My mouth chose that moment to forget how to work, I stumbled over the words. Scott, being Scott stepped in and said, “We’d like to see Mr. Carrs, please.”
The Salesman’s eyes jumped to his forehead. “Uhm, is there anything I can help you with, Mr. Carrs doesn’t usually meet with customers.”
“He’ll meet with us. Tell him Scott James would like to talk to him.” The man’s eyes narrowed in thought then he nodded to himself and asked us to have a seat and he’d go check.
The waiting room had some chrome and green vinyl chairs begging to be sat in. Scott led me in and got us situated. I pulled out my last handy wipe.
I should have gotten more from my locker before we left school. After I’d wiped off my hands I looked for somewhere to throw the wipe and its packet away.
Of course, there wasn’t a trash can in sight. I started to obsess about the trash in my hands, worrying about putting it in my pocket, what if it fell out while I was talking to my dad.
Scott read my expression and chuckled then held out his hand for the papers. I placed them in his palm. He scrunched them into a ball and put them in his pocket. Nothing ever fazed him. I thanked my lucky stars that I’d found somebody to put up with my many idiosyncrasies.
“What if he doesn’t like me?” I said.
Scott chuckled again, “I’ve known Steve Carrs my whole life, and he is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
Chapter Eighteen
Scott
Mr. Carrs’ corner office reminded me of a bank president. A big oak desk dominated the center floor space. With two brown leather chairs arranged in front waiting for big spending farmers looking to lay down hundreds of thousands of dollars for some new farm equipment. A credenza behind his chair was covered in pictures of Steve Carrs with important people. A picture in a gold frame held pride of place in the center showing him shaking the governor’s hand, both of the politicians posing for the camera.
A silver frame on the corner showed him with one arm around Mrs. Carrs and the other around Danny. I remembered when that picture had been taken. A couple of years ago I had gone with Danny to the lake for the weekend. It turned out to be a meet and greet opportunity for a bunch of state people looking for the next state representative.
Mr. Carrs had spent the evening hobnobbing with the politicians. Danny and I had spent it dancing with the girls from the Lake District.
Katie sat and placed her hands in her lap. Her eyes had been drawn to the family picture and I could almost feel her lose her will to go on. I gently touched her knee with mine.
Mr. Carrs cleared his throat. He didn’t look happy. Our eyes locked for a moment.
“You have some nerve coming here, Scott,” he said with that town leader voice. The condescending bastard was in for such a surprise.
“Actually sir, we’re not here about me. I’d like to introduce Katherine Rivers. I believe you knew her mother Margaret Rivers in high school. Or at least she was in high school, you would have been in college by then.”
The color drained from his face like a thermometer in the Arctic. I actually watched it drain. His forehead went white first followed by his cheeks then his neck until he looked like a shut-in ghost. His eyes grew three sizes bigger and his jaw dropped open. It was priceless and I had to work hard not to clap my hands in glee.
Katie stiffened and waited.
.o0o.
Katie
My heart wouldn’t stop racing and my palms felt like they were pumping out gallons of sweat. I secretly wiped them on my pants.
Studying his face didn’t help. He was older than I expected. His hair was starting to turn gray at the temple and he had wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. My heart couldn’t tell. You’d think a person would know if the man before her was her father or not.
There were no hints in his office. The picture of his family made me scan Danny again looking for any similarity. Maybe, I thought.
“… knew her mother,” Scott said.
I drug myself back into the conversation and realized what Scott had just told him. No leading up to it. He’d dropped it like a bomb right there in the middle of his office.
I watched the color drop from Mr. Carrs’ face and my racing heart came to a screeching halt as our eyes locked and I saw recognition. He knew I was his daughter. I could see it in his eyes. Maybe.
He gathered himself and pondered for a moment how he should respond. Finally, his shoulders slumped and he nodded.
“Yes, I knew her. How is your mother?” he asked me. His eyes scanned my face as if he was trying to remember every detail.
“I really don’t know. I haven’t talked to her for a couple of years.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes narrowing in concern. “What can I do for you?” his voice caught for a moment as if he was dreading the answer.
“Are you my father?”
There. I’d asked the question. The thousand pound gorilla in the room could no longer be ignored. I held my breath.
He hesitated for a moment then slowly nodded his head. “Yes, I think I am. You look exactly like my mother at your age. I have a picture of her in high school in the sixties and you two could be sisters.”
A grandmother? Was she still alive? A thousand questions flew through my mind. I didn’t know which one to ask first. Instead, we stared at each other across his desk. He didn’t seem upset about the whole thing, but he wasn’t overjoyed either.
“Did you know about me?” I asked. Unspoken was the issue of why he hadn’t ever tried to contact me.
He rubbed the back of his neck. Sweat stains had appeared under his arms. “Not really, your mom told me about her being pregnant, but I wasn’t positive I was the father. Before I could find out for sure, your mom disappeared. I figured she’d left town to have an abortion or put you up for adoption.”
I flinched and felt as if someone had smacked me in the face. He talked about abortion or adoption like he was talking about a tractor going in for repair. Not a human being, not his daughter.
He saw my reaction. His eyebrows scrunched together in concern but he didn’t say anything else.
The oppressive silence filled the room like a force of nature. Each of us looked at the other, what next? I wondered.
“Danny’s birthday is in October, isn’t it? Katie’s is in November. Interesting,” Scott said.
Mr. Carrs, my father, grew embarrassed, his eyes shifted down for a moment and he started to turn a little pink. He cleared his throat again and then nodded. “I didn’t know my girlfriend, Danny’s Mom, was pregnant when I was… I uh was with your mom.” He hesitated a moment before going on. This was obviously not easy.
“I found out about your mom about a week after I found out about Diane.” He glanced at the family portrait on the corner of his credenza. “To say I was surprised is an understatement. We’d only been together once and she told me she was on birth control.”
“And you were in college by then and she was what a sophomore in high school?” Scott said.
“Hey, she was legal. Sixteen was of age back then.”
“Does your wife, Danny’s mom, know.”
He sighed and looked away from us for a moment as he was recalling something. “Yeah, she knows. When you moved back to town I figured things out and wanted her to be warned. I didn’t know you’d wait two years before approaching me.”
“You’ve known for two years and never said anything, never tried to contact me?”
“Like I said, I wasn’t sure I was your father. I don’t mean to be unkind, but your mom had a bit of a reputation. I wasn’t sure until you walked in here today. You look too much look like my mother.”
The ability to speak had left me. It seemed to be happening a lot lately. The silence descended again. I didn’t know what to do next. I hadn’t thought this through.
“What now?” He was probably worried about the kind of stink I could cause in town, bringing up ol
d stories. The shame I could heap on his family.
I looked at my father. I took off the rose-colored glasses, got rid of the wishes, and saw a simple small-town businessman who had made a mistake when he was in college.
“I just wanted you to know, that I knew, that you knew I was your daughter. If that makes any sense. The next thing is up to you.”
Smiling to myself I got up and left the office before I broke down in front of him. Scott jumped up and started to follow me out then stopped and turned back to my dad.
“She’s a special girl. You’re lucky to have such a daughter. Don’t screw it up,” Scott said to him before he caught me in the hall.
I fell into his arms and leaned on him as we made our way out of the building.
He immediately drove us to our spot on the bluff. It was strange looking at the valley during the daylight. The farms were broken into green and brown squares. Some of it freshly turned earth being prepared for the spring planting. Other fields were a fuzzy green from fresh winter wheat coming in. In the far distance, a tractor created a small dust storm as it plowed a field. I wonder if they had bought the tractor from my dad.
“What you thinking about?” Scott asked.
I scowled at him from under my brow. “What do you think I’m thinking about?”
“Okay, you’re thinking about Mr. Carrs. The question is. What are you thinking about him?”
“You don’t have to call him Mr. Carrs, you can call him my father, or even my dad. Just because he could care less, doesn’t mean we have to tiptoe around the subject. We have enough eggshells around here as it is.”
“What did you want him to do? I mean …. In a perfect world, what did you hope he would do?”
“I don’t know. He’s the adult in this situation. I expected him to know what to do next.” A lifetime of fantasies and daydreams down the drain like yesterday’s soup.
“I guess I wanted him to take me in his arms and hug me and tell me he was sorry. I wanted him to go to the top of his roof and yell to the world that he had a daughter and she was the greatest thing ever. I don’t know, I guess I wanted him to give a shit.”
My voice was rising and I probably sounded like a harpy screeching for its lunch. I didn’t care.
Scott went to put his arm around me but I slipped away and into the corner of his truck. The last thing I wanted was to be comforted. I was enjoying being mad.
Scott wisely folded his arms across his chest and stared out the front window. Yes. I was overreacting, I couldn’t stop myself.
The silence between us grew until it almost matched the drowning silence in my dad’s office.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you, this isn’t your fault,” I said.
He continued to stare out the window, his arm muscles bunching and tensing up. His jaw looked like he was grinding his teeth into dust. Great, now I’ve pissed my boyfriend off. It seemed I was good at making people mad at me.
“What are you thinking?” I asked him as I looked out from under my brow.
He sighed then thought for a moment. “You’ve got to let me help you when you need it.”
“Something’s can’t be helped.”
“I know,” Scott said. “That doesn’t make it any easier. When I see you hurt or upset, it drives me up the wall. I want to pound whatever is bothering you into oblivion. Of course, I’m aware that is not always the best response, but …. I can’t change.”
The distance between us felt as wide as the English Channel. I scooted over and buried my head on his shoulder. “I know, I’m sorry.”
He hugged me and said how he was sorry, too. Everything was fine again and I was able to breathe.
After a few minutes, he said, “So basically, your mom’s in Jail, your dad’s an asshole, and your brother betrayed me with my girlfriend. Tell me again why we’re together.”
I laughed into his shoulder. “Because you love me, and because I love you more.”
“Yeah, but I love you the most,” he said.
Chapter Nineteen
Scott
Things were going good between Katie and me. We talked about her father, trying to decide whether we should tell anybody else. Did she want everyone knowing that kind of thing?
She decided that she’d tell her aunt, she didn’t want her learning from some busybody in town. Otherwise, she’d keep quiet and see what happened.
Of course, that didn’t take into account what Danny would do. He chose to act like his regular jerk self and made a serious mistake.
Katie and I were walking in school on our way to first period. I’ll admit I wasn’t really paying attention; she had a way of capturing my full awareness.
We turned a corner when Katie was pulled away from me. Danny had a hold of her upper arm in a death grip. He’d blended in with the crowd because he wasn’t surrounded by his usual clique of bootlickers.
“What have you done?” he yelled, his face inches from hers. Katie’s eyes widened in fear and her face went white with pure terror. I knew she was flashing back to her bad time.
My world literally went red, crimson smog covered everything. My vision narrowed, all I could see was his hand with its white knuckles gripping her.
Without thinking I grabbed him under his arms and threw him against the lockers. A loud metallic screech echoed from his back where he hit the metal. I knew that I’d dented it, or better yet he’d dented it.
His feet dangled about six inches off the ground as my fully extended arms held him up against the lockers. I didn’t care if I’d crushed his vertebra. I wasn’t letting him go until I knew Katie was unharmed.
His eyes had bugged out like a beetle’s as he took a swing at me. I was able to avoid the punch while keeping him pinned. He didn’t really have a choice but had to play dirty, it was the only choice he had as he tried kicking me in the groin.
I easily stepped aside. His eyebrows narrowed and his shoulders slumped with frustration. He was well and truly trapped. This was the point where I should have brought my knee into his balls. I could have ended him right then and there. Everything was set up perfect. He had given me license.
Katie placed a restraining hand on my arm before I could finish him off. “Scott, put him down Scott.” She kept saying. “Please don’t hurt my brother.”
A gasp went up from behind us. That had to be Gina. The look on Danny’s face ranks up there with some of my all-time favorites memories. The emotional pain and sense of utter loss of hope. Plus the humiliation of being held against a locker against his will by his arch enemy no less.
All of it in front of half the school body plus his girlfriend. Priceless. I could see in his eyes that he knew he’d never fully hold their respect and undivided admiration. His head dropped and his muscles relaxed into soft compliance.
Katie was looking at me, her eyes begging me to hear her plea. Both hands resting on my arms and gently trying to pull them down, to let him go.
Slowly, I started to return to this reality and realized what was going on around me. I continued to hold him there while I looked at Katie, checking out her arm and making sure she was unharmed. Her soft smile was all I needed to know.
My arms started to shake as I lowered Danny back down. He was lucky I didn’t drop him. Hell, he was lucky I didn’t throw him across the hall and then drag him outside to finish things.
.o0o.
Katie
My giant was overreacting again and I loved him for it. Having two boys fighting over me was a little disconcerting. This was a long way from staying hidden, my invisibility was gone forever. I pulled Scott’s arms away from Danny and stepped between them. Keeping my eyes focused on Scott’s, I gently pushed him back before he could do any more damage.
The kids in the hall were standing around in shock, their eyes bulging and their jaws open in disbelief. Gina looked like she’d seen a snake in her bed.
I wondered if she’d heard me calling Danny my brother. Had the others heard? So much for keeping quiet about
it and letting them decide who and when to say anything. I couldn’t worry about that now, I had to get Scott away before he got in trouble.
I tried pulling him out of there but he refused to budge. It was like trying to push a semi-truck up hill. He didn’t move an inch. His eyes looked like they were trying to nail Danny to the wall on a permanent basis.
“Three days detention, James,” Coach Carlson said from behind us.
He stood there with his legs apart and his arms folded across his chest. An extremely pleased smirk, more like a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.
I swear the man had been waiting for this opportunity all year. If possible, he’d have given him more, but teachers were limited to handing out three days of detention without taking it to the discipline board for a heavier sentence.
Scott shrugged his shoulders and glared at Danny. “Don’t EVER touch her again. I don’t care if you are her brother, that doesn’t give you the right. Get me?” The entire crowd gasped this time. Scott smiled, he had landed a devastating blow with only a few words. The smile spread as he shot Coach a look of disgust, then turned and walked away, making sure to grab my hand and take me with him.
It took me an hour to track down Mr. Thompson. I’d ditched Scott telling him I’d meet up with him later. I entered the teacher’s room between first and second period. Mr. Thompson tapped a stack of papers on his desk and glanced my way when I came in.
“What does a student have to do to get three days of detention?” I asked.
He paused for a moment and cocked his head like he was trying to figure me out.
“Hello, nice to see you too, Ms. Rivers.”
My shoulders relaxed, it wasn’t going to do any good to piss off another teacher, I told myself. “I need to get three days of detention, what do I have to do?”
He smiled and returned to arranging his previous class’s tests. “Well, this is a first,” he said. Now it was his turn to shrug his shoulders. “That depends, but basically, anything that upsets school harmony or generally pisses off a teacher. Why do you need detention may I ask?”
Too Many Rules Page 14
