Give, a novel

by Erica Carpenter Witsell

  “Oh.”

  “So, what I was saying was that you could come along if you wanted. The work’s pretty easy, you know. And we could work next to each other and, well, catch up. Like you said.”

  Laurel sighed again. Just what she needed—more mindless work. But it would appease Len, she thought. She smiled grimly, imagining telling him that she was going to volunteer at a food bank. That was just the sort of thing he would love.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said to Rosie. “I’ll go. I mean, I’d love to.”

  They had almost been late that first Saturday. Rosie had gushed too long over the girls when she’d picked Laurel up, and she kept at it once they were finally on their way.

  “Oh, that little baby smell,” Rosie said, backing her car carefully out of Laurel’s driveway. “Don’t you just love that smell?” She caught her son’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Ryan, honey, aren’t your second cousins just adorable?”

  From the backseat, Rosie’s son made a vague, guttural noise that might have been assent, and Rosie rolled her eyes at Laurel cheerfully.

  “See what you’re in for? Oh, but the stage you’re at now. Jessie’s three, isn’t she? That’s such a fun age, don’t you think? When their little personalities really start to show?”

  What was there to say to any of this? Rosie had clearly forgotten there might be anything less than delightful about breastfeeding and diapers. Laurel nodded vaguely and slumped in her seat, annoyed by the disappointment that swept over her, for she had actually found herself looking forward to this morning. She had even thought grudgingly that maybe Len was right. Maybe it would feel good to talk to someone who had been through it all before. But now she saw how it would be: sunny, chipper Rosie finding the best in everything. Laurel gazed out of the window as they drove, only half-listening as Rosie prattled on.

  It was a relief when they arrived at the food bank. As soon as they were inside, Ryan disappeared into a gaggle of teenagers. Laurel looked around uncertainly. About two dozen people were standing in the lobby of a large warehouse, all clustered in little groups of three and four. Before Laurel could even begin to get her bearings, she felt Rosie take her arm.

  “Ryan has made it very clear that I’m not to have anything to do with him and his friends,” she said, smiling broadly as if to say that she took no offense. She steered Laurel past all the people and across the warehouse to where several long tables had been set up in rows.

  “So I take the farthest table I can.”

  Rosie and Laurel stood side by side at the table with a half a dozen other volunteers, sorting food into what the volunteer coordinator had called “weekend packs.” Into each bag went six items: a box of spaghetti, a can of sauce, a fruit cup, an envelope of powdered milk, and two snacks. The work was mindless, but easy, and the boxes of donated food on the tables emptied quickly as they filled the packs. When that happened, one of the volunteers was supposed to replace the empty box with a new one from a nearby pallet.

  Laurel liked to do this; it seemed to her slightly less tedious than the endless filling of the packs. So when the fruit cups began to run low, she dumped the remaining ones onto the table, set the empty box on the floor, and went to get a full one, only to find that the pallet was empty, too.

  Picking up the empty box, she walked over to the dumpster, where a man with thick, tattooed forearms was breaking down the empty boxes and tossing them into a large, gray dumpster. From the authoritative way he wielded the box cutter, and the fact that she had seen him roll the dumpster away to empty it, Laurel assumed that he was an employee of the food bank.

  “Do you know where there’s any more fruit?” she asked, holding out the empty box.

  He took it from her and in one deft motion sliced the tape along the bottom.

  “What?”

  “We’re almost out of fruit cups, and the pallet’s empty,” she explained, gesturing. “Where can we get more?”

  He chuckled slightly. “Sorry, but I’m just the guy who breaks down the boxes. Ask . . .” He looked around, then gestured with an incline of his head toward a small office at one side of the warehouse. “Ask in there.”

  “Oh! You’re not—”

  He grinned at her. “No. Just a volunteer like you. More or less.”

  “Oh,” she said again, coloring a little at her mistake. “Well, thanks anyway.”

  She was heading for the office he had pointed out when she noticed a forklift lowering a new pallet of fruit. The tattooed man got there before her and sliced through the plastic wrap that held the boxes in place. Then he bent to lift one off for her.

  “Where do you want this, then, darling?” he asked, and, blushing again, she pointed to their table, where the volunteers stood idly, half-full plastic bags in hand, waiting for the fruit cups.

  As he slid the new box onto the table and cut it open, Laurel took her place beside Rosie. Her cousin glanced at her.

  “What’d he say?” Rosie asked. “I saw you talking.”

  “That he doesn’t work here,” Laurel said. “But they got us more fruit.” She lifted her chin in the direction of the restocked pallet.

  “Doesn’t work here?” Rosie said, surprised. “He’s here all the time.”

  Laurel reached for a box of spaghetti and shrugged.

  “Maybe he just happens to be here when you’re here.”

  “Wonder why he is here,” Rosie said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “DUI, probably. That’s what it usually is.”

  Laurel looked up. “How do you know?”

  “Oh, I hear them talking. At the break. How many hours they have to do and all that.”

  A volunteer like you. More or less.

  “So all these people,” she said, “they’re not all actually volunteers?”

  “Oh, no. A lot of them are working off community service hours. They’re not always the most savory people. That’s why I don’t like to just drop Ryan off, you know?”

  At the break, the volunteers crowded into a small room at the back of the warehouse. There was mediocre coffee and a cardboard box full of the same kinds of snacks they had just been sorting into the weekend packs.

  Laurel got coffee and a bag of mini muffins and sank gratefully into a chair beside Rosie, but in another minute her cousin was back on her feet.

  “Better go to the ladies’ room,” she said. “Want to come?”

  Laurel shook her head, glad for the reprieve from Rosie’s chatter. She leaned back in her chair and sipped her lukewarm coffee, letting her eyes wander over the other volunteers. When her gaze fell on the box man, she paused, wondering about him. Then he turned and his eyes met hers. She looked away at once, but not before she thought she saw him wink. Or had he? She finished her coffee and mini muffins self-consciously, sensing that now she was being watched. She could feel his eyes on her, and she felt herself grow warm under his imagined gaze. She didn’t look back, although she wanted to, because she felt that she could not bear it if she were wrong. It was too good a feeling, being watched like that. She didn’t want to ruin it.

  Now, Laurel worked harder to be the one to take the boxes to the dumpster, sometimes emptying them onto the table when they were still partially full. No one seemed to mind; it kept the table stocked, so the work went smoothly and the boxes of weekend packs grew.

  Each time she handed the man an empty box, he grinned at her, and she could feel a familiar heat go through her, so that by the time she returned to her table, she felt her body glowing. She never looked back, but she imagined his eyes were on her as she walked away, and she swung her hips a little, just in case.

  The hour after the break passed quickly, and Laurel was surprised when the volunteer coordinator emerged from the little office and told them to wrap things up. She looked down the table and saw that one of the other volunteers was emptying their few remaining snacks into the box at the adjacent table.

  “Here!” Laurel said quickly, reaching for the empty box. “I�
��ll take that for you.”

  She brought the box over to the dumpster and smiled when the man took it from her hands.

  “I’m Kent,” he said, grinning back at her. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

  “Laurel. This is my first time.”

  “Got hours?”

  She let out a little nervous laugh. “No. Um, I came with my cousin.”

  “Oh, I see. The goodness of your heart and all that.” He chuckled dryly.

  Laurel shrugged. “I guess.”

  “All right then. Well, maybe I’ll see you again.”

  He tossed the flattened cardboard into the dumpster and held out his hand for her to shake. When she took it, she could feel the ridged calluses on his palm and fingers.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  He held her hand just a moment too long, but long enough that she felt, again, that flush of heat go through her. When he let it go at last, he ran his index finger along her palm, so that she took in her breath a little too quickly and looked up at him in surprise. He grinned at her.

  “I hope so.”

  It was just a harmless flirtation, she told herself. And it felt so good! She had almost forgotten what it was like to be flirted with, to be seen. She was glowing and almost gleeful for the rest of the day, so that even Len noticed.

  “See,” he gloated. “I told you it would do you good to get out. Are you going to go back?”

  Yes. She called Rosie on Tuesday and asked if she could join her again. The next Saturday was the same as the first, except that each time she handed over the empty boxes, Kent’s large hands would brush against hers. He took to getting the new boxes for her, too, and when he slid them onto their table, he stood so close that she could feel the heat of him through her clothes.

  She started wearing lipstick and low-cut shirts that she covered with little jackets when she left the house on Saturdays. She always stood on the side of the table where she could watch him as he worked. Kent was a big man, broad-shouldered and powerful, and the veins under his tattoos bulged when he lifted the heavy boxes. When he touched her, it was so obviously on purpose that Laurel’s mouth went dry and desire leaked out of her.

  She was doing nothing wrong, she told herself. It was all so harmless, a junior high flirtation, propelled along by stolen glances and the accidental-on purpose brush of hands.

  And then, one day a month later, Rosie told her that Ryan had completed his hours.

  “I think I’m going to take a break for a while myself,” she apologized. “Not that I don’t think it’s worthwhile or anything. I’m sure I’ll be back soon enough, since Debbie’ll be in high school next year, too.”

  For one heart-stopping moment, Laurel thought that it was over. No longer would she have those hours that sustained her, those few precious hours of the week when she actually felt alive. But then relief swept over her; she didn’t have to stop.

  When she told Len, he nodded heartily. “That’s a great idea. It certainly does you good.”

  And so that Saturday she drove herself to Eureka and found her place at the usual table.

  Kent noticed immediately.

  “Where’s your cuz?” he asked the first time she brought him an empty box. He held his hand over hers, so that she couldn’t let go.

  “Her son finished his hours.”

  Kent gazed down at her for a long moment.

  “So you’re on your own, then?” he said at last.

  She gulped for air. “Yes.”

  At the break, Laurel was waiting in line for coffee when she felt his hand on her back.

  “Come with me,” he said, his voice low. “I want to show you something.”

  She followed him out of the break room and across the empty warehouse, then through a door and down a narrow hallway.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. She felt a prickle of anxiety. Less than savory, Rosie had said.

  “Shh,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  They had reached a narrow staircase, and he didn’t glance back as he started to descend. She bristled a little at this, that he was so confident that she would follow him, but her feet did not hesitate on the stairs.

  There was another small hallway at the bottom. Kent paused in front of the second door, his large hand on the door knob. He looked at Laurel at last.

  “Do you want to go in here?”

  Laurel’s heart was beating fast. “Why? What’s in there?”

  “Not much. Brooms and mops, mostly.”

  He looked at her significantly. “And us, if you want.”

  Laurel felt the blood rush to her face. It suddenly seemed impossible that it wouldn’t have come to this, eventually. All those stolen touches and laden glances: they were all leading here. And if she refused, that would be the end of it, and she would be a blue-baller and a tease.

  Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak.

  “Well?”

  She nodded, and Kent grinned and eased the door open.

  Afterwards, she followed him quietly up the stairs. When they got back to the warehouse, the break was already ending, and it was easy to weave her way through all the workers, back to her spot at the table, without anyone noticing her. At the end of the shift, Kent winked at her.

  “See you next week?”

  The next Saturday, she pretended to go outside during the break, then slipped back in and down the hallway while the other volunteers milled around the coffee and snacks. She was wet by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs. Kent was waiting for her in the broom closet. He opened the door for her without a word.

  CHAPTER 9

  Laurel

  It went on for months. The hour and a half she spent sorting food before the break was an eternity. Twice the volunteer at the end of the table who tied off the packs reprimanded her for forgetting the can of sauce or the powdered milk. Laurel rarely caught Kent looking at her now—“I’ve got to keep up appearances, darling,” he had told her—but she knew that when it was time for the break, he would be waiting for her downstairs, fumbling with her skirt as soon as she stepped inside. She stopped wearing underwear on Saturdays.

  Somehow, she got through the days between. She nursed the baby and changed her diapers. She read Jessie books without focusing on the words, so that when her daughter asked her questions—“Why Mommy?” or “Who’s that?”—she had to struggle to understand. She found that her affair didn’t distance her from Len. It had awakened her. She lay sleepless until he had finished in his office and come to bed, her secret humming inside her, leaving her quivering with a desire that could not wait until Saturday.

  At six months, they started Emma on solid foods. Her poops changed from innocuous yellow smears to lumpy, awful things. The nursery reeked. Laurel held her breath when she entered, but couldn’t be bothered to take out the diaper pail. Sarah would do it when she came. At the lab, the hours passed more quickly. Laurel often caught herself smiling as her mind wandered; she hardly noticed Alice now.

  It was Halloween, and then Thanksgiving. She wasted weeks dreading the Christmas season, sure that the food bank would close, only to learn that the charity stepped up their efforts at Christmas-time. She told Len she wanted to volunteer on Wednesday evenings for a while, too, to help with the holiday food drive.

  “Do you want us to come with you one time?” he asked gamely. “It’s so great what you’re doing, Laurel. It would be good for Jessie to see, to know that not everyone is as fort—”

  “No!” she said, her heart in her throat. “Jessie’s too young to understand. And . . . they don’t allow children.”

  She turned away from Len’s hurt look. “It’s because of liability,” she mumbled. “Too much equipment and heavy boxes.”

  On Christmas morning, Len gave her a framed picture of their daughters. She gave him a sweater. Together, they watched Jessie play with her new toys. In her head, Laurel counted the days until Saturday.

  Then, in the middle of January, Kent surprised her by approac
hing her at her table before the shift had even begun.

  “I need to talk,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Later.”

  She nodded, but she was surprised. They never did talk, or hardly. Their whole affair consisted of quickies in the dark closet, of moans and gasps and hurried caresses.

  It was no different that day, except that, afterwards, instead of opening the door for her as usual, Kent reached for the chain of the light bulb that hung overhead.

  “I won’t be around for a couple of months,” he said.

  “Oh no? Why?” Laurel tried to sound nonchalant, unbothered, but her stomach clenched.

  “I’m going out of town.”

  “On vacation?” she asked, picturing him with just whom, exactly? He didn’t wear a ring, but there might be someone. She had never asked.

  “Business.”

  Already, it was their longest conversation. She cleared her throat, adjusted her skirt.

  “What do you do?” She felt a stirring of . . . was it relief? Maybe she could stop it all now, no harm done.

  “Roofing, mostly. There’s a job up in Oregon I couldn’t turn down.”

  She nodded. “Well, I’ll see you, I guess. You’ll be back?”

  He nodded, then surprised her by taking her hand. “I’ve never asked, but . . . Could I . . . Would it be okay if I called you?”

  She took a step back, and her shoulder blades touched the wall behind her. Kent caught a broom as it fell. He grinned at her.

  “Shhh.”

  She said nothing for a minute, and perhaps he sensed the hesitancy in her.

  “Well?” he said, just as he had that first time, before it had all started. He settled the broom against the wall, then took her hand again and ran his index finger lightly over her palm. It had been months since he had done that; they were so far beyond that now. But it had its effect.

  “Can’t I just call you?” she asked.

  “You could, but I don’t know the number. Not sure where I’ll be staying yet.”

  She nodded reluctantly. “Okay. You can call.”