Holly stopped. She’d never describe him as an old friend—she’d describe him as someone who inhabited the same circle of space for a limited amount of time.
She paused and stared at him.
No, though, he wasn’t the Joel from high school, the kid with the crowd of admirers, the skinny legs, the bright eyes, but he was Joel, all the same. His high cheekbones, the etched smile lines by his eyes, the smoothness of his skin, tan, against his sun-bleached hair. He lifted an eyebrow. She wondered if that was what Gloria meant when she instructed her to get lost and take a break.
She’d have said no under any other circumstance. She’d have cowed and ran and refused to tell her girlfriends the truth. But she did covet a drink, and it had been a long time since anyone ever offered to buy her one. Let alone a man like him—handsome, engaging, and best of all: in the know about her son and that school.
She thought of Gloria. Her friend’s declaration to take some time. And she thought of Alex, locked up, alone and scared.
Her eyes traveled to the gun safe in the back of her car and then to the gun, unsafe, in her house—and she hesitated too long, waited for a beat beyond.
“Another time?” he asked without waiting for her reply and he turned to walk away.
After three steps, her eyes on his ass, Holly shut the trunk and said, “Wait.”
She’d even surprised herself when the word left her mouth. She’d meant to say yes, another time. Instead, she looked around and took a long second to see if it really had been her voice—and when she determined that it was, a call from her subconscious—she lifted a finger and smiled. “One drink.”
She followed his car to a bar between their houses.
He opened the door and let her inside first and the place was dark and fairly empty, and she slid into a booth, greeted quickly by a bartender who didn’t smile and pointed to the drink menus, sliding waters out to them without saying a word.
“You into the dive bar scene?” Holly asked. She hadn’t been to a bar with video poker in ages.
“I’m into dive bar service and prices,” he answered. “What’s your poison?” he asked.
“An old-fashioned,” she answered.
Joel nodded approval. “I like that.” The bartender came back. Joel interjected quickly. “Two old-fashioneds. With Makers.” He nodded and went away. Joel turned to Holly and put his elbows on the table; in the dark bar, the shadows played across his features, and Holly found him even more attractive. Attractive, yes, and unavailable.
“Is this business?” Holly asked.
“I suppose it could be,” Joel answered and he drank his water. “You mean, are we here to talk about Alex?”
Holly nodded. She wanted to take a risk, see if he’d talk. “I got the impression you aren’t excited about an expulsion.”
He made a face. “My hands are tied.”
She braced herself for the business conversation and ran her hand over her forehead, already stressed.
Joel put up his hand. “No, we don’t have to talk about Alex. We could also just…talk.”
“Oh,” Holly said, her voice lower. “Like. You want to catch up?” She knew she seemed incredulous, but it was true. She and Joel Rusk did not run around in the same circles in high school; they did not have a bevy of mutual friends. They’d had a few moments shared in those last few months before graduation, but Holly experienced that with lots of her classmates—a sort of hanging on to chances, understanding time was running out with these friends. Nostalgia and missed chances filled everyone’s final weeks of high school.
She wasn’t special.
Except. He wanted to maybe just talk and buy her a drink.
In the candlelight of the table, he stared and Holly took in the details: a seedy bar on a busy street, her son’s guidance counselor, his foot inadvertently—or deliberately—touching hers beneath the table, eyes penetrating and aware.
That long-time-ago kid who seemed so out of reach was now solely focused on her and nothing else.
Her high school self was puzzled and joyous.
Oh, Rampage, she remembered. Hadn’t they all called him Rampage? A funny name for a skinny little kid, and she wondered why they’d called him that, thinking back to the lore of the boy who played soccer and dated Becky Anderson and got high in the bathroom between classes before graduating Salutatorian. Smart, but with a lack of ambition was how he might have been described once.
She wondered if he remembered the night of outdoor school when she’d walked in on him and Becky fighting after the talent show. She’d thought it had been about her, so she eavesdropped. The talent show. How had she forgotten about that until just that moment?
She thought of singing, Joel playing the guitar.
Whenever she remembered that moment, she’d always recalled that her friend Matt was playing the piano, but it escaped her memory entirely that it was Joel who’d played the guitar. How had she forgotten that? Had it been that long?
“Do you remember…” he started.
“…outdoor school talent show…”
“…telling me a jock shouldn’t come to choir concerts,” Joel stopped. “Wait,” he said. “The outdoor school talent show?” He scrunched up his nose.
“I didn’t tell you jocks couldn’t come to choir concerts,” she said with a laugh. Holly paused, screwed up her nose, and laughed again. “Jocks don’t go to choir concerts?” The bartender delivered their drinks and dropped the receipt off as if to signal they could only have one.
“You did!” Joel argued. “You came up to me and said something snarky about jocks and not appreciating the arts.”
“That doesn’t sound like me at all,” Holly said. “But the outdoor school concert. You don’t remember that? You were dating Becky.”
“Becky Anderson?” Joel asked and he shook his head. He had a look on his face of amusement and the faraway glimmer of nostalgia. “I only dated her for those few months before graduation. That’s a small window. Oh, wow.”
“Well,” Holly said with a definitive nod as if this memory was one of her strongest. “One of those weeks was during outdoor school. And you, me, and Matt Jenkins sang a song and then she was arguing with you about something and I overheard…but I don’t remember what you fought about…”
“How can you remember more about my life than I do?”
“Memories are weird like that.” She picked up the glass and sighed, lifting it in the dim dive bar light. Somewhere in the distance, someone won a flush on the lottery machine and it beeped its congratulations. “Cheers. To old memories and surviving this week.”
He clinked his glass with hers. “Cheers.”
Joel sat back, puzzled, staring off into space and then he lifted his head and snapped his fingers, his eyes growing wider.
“Wait. I do remember that,” Joel said in awe. “Not until now. It’s coming back…hold on. She was mad because she thought I was flirting with her friends.”
“That’s right!” Holly snapped her fingers. She took a drink and tried to smile. Underneath every interaction, she couldn’t get the image of Alex—in his detention cell—out of her mind. Joel was a distraction, she supposed. “What happened to that whole thing?”
“That whole thing from high school?” Joel asked in a way that made her think her question had been silly. Maybe it was. Maybe she wasn’t going to be the best at conversation with a stolen gun in her bathroom, a gun safe in her car, friends searching her house for clues, and Joel in the booth before her. “Becky Anderson? I have no idea,” he said. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Holly asked.
“What happened to that whole thing,” he repeated in a softer voice, his chin down. “I mean…what have you been up to?” He seemed suddenly shy and unsure of what to ask and how to ask. “I know you work at Forest Heights Elementary. I know you have a teenage son and I know you delight in protecting firearms.”
She cringed.
“That sounds like the basics,”
Holly said, a perma-smile on her face while she swirled the straw in her drink. His foot touched hers again, a small nudge. He didn’t apologize. When Holly returned his steady gaze, she was surprised to see the intensity building behind his stare—she’d assumed Joel Rusk wanted to talk shop about the expulsion, apologize for her shitty day, give her advice on how to handle the hearing.
Something behind those eyes really seemed to care about her. The idea of it—the intimacy it required—stopped her immediately and she had to regain her sense of time and place.
Oh, Universe, she thought, thinking of how bedraggled and run-down she must have appeared to him. For a brief moment, her insecurities flashed through her brain and made her want to run away. Everyone in that bar knew someone like Joel didn’t date someone like her. Looks alone determined this, and she wished it weren’t the case, but Holly attracted a certain type. IT managers and corporate men in business suits, slightly balding, rich and generous, but with sleep apnea machines and alimony payments.
“No, really,” he urged her. “How are you? How’ve you been? Tell me about you…”
She smiled. “I’m okay, Mr. Rusk. My son’s in jail tonight and I’m in the dark about why. And you?”
“I’m better, Holly Bloom. This drink with you helps. I had a shit day at work. A student of mine hid a gun in his gym locker. And I have a feeling it wasn’t to hurt anyone…but my hands are tied.” He looked down.
Holly took a beat. “Holly Bloom,” she said. Then she shook her head and rapped her fingers on the table in a steady rhythm. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone. I bet everyone says that. But I know my kid…I know my kid better than other parents, and I bet everyone says that, too, but…” she let out a garbled cry of frustration at feeling like she couldn’t find the right words. “He won’t talk to me.” Tears formed and she swallowed them down—not here, not now, not with the stranger.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Joel said. “I’m sorry. For everything. I’ll help in any way I can.”
“Thanks. This isn’t my best night…”
“We can shift the conversation back to high school if you want?”
“I don’t want,” Holly laughed. “There’s nothing that feels eviler than to be frozen in high school,” she said and wrinkled her nose. Then she wondered if that was harsh considering his occupation. She had winced, but she also knew someone like Joel, who’d flown through school with all the perks of a smart, attractive, athlete, wouldn’t understand. Holly didn’t think of high school as when she peaked.
Although, she often thought with chagrin of the years after when instead of a degree and backpacking around Europe, she had Alex. She didn’t like to think that her best years were behind her—she loathed the idea that she had to shrivel up and die after she became an empty nester. Holly, unlike her friends, would be young and hot and still under-forty when her son went off to school.
Her best years were ahead.
“Oh, high school is total shit,” Joel empathized with a laugh. He raised a cheers to the honest truth.
“Come on,” Holly replied, letting her glass meet his. “You thought high school was awful?”
“I didn’t at the time. No. But looking back on it, sure. I was miserable. And I didn’t know any better. Wow. I just…outdoor school. After eavesdropping…did you go sit in the art room by yourself?”
Holly drew back. Yes. She had. She nodded. “You followed me?”
He shook his head. “I was going to do the same thing after the argument, but you’d beat me there.”
“You could’ve joined me in despair. I would’ve enjoyed the company that night. We could’ve listened to some Red Hot Chili Peppers and finger-painted our cares away.”
“What might’ve been,” he said.
Holly swallowed hard and nodded. Something dark and immobile shifted inside of her, and she felt a swell of emotion. What might have been indeed, she thought, allowing herself a quick glimpse at a universe where Joel came into that craft room and sat by her, surrounded by the detritus of sixth-grade artists. In her retroactive imagination, in the time-machine of her brain, with a CD player providing the soundtrack, the darkness providing the mood, Holly knew she would have kissed Joel Rusk that night. She’d never given it much thought or pined over him with any sort of lingering desire, but as she imagined it, she could see it as clearly as anything.
In another universe, a different Holly and a different Joel hooked up at outdoor school. Maybe they made-out in the craft shack or maybe they slipped to the beach and found a place against the dunes, safe and alone.
When teenage Holly heard him sing, his guitar in her ear, she’d been heartsick with the realization that Joel was an untouchable. And as easily as that, all desire slipped away and she’d gone on with her life, got pregnant with Alex, married Fran.
So, that was where she left it all those years ago. She’d barely thought of him through the years—a stray moment of wonder, a slip of a memory—and she wracked her brain for any other recollections with him she’d missed and packed away, things she’d deemed not important or without meaning.
She tried to recall the choir concert. He wasn’t present there in her memories of that night. Had she really told him he didn’t belong? Had she been flirting, she thought? Serious? When she was eighteen, she thought she’d hold on to her memories forever. She’d been wrong. Alex was born and her brain went to holding on to him instead. His first words, his first steps, how to perform baby CPR, with medications he was allergic to. Memories sloughed off like skin.
She wondered. She let herself wonder. Maybe he hadn’t forgotten her.
“How’d you end up a guidance counselor?” she asked, not breaking eye contact. “Professional soccer player didn’t pan out?” She winked.
He pretended to be wounded and broke out into a smile—all those white teeth—it killed her.
“Professional soccer was never in my future, but I appreciate the compliment. So, hey, can I deconstruct your meaning?” Joel asked with a wink of his own. “You find it surprising that I’m a high school counselor because it’s a job people just end up at? Because I happened to get a Masters Degree in counseling, so it was more of a deliberate act. Including the decision to work with high school kids, although…”
“Oh man,” Holly said and she sat up and slapped her hand on the table, smirking. “Wait.” She leaned out of the booth and called to the bartender, “It just got serious over here, so I’m gonna need a refill!” She leaned back as the man obliged her call and shuffled over.
Joel was still. Neutral. Perhaps intrigued by her. She couldn’t really tell.
With the second drink in hand, Holly amended her question with a dainty bow. “Words matter. So,…yes…how does one choose to become a high school guidance counselor?” she said.
“How does one choose to become a highly esteemed and lofty guidance counselor?” he posited and pointed at her, but she could see the twinkle in his eye and the pulse of a smile at the edge of his mouth. He was joking, flirting.
Holly waved her napkin in the air and smiled. “Yes. Oh, esteemed and lofty guidance counselor, please tell me about your brilliance.” She dropped the napkin and leaned forward. “How about this? What do you love about it?” she asked instead and propped her elbows on the table, cupping her chin in her hands. “Tell me everything you love about your job.”
He nodded, accepting the question.
“I love the parts of my job where I’m actually helping teens. I wished it was more of that. It’s a lot of schedule changing and listening to kids bitch about teachers. I wanted to help more with kids who were struggling with suicide—” his phone buzzed.
Holly watched as he motioned to send the call directly to voicemail without even looking. She was impressed. He had nice teeth and he ignored phone calls for her: a true gentleman. And if she ever opened herself up to the possibility of dating again, it would be to a man with nice teeth who ignored his phone while drinking with her. Holly’s list of dateable
qualities was long, but she thought time-tested and in stone. So far, the boy from high school was scoring fine. But also, she was certain this couldn’t qualify as a date. Nor was Joel Rusk anyone she could date. So, she pulled her mind back from the edge again—no more dreaming about kissing in a craft shack.
Still, his foot touched hers again and lingered and now she knew for certain it wasn’t an accident. It may have been a long time, but the energy that shot out of her fingertips every time a part of his foot came near her was a sign stronger than any verbal confirmation: she was hot for Alex’s guidance counselor.
Former guidance counselor, actually, she realized with growing and gnawing excitement and shame.
“There’s a lot of that in my job, too,” Holly said. “Helping kids. Helping people. I’m an obnoxious type-A personality, too, so that helps. I’d had a nice career as a dispatcher about a decade ago, but I started having nightmares—”
The phone buzzed again.
Joel silenced it a second time with an apologetic wince.
“About what?” he asked.
Holly sighed. The gravity of her day and her child felt like stones against her body—as if she moved further into talking about everything, she’d suffocate. “About my child dying. About all the different ways he could die. Falling out a window, accidental poisoning, a head injury, choking, murder, drowning, car accident. In my job back then, I heard it all. You hear everything. It’s impossible not to shut yourself off or lose yourself into the nightmare. I lost myself into the nightmare.”
“And you got out.”
“The day I listened to a murder and suicide on my line. Yeah. I got out. And I took a job that was close to my child and the laughter of children and the joy of youth…instead of the constant worry of death. And I discovered I wasn’t so bad at running a school.”
Joel nodded appreciation for her declaration, but Holly wanted to drive home the fact.
“Oh, I run that school,” she said with a little sass. “That school doesn’t open in the morning without me. Everyone wants to make fun of your organization skills until they need them.”
Dispatched Confessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 2) Page 5
