Use Somebody (4 page)

If only it hadn’t been for what awaited me around the next corner…

A lump formed in my throat as I fought to keep the memories from surfacing.
No. Don’t go down that road.
My head shook as if that alone could rid the traumatic events from my brain. The new Scar was tough; she never let anyone see her sweat.

“Are you alright?” Gwen asked quietly, breaking through my despondent thoughts.

I looked up sharply. Obviously I wasn’t alright. Didn’t she know that when someone was upset, that was the worst thing you could ask them?

“Just drop it.”

Her arms flew up in defeat. “Geez, Scarlett!”

“Scar,”
I corrected.

“Whatever. You’ve turned into Oscar the effing grouch and it’s starting to piss me off!”

She slammed the magazine on the floor next to her and took an irritated breath. I could tell that her level of frustration had increased along with the loudness of her sigh. Gwen was not blessed with a lot of patience or empathy. So even though she was the closest thing I currently had to a friend, I chose to remain silent.

“I don’t know what happened at that school, or why you’re home,” she said, her tone caustic. “And if you don’t want to tell me, whatever, that’s your prerogative. But you can’t act like this at work. I got you this job and it will make us both look bad if you create a bunch of enemies. No one’s expecting too much here. Show up for your scheduled shifts. Help the customers. Be nice to the team—that includes Vance Holloway. Think you can handle that?”

Without waiting for a response, she got up and grabbed a rag, disappearing through the swinging door that separated the front of the store from the back. And I was left with my thoughts.

Alone again. But not lonely. This was my fate. I’d reached a point so low that I actually stopped wishing for relief. Hope was dangerous. Giving up was self-preservation.

I was better off trusting no one.

* * *

Right on time for his shift, Vance walked in through the back door and smiled at me. “Hey Rosie.”

I returned his greeting with a flip of the bird. He just laughed off my rudeness and continued towards the front of the store to clock in at the register, jovial as ever.

“Scarlett!”
Gwen scolded me. I hated that she still called me by my full name. Hearing it reminded me of the meek little girl I had once been, and I was convinced anyone who used it also viewed me as such. “I saw that!”

“It’s
Scar,”
I reminded her, though I had little hope she would ever heed it.

“We talked about this,” she said. “Why were you a bitch to Vance? Again?”

I gestured in his general direction, although with the swinging door closed between us, he was out of sight. “Because I refuse to answer to
Rosie,”
I bemoaned. “It’s only four letters. Why is that so damn hard for you people to remember?”

“Rosie, huh?” she shook her head, amused. “Where did he come up with that?”

“The goober couldn’t even pronounce my last name!” I said, exasperated.

She laughed, and Vance returned to the backroom tying on his apron.

Gwen stared pointedly at me and jerked her chin toward him. I knew what she wanted, and she was right. I had to think about this practically. I didn’t want to cause drama at work and get my ass fired. Besides, it wasn’t Vance’s fault that everything he did annoyed the hell out of me. If I could just get past all the sunshine and smiles, he might even be kind of nice. I used to like nice, happy people, right? Once upon a time, I had been a nice, happy person, myself.

But the world had only seen the old Scarlett as weak. I couldn’t go back to that.

Clearly I was overcompensating. Truth be told, I was still trying to figure everything out. To say I was juggling new emotions would be the understatement of the century. Most days it felt like I was drinking out of a fire hydrant.

Was it possible for a girl to be both nice and have a backbone? And if so, what was that supposed to look like?

There had to be a way to show the world that the new Scar was tough, without coming off like a total bitch. I just didn’t know how at the moment. However if I couldn’t get my attitude under control, I was only going to draw more attention to myself. And that was one trait that hadn’t changed—I still hated attention.

I walked right up to Vance and waited until he turned to face me. “I’m sorry that I’ve been a bitch to you,” I led. I opened my mouth to follow with some kind of reason or excuse, but I didn’t really have one, so I just nodded once. Done.

Surprised but forgiving, Vance chuckled and slung an arm around my shoulders. “Well thanks for clearing that up!”

I tensed and shrugged his arm off of me. I would try to be civil with the guy, but that didn’t mean he could touch me.

“Truce!” I raised my hands defensively and kept my tone even. “I’ll try to be less of a bitch, but you have to do something for me.”

He and Gwen exchanged a glance, then he leaned a hip against the counter and folded his arms. “This sounds interesting.”

“Yes it does,” Gwen agreed with a wicked grin.

Whatever weird scenario they were expecting, they were about to be disappointed.

“Three conditions,” I said, ticking them off my fingers. “No touching. No flirting. No bonding.”

Gwen’s response was a groan and a face-palm.

“Bonding?” Vance asked through a laugh, his eyebrows leaping up his forehead and disappearing under his brown mop. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” I lifted my chin higher. It didn’t matter that it sounded ridiculous. If I expected to maintain any control, I had to stand my ground.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like to be touched. I’m not interested. And I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to work.”

He rubbed the back of his neck while considering this. “I will concede on the personal space issues. And you don’t have to worry about flirting, either, I have a girlfriend. But you have to bend a little on the…
bonding.
We all work here as a team. And if we can’t work well together, it’s going to reflect in our service level.”

I studied him, wishing I had been born with the gift of discernment. My gut had steered me wrong too many times to trust it now.

It made a bit of sense, I supposed. I would have to be civil towards him. That didn’t mean we had to become best buds. Maybe tolerating him would be easier knowing the first two issues weren’t a problem.

I dared to cast a glance at Gwen. She raised an expectant eyebrow at me. How was I supposed to refuse when he was being reasonable?

So I acquiesced. “Fine.”

He walked away backwards, facing me the whole time with a shit-eating grin.

“I knew I’d wear you down,” he said, then finally turned and disappeared into the front of the store.

There was always a lull in the middle of the day in which no one came in for ice cream. If there were no customers to serve and everything was clean, we were allowed to sit in the back of the store and wait. I’d quickly learned that this made for great reading time and always had a book ready.

It had been thirty minutes since the last customer left, and Vance and I were in the back relaxing before the evening rush. I sat cross-legged on the floor with my back against the wall and a paperback in my lap.

Vance sat at the office desk as if he were doing official business. But as I watched him tinker away with a maddening number of clicks and taps, I was doubtful he was doing anything more productive than Solitaire.

With a contented sigh, he reclined back in the chair and grabbed one ankle to rest it on his other knee. His fingers drummed on his checkered Vans as he scatted to some random beat in his head.

In other words, he was annoying the crap out of me.

Wasn’t there anything else for him to do? Inventory to stock, paperwork to sign? Update his Facebook status for all I cared, if it would just cure his antsy-ness.

“So, is that your thing?” he interrupted my rude thoughts.

I looked up from the book in my lap. “Excuse me?”

“Reading,” he pointed to my book. “Seems to be your thing.”

“Um… sure,” I mumbled and buried my nose in the pages again.

“Guess what my thing is.”

I kept my eyes on my book and ignored the double entendre. “Not interested in guessing games,” I said on a bored exhale. And I was not interested in getting to know him, either. I agreed to be civil to the guy while we were here at work; that didn’t mean we had to get all chummy. Forced small talk had never been a strength of mine, especially when I had a perfectly good book in my hands.

“Come on, Rosie. Just take a stab at it,” he pushed.

I rolled my eyes.
Fine… if he insists
. “Cross dressing.”

He barked out a laugh. “You’re funny. That’s not even kinda close. I’ll give you a hint. It involves water.”

I eyed him. It was probably surfing. He seemed like a beachy, laid back kind of guy, especially with his brown hair curled over his ears and that damned goofy demeanor. From what I could tell, he had the right body type hiding under that cow-spotted apron, too, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of admitting that.

So instead I said, “Synchronized swimming.”

“Wow. You’re really bad at guessing. Last hint. It requires patience.”

Patience…
Like waiting for the right wave. Definitely surfing. Although I was kinda surprised he said it took patience and not “big guns” or something lame like that.

So, naturally, I answered with another clever quip. “Under water basket weaving.”

He ignored my last guess. I was surprised it took that long.

“Have you ever caught a sea bass?”

I looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “A sea bass?”

“Yeah. Ever hooked a big one, so strong it nearly snapped your pole in half? Ever reeled him in after he fought you for twenty minutes, only to tire himself out and finally admit defeat?” He made a cast off motion with his arms and then a small, circular winding movement with one hand, all while wearing a far-off smile. “There’s no greater sense of accomplishment.”

He spoke of it with such reverence, it didn’t feel right to continue mocking him.

I shook my head. I had never caught a big fish like that. There was a photo of me when I was about five, back in Texas, holding a pole with a little catfish dangling on the line. It was the first and only time I’d ever gone fishing. My excited open-mouthed smile was so huge as I held it up for the camera. I could only imagine I felt as much pride that day as Vance described in one of his biggest catches.

“Fishing?” I said faintly. “That’s your thing?”

“Hey, you got it! Great guess!”

Hmm
… Water. Patience. It made perfect sense. But I was still a little perplexed that it wasn’t surfing.

“What do you do with the fish?” I asked.

“Catch and release,” he shrugged. “The victory is in the catch. Plus, I’m allergic to seafood.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I nodded and dove back into my book.

“Do you write?” he asked after a few seconds.

I snapped up again, startled. “Why do you ask that?”

He wore an easy smile and pointed to the book in my lap. “You like to read. Sometimes it goes hand in hand.”

Oh. That made sense.
“Not anymore.” I felt the need to explain my needlessly defensive reaction. “I used to be a journalism major.”

“No kidding?” He said thoughtfully. “What kind of stuff do you like to write? Stories?”

“No… It was more like actual journaling. Thoughts about life. Poems sometimes, but those were never any good.”

The poetry was a failure simply because my writing was too literal—I didn’t write to be vague and insightful; I wrote to express myself. Now journaling… that was the most practical hobby for someone like me who could overanalyze a situation to death and had no one to share my innermost thoughts with. It was so much easier to put my words down on paper rather than speak them aloud.

“Why’d you stop?”

“My… I lost my journal,” I said. “I didn’t want to start all over.” And I wasn’t ready to face the recent past, whether spoken or penned.

He nodded. “So now reading is your outlet. Makes sense.”

“Writing
was my outlet,” I clarified. “Reading is more like… an escape.”

“From…?”

My cheeks started to warm at his query. Why did he have to ask such personal questions? “What is this, an interrogation?” I muttered, pulling the book in front of my face again. This had gotten out of hand and I hadn’t even realized it. He lured me in with a little talk of his favorite pastime and then got me to open up about reading, and writing. From now on I’d have to be more careful around Vance. He was sneaky.

“Actually it’s called a conversation.”

Well, screw his conversation. He wasn’t going to manipulate me into talking. I had nothing to say to anyone and even if I did, Vance would be the last person to hear it. So I ignored him and hid between the covers of my book.

For now I would enjoy other people’s outlets. Their stuff was way better than mine anyway.

* * *

One night, as the clock finally struck 10:00 p.m., it was time to close up shop. Since Vance was the lead, he divided the nightly duties between us. I got assigned the kitchen and organizing the back while he closed the front.

Up to my elbows in soap bubbles, I washed the day’s worth of scoops, ladles, buckets and blenders until my fingers grew pruney. Vance was in the front of the store counting the register, mopping and wrapping up the candy case for the night. I didn’t even notice when he came into the back of the shop and passed behind me.

“Is that
Sidewalks?”
he paused to ask. I had been absently humming the tune while I washed.

“Mmmhmm,” I admitted and continued with the dishes without looking up. It was kind of an emo song, but these days I wasn’t capable of listening to much else.

“That’s a great song,” he remarked. “Story of the Year rocks.”

I nodded once, and continued to focus on the sink, sans the humming.

Vance put away the boxes then returned to the front of the store, separating us again.

Moments later, a tapping sound made me look back, only to find Vance bug-eyed and open-mouthed on the square window of the swinging door. He blew out a hard gust of air against it, making an obnoxious raspberry noise as his cheeks flared and vibrated, steam fogging up the glass in front of him.

He looked absolutely ridiculous.

I rolled my eyes at him, but had to turn back to the sink before he saw my lips turn up just the tiniest bit.
What a goober.

We had worked together several times now and it appeared he’d made it his personal mission to get me to laugh. This latest silly face was preceded by a beard of soap bubbles and body surfing on the candy cart. He was becoming more and more shameless in his determination, but my exterior wall was just as stubborn. We were caught in a battle of wills—him fighting to befriend me, and me fighting to ignore him. It was only a matter of time until one of us cracked.

“Your mom dropped you off today, right?” he asked a little later. “Do you need a ride home after we finish?”

It was no secret that I didn’t have a car. In the upper-middle class suburbs, most kids were gifted their own vehicle by their sixteenth birthday. I saved practically every dollar I’d ever earned to buy my first little Honda all by myself. It wasn’t a brand new BMW like Lexi’s, but it was mine and I loved it.

Now here I was: eighteen, a college dropout, carless, and working a minimum wage job. Life sure hadn’t turned out the way I thought it would.

I was out on my own for less than a year before running home with my tail between my legs. It took a great deal of humility to move back into my parents’ home and bum rides again after having a short taste of independence. Between the insurance money and the little bit I planned to save working at Mooshi, I should have been able to afford a decent replacement in the next few months. Though I’d be lying if I said I’d be mentally ready for that anytime soon.

“I don’t need a ride, but thank you,” I said politely.

“Is your mom coming to pick you up? Because it’s no trouble for me. Really.”

I suppressed a sigh. He was too much a do-gooder for his own good. “I’ll be fine,” I said, this time curt.

After the glass was polished and the floors were mopped, he turned off the lights and set the alarm system. Somehow I’d been able to convince Vance he didn’t need to wait for my ride to show up. So he got into his truck and left.

I tried calling my mama one last time. Nothing.

After another minute passed I started walking. Looked like I didn’t have a ride tonight, but I didn’t need one. San Dimas was a safe little town, population thirty-three thousand, nestled right in the middle of suburbia, California. The beach, the mountains, the snow, the desert, the city and even Disneyland were all within an hour away.

Despite the fact that it was a generally safe area, I knew it was foolish to be walking the streets in the middle of the night. It wasn’t that I was naïve to the dangers that lurked in the shadows; I just didn’t care. There was a certain element of fearlessness you gained when you had nothing left to lose. So I walked into the night with my head high, challenging the darkness, and prepared to meet whatever threat was willing to finish me off. I was ready for it… expecting it.

But the blinding light? I was not expecting that.

As soon as I turned the corner, a pair of headlights blinded me. I held my hand up like a visor, but couldn’t make out a thing. I picked up my pace and walked until I came to the side of the vehicle. It was a charcoal-colored truck, idoling by the curb.

Vance.

The goober was waiting me out. And he had picked the perfect spot along the sidewalk. I couldn’t get anywhere without passing him.

Doing my best to ignore him, I kept walking. He didn’t let me get any further than the door before the passenger side window rolled all the way down.

“Need a ride?” he asked, no resentment in the fact that we’d already had this conversation.

My cheeks heated in the darkness. I didn’t care if Vance thought I was a carless loser. But now that he saw me walking home, he’d likely feel burdened to help. “No, thank you.”

As my steps continued on the sidewalk, the truck rolled along at one mile an hour right beside me to keep pace.

“It’s late,” he called down from his truck. “You’re not intending to walk all the way home, are you?”

“What’s it to you?” I said. Didn’t see how that was any of his concern.

Ever so slowly, the truck matched my speed. I sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to give up.

“Can you please just let me drive you home? One way or another I can’t leave you walking out here all by yourself.”

I stopped. The truck stopped. I considered his offer simply because I truly believed he’d follow me all the way home if I refused. But this was about more than a ride home. This was about trust. I didn’t know Vance… should I trust him?

I looked at the road ahead and almost laughed at myself. Two minutes ago I was fearless, convinced that I could handle any dangers of the night. Now here I was worried about whether or not to trust my goober coworker for a measly eight-minute commute.

Boy, did I have problems.

I knew I was over-thinking this, but sometimes these precautions were necessary. I considered what I knew about him. He talked a lot. Gwen seemed to like him. If anything were to happen to me, the managers would know exactly who had seen me last. All in all, I narrowed it down to one point.

“You really have a girlfriend?”