AnguiSH (18 page)

             
I gave him a curt nod, signaling I was finished with my story. 

             
“I’m proud of you for taking initiative and getting this great job.  But then again, I’ve never had to prompt you to work hard.  But I’m concerned.”

             
I jumped to Breaker’s defense, “He’d never hurt me Dad.  He’s not like—it’s not like that.”

             
“That’s not why I’m worried, Ashland.  I know you’re taking him places and getting him out of the house and that’s good.  But what’s he doing for himself?  From what you’ve told me you help him through these—episodes.”

             
I looked back down at my plate and fiddled through the times we’d gone out of the house. 

             
Dad reached across the table and took my hands in his.  “I know what you’re doing here.  And I’m not saying it’s the only reason.  But it feels like retribution for your mother.”

             
“Is that a bad thing?” I asked in earnest. 

             
“No, not completely.  So what else has he done?”

             
“Just what I told you.” I shrugged.  I didn’t think I’d left any events out.

             
“Do you remember when Amelia started cleaning and cooking, like incessantly cleaning?”

             
I did.  I was about eight and truly thought my mom had gotten better overnight.  I wanted to believe it so badly.

             
“But then we realized she’d just toggled to a new fixation.” I answered for him—remembering it from hindsight.

             
“Yes,” he said and my father, so wise and patient, and I stared each other down as the waiter removed our plates. 

             
“It might be different. I may be way off base.” He began a banter with me.

             
“It may be the same and I’m just blinded by lo…”

             
He nodded, his calloused fingers squeezed each time he made a point.  “As I was Ashland.  I should’ve gotten some serious help for your mother.  I maybe even should’ve institutionalized her.  I was selfish.  I needed her with me so badly, even if she had no clue who I was.”

             
Plates of Hawaiian cheesecake and the smells of cream cheese and pineapple reached my nose as I untangled the knots in my head, sifting out the strands of truth.

             
“Tell me what to do, Dad.”  I couldn’t help the vulnerability that broke through my voice. 

             
“Ashland, you’re one of the smartest people I know.  And I quit telling you what to do when I walked in on you kicking Jackson Landry in the nuts for trying to get to second base.  You were only fifteen but I’ve been a spectator ever since.  You’ll figure it out.”

             
I fought back tears.  And I laughed because I remembered Jackson and his bruised boys. It was one of the few times that I’d allowed myself to socialize.  Dad high fived me after Jackson left with his tail between his legs, and little else. 

             
“Right now I think cheesecake will help.”

             
“Me too.” He laughed.

             
I dropped him off at his store, holding on to promises of meeting Patty, and my hopes that he could be happy.  I would say again, but in all honesty, I’d never seen him truly content with my mom.  There was no way you could be around her.  It was constant chaos.

             
I called Stephanie but she didn’t answer.  So I went back to the place where I knew I could just sit and let the world spin around me—a chance to think. As I sat down on the concrete bench in the middle of the LSU quad, a text came through from Breaker but I shut my phone off, not needing any kind of sway from him while I worked all the shit in my brain out.

             
I sifted through everything as couples passed me by, guys in a hurry, backpacks strapped to their backs.  It wasn’t as busy in the quad as it was during a regular semester, but the summer traffic still afforded me the anonymity and solace I needed. 

             
I got turned around in the maze of my thoughts and by the time I found my way out, the sun was setting and the quad was now empty. 

             
And as the sun died, another dawn broke in me.  It was simple.  I had to know.  I had to know if he was truly getting better or if he was just shifting his codependency to me.  I knew what I had to do.

             
I went back to the house, its beauty once so striking to me, now was looming and almost haunted.  The tenants can alter the way a house looks.  Almost if the people are hateful, the house starts to get ugly.  But Breaker was glum, so this place was more like a drab mansion instead of a gorgeous piece of architecture.

             
Breaker flung the door open as I got out of the car and his smile was priceless.  Like I was what he’d been waiting for his whole life and the postman had just dropped me off. 

             
And no one had ever smiled like that at my arrival. 

             
I walked in and before my second foot was in the door, I was in his arms. 

             
“Is it too cheesy if I told you I missed you? I mean, it’s been twelve hours.”

             
“Hmmm,” I pretended to think about it, “I think thirteen hours is the standard.”

             
“Understood,” he said.  He backed away from me and closed the door and began to stalk away in fake anger.

             
“Don’t you dare.” I told him and grabbed him by the waistband of those ever present basketball shorts.  And when he sufficiently pinned me against the door, I told him, “I missed you too.”

             
And there was that smile again.

             
“I’ve got to clean this house.  It is why I’m here.” I barely choked out as his mouth blazed a trail of head down the hollow of my neck. 

             
“I’ll help.” He said, his H’s blew hot breath against my ear.

             
“You sure do clean a lot.  Your mom said you were the slob of the year.  That’s why I’m here.  I’m beginning to think you were faking it just to get a girl in here.”

             
“It’s true.  That’s why I hired Mrs. Doubtfire first.  The smell of Ben Gay and White Diamonds perfume really does it for me.  So she came over for a trial but…”

             
“You have to stop now.  I just imagined you and her under the library lights.  I bet you take all the girls under the twinkly lights.”

             
He broke out into a haughty, heady laugh.  I felt like I’d won a prize. 

             
“Ash, you’re the only one who’s slept under the stars with me.”

             
“I’ve got to clean—like now.  What if your mom makes one of those surprise inspections and instead of cleaning, I’ve been entertaining the boss?”             

             
He cocked his eyebrow in a ‘have it your way’ gesture.  I went to my room to change and spent the rest of the night cleaning.               

             
Breaker went out to the greenhouse at some point and then I heard him tinkering with something in the spare bedroom that he always kept locked. 

             
My stomach turned when I made up my mind and lurched when I realized it meant that I might lose him.  No one might ever need me again the way he did.

             
I finished up and showered, then went to bed, the gnawing still festered in my gut. 

             
I woke up early the next morning and waited.  I wondered if he’d wake up and run with me of his own doing.  He was an adult for chrissakes.  Fifteen minutes after our scheduled time, I went out by myself.  I found that I liked the morning run more than I thought I would.  Pounding a rhythm into the sidewalk cleared my head. 

             
I was disappointed when I got back.  He was probably still tucked into his warm bed—lazy ass.

             
I walked into a silent house and decided to mow the grass, the humid Louisiana summer made it grow like wild fire. 

             
I started up the mower and got through three solid passes before I was linebacked out of the way and the lawnmower was stolen from my hands.  Breaker had just taken it out of my hands.  The faith I’d had in him waved at me, reminding me she was alive and well.  I stood still in the place my machine had abandoned me.  When he passed by he winked and I still stood there all star struck.  But when he passed again, he slapped me on my ass—hard. 

             
“Get to work, Lazy!” He shouted over the buzz of the lawnmower.

             
He just pissed me off so bad.

             
I stomped to the greenhouse and retrieved the weed eater and did the same job I’d had before—trying not to cut into my legs.  I was getting bored of this routine.  I don’t know how Breaker stood it for so long. 

             
We finished the yard and admired the glory for a few minutes.  If he said dinner and DVD were the plans for the night, I would have to sock him in the jaw.

             
“I feel cheated,” I blurted out.

             
“How so?”

             
“I told you I care about you, I let you get to first base, we slept under twinkly lights but we haven’t been out on a date.”

             
“Woman, I nearly had you begging for second base.  How about we go out to the movies?  It’s a weekday, there’s probably few people there, we can sit in the back…”

             
Bingo—he initiated another place to go.  That had to count for something.  He was truly getting better.

             
“You have to dress like you’re on a real date.”   This was more for me than for show.  I’d never seen him in real clothes.  He was always wearing basketball shorts or pajama pants.  And there was the one time with the boxer briefs.

             
“So do you.  You have to get all dolled up like you did to go out with Smoky.”

             
I snorted, “O-zark.”

             
“It’s all mountain ranges to me.  So, go get ready, and I’m gonna knock on your bedroom door all formal like.”

             
“Do I get to call you ‘Your Majesty’ on our date?”

             
“I love to hate it when you call me that.”

             
“Give me two hours.  I’m gonna take a bath.”

             
He groaned, “Jesus help me.”

             
I took a long, hot bath, the kind where you pay really good attention to shaving your legs in the right direction and letting the conditioner sit for five minutes.  It was one of those baths where you emerged with lobster red skin and you felt like a million bucks afterward.  I took care in picking out my clothes, all the while squealing at random intervals. 

             
I finally chose a pair of dark washed skinny jeans and a black cami whose straps crisscrossed in the back.  I chose a pair of black peep toe shoes to match.  I left my hair down and put on a simple silver necklace.  I decided to take a risk and went with simple eye make-up, but Marilyn Monroe red lips.  I’d just sprayed myself with body spray when he knocked on my door.

             
I opened it up and he gasped.  I loved that he gasped in my presence.  It made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. 

             
“How?” he whispered, “How did I get so damned lucky to have you stumble into my life?”

             
And as he stood there in a navy blue button up shirt and gray slacks, both fit him like they were specially tailored to flatter everything he had, I thought the same about him.  He was willing to change his life, or lack of life for me.  He was willing to trust me enough to know that if he was in trouble I would help him. 

             
I stepped towards him, the peep toe heels and red lipstick giving me a false bravado of brazen, “And I thought you looked good in your boxers.  But you are incredibly handsome all dressed up.”  His already pale face drained of all color, “Well, I’m gonna have to pay you back for seeing me like that.”

             
I took another step, this one making our chests touch.  I watched his lips as I spoke, hoping what I would say next would make him squirm.

             
“You already did.  You don’t think I sunbathe topless all the time do you?  Breaker James, that was just for you.”

             
And sure enough, he rolled his lips between his teeth, reeling in some of his want.  And I knew he wanted.