Obviously.
He’s just trying to be charming, that’s all.
Don’t get your hopes up, Caroline.
‘I wasn’t… I mean, I didn’t…’
‘Relax,’ he says, still pulling a monkey face. ‘I’m just kidding. Are you always this tense?’
Not always, I think. Just when I don’t know which way is up anymore.
‘I’m not tense.’
He snorts. ‘Sure you aren’t, kiddo.’
‘And don’t call me kiddo. I’m like, a year younger than you. Tops.’
He shifts on the floor, pulls his jacket out from underneath him and spreads it out so it covers a space large enough for two. ‘Sure thing, kiddo,’ he says. ‘You’re the boss.’ When I don’t move, he pats the side of the jacket next to him. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I’m just screwing around. Have a seat.’
‘Yeah?’
He lifts up the coke bottle. ‘Hey, you bought me a drink. It’s the least I can do.’
There’s barely room for the both of us on his jacket, but I don’t mind that at all. When I sit down next to him, I can feel gooseflesh creep along my arms, and a flush spreading down from the back of my neck. Up close, Hale is even more beautiful than he is at a distance. When he leans back against the tree, the skin of his arms touches mine, and I’m shocked and amazed by how cool it is: it’s like pressing my arms against marble. Then again, everything about Hale is cool. It must be a hundred degrees out here, even in the shade, but there’s not a drop of sweat on his forehead – and looking into his eyes, it’s easy to believe that he’s got some sort of internal blue-ice glacier that’s keeping him at a breezy normalcy.
Those eyes. Jesus, those eyes.
That jawline, strong even on his young face; there’s no chubbiness in his cheeks, no padding at all, but he doesn’t look gaunt. He looks lean, almost predatory. I think again of the dogs from the alleyway when I was a kid. This is what it felt like, when one of them let you get close. Yes, there was always that sense of acceptance, that I’d been allowed to be near to them – but there was still that mouth full of teeth, and that hungry, untamed look in their eyes.
I wonder just how tame Hale is, really: a boy content to be by himself, who plays and sings like an angel. A boy with a reputation that precedes even his name.
But that thought soon fades away into nothingness. Before long, all I can think about is how soft his lips look, and how much I’d love to kiss them – or better yet, for him to lean in and kiss me. God, wouldn’t that just be something? Forget about whatever Kitty Ellis and Ryan are getting up to out in the bushes; I’d trade it all for a single kiss from a boy I didn’t know existed until half an hour earlier. Nothing fancy. Nothing sordid. Just a kiss from those beautiful lips, like something out of a goddamn Disney movie.
Although, I think, if he didn’t want to stop there…
‘What?’ he says when he spots me looking at him. ‘I got mustard on my face or something?’
I shake my head. ‘Nope. Sorry.’
If he’s weirded out by me staring at him, he doesn’t show it. If anything – dare I say it – he doesn’t seem to mind at all.
‘So,’ he says as he begins picking out the first few notes of a song I almost recognise. ‘Private concert it is. What do you think of Otis Redding?’
I couldn’t have given much more than a shrug before the fact, but three minutes later – just about the length of time it takes Hale to strum and warble his way through a pitch-perfect rendition of These Arms of Mine – I’m willing to state that I like Otis Redding very, very much.
~~~
‘Caroline Ann Walker, where the hell have you been?’
My mother’s voice beats her into the hallway, but it’s a close run thing. When she marches out, she’s got a face like a thunderstorm. I can practically see white-hot lightning bolts of rage and worry coming off her. It’s hard to blame her. I am, after all, four hours late.
‘I can explain,’ I say, and I do. Mostly. I choose to leave out certain parts of it, like the fact that my friends spent most of the afternoon fumbling with each other in the undergrowth, that I wandered off by myself, and that I spent most of my time sitting by the lakeside, listening to my new friend play me the best of Motown. I definitely skip over the fact that by the time I got back to the clearing I found the truck gone and no sign of Kitty or Ryan or their friends anywhere, and that I spent most of my time walking home alone with a boy I’d never even met before. Who was, I have to say, a perfect gentleman about the whole thing.
Mom listens, and tells me that Kitty Ellis told her mother that they’d looked for us but hadn’t been able to find us, and how worried they’d all been in thinking that I might have drowned. No damn chance of that, I thought. Not unless she was looking for me in her boyfriend’s jockey shorts. Although I have to say, after the shitty way they treated me? I do kind of hope she was worried. She almost deserves it.
Of course, it’s spun out as being my fault: for getting separated from the group, for letting my cell phone battery die, for not calling them from a payphone – as though the lake is just lousy with payphones, and I was passing them one by one and just choosing not to call her in order to be difficult.
I feel like I’m watching the argument that follows through a misted glass window. I can see the vague outline of what’s happening, but the details are lost on me, even though my parents hardly ever fight – and especially not about me.
Mom is in favour of grounding me for a week. Dad tries to talk her out of it, but for once there’s some pushback. ‘Don’t you get it, Walt?’ she says, exasperated. ‘Your daughter was walking out by herself. Anything could have happened. Anything. It’s but for the grace of God that it was her at the door and not someone telling us she’d been murdered, for Christ’s sake. They could have been fishing her out of the lake right now, and then what?’
Dad tells her that things are OK. That everything worked out in the end. That there’s no need to be too hasty.
Mom retreats back to the bedroom, mumbling something about how I’m my father’s daughter and that the two of us are always in cahoots with each other, that she’s tired of playing against a team.
Dad sighs and says that he’ll talk to her, that he’s glad I’m safe, and that I make sure it doesn’t happen again, before he goes back into the bedroom to have that particular fight in private. He’ll win her over once he turns on the charm, I’m sure of it. She just worries, that’s all. Even in a place as safe as Eden, my mother is convinced that there’s an evil lurking behind every corner and a stranger with a gun or a knife just waiting to bundle me into the back of his van and turn me into another statistic on the nightly news. Perhaps a tall stranger, a year or so older than me, with a guitar and dark eyes and a voice like an angel. The kind of stranger who gets angry enough to punch a wall hard enough to split his knuckles open. If my mother knew that’s who I’d spent my afternoon with, rather than Kitty Ellis and the girls, she’d just about pitch a fit.
But I don’t care. In fact, I don’t think I’m going to be capable of caring about anything else for a good long time.
I am sixteen years old, and I’m in love.
Chapter Seven
I didn’t have a good night’s sleep. Part of that was the heat, which was oppressive and relentless in the way that only a Texas summer can be; by 2am, I felt as though every drop of water had been evaporated away from my body, leaving me dried up as a raisin. I had my AC unit blowing a frosty gale into my bedroom, but it was no match for the heat. A day’s worth of sun had settled into the sand, into the bricks, into the concrete, and only now – when every sensible or lucky person was able to sleep right through it – was that heat escaping back into the air to make the rest of us miserable.
But hey, I told myself, it could be worse.
All I could think of was Hale in his powerless trailer, probably sweltering without the benefit of a fan, let alone air conditioning.
Except that wasn’t how it had happened. He hadn’t serenaded me, not then; not ever, in fact. Sure, he’d played for me, when I asked him to, but it was always with a great deal of reluctance, like he was scared of how vulnerable it made him. He’d play me old classics, B.B. King and Elvis, Janis Joplin and Lou Reed, and when he sang along he sang like the lyrics meant something, something that he had long ago discovered and that I was only just beginning to scratch the surface of. But he hadn’t sung for me. He sang for Hale, the only way he knew how. To do it for anyone else would be to open a door I’m not even he had the key for.
Around five-thirty, I decided that I’d had enough of sleepless nostalgia; I took a long, cold shower to scrape off the night’s sweat, got dressed, and headed down to the diner an hour earlier than usual. By the time Pete came in to start work on breakfast, I’d practically mopped a hole right through the floor.
‘Someone’s been busy,’ he says. ‘You feeling alright?’
‘Fine.’
And that, mercifully, is all that’s said on the topic of the night before. It’s a small comfort. It just gives me more time to brood.
You’re being stupid, I tell myself. Just go out there again today. Talk to him. Explain why you ran.
Or, alternatively, I could leave him with no explanation whatsoever. Turnaround is fair play, after all. And it’s not as though he doesn’t deserve it. One night of wondering about me is small potatoes compared to ten years.
If he even is wondering about you…
He is. He must be.
But then why didn’t he stop me? Why didn’t he come after me? I mean, it’s not like I wanted that – I needed time on my own – but…
But nothing. One day. Twenty-four hours after Hale sauntered back into my life like a cowboy at high noon, and already this is what I’ve been reduced to. I can’t work out whether it’s crazy, or just plain sad.
It’s lunchtime before he walks into the diner. Jerry and Al are sitting in their usual spot, their backs to the door, but they see the look on my face as I see Hale through the glass and immediately spin around on their stools to see what the hell it is that made me react like that. For a second Hale pauses, until he’s sure he’s been seen and he can’t back out anymore.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Can we talk?’
I’ve never been more pleased to have the diner practically empty than I am when I hear him say those words. ‘Sure. Want to grab a booth?’
Instantaneously, Hale flicks his eyes to the right, to Eden’s very own Statler and Waldorf. Even behind his newspaper, I see Al’s ears prick up. He might be blind as hell, but he’s sure as hell not deaf, and this isn’t a conversation I want to have in public. ‘Maybe not,’ I say. I lift up the counter gate and beckon him into the back. ‘Come on through.’
He follows me through into the kitchen, all while I’m still wondering what would be a polite way to ask Pete to clear off for a few minutes, but thankfully there’s no need. ‘I’m going to take a smoke break, boss,’ Pete says as he sees us come in. ‘I’ll be back in five. Watch the grill for me, would you?’
Pete hasn’t had a cigarette since at least 1983, but I appreciate the gesture towards giving me and Hale some space – even if I do catch him giving Hale a good once over before he leaves. When he passes by us, he gives me a little nod that I choose to view as something like approval.
‘So,’ Hale starts as the door swings shut behind Pete. ‘About yesterday.’
‘Just… before you say anything,’ I say. ‘I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blown up at you like that, in your trailer. It was just a lot to take in, you know? You coming back, and then you saying… well, all that. All those things. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it.’
‘And now do you?’
‘Now do I what?’
‘Know what you’re supposed to do with it.’ I almost expected to see that same wry smile on his face, mocking me, playing with me, but his expression is stone-still. He’s serious. He wants to know.
I sigh. ‘Honestly? No. I don’t have a damn clue. This is all so…’
‘So what?’
‘Unexpected? Maybe? I don’t know.’ How do I explain it to him when I’m still trying to get it straight in my head myself? ‘You’re just… you’re not supposed to be here, Hale. I don’t know how you fit anymore. Where you fit. How I’m supposed to act around you. Whether I’m supposed to be happy you’re back, or angry you disappeared, or…’ I pause. ‘I’m still trying to figure it out, that’s all. What you are.’
He nods. ‘That’s fair, I guess. But can we maybe just start with customer and go from there?’ He pulls his wallet out of his jeans and grins. ‘This time, I promise I’m good for it.’
‘That sounds like a pretty good idea to me.’ The best idea I’ve heard in a longass time, that’s for sure.
‘Good. Besides, now I’ve met your cook, how could I pass up the chance to see if he’s as good as I’ve heard?’
I groan. ‘Oh, don’t tell him that,’ I say as we push back through into the main body of the diner. ‘If he finds out that people actually like his food, I’ll never hear the end of it.’
Hale seats himself down at the counter and picks up a menu. ‘So what’s good?’ he asks.
I shrug. ‘All of it,’ I say. ‘Specials are chicken quesadilla with pepperjack and sour cream, and country-fried steak.’
He smiles. ‘Well then, what would you recommend?’
‘You’re gonna have to feed the man if you want him to stay,’ Al chimes in from across the way, his voice carrying over the top of his paper. ‘A fella can’t get by on longing looks alone.’
I shoot him a look that says if he ever wants to eat another one of his precious cheeseburgers in our establishment again, he won’t mention any of my looks, longing or otherwise, and whether he catches it or not he’s smart enough to bury his nose back into the sports section.
Hale hands the menu back to me. ‘Surprise me,’ he says.
~~~
Ten minutes later, Hale is sitting at the counter, eating what he proudly proclaims is the best burger he’s ever tasted. ‘I’m serious,’ he says. ‘If I’d known the food here was this good, I never would have left.’
‘Oh yeah?’ I say. ‘New York food just doesn’t cut it, eh?’
He grins. ‘They can keep their Nobu. I’ll take the Red Rose Diner any day of the week.’
‘Flatterer.’
‘It’s the truth. Although the fact that I’ve never been to Nobu might have something to do with that.’
‘Not that rich, then?’
He pauses. ‘Where did you get the idea I was rich?’ he says slowly.
‘Nowhere. I mean, the wallet, I guess. And the bike. Things like that don’t exactly come cheap. Plus, you know… New York.’
‘Maybe I live in a ratty little studio apartment.’
‘Do you?’
Hale smiles. ‘Not anymore. Although I did for a long time.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Sure. You know, young kid, no college degree, in a place like New York. You take what you can get. I spent about a year crashing on a couch while I washed dishes in a restaurant.’
‘Sounds glamorous.’
‘Not so much. But hey, I’ve been lucky. No complaints.’
There’s the sound of a throat being cleared from across the other side of the counter, and I figure that it’s Al trying to get my attention – but no, he’s still focused on his paper, same as ever. When I look over, I see
that it’s his partner-in-crime that’s chiming in, which is unusual to say the least. He looks like he’s winding up for something big. The days when Jerry speaks more than a few words are rare days indeed, but he’s kept a hard stare on Hale ever since he sat down.
‘I know you, don’t I?’ Jerry asks.
‘Maybe,’ Hale says, setting down his napkin at the side of his plate. ‘I couldn’t say for sure.’
‘Jim Fischer’s boy.’ This time, it’s not a question. The way Jerry says it, it sounds more like a loaded gun.
‘That’s right,’ he says, and pauses; I can see the tension in his knuckles, and I can tell it’s not a topic that usually ends well for Hale. Anything that links him to his father is bound to be a touchy topic. ‘Is that a problem?’
‘Screwed me on a deal once,’ Jerry says. ‘Not so long ago. Welched on paying me for some work I did on that godawful truck of his – then when I came after it, threatened to beat me black and blue for my troubles. Said if I ever asked him for money again, he’d put me in the hospital and be waiting for me again when I got out. If I got out.’
‘That sounds like him.’
‘Heard he passed on a little while back.’
‘Yeah, he did.’ Hale pauses. ‘If you’re looking for me to settle up his debt…’ he says, but Jerry cuts him off before he can continue.
‘Keep your money, son,’ he says. ‘I let that slide a long time ago. Better than keeping score. I’m just glad to see you made something of yourself, that’s all. Lot of guys would have let that rot set in, ruined the next generation too.’
Hale’s face is hard as stone. ‘Well, I’m not my father,’ he says.
‘I can see that,’ Jerry says. ‘I know it’s not polite to speak ill of the dead, and I hope you won’t mind me saying so, but that son of a bitch didn’t have an ounce of good in him. But I get the feeling I don’t have to tell you that, eh?’
Reckless: A Bad Boy Musicians Romance Page 8
