s enough.”

  For a brief, blinding moment Meg actually thought her father was standing up for her. All the grief and confusion, for just one second, felt bearable. Like she could handle it if one of them stood up for her.

  But then his icy blue gaze landed on her face, and his mouth went into a firm, disapproving line. “You’ve done enough to upset your mother. You ought to be ashamed of yourself making a scene like this.”

  “I...” But she couldn’t finish the denial. She didn’t want a scene. She didn’t want to feel like she was fifteen and emotionally bleeding all over the place in front of them while they sneered and pushed her away again, but here they were, making it happen anyway.

  Blaming her. Looking down their noses at her. When she was theirs.

  “She’d want me here. You know she would,” Meg managed, trying to firm her chin enough to lift it, trying to find strength somewhere deep, deep, deep down. Grandma’s strength.

  “Well, we do not,” Dad returned, pulling Mom with him as they walked toward the sleek black car that would follow the procession to the cemetery where nearly a century of Carmichaels were buried.

  In the end, Meg couldn’t force herself to go. She didn’t know how to fight them. She never had. She might be an adult, but they could still make her feel as though she was nothing—or worse.

  There’d only ever been one way to get rid of that feeling, and she wasn’t certain she could fight it anymore.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “YOU’LL LAND ON your feet.” Mom pulled Charlie into a firm hug at the front door of the aging farmhouse he’d grown up in.

  How the hell had this happened? This whole day was a warped nightmare. First having to hear the words he’d been let go, having to go through the day with the knowledge he’d poured so many years into that company. Outselling every junior salesman, climbing the ranks by sheer force of will and determination to succeed.

  “It’s a good severance package, son. And I’m sure you’ll have a new job lined up in no time.”

  Charlie tried to force a smile. He appreciated his parents’ support. More than he could fully feel in the numb aftermath of today. But he’d been lucky to grow up here, to have this family, even for all their problems.

  Unfortunately he wasn’t in the mood for support and hugs. He wanted to yell. He wanted to punch something.

  “Thank you for dinner,” Charlie managed to say with some semblance of a normal voice. “I’ll see you on Saturday.”

  He knew he didn’t fool his mother at all, but she let him walk out into the night, knowing as she always did exactly what he needed. Which wasn’t support or coddling.

  With stiff, heavy limbs he climbed into his car. At least it was paid off. Money really wasn’t an immediate concern. While he splurged on occasion, growing up the son of a struggling farmer, he’d been too practical to waste money. A nice car, a nice watch, a nice place, but he wasn’t like his friends, getting an expensive car every few years, eating at expensive restaurants every night, filling every inch of their lives with stuff.

  Money and even finding a new job weren’t the issues. He’d have headhunters calling him next week. It was his pride that lay bruised and bloody on the ground, not to mention the sneaking suspicion he’d somehow failed before he’d even lost his job.

  What good was success if it could be unfairly ripped out from under your feet?

  Christ, he needed a drink.

  Normally that would mean heading back to the city, meeting friends. But heading back to the bustle and lights and his still-employed friends sounded a lot more painful than heading to an old New Benton townie bar.

  Maybe he’d be able to remember how good he had it surrounded by people way worse off than him. He drove away from his parents’ house, past Dell’s warmly lit cabin, dissatisfaction uncomfortably digging deeper and deeper.

  By the time he got to the Shack, an aptly named dilapidated building with neon lights that only half still worked, he was ready to get so drunk he wouldn’t even know his own name. Something he’d never done, not even in his college days.

  Because he was Charlie Wainwright. He followed the rules. Did what he was supposed to. All so he could succeed.

  And for what?

  Those words kept haunting him. All day. Over and over. For what?

  He walked through the smoky bar, low strains of old-time country music twanging in the air. The room was mainly filled with old men in overalls, older women in ill-advised leather and a few people who probably looked a lot older than they’d ever actually be.

  He strode up to the bar, ordered two doubles of their best bourbon, which was not very good at all, then situated himself on a barstool.

  It might not be the practical, sensible, Charlie way of dealing with a problem, but what did it matter? The practical, sensible, Charlie way of dealing had gotten him here—with nothing to show.

  You’re pathetic, Wainwright.

  Not something he was particularly proud of, but he’d give himself this weekend to wallow. Indulge in a few un-Charlie-like things. Monday he’d nip all this self-loathing, self-pitying in the bud.

  But for tonight...tonight he was going to wallow. He knocked back the first drink, and then the second, before gesturing to the bart
ender that he wanted another. Once that third drink was comfortably downed, he looked around the dimly lit barroom.

  The blonde in the corner caught his attention, first because her hair was a kind of honeyed blond, not the near white of the cougars in leather. Second because her arm, just barely visible, was streaked with color.

  Hey, he knew that tattoo. Yes. He got off the barstool and made his way over to her, plopping himself down at her table.

  “I know you,” he said, pointing at her. “Goat Girl.” Oops. Probably shouldn’t call her that. That wasn’t very charming.

  Fuck charming. He didn’t feel like being much of anything.

  “I prefer Capra Crusader for my superhero goat name,” she replied, unsmiling, though he was pretty sure it was a joke.

  She was wearing a black dress, which made the colorful arm all that more bright and noticeable. Her forearm was the oddest antithesis to this bar. A sunny blue with white puffy clouds. He couldn’t make out what was above her elbow because the sleeve of her dress cut it off.

  In the past he would have made a joke about the tattoos. Maybe not to her face, but at least in his head. I-don’t-want-a-job tattoos.

  But her job didn’t require the level of respectability that his did. Oh, wait, he didn’t have a job. “Buy you another?” he said, gesturing to her glass.

  She stared hard at the remnants of whatever her first drink had been. Then stared equally as hard at the bar behind him. “You’ve bought my soap, might as well buy me a drink,” she said eventually. “Can’t go back anyway,” she muttered.

  He didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter. He meandered back to the bar, got two drinks, belatedly realizing he hadn’t asked her what she wanted. So he ordered four different drinks. Couldn’t hurt.

  He carefully carried the four glasses back to her table, only sloshing a little over his fingers.

  “I bring variety,” he announced, the heat of the liquor quickly spreading from gut to his extremities.

  A nice feeling all in all. Kind of numb and tingly. No heavy failure constricting everything. He felt light and fluid. Very nice indeed.