I let myself fall onto the grass into a sitting position, my knees bent, my bloodied hands dangling at the wrists. My body slumps over forward, my head hanging there. All I can see is the ground beneath me.
Camryn sits down in front of me. I feel her hands on the sides of my face, trying to raise my head, but I don’t let her.
“You can’t do this to me,” she says, her voice shuddering. She tries to force my gaze, and finally I let her because it hurts like hell to hear her cry. I look her in the eyes, my own eyes brimmed with angry tears that I’m trying to contain. “Baby, it wasn’t your fault. You were drugged. Anybody could have made that mistake as messed up as you were.” Her fingers tighten against both sides of my face. “It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault. Do you understand me?”
I try to look away, but she moves my hands out of the way and sits between my legs on her knees, facing me. Instinctively, I put my arms around her.
“I should’ve known still,” I say, looking down. “And it’s not just about that, Camryn, I was supposed to keep you safe. You never should’ve been drugged in the first place.” Just thinking about it causes the anger and hatred toward myself to rise up again. “I was supposed to keep you safe!”
She wraps her arms around me and forces my head onto her chest.
She pulls away. “Andrew, look at me. Please.”
I do. I see pain and compassion in her eyes. Her gentle fingers cup my unshaven face. She kisses my lips slowly and says, “It was a moment of weakness,” as if to remind me of what I said to her several months ago about the pills. “It’s my fault as much as it was yours. I’m not stupid. I should’ve known too not to leave our drinks alone with them even for a second. It’s not your fault.”
My eyes stray downward, and then I look back at her again. I don’t know how I can make her understand that because of how and who I am, I feel an intense sense of responsibility for her. A responsibility that I take pride in, that I’ve felt since the day I met her. It kills me… it kills me to know that in my “moment of weakness” I couldn’t protect her, that because I let my guard down she could’ve been hurt, raped, killed. How can I make her understand that it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t fault me for it, that her opinion, although I don’t take it for granted, doesn’t excuse my moment of failure? She’s entitled to a moment of weakness. I’m not. Mine is just failure.
“And I would never, ever hold that against you,” she adds.
I just look at her, searching her face for meaning and then she goes on:
“What that girl did,” she clarifies. “I’d never bring it up. Because you did nothing wrong.” I feel her fingertips press into the sides of my face. “Do you believe me?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah. I do believe you.”
She sighs and says, “It might’ve been partially my fault, anyway.” She looks away from my eyes.
“How so?”
“Well,” she says, but hesitates with a distant look of regret on her features, “I think I may have accidently given her permission.”
That certainly takes me by surprise.
“I remember her asking about sleeping with us, and I think I told her that yes, she could. I-I didn’t know she meant it… sexually. If I had been sober I definitely would’ve caught onto that. Andrew, I am so sorry. I’m sorry I let that crazy bitch violate you.”
I shake my head. “It’s neither one of our faults, so don’t feel like putting any of the blame on yourself, all right?”
When I don’t see that smile I was fishing for fast enough I reach out and grab both sides of her waist. She squeals as I start tickling her. She laughs and squirms so hard that she falls backward onto the grass, and I sit on top of her waist, holding my weight up by my knees on either side so I don’t crush her.
“Stop it! No! Andrew, I fucking swear! Stooooop!” She laughs hard, and I bury my fingertips around her ribs some more.
Then I hear the warning siren from a cop car sound once and go dead as it pulls up behind my car.
“Oh shit,” I say, looking down at Camryn. Her hair is matted with dried grass sticking out in various spots.
I jump off her and reach out my bloody hand to help her up. She takes it and rises to her feet, dusting herself off. We head back to the car just as the cop is getting out of his.
“Do you normally leave your door wide open on the highway like this?” the cop asks.
I glance at my door and back at him.
“No, sir,” I say. “I had to throw up and just didn’t think about it at the time.”
“License, insurance, and registration.”
I pull my license from my wallet and hand it to him and then go around to the passenger’s side to fish for my insurance and registration from the glove box. Camryn leans against the back of the car with her arms crossed nervously over her chest. The cop goes back to his car—after taking notice of the blood on my hands—and sits inside to run my name.
“I hope you’ve not been hiding any robberies or murders or anything from me,” Camryn says, as I lean against the hood next to her.
“Nah, my serial-killing days are over,” I say. “He’s got nothin’ on me.” I elbow her gently in the side.
A few unnerving minutes later the cop joins us at the back of the car and hands my stuff back to me.
“What happened to your hand?” he asks.
I look down at it, for the first time feeling the throbbing pain now that he’s brought it to my attention. Then I point to the tree not too far away. “I sort of hit the tree.”
“You sort of hit the tree?” he asks suspiciously, and I notice him glancing at Camryn every few seconds. Great, he probably thinks I beat her or some shit, and considering she does look pretty rough after last night’s incident and our recent scuffle in the grass, it probably helps confirm his assumption.
“OK, I hit a tree.”
He looks right at Camryn now. “Is that what happened?” he asks her.
Camryn, nervous as hell and likely knowing what the cop is thinking really happened as much as I do, suddenly has a Natalie moment.
“Yes, sir,” she says, gesturing her hands. “He got mad because some assholes—” she winces “—sorry, took advantage of us last night, and he was beating himself up over it all morning to the point of ultimately taking it out on that tree! I ran out there to stop him before he hurt himself and we talked about it and the reason I look like hammered shit—sorry—is because of the screwed-up night we had. But I promise we aren’t bad people. We don’t do drugs and he’s not a serial killer or anything, so please just let us go. You can even search the car if you want.”
Face. Palm. Moment.
I laugh it off inside. We don’t have anything to worry about if he searches the car. Unless… our temporary friends, Elias and Bray, just happened to drop a bag of weed or any kind of incriminating stuff somewhere in my backseat, by accident.
Oh shit… please don’t let this turn out like it does on television.
I glance over at Camryn and subtly shake my head at her.
Her eyes widen. “What’d I say?”
I just smile, still shaking my head, because it’s all I really can do.
The cop sniffles and then gnaws on the inside of his mouth. He looks back and forth between Camryn and me several times without a word, which only increases the tension we’re feeling.
“Next time don’t leave the door wide open like that,” the cop says, his expression as unmoving as it has been this whole time. “It’d be a shame to see a passing vehicle knock the door off a 1969 Chevelle in that good a condition.”
A slim smile brightens my face. “Absolutely.”
The cop pulls out ahead of us and leaves while we stay parked inside the car for a moment.
“ ‘You can search the car if you want’?” I repeat.
“I know!” she laughs and throws her head back against the seat momentarily. “I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out.”
I laugh, too. “Well, looks like your inn
ocent rambling, which by the way scares me a little; I think that bipolar best friend of yours has rubbed off on you, but it charmed us out of that one.”
I rest my hands on the steering wheel.
She was smiling and probably about to comment on my Natalie joke, until she sees my bloody knuckles again. Then she moves over next to me and takes my hand carefully into hers.
“We need to clean this before it gets infected,” she says. She leans closer and carefully starts picking tiny pieces of grass and dirt from around and inside the open gash. “That’s pretty bad, Andrew.”
“It’s not too bad,” I say. “I don’t need stitches.”
“No, you just need to be slapped. Don’t ever do something like that again. I mean it.” She picks out one last bit of debris and then leans over the back of the seat, reaching for the small ice chest in the back.
I turn my head to the right, and all I see is her ass hanging out of those shorts. I reach up with my bloodied hand and slip my finger underneath her bikini bottom elastic and snap it back against her skin. It doesn’t faze her, but she rolls her eyes at me when she emerges from the backseat and sits down with a water bottle.
“Rinse it out,” she demands, holding the bottle out to me.
I open my door and take it from her, holding my hand out and pouring water over the wound.
As she’s rummaging through her purse for something she says, “The next time you get that pissed off and feel the need to take out your anger on inanimate objects, I’m officially going to jot your name down on my Psychotic List.” She holds out a tube of Neosporin to me.
I just shake my head and take it. Guess I can’t argue with her on that one.
She points at the Neosporin in my hand and tells me to hurry and put it on. I laugh and say, “You sure are a demanding little heifer.”
She play-punches me in the arm (which actually hurts her) and accuses me of calling her fat. It’s all in good fun, and I think it’s her way of helping take my mind off what happened. Within minutes we’re lost in conversations about music and what kinds of bars or clubs we might play in along the way to New Orleans.
Yes, we decided at one point that no matter where we stop on the way or how long we stay that eventually we’ll visit our favorite place along the Mississippi, no matter what.
* * *
That was two days ago. Today, we’re laid up in a decent hotel in the great state of Alabama.
26
“Are you excited about tonight, or do you need a paper bag to blow in?” Andrew asks, coming out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.
“Both,” I say. I set the remote control down on the nightstand and sit up in the bed. “I know the song, but it’s my first solo. So yes, I’m freaking out a little.”
He digs around inside his bag by the TV and finds a pair of clean boxers. The towel drops to the floor. I tilt my head to one side, watching his sexy naked ass from the bed. He steps into his boxers and snaps them around his waist.
“You’re going to kick ass,” he says, turning to face me. “You’ve had plenty of practice and you’ve nailed it already. Besides, if I thought you weren’t ready, I’d tell you.”
“I know you would.”
“Well, are you ready for work?” he asks, slipping on the rest of his clothes.
“Yep. I guess so. How do I look?”
I stand up and twirl around, dressed in a skimpy spaghetti-strap black top and tight jeans. “Wait,” I say, putting up my finger. I slip my feet down into my new sleek black calf-high boots and zip them up the sides. Then I retwirl and do my pose again, overdramatizing it a bit.
“Unbearably sexy as always,” he says, grinning, and then he steps up to me and runs my braid through his hand.
Tonight I may be performing solo “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks, but for two hours before I go on I’m going to waitress and Andrew will be busing tables. Score! I get the cool job.
It’s a packed house when we arrive at seven. I love the atmosphere of this place. The stage is decent sized, but the table and dance floor are enormous. And it’s full, which makes me that much more nervous. I walk through to the back, my hand clasped in Andrew’s as we weave our way through the crowd. We got lucky with this temp job to be able to work together for a few nights. Every other side job along the trip since Virginia has been sporadic. I’d work cleaning rooms here and there while Andrew would bartend or even fill in as a bouncer. He may not be steroid-big (and I’m glad because that’s gross), but his muscles are big enough that they hired him easily. Thankfully he didn’t have to drag anyone out by their shirts or get into any fights.
Our boss for the next few days, German—it’s his name, definitely not his nationality, because the guy is as redneck as they come—hands Andrew a white apron and a pin-on name tag that says Andy.
I hold in my laughter, but Andrew sees the amused look on my face.
German rubs his chunky sausagelike hand across his nose, wipes it on his jeans and says, “A’soon as someone leaves a table an’ takes ther’ shit wit’em you get o’er ther’ an’ get that table ready fer anodder customer.” He shakes his finger at Andy, er, I mean Andrew. “An’ don’ touch tha tips. Dems’ de waitress’s, y’hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Andrew says. When German looks down at his order slip book for a second, Andrew mouths the words What the fuck? and I try to straighten my lips into a hard line to keep from smiling when German looks back up at us.
German looks at me, I mean really looks at me, totally unlike he was looking at Andrew just now. He smiles a yellowed smile and says, “An’ you jus’ need ta look ’zactly like you do now. Put on dat sweet smile an’ rake in dem tips.”
I can only imagine what the other waitresses who work here full-time have to go through with this guy.
I bat my baby blues at him and say with a sweet, seductive country twang in my voice, “I sure will, Mr. German. And lata when my shift is ova’ I’m sure you will unda’stand that I’ll need to go in tha back an’ freshen up before I perform t’night.”
I notice Andrew’s eyes get bigger and more intrigued, but I keep my attention on German, who I already have so tightly wrapped around my finger that if I told him to lick the floor he would ask Fer how long?
Andrew
That Southern belle accent that came out of nowhere really turned me on. She and I are gonna have to talk about that later.
I pin on my name tag, tie my apron at the back, and grab the plastic tublike thing German points to when I look over. Hell, I don’t mind this kind of work, but German is a redneck dickhead who I hope stays out of my way for the next two hours. And he could use a stick of deodorant. I mean the whole fucking stick. He really doesn’t go with the place. He’s like a rebel flag hanging in the window of a $400,000 house. The bar-slash-restaurant is actually decked out pretty nice. On the inside, at least.
I head out onto the floor with my tub fixed underneath my arm and go to the first empty table I see. I clear away all of the trash and dirty dishes covered with uneaten fries and hush puppies, and toss everything into the tub. Then I wipe the table down with the rag in my apron pocket, and straighten the ketchup and steak sauce bottles. It’s all pretty straightforward, unlike waitressing, which I guess is why only Camryn had to get an hour’s worth of training yesterday before she could start today. She may have the tip job where she can work that sexy charm of hers, but she has to put up with the creepy perverted boss. And I’m lovin’ the shit out of it. It’s what she gets for making fun of me getting the busing job. She joked around by calling me the bar’s “bottom feeder.” Well, I hope she doesn’t expect me to save her skinny butt from German’s advances. She’s on her own with that one.
I bus a couple more tables, leaving the five-dollar tip on one table and the twenty on another. When I start to head into the back to drop off the load, I’m stopped by four girls at a booth near the bar wall.
“Hey baby doll,” one of the older women says, gesturing me with the curl
of her finger. “Can you take our drink order?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I just bus the tables.”
I try to walk away, but a prettier one stops me.
“I bet if we requested that you be our waiter, you’d get promoted.” Her eyes are glassy and her head sways a little. I notice—because it’s hard not to—her huge boobs busting out of her tight tank top. She pushes them further into view.
“Well, you could ask,” I say, putting on my own charm, lifting one side of my mouth into a grin. “And if the boss man says so, then I’m all yours for the evening.”
All four of them look at one another, having some kind of inside conversation. I’ve got them eating out of the palm of my hand.
Camryn comes up behind me bearing a drink tray lined with shots of whiskey and a glass already stuffed full of bills. I wonder if that’s the tip jar or the money she collects from the alcohol. It’s making me anxious.
She smirks at me, looks down at the table of women, and then back at me again briefly. “Is he bothering you ladies?” she asks.
I know she’s not jealous; it’s all about competition tonight, between her and me. And she’s going to do whatever she can to keep me from winning the little bet we made in the car on the ride over here:
“You don’t think I can rake in tips as a busboy?”
“No,” she said. “Busboys don’t collect tips.”
“Think about it,” I said, looking at her from the driver’s seat. “It’s a bar full of women and alcohol. I bet you I can get tips.”
“Oh really?” she asked, pursing her lips.
“Yeah,” I said and then took it up a notch because I was feeling bold: “Actually, I bet I can rake in more tips than you.”
Camryn laughed. “Seriously? You want to bet on that?” She crossed her arms and shook her head at me like I was being ridiculous.
“Yes,” I said when I knew I should’ve said, No, I’m just kidding.
The Edge of Always teon-2 Page 17
