by Lynn Red
“Anyway,” he said, turning back to me. “About your boyfriend.”
I couldn’t help but shake with laughter. “No, no,” I finally managed. “I wouldn’t want to take you away from your girlfriend.”
Cooper took a sip of his coffee and grinned as he swallowed the wad of donut. As soon as it was down, he patted his belly and let out a contented sigh. “You want the rest?” He pushed the donut toward me. “Take it, I can’t manage to finish a third one. Elma would murder me.”
“Three?” I asked, picking up the glistening, red-filled puck and taking a bite.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Ain’t like I just sit here and leave them alone all the time. I just nab one when no one sees. But, enough about donuts. Like I was saying about your bear. He’s... it’s hard to say what he is exactly.”
“He’s a soldier, I know that much. Or was, anyway.”
“Mhm,” Cooper said. “Couple medals, too. He was held captive some way or the other, though it wasn’t a POW deal.”
My thoughts drifted back to the scars on his throat. Of all the things we talked about under the stars, he shied away from that subject. Absent mindedly, I touched my neck, tracing a line where they were on Rex.
Cooper nodded. “Yeah, them scars. He won’t tell anyone what happened. Anyway, he left Jamesburg round about ten years ago. Found himself a mate and off they went, to see the world.”
“I got the sense something bad happened,” I said. “Between his going off to war, and his mate, and little Leena, I...”
“You’ve got a shining for the little one too,” Cooper said. It wasn’t a question. “You always did have a good heart, Lilah, even when you was gettin’ into messes on the regular. You sure did give your old dad hell.” He laughed. “But you always had a good heart.”
“That’s kind of what I’m worried about,” I said. I said it like I’d been thinking that before, but actually it just occurred to me. It was true though. “I don’t know if I’d be good for, you know, stuff like that. Seems like that’s for people who are... I dunno, not me, you know? I’m just a girl who works in a jail part-time and just sold her first painting like five days ago. I’m nothing to look up to, you know?”
Cooper smoothed out his newspaper and smiled down at it. “The fact that your first thinking on the subject isn’t that you don’t want to do it, but that you’re not sure you’re good enough is a fairly solid bit of proof to me that you’re better for her than you think.”
That hit me just about like a truck full of other trucks.
“But I’m just... me,” I said, looking down at the desk. “I can’t get over who I am, you know? Or who I’m not, I guess is a better way to put it.”
“What is it about you exactly what you think isn’t a good thing?”
I shook my head, pushed my glasses up my nose and stared at the word “swarms” written on the crossword in blue ink. “I dunno, I guess just that I don’t really even know what a normal family looks like. Feels like.”
“You grew up in one. Might not’ve been born into one, but Carl – uh, Lieutenant Jorgenson I mean – was a hell of a dad for you and that other little one of his.”
“It’s like there’s something bad in me, though,” I said. “Like I’m not exactly right, you know? I grew up starving, stealing stuff from stores to eat, and then when my parents died, I spent four years living in gutters and wishing for someone...”
I trailed off, looking away and biting my lip. I couldn’t admit these feelings. Not even to myself, much less to Coop, who I’d known from my days when I got thrown in here as a ten year old raccoon with a penchant for shop lifting and nail polish.
“Someone to love you?” he finished for me. “Someone you could rely on? Someone to smile at you when you screwed something up? You know, Lilah, as kids we all do the same thing. I saw it with you and I saw it with my own couple of pups.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
He nodded. “Kids think every little thing that happens is a big event. Every time they trip, the whole school knows. Every time they get in a fight with their parents and get grounded, they’re mortified for days afterward. But you know what?”
I looked up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since he tongued that jelly donut.
“No one remembers how much nail polish you stole except you. No one remembers how many times you fell over, or broke into some old house to sleep the night.” Coop reached across the desk and put his hands on my shoulders. The gesture felt like he was bracing me for what he was about to say.
As it turned out, that bracing is all that kept me from falling over.
“Lilah, what I’m gettin’ at in my circling way is that for a girl like Leena, you can be all those things you wanted so bad when you was a girl.”
“I can’t... I’m not even a real grown up. I don’t have a real job or anything, I’m just me.” It made my cheeks burn to say those things. From the way Cooper smiled at me though, I doubt it was any surprise to hear me voice concerns like that.
“Lilah,” he shook my shoulders gently. My white curl fell down in front of my glasses and I looked back into his kind eyes. “You is what she needs. That girl don’t need someone with a fancy job or some Ivy League degree. I never knew anyone who worked harder than you at your painting, or hell, even taking care of Leon when he gets a load on of a Saturday night. And there’s something else, too.”
“Yeah?” I blinked, fighting back the uncharacteristic tears I felt betraying me.
“You got a bigger heart than anyone I ever knew. You been beat up so many times, had so many chances to give up and throw your hands in the air and tell the world ‘I quit’ but here you stand. Do you realize what you’re tellin’ me right now?”
I shrugged. I had a feeling where he was about to go but honestly if I said anything I’m not sure I wouldn’t have had a meltdown.
“Before me I see a young woman who, fifteen years ago, I met for the first time. At that time, you were about half the size you are now, and got tossed into my front cell because we didn’t know what in the hell to do with you. We couldn’t just turn you back out onto the street, and neither of the Jamesburg shelters were equipped to deal with a wayward girl. Actually,” he paused for a second, a grin spreading across his face. “You realize you changed that too, right?”
“I didn’t do anything like that, I just spent some time working in a soup kitchen, Coop. Don’t make me something I’m not.” My cheeks were bright red.
“All’s I’m saying is that in the fifteen years I’ve known you, you went from street urchin to finishing high school, then to helping people who was in just as bad a place as you’d been once. And now, I’m half-stunned and half-dumbfounded, but absolutely proud to see you standing in front of me fretting about whether you’d make a good momma to a fuzzy little bear cub.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I blinked furiously, pointlessly trying to fight the tears. “Why did you do this to me, Coop?” I laughed in between sniffs.
He smiled and cupped one of his weathered hands around my cheek, wiping away a tear that fell out the corner of my eye. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, little lady. But I’ll do it one more time just to make sure you get the point. You’d be a wonderful mother, and any cub would be lucky to have you. Especially one who I can tell you see a whole lot of yourself in. Am I right?”
I nodded, but I couldn’t talk. If I did, my mostly silent tears would turn into sobs, and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was wake Leon up from his drunken slumber. I kept nodding, harder and harder. My face was burning, and my eyes hurt from my clenching them to keep back the tears.
“Leon’s about six sheets to the wind, little lady,” Coop said with his soft, comforting drawl. “I think you’d be safe letting it out.”
And let it out I did. For a few moments I just shook, my sobs wracking my body. Cooper climbed over his desk and let me put my head against his chest. He rubbed my back slowly, almost mesmerizing me, u
ntil my face was puffy, my cheeks and eyes were bright red, and I’d cried out every single tear I could manage.
“Sorry,” I finally said, sniffling and laughing nervously.
“Happens to the best of us,” he said. He extended his arms, holding me there and looking me straight in the face. “I know you ain’t asking me for permission or anything of the sort, but just to make sure I’m being completely clear. That Lee boy, he’d be a hell of a lucky man to have you, and that little girl, too.”
That time, when I felt the wave about to overwhelm me, I bit my lip and sucked a deep breath through my nose. It smelled like musty jail – cinderblocks, hard water and old pipes – but it cleared my head.
I felt something jab me in the stomach. Looking down, Cooper was prodding me with my phone, which I totally forgot leaving on the desk when I’d come in.
“I think you’re wanting to make your phone call?”
“Is that a jail joke?” I asked, grinning.
“You have a huge heart and a talent for painting and making everyone around you laugh. You make the best hamburgers I’ve ever had, and you can keep secrets with the best of ‘em,” Cooper said. “Me? I’ve got an arsenal of jail jokes so big it could fill an encyclopedia. Call your bear, Lilah. I’m sure he’d like to hear that sweet voice of yours.”
“Thanks, Coop,” I said, hugging him tight one more time before I took the phone from him. “For this, for... for everything.”
“Ain’t no problem in the world, Miss Lilah,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get back to this crossword and pretend I’m not listening to everything you say on the phone. And Lilah?”
“Yeah?”
“If you forget everything else I said, remember two parts. Remember that you’ve got a beautiful heart, and that you’d be exactly the momma that little cub needs.”
If the phone hadn’t already been ringing, I would’ve cried all over again. Instead, I just smiled and blinked.
Luckily, that time, it worked.
“Hello?”
Rex’s voice coming through the phone was like a breath after a minute under water. As soon as I heard it, as soon as I knew he was there and he was talking to me, I imagined his arms around me. I remembered the way his fingers felt on my skin and the way he kissed me, held me, cared for me.
“Hi,” I said. Even I could hear the longing in my voice.
“Hey there,” he said in his leathery, gravelly, way.
All the way through me, I felt warmth tingling from my scalp to my ankles. “I missed you,” he said softly.
Right then, in that moment, if there was anywhere to sit, I would have just let my own wobbly knees overwhelm me. The things Cooper told me, the stuff with my sister... Oh God, I thought. What if this really is that biological clock tick-tocking away?
I waved to Cooper, who nodded and saluted with his pen. “Good luck,” he mouthed as I turned for the door.
Yeah, I thought. Good luck. I don’t even know if I’ll need it.
-20-
Rex
When his phone rang, Rex was intently watching the two Edgewood boys prepare to knock over the fifth of his father’s stills that they had hit in two weeks.
He’d gone out and set the other ones back up, made sure they were running, just like his Pa told him to do, but for some reason, the more these idiot bears messed with his stuff, the more irritated he got.
The phone buzzed a second time, and Rex brought it to his ear before remembering he had to accept the call before he could do any talking.
“Hello?” he asked, answering without bothering to look who it was. He couldn’t stand to have his attention taken off the two bumbling vandals for even a moment. “Hello?” he repeated when no one answered.
“Hi,” a sweet, small voice came through the handset. “I missed your voice,” she said.
“Hi there,” Rex whispered, a smile spreading across his lips. “I was hoping I’d hear from you. I’m not in jail this weekend.”
She laughed softly. “Yeah!” she said. “Good job staying out of the can. Although from what I was told, that’s more dependent on what the Edgewood bears do than it is on your shoulders.”
“Well,” he said. “I’m watching those two idiots take apart another of my dad’s stills right this second.”
“Why are they doing that?” she asked. “Can’t they just go buy whiskey the same place everyone else does?”
He let out a soft, ironic laugh. “They’re pissed that their old man sold some land to the Lees. Although I doubt Fat Head and his bucktoothed brother would have much of a clue what to do with the land if they had it back.”
“That’s a funny way to try and make a property play,” Lilah said. “Knocking over stills? What the hell is that supposed to do?”
Rex shrugged unconsciously. “Good question. So far all they’ve managed to accomplish is to waste a grand total of eight hours of my life putting the still back together. Oh, and I guess gave me a headache from that explosion.”
“What about the time you spent sitting in jail? Surely that counts as a waste,” she said.
Rex’s voice was distant when he replied. “That’s the furthest thing from a waste I can imagine, Lilah. Without that few hours, I never woulda...”
He trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish, not for her to know what he was going to say. Even without saying the words he made her heart skip a beat. He imagined running his hands through her soft, lightly scented hair at exactly the same time Lilah was imagining Rex’s huge, powerful hands running down her back and then underneath her shirt.
“I,” she started and then quickly trailed off.
“You what?” he asked. His concentration was wavering. Somehow when Lilah’s voice was coming through the phone, staring at two ugly bears making a mess in his dad’s lawn just couldn’t hold his attention as much anymore. “You can ask me anything, Lilah. If I can manage, I’ll do it.”
Somehow, she knew he actually meant that.
“There is something,” she said, tentatively. “But... I never do this. I never ask people for help, especially not ones I seem to have fallen for. I hate showing weakness, I guess.”
Rex laughed under his breath. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to hear your voice again. You could ask me to run to the moon for you and I’d try. I’d suffocate, but I’d try. And I need your help, too. So if asking for help makes you weak, I’m right there with you.”
His dumb joke got her laughing, and that made all the difference. Just that couple of seconds of respite from the fear surrounding what had happened to Winter, and what she was afraid was going to happen to other girls was enough for Lilah to relax.
“Sorry,” she said. “I got all worked up about something. I never should have called you like that.”
“Hey, hey,” he said. His soft, smooth voice caressing away the last of Lilah’s concerns. “I told you that you can ask me for anything. I’m not making it up. You saved me from that jail food.”
Alone in her car, sitting out front of her apartment, Lilah smiled. She imagined Rex’s lips on her neck, his hands sliding underneath the front of her shirt. She wanted him so bad she ached for him, but at the same time, she felt so guilty for thinking about him like that at a time like this, that she shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.
“Something’s bothering you,” he said. “Tell me what it is and I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s my sister’s friend,” she said. “Something bad happened. The police took her home, and they’re watching the house. But I’m still... I dunno, something about it isn’t right.”
“You’re at your place?” Rex asked.
“Yeah,” Lilah said, her voice trembling a bit.
“I’ll be right there.”
Lilah cleared her throat. “Thanks,” she said. “And Rex?”
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t need any excuses to see me this time.” Her voice was sweet and pensive and vulnerable.
Rex grunted a laugh. “I woulda made one up anyway.”
*
The night was darker than the last time Rex sped down the dirt road from the Lee compound to Jamesburg proper. There was only a sliver of a moon lighting his way, but thankfully his motorcycle had a working headlight.
He looked up, squinting at the orange, waning crescent. It was high in the sky, almost perfectly overhead, though there were still a couple of hours until midnight. The moon was beautiful, of course, but held nothing on his Lilah. He wanted nothing more than to go to her again, drag her, laughing, out of her apartment and go back into the mountains to watch the stars, to kiss her, to taste her, to make love again under the stars.
Rex shook his head. There would be time for that, he hoped, but the time wasn’t then.
Looking back up at the moon for a moment, it seemed to be guiding him. The vague light seemed to illuminate his path, and taking the hint, he revved his engine and blasted down the highway toward town.
She needed him.
He wasn’t going to make her wait.
This time, he wasn’t going to make the mistake of waiting, he already decided. He wasn’t going to go slow and be careful to keep from getting hurt.
If nothing else, he had finally learned that clocks only go forward. Living for the past? Living with regrets? He shook his huge head, throwing his brown curls back and forth.
“No more regrets,” he told himself through gritted teeth. “Not this time, not ever again. Wait for me, Lilah. You won’t have to wait long.”
*
“Oh my God,” Lilah said, running down the stairs. “Thank you so much.”
She threw her arms around his neck and Rex filled his nose with the scent of the woman he’d fallen in love with, but that he couldn’t say that to for fear of her thinking he was about a thousand percent crazier than he actually was.
Or was he? Rex thought with a grim smile.
A few seconds later, he realized she was shaking, and pushed her to arms’ length, looking deeply into her entrancing, different colored eyes.
