Unfinished Business (17 page)

“Get any more clients?” I ask.

“Didn’t have time to call people back last week. We’ve been really busy at work. With Easter coming…everybody wants to look, oh I don’t know, Easterish.” She pokes at the lid of her coffee. We sip our coffees and watch the Royal Oak people stroll by.

Royal Oak used to be a humdrum kind of place. Now it’s a suburban hot spot. Goth kids slump on benches and overpriced restaurants fill the sidewalks of Main Street with quaint outdoor tables.

Riana and Josie start commenting on the alarming number of hipsters and how it’s impossible to tell if they’re serious with the work boots they’re wearing or not. Did they buy them distressed or did they actually do enough work to earn the scratches and tears? While I’m listening to them, my phone buzzes.

What time do you want me to pick you up?

Nick is so stubborn.

I didn’t say yes.

If I was being truthful with myself, I’d admit I bought that glittery shirt because I knew Nick would like it. He loves
Charlie’s Angels
. But me and honesty haven’t been on good terms in a while.

His response is immediate.

I’m saying yes for both of us.

A hot wave of panic rushes through me.

“What’s up, Hayley?”

I look up and find both Josie and Riana staring at me. Their eyebrows are pulled in and the smiles from earlier are totally gone.

“Oh, nothing. Just, um, just nothing.”

“You sure?” Riana asks.

“Yep. It’s just me being PMS-y. Everything is a big deal when it isn’t.” I laugh it off, but inside I’m a tattered mess. I turn off my phone, toss it into my purse and go back to listening to Riana and Josie’s blow-by-blow fashion commentary.

* * * *

Friday morning at work, Tony slinks in and scans the empty space around my desk. “Caroline around?”

I’m tempted to tell him she’s hiding under my desk, then I remember my promise not to be so hard on Tony. Still, he’s up to something, I can tell.

“No, she’s at some meeting or something. I don’t know, lately she just leaves and doesn’t say where she’s going.”

He inches toward her office.

“She knows somebody has been messing with her computer, Tony. What gives?”

His gaze darts to her door, skims across the floor to his feet then creeps up to my face. “Promise you won’t tell?”

“I already didn’t tell. She asked me if I was using it. I told her I wasn’t and that I didn’t know who was. So the way I see it, you already owe me an explanation.”

Deciding whether or not to trust me, he rocks back on his heels. As I am already an accomplice, he is a little late I think.

“I live with someone.”

I stare expectantly, silently telling him I want the whole story.

“And I’m sort of seeing somebody else.”

Oh, this is good.
More silence from me.

“The somebody I’ve been, well…kind of seeing, is working on a website. It should be live any day now. And the thing is, I’m afraid to use the computer at home. I don’t want the person I live with to know I was on the website.”

The way he enunciates website really gets my attention. “What kind of website?”

“I submitted some pictures for it.” He steps toward Caroline’s office. “That’s what I do, take pictures.”

“You’re a photographer?”

He bobs his head several times. “That’s right, I’m a photographer. And I just want to see if the pictures I submitted got used.” With that, he dodges through Caroline’s doorway.

I know there is more to this story but I’ll have to dig out the next installment later. Because I was actually in the middle of doing something before Tony rolled in.

The whole goal writing business has stayed with me so I’m working on the list of things I need to accomplish for the day. A couple of them are left over tasks from an underproductive Thursday. According to the pages in the Optional Handout Packet—now clipped neatly in a binder—it is okay to have incomplete tasks as long as they stay on the list.

Here’s my latest.

Friday, April 20
th

1. Return call from Ms. Kulpa—the woman who is organizing the bike race.

2. Decide which prizes will be the top prizes for the raffle and number the others— I wish I could screw that up somehow so Caroline would end up looking like the loser she is. Alas, it is too late.

3. Find a new company to do the end of lease cleaning and repair on the units— Thanks Caroline for dumping that one on me.

4. Call Riana at lunch— She can complain to me about her training.

5. Call Josie after lunch.

5. Avoid thinking about how stressed I’ll be 34 hours from now— Gave in and agreed to let Nick come to the Fool’s Fools Dance.

Only three of the tasks are work related but that’s a big improvement for somebody who didn’t even plan for the next five minutes a couple of weeks ago. Writing things down does make me feel like I’m more in control of my life. The tidy lines and careful printing look so orderly. Feeling encouraged, I try some long-term goals again.

I grab the pen and dig out a fresh sheet of paper.

Five Year Plan—

1.

2.

3.

The blank page giggles at me. Not a nice, friendly giggle. An evil one. I need to try a different approach. I draw some curlicues across the top of the page and some neat little graphics across the bottom.

Better, but not quite there. It needs something else.

So I add some swirly things around the edges and curvy things around the numbers. It looks pretty good.

Creative and full of energy.

Ha. Ha! Who’s giggling now?

I look again at what I drew and realize the page is winning again.

Because apparently for the next five years I will be under the attack of a fleet of evil snails. After the deranged snakes get done with me.

I wad it up then toss it out.

And regroup, rethink and try again.

Things I will Get Done in the Next Six Months—

1.

2.

3.

Should I move from mostly self-help magazine articles to mostly self-help books? Go to another seminar? No. I don’t think so… Find another guy to hook up with?

Several long minutes march through time while I’m thinking, or rather trying to think, about the direction of my life. New idea!

Things I will NOT Get Done in the Next Six Months—

1. I will not let Caroline take advantage of me again— Yep. That’s right.

2. I will not be shamed by my family and/or the country people back home— Are embarrassment and shame the same thing?

3. I will not give up trying to figure out who I am and what it is I want to do with my life.

Where did that come from? Crap.

That seems awfully serious. I glance over my shoulder to see if someone snuck in and wrote that—someone who isn’t me.

Nobody there—and I’m the one holding the pen.

I sigh and ease back in my chair.

Chapter Twenty-One

Cool Looks for Hot Farm Girls

Saturday evening, warm, moist, spring air ruffles my hair while I wait in Nick’s truck, staring at the corner store like an anxious hunting dog. He thought I was kidding about stopping to get a little nip before going to face the crowd at the Fool’s Fools Dance, then when I grabbed the steering wheel and nearly made him drive into a ditch, he got the idea.

About the time I hope he may have ducked out on the whole belated April Fool’s Day Dance and snuck out of the back door, he shuffles out dragging his heels across the parking lot and gripping a brown paper package in his left hand. His right hand is stuffed into his pocket.

I lean toward him and shout, “Are you practicing to be a good ole boy?”

That makes him laugh. “Yessim.”

I stretch across the seat to open his door. “Shut up and get in.”

He climbs in with that goofy smile still on his face. “I didn’t see Bo and Luke in there. They must be out chasin’ Boss Hog.”

I grab the bottle and yank it out of his grasp. “Bo and Luke?”

“
The Dukes of Hazzard
.”

“Oh. My. God. Shut up.”

He’s staring at the bag. I peel the paper off.

The all too familiar red and orange label with the glowing flames. “Hot Damn!?”

“Yessim.” He bobs his head then goes on using the stupidest country accent I have ever heard. “The girl behind the counter told me it’s what chicks in this neck of the woods like best.”

In spite of the cloak of shame resting on my shoulders, I laugh. “I bet she did. Did she get your phone number too?”

“No, ma’am.”

I swivel off the cap. “Cut that ma’am shit out. Right now.”

“Oh”—he leers at me—“you’re tougher than the country girls I grew up with.”

I stop glaring at him long enough to take a healthy swig.

“Geez, Hayley. You could have at least waited until we got out of the parking lot.”

I cast him another sidelong glance, this one laced with vulnerability, down another shot then wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. The inexplicable expression that spreads across his face catches me so completely off guard I have to look away and pretend I didn’t notice. And that sudden heat? Must be the alcohol.

He starts driving. I hold onto the bottle and gaze out of the window until he pulls off on a side road. He creeps along until he parks in the shadow of some trees about a half mile from the VFW hall.

“Give me some of that before you drink it all,” he says, snatching for the bottle. Our hands get tangled and a weird zip shoots up my arm. I relinquish the bottle as Kid Rock’s
Cowboy
comes on the radio.

“It’s your boy, Hayley.” Nick flashes me a grin then takes a long drink. After he swallows, he lowers the bottle to his lap and howls louder than the music. “Hot damn, that’s some good shit.”

He looks so crazy, I laugh hard enough to shake off some of the dread I’d been holding tightly to all week. “Pass it on over, let’s put that bad boy to bed.”

About a minute later, we pull into the VFW lot, and Nick glides around looking for a place to park. He finds a space behind a red F-150 pickup truck that has a white window decal of a woman’s silhouette on the driver’s side. She’s flexing her biceps and grinning from beneath wind-blown hair. It reads—‘Fear This City Boy’. Nick stares at it then at the one on the passenger side that reads—‘Redneck Girl’. He points and laughs. “I feel right at home.”

I should but I don’t. I can already feel the weight of the stares and hear the whispers of rumors. I turn away from Nick as I cringe, feeling like maybe I should tell him about Waylon. It’d be better if he heard it from me but my stomach turns sour just thinking about saying the words aloud. My own stupidity and shame swirl in my heart and make my chest hot.

I’m just not ready. Yet.

We pay at the door then zip straight in. All of a sudden it’s like we don’t know each other. We stand there, looking around, not saying anything.

The band is setting up on the low stage in the center of the hall and some country song I don’t recognize is wailing from the tall, high-tech, black speakers sitting like 2001 Space Odyssey monoliths on the battered dance floor.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Nick scan the crowd—clusters of narrow-shouldered, old men wearing plaid dress shirts and pressed blue jeans, ladies with feathered bangs and ponytails. I guess I don’t have to worry about anyone else showing up in a glittery
Charlie’s Angels
T-shirt.

Then again, maybe I do.

“So where’s Mom and Dad?” Nick nudges me. “When do I get to say hi to the ’rents?”

“They usually hide in the back, so the only way to find them is to actually go looking for them.”

He sets his hand at the base of my spine as we start walking.

For a second that electricity comes back but then I spot my dad in a back corner with his arm draped around my mom’s shoulders. In a couple of seconds he’ll say something to make all the other couples laugh—there, he just did—then he’ll shake my mom’s shoulders—he just did—because she’s laughing with everyone else.

When I nudge Nick in their direction, Duane Sod half rises out of his chair, points his fat finger at me and hollers, “Here she is, Carl. And look there, she’s brought a date.”

For some inane reason, everyone thinks that’s the most hilarious thing they’ve heard in ages, because they’re all guffawing and chortling while they give Nick the once-over. Explaining that he’s a friend would just be asking for more speculation so I let the misunderstanding go.

The men get done looking him over and go back to their Buds and Bud Lites. The womenfolk let their gazes linger.

“Hi, everybody,” I offer lamely. “This is Nick.”

“Hey there, Nick,” says Duane, as he reaches across the table to stick out his pudgy mitt.

“Hey there, everybody.” Nick waves to the mob with one hand while he shakes Duane’s hand with the other.

“Nick lives in the city too,” my mom says to the crowd. Then she goes on to explain he’s from a country town as well, as though that alone makes him okay.

Duane stares at Nick and asks, “You play ball in high school?”

Everyone except a short, dark-haired man I don’t recognize, leans forward and listens for the reply. They’re all measuring him up against Waylon, football captain and son of the wealthiest farmer on our side of town, the man who would’ve been my husband if I hadn’t jilted him at the altar. “Football?” Nick shakes his head. “No, sir.”

“Basketball?”

“No.”

Duane is determined. “Wrestle?”

Nick glances at me. “Nope. I’m an engineering student at Wayne,” he says.

They all give him a blank stare. Then, once those dissipate, they smile and nod.

The short, dark-haired man slips out of his seat to pull a couple of chairs over to the table. “Have a seat, you two.” He grins at me, and I try to place his accent.