Trailer Park Heart

by Higginson, Rachel

  Finch had some kind of carpentry business that was taking off. And Mercer had followed the family business of selling farm equipment—New Holland and John Deere and what not. They also sold a large number of ATVs and four-wheelers.

  I didn’t have to deal with them often, but once a month they’d grab breakfast together at Rosie’s and I would be forced to wait on them. They hadn’t changed since high school. For all their success, they were still the goofy meatheads they’d always been.

  “Morning, gentlemen,” I said to them upon approach. “Can I start you off with some coffee?”

  Three sets of eyes turned to face me at the same time. I felt the curiosity in the air from Finch and Mercer immediately. It was always there with them. We had graduated together, and they’d known me from when we were kids.

  Life had not gone as planned for me. That much was obvious to anyone that knew me from childhood. It was a strange thing to watch people grow up in their entirety, without the benefit of secrecy from time apart. There was more judgment there, higher expectations. Not just from them, but from me too. I didn’t understand why Finch had never married his high school girlfriend, Sadie. And I had never understood why Mercer stayed at his family business, when I knew he’d always wanted to travel.

  I could feel their unanswered questions about me circling the air, but I was thankful both of them had enough sense not to ask them. Instead, we watched each other the way we always had, from a distance, with our opinions to ourselves. I didn’t really like the two of them, but I didn’t hate them either. In high school they’d been as indifferent to me as they were now. And in my Clark City experience, that was the nicest way I had ever been received.

  But Levi was an entirely different creature. I felt his gaze boring into me, demanding answers to those same questions I knew he would be more than happy to ask if given half an opportunity.

  “Morning, Ruby,” Levi murmured in that low, hoarse voice of his.

  Avoiding his gaze and ignoring his direct greeting, I turned to Finch. “What do you think? Coffee?”

  Finch wrinkled his brow and glanced quickly at his prodigal friend before nodding. “Yeah, for me. Please.”

  “For me too,” Mercer added.

  The trio fell quiet, waiting for Levi’s answer. When he didn’t give one, I was forced to look at him. His green gaze captured mine immediately, hot and cold all at once, like the thunderstorm rolling through town behind him. Icy rain drops in the middle of sizzling streaks of lightning.

  “I’d like a cup too, please,” he said softly.

  Breathless for absolutely no reason, I nodded at the menus stored at the end of the table and tried to collect myself. “I’ll go grab the pot then,” I told them, hoping they didn’t notice the tremor in my voice. “Y’all can check out the menus. Although I highly recommend our special today. It’s corned beef and hash made with Reggie’s’ homemade sauerkraut. We serve two fried eggs over the top and throw in the cinnamon coffee cake short stack and two pieces of bacon to sweeten the deal. Sounds weird, I know, but I promise you’ll thank me for it.”

  It was the pitch I’d been giving tables all morning and I said it more out of habit than politeness, but I was anxious to get away from this table and I hadn’t really meant to prolong my stay.

  “Throw in an extra piece of bacon and I might consider it,” Levi answered.

  I was forced to look at him and while I should have been better prepared for his face and those eyes and his aggressive aura, I wasn’t. Looking at him was like a punch in the face. I missed the boy I couldn’t stand seven years ago. I missed the softer edges to his jawline and the smaller biceps, that could throw a football wherever it needed to go, but didn’t have the sharp, cut edges they did now.

  “Don’t you think you’re overdoing it on the bacon? That shit is going to mess with your heart.” The words fell out of my mouth, a product of being totally unnerved by this man and completely irritated with him all at once.

  His head tilted to the side, his glowing green eyes not letting me get away with anything. “Are you telling me you care, Ruby? I had no idea you were so thoughtful when it came to my heart.” There was a bite to his words, a razor-sharp edge intended to cut me.

  But I wasn’t that easy to wound anymore. And besides, he could be mad I turned him down for dinner all he wanted. I was doing this as a favor to him, whether he knew it or not.

  “Just sayin’,” I shot back. “I don’t want you to drop dead from a heart attack or anything. It’s bad for business.”

  He pushed back against the seat, flexing his arms and struggling to maintain his reposed position. “Right.”

  I smiled at him, feeling more confident than I had in a long time. It shouldn’t feel this good to win a round against Levi Cole. I should be over our rivalry. I definitely shouldn’t want to antagonize the man—especially when I was so afraid he’d start digging around, trying to figure out who Max’s dad was. And yet, it had been a long time since I’d gotten a win. Against Levi or anybody. I couldn’t help but gloat just a little.

  “I’ll be back with your coffee, gentlemen. Let me know if you have any questions about the menu.”

  My ego swelling from the small round of verbal victory, I sashayed away from the table and found it easier to go back and give them the promised caffeine. At first, they didn’t even acknowledge my presence. They were stuck in the memories of old football games and girls they used to chase. Mercer and Levi were giving Finch a hard time about Sadie and why he had never been good enough for her.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I told them after their mugs were steaming and full. “But I’ll get your order in and then leave y’all alone.”

  “Settle a bet for us first.” Mercer grinned at me. “Who was that guy you used to date in high school? None of us can remember his name.”

  They had the look of puppy dogs. All three of them. Total wide-eyed innocence and gentleness. But I would have seen their trap a mile away. They were waiting for my answer so they could bite at my heels and chew up my favorite pair of shoes.

  I kept my tone even, ignoring the way all of my insides seemed to tremble at their curiosity, and said, “I didn’t have a boyfriend in high school.”

  “Yeah, sure, of course,” Mercer agreed placatingly. “But there was a guy, yeah? He took you to senior prom?”

  “Ye,” I said simply, naming the foreign exchange student we’d had that year. Ye-Jun was from South Korea and had been one of the nicest people I’d ever known. He’d taken me to homecoming and senior prom that year and I probably could have fallen in love with him if I hadn’t already thought I was in love with Logan Cole.

  Also, he went back to South Korea, so there had never been a real connection between us.

  Finch turned to Levi. “I forgot about Ye.”

  Levi shrugged. Apparently, he had not.

  “There was another guy though, wasn’t there?” Mercer pushed. “Didn’t you hang out with someone else?”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed patiently. “I wasn’t totally antisocial. I hung out with a lot of guys.”

  “No, not like that,” Mercer said. “Like hung out with. You know, dated.”

  They were playing the Guess Ruby’s Baby Daddy game. This was not the first time I’d had to dodge these kinds of questions. And as fun as it was, I was officially done with this conversation.

  “Oh yeah, now I remember.” I set the coffee carafe down in the middle of the table and took a step back. “You mean the guy I banged right before graduation?” Mercer nodded, rapt with attention. I snapped my fingers and confessed, “It was your dad.” Before they could pick their jaws up off the table, I added, “Let me know when you’re ready to order.”

  When I got back to the counter, RJ was snickering. I knew he wasn’t the only one eavesdropping either by the look of horror on Carol Cook’s face. But enough was enough already.

  The thing was, Max’s dad was almost old news by this point. Sure, there was the occasional whispered c
onspiracy theory, but for the most part the town had moved on. There had been at least a dozen unplanned pregnancies since mine, plus a handful of affairs, bankruptcies and one very scandalous student-teacher misconduct between forty-three-year-old Mrs. Bishop and fifteen-year-old Tobias Patterson, who was from my neighborhood. I was old news.

  Until Levi Cole walked back into town, reigniting a match that had been blown out years ago. I could feel his curiosity burning bright through the restaurant. I could see it in his narrowed gaze and ticking jaw. He wanted to know the answer to this unanswered question. And he wasn’t going to stop until he had it.

  I ignored their table completely until Finch flagged me down to take their order. They didn’t let up teasing me, but at least nobody asked any more questions about my nonexistent high school dating life. I managed to wait on them in relative peace. They hung out for a while and I had the arduous duty of refilling their coffee pot one more time, but mostly they left me alone in favor of reliving the glory days.

  Eventually, they’d exhausted all topics of conversation and left. I took the fifty-dollar tip they left on the table as reparations for the emotional damage of their presence over the last two hours and felt mildly appeased.

  Although, the feeling didn’t last when I realized they would be back. And knowing Levi, the questions wouldn’t stop until he discovered the answer.

  Nobody in the entire town, not even my own mother, cared enough about my life to dig up the truth. Nobody except Levi Cole—the one man who could not find out.

  9

  Gas Station Stick Up

  When my shift was over that afternoon, the rain still hadn’t stopped. Apparently, RJ’s hip or whatever bone it was that could sense the weather had lied to him.

  I said goodbye to Rosie and Reggie and grabbed my cardigan and purse. I wished I would have brought my rain jacket with me, but when I’d peeked out the bathroom window this morning, I hadn’t noticed the dark clouds collecting overhead because it was still dark outside. It wasn’t until I was scurrying toward the car, and raindrops started pelting my forehead that I realized I’d dressed completely inappropriately for the stormy day.

  Standing near the front door of the restaurant, I decided I would run over to the gas station that had a small convenience store attached to grab something for dinner before hightailing it to my car. Maybe they’d also have a cheap umbrella.

  I didn’t relish the idea of spending extra money on an umbrella, but today it felt like a necessity. Then I could walk up to the school building to get Max if I had to without both of us getting soaked.

  Set on the idea, I burst through the front door to Rosie’s and scurried across the street to the Pump and Pantry, soaking my sneakers. Damn.

  The floor inside the gas station was slick from people walking in from the rain all day. I skidded to a halt narrowly missing a pyramid of winter weather wiper fluid.

  “Hey, Ruby!” Maria, the long-time daytime cashier at the P&P called out. “Some rain, huh?”

  “Hey,” I smiled at her. Our shared dislike of this town’s population had bonded us over the years. “It’s pretty much the worst.”

  “Umbrellas are in a bucket near the door,” she told me, reading my mind. “I’ll give it to you for half price.”

  My smile widened. “You’re the best.”

  She turned to a customer that stepped up to the counter and I walked toward the freezer section. I didn’t make it a habit to shop here for groceries. It was usually too pricey for my budget, for one. But also, their selection wasn’t awesome. I tried to stay away from processed foods as much as possible, but it wasn’t easy when the outer edges of the grocery store were so expensive. Still, I made a concerted effort to give Max food I had never been offered as a child. Fresh fruits and veggies, proteins that didn’t come from a can, and real, non-plastic cheese. It cut into my paychecks a lot and set me back from saving as much as I wanted. But I figured while I was living with my mom and had some financial freedom to feed him healthy options, I would take advantage.

  However, I didn’t get paid until the end of the week and I was saving my big grocery shopping trip for Saturday. Which meant today’s supper was courtesy of the good old P&P and would probably come from a box of some sort.

  As I perused the meager choices of frozen options, the front door opened and closed, bringing with it a gust of wet wind. I shivered in my damp cardigan and grabbed a box of hot chocolate from an endcap close by.

  “It’s not that cold outside.”

  I turned, not at all surprised to see Levi Cole standing there. I blinked at him twice and then backstepped into an aisle with pantry items to resume my search for supper options. “Cold enough,” I mumbled at the shelf. “Why are you everywhere all of a sudden?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For someone who disappeared for seven years, you’re suddenly everywhere that I am. It’s strange.”

  “I saw you run in here,” he admitted without shame. “I was just over—” He gestured outside and I pictured him sitting in a surveillance van watching my every move. “I, uh, I wanted to apologize for this morning. At breakfast.”

  Keeping my mouth shut, I reached for a box of cheeseburger macaroni. Thanks, Hamburger Helper.

  I wasn’t going to make this easy on him. He needed to suffer a bit. He might have gotten away with murder in high school, but times had changed.

  I had changed.

  “It’s just weird.” When I still didn’t look at him, he added, “I mean, you have a kid now, Ruby. That’s hard for me to process. I mentioned it to Finch and Mercer and that was a mistake. Mercer shouldn’t have grilled you like that. I’m sorry.”

  Lifting a shoulder in a casual shrug, I pretended to read the nutritional facts on the back of the box. “Same old shit, Levi, different decade. It’s not anything you need to worry about.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him lift his hand as if he wanted to rest it on my shoulder before dropping it back to his side. “It’s just that… They don’t know who Max’s dad is.”

  His tone caught my attention before his words made sense in my head and my entire body snapped around to face him. He wasn’t actually apologizing for his stupidity earlier today. He was making an excuse for it. Unbelievable.

  I blinked at him, which apparently prompted him to say, “So who is it? Who’s Max’s dad?”

  The way he kept saying Max irritated me. The way he remembered his name at all, after only having met him once, bugged me. He said it like he knew my son, like they’d had a conversation or some kind of memorable interaction. Worry churned in my gut and the urge to flee made my feet itch.

  Good lord, he was the very last person that wanted the answer to that question.

  Besides, it wasn’t any of his business.

  “Excuse me?” I tried to step around him, but anticipating my move, he blocked my path.

  “Listen, I’m not trying to be a dick—”

  “I don’t think you have to try— it just comes naturally.”

  “But,” he redirected, away from my insult, “I’m curious. And I feel out of the loop. Everyone else knows and I don’t, so instead of listening to town gossip, I thought I would come straight to you. Set the record straight.”

  My mouth went suddenly dry, the truth soaking up whatever moisture was there like a bitter sponge. “How nice of you,” I managed to growl. I tried to step around him again, but he moved in front of me and held out his arms.

  “Ruby, come on.” He laughed, a smile pushing the corners of his mouth wide. It was an act though, smoke and mirrors. He wasn’t relaxed. And he wasn’t asking out of some friendly obligation to save my reputation. “I’m sure whoever the guy is, he’s decent. Mercer said you’re not with him now. I’m just curious—”

  God, this had to stop. Now. “I don’t know.”

  He stilled, his entire body turning solid. He had been bobbing and weaving before, blocking my path and boxing me in. Now he was an impossibly hard, marble st
atue and I was afraid I’d never make it past him. There was a kind of quiet fury to him that made my hands tremble. “What?”

  Needing this conversation to end as soon as possible, I gave a feeble shrug. “I don’t know, Levi. Okay? I don’t know who Max’s dad is. And I don’t want to speculate with you of all people. You’re pretty much a stranger to me now. So just drop it.”

  He ignored me—all of my straightforward commands to stop asking questions and my veiled insults. He ignored everything. Instead, his low growl voiced his desperate curiosity, “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  I ground my teeth together and resisted the urge to scream for help. Not that anyone would step in to help me. Even Maria could see we were only talking. It wasn’t like I was in danger. I just didn’t want to have this conversation.

  Bravely meeting his unrelenting gaze with courage I did not feel, I spread my hands helplessly. “I don’t know, okay? It’s not something I like to admit or talk about. For obvious reasons, I want to protect Max from this as much as possible. But please understand, I don’t know who his dad is.”

  This answer had placated everyone before. Even my mom and my closest friends. For the rest of town, they found it easy to believe that I had slept around enough that the mystery man could not be named. The conversations I’d overheard, speculated that he was most likely someone from out of town.

  For my friends, I had made enough sketchy decisions around the time I suspected I was pregnant that I was able to cast doubt over when and where and with whom I could have accidentally slipped up. I started going to more parties. I started disappearing at the end of them, claiming drunkenness and confusion.

  Besides, I had always been a loner. There were plenty of nights, Coco and Emilia couldn’t account for my whereabouts. I just embellished the truth enough to make it ambiguously shady.

  They knew I hadn’t had that many partners, but my inability to confess Max’s father, made it clear I’d had enough to cast doubt on who it could be. And they had supported my decision not to pursue knowledge about the subject. It made sense to them that I would want to do this solo, that I didn’t want to know the father.