Cora
It was easy to spot her family’s home, even when they were half a block away. Someone had tied a series of balloons to the old mailbox. They dipped and spun in the air in three different shades of blue. At least seven cars were lined up on either side of the street, but Cora knew most of the partygoers were residents of the park and wouldn’t be driving in.
Finn navigated his car into one of the few spots available and shifted into park. They’d had to swing by his place and get his four-door because her two-seater wouldn’t have fit Oliver and the extra stuff. It was a fair trade, but it made them look more like a couple than she would have liked.
“Everyone ready?” he asked.
Finn had changed into a loose collared shirt and a nice pair of jeans and cowboy boots. Cora had to admit he looked good. No, she amended, not just good. He looked like he belonged on a hot cowboy poster.
“Sure.” Oliver was sitting in the backseat, tucked between several buckets of cookies and a couple of bottles of wine. He did not look happy. In fact, he looked tired, angry, and dirty. The dirty came from the fact that the left side of his face was smeared in dirt. How it happened and why had been a short discussion, where all Oliver would say was that he didn’t want to talk about it.
Cora hadn’t been willing to push, mostly because she knew that on Oliver’s phone were incriminating photos about her relationship with Finn.
“Yeah,” Cora said.
“Don’t everyone sound excited.” Finn shook his head, making his long fall of pitch-black hair sway back and forth. “It’s not like we aren’t getting free food and good company.”
Neither Oliver nor Cora responded. Oliver because he was being a very angry teenager, and Cora because she wasn’t so sure about the second part. Most of these people she didn’t know or hadn’t known for many years. What would they think about her showing up with Finn, the town enforcer?
“There’s my girl!”
Lucas Anderson came down the steps wearing the ugliest “Kiss the Chef” apron she had ever seen. It flapped as he crossed the short span of yard between the trailer and the line of cars already parked up and down the street. Apparently, Sam Anderson had not been lying when she’d spoken of a list.
“Hi, Dad.”
His beefy arms came around her in a great big hug. He smelled of meat and ivory soap. It was a nice combination. He gave her a squeeze and then stepped back to look down at her with shining eyes. “You look so pretty, little girl,” he said, his voice nearly cracking. He cleared his throat and turned his attention to Oliver.
Cora didn’t particularly want to look at Oliver, but she knew what her father saw. The teenage boy looked two days past sleep, and his signature hoodie had a large smear of dirt going down one arm. Cora had offered to take him home to change, but Oliver got surly about it.
“Well, look at you,” their dad said, his voice booming with pride. “Forgot how tall you are. Gonna be my height soon enough. What happened to your jacket?”
“It’s a hoodie,” Oliver snapped, as if the distinction was very important. He looked down so his hair covered his face.
“Well, all right, but what happened to it?”
Oliver shrugged, making the dirty fabric tent up with the motion. He shoved his hands into the front pocket with enough force to send a puff of drying dust into the air. “Fell.”
Lucas’s big watery eyes filled with concern. He put a big hand on Oliver’s shoulder and looked him over. Cora could clearly see what her father thought. “I fell” was boy code for “I got into a fight.” Cora didn’t think Oliver had been fighting. There were no bruises that she could see, but she still didn’t know what her brother had been doing in the upper-class district of Carson.
“You sure you’re—”
“I said I fell.” Oliver yanked his shoulder out of Lucas’s grasp. “I’m going to go get something to drink.”
Her father’s face began to fall, and Cora felt a short-lived desire to throttle Oliver for his attitude. “He’s fine,” she said, stepping in to put some balm on the moment. “We just didn’t have time to go home and change after picking up dessert and wine.”
“Yeah, well, all right,” Lucas said, the smile no longer reaching his eyes. He watched the back of Oliver as the teenager dashed past twenty or so other party guests and into the trailer. “So long as he’s okay.”
“He’s a little grumpy that he’s not going to see a concert tomorrow,” Finn explained, stepping forward and offering his hand. “Don’t take it personally.”
Understanding softened her dad’s features. He shoved his hand against Finn’s and gave it a good hearty shake. “He’s really partial to his music. Likes to listen all day long and half into the night. I got him some fancy headphones last year, saved up for a whole month. They connect right up to his computer. No wires or anything. He can walk all through the house without missing it. We’ve met before, right? Sorry if I don’t remember. My memory isn’t as great as it used to be.”
“I’m Finn, sir. Finn Marks. I run the auto shop Oliver works at.”
“Ah! I remember now. How is he doing there?”
Finn didn’t even hesitate. “He’s a smart kid, and he catches on fast. He could do anything he puts his mind to.”
That look of pride had her father’s shoulders squaring again. “Thank you, that’s good of you to say.”
“It’s the truth.” Finn motioned to the covered carport, which had been cleared of its usual half-dead truck. A grill was set up toward the back, but it was a series of plastic picnic tables decorated with plaid tablecloths that took up most of the space. Someone had put out a couple of vases, with dollar-store flowers poking out. It looked positively cheerful. “You’ve done a fine spread here.”
“Well, I figured we rarely get Cora out here, and Oliver needs family.”
“He does,” Finn agreed.
“Well, well. Finn Marks, is that you?”
Sam Anderson waltzed out of her home, wearing a pair of teal culottes that danced with every step and a spaghetti-strap shirt with sparkles around the neckline. Her eye shadow matched the culottes. Her big blonde hair had been styled into a high pouf and was held in place with a gallon of hair spray. The scent of it followed her as she meandered over and gave Finn a hug that lasted a couple of seconds too long.
“Hello, Mrs. Anderson,” Finn said as kindly as he could manage while trying to extract himself from her grip. “You outdid yourself with the decorations.”
She waved her very tan hand, complete with Day-Glo green nails, flippantly. “That was all my husband. He wanted everything to be just right for Cora. Thinks he can impress her.”
Cora’s father dipped his head shyly. For a moment, he looked like a very tall version of Oliver, with his hair masking his round face. Once upon a time her father had been very handsome. Life had kicked him hard enough that she forgot it now and then. “I just wanted it to look good.”
Sam rolled her heavily made-up eyes. “Lucas, she’s never gonna think it looks good. She goes to those fancy restaurants all the time. The kind where they charge you a hundred bucks to park your ass.”
“That’s not true,” Cora broke in. “I am really looking forward to this. I brought wine and cookies. I didn’t know how many were going to be here, so I got two bottles of wine and a few dozen cookies.”
“Oh,” her mother said, her hand still lashed around Finn’s wrist. “Well, I guess that will have to do.”
“It’ll be fine,” Lucas said firmly, giving his wife a sidelong glance. Cora wondered if he noted the way she was holding on to Finn, too. “Why don’t you go see about the steaks?”
Sam huffed once, loudly. “Well, it’s heavy. How about Finn helps me?”
Finn gave his arm another tug, this one hard enough that Sam had to let go unless she wanted to look like a complete idiot. “Unless there is something that Cora needs me to do?”
It was well played, Cora thought. He had, without being blunt about it, said he would do what Cora wanted first and everything else second. It was all polite enough to keep her mother from making a scene.
“I’ll go help my mom with the steaks if you wanna get the rest of the stuff out of the car.”
“Well,” he said with a grin, “it is my car.”
“Fine,” her mother said, clearly not happy. She swirled away in a flutter of teal fabric and sparkles, tromping inside. Cora suddenly realized where Oliver might be getting his dramatic exits from.
It wasn’t the first time her mother had been inappropriate toward one of Cora’s friends, and Cora was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be the last time.
The house had been cleaned up. The smell of Lysol and Windex clung to every available surface. Some of the partygoers had crowded inside, taking up the sofa and dining chairs. No one sat in the La-Z-Boy. It made Cora smile to know everyone was aware of which chair was off-limits.
She recognized some of the faces. Mr. and Mrs. Parker from two doors down—they owned a bakery on the edge of town. Cora wondered if they had brought cookies, too. The Parkers made excellent cookies. Old Man Jones, who had been living in his trailer since he’d returned from the war with a bad leg and half of his hearing, was parked on the sofa, a beer in his gnarled and age-spotted hands. He was currently regaling the group with the story of the tank. She’d heard it before.
“It was hot as hell, let me tell you. Hot and wet at the same time. Not like home, no sir!” He waved his beer in an arc toward the whole of Nevada. “And that whole night, the whole time, I tell ya, we were under attack. So, rain was coming down from above, and shots were coming from two different directions, and not a one of us had slept in two nights. I was tired, loopy kind of tired, so I climbed into our tank and I just…drove right out into that ugly rain-covered jungle and blasted the sniper who had us pinned down.”
His laugh was as loud as a storm and crackled like brittle paper.
Next to him was Kyle Henderson, who had been to Iraq and thought that made him a hero. Sure, there were plenty of great soldiers who had done incredible things. Kyle wasn’t one of them. The moment Old Man Jones stopped talking, he immediately began talking about the time where he had to stack garbage to lure dogs in with. It was a less great story.
There was Misty Carter who had four kids, and, if Cora were judging right, would have another in a few months. She was leaning against the edge of the couch with child number three perched on her hip. The other was dangled on Mr. Parker’s knee.
“Can I get you anything, Mr. Jones?” Misty asked, her voice as gentle and sweet as a spring. Cora had known Misty way back when. She was a few years younger, and therefore not a friend, but Cora had always thought of her as good-hearted.
“Another beer, sweetheart,” he said, passing over an empty. Misty turned and Cora reevaluated just how soon that new baby was coming. She immediately stepped farther into the trailer.
“How about you let me?” Cora stepped in and took the beer bottle. “Have a seat. Seriously.”
“Cora?” Misty asked, her eyes going wide. “Is that you?”
Cora felt all the eyes in the room turn toward her. Curiosity, amusement, and flat-out contempt shined out at her. Most of the contempt was coming from her own mother. It was familiar, and not. It could have been worse.
“Hey, everyone.” Cora gave a wave before depositing the bottle into a container. “Yes, it’s me.”
“Well,” Misty said, moving forward and giving Cora a warm hug. “You look fantastic. You always did.”
“Thank you, so do you.”
Misty put a hand over her swollen belly. “Well, at least there is more of me.”
Sam cleared her throat, and Cora tried to hold in a sigh. Misty squeezed her wrist just enough to get Cora’s attention and gave her a knowing smirk. “It’s okay,” she mouthed. Cora gave her a little nod.
“What can I do to help, Mom?”
Her mother chopped her hand toward the large standing pantry that was tacked on to the end of the counter space. “Get the Solo cups and paper plates. You can take them outside to your father. Or you can get the ice out of the freezer. You didn’t bring more ice, did you?”
“Well, no,” Cora said, reaching for the pantry, “but I wasn’t asked.”
Her mother made a noise somewhere between a snort and a scoff and pulled a box out of the freezer. “You can walk in here with your brand new man, and wearing your fancy watch, and can’t even bring ice.”
“Jesus, Mom.” Cora tugged the plastic flatware and matching cups out of the cabinet and placed them on the counter. “What is your problem?”
Her mother slapped down a box; whatever was inside rattled ominously. For a long moment, no one, not even Sam Anderson, said anything. The tension was thick and uncomfortable as a woolen blanket. Even Old Man Jones was keeping his mouth shut.
“You want to know?” Her mother’s voice was quiet and hard as ice.
“Yeah, I do.” Cora didn’t want to do this right now, and she certainly didn’t want to do this here. Family arguments were private, unless you were Sam Anderson. In her world, every dramatic thing was meant to be done in full view of everyone. It wasn’t worth having an argument unless it meant people would be talking about it for weeks. “I deserve to.”
“Come with me.”
Cora blinked as her mother strutted out of the kitchen and into the bedroom she and Cora’s father shared. This was different. Once upon a time her mother had thrown a hissy fit over her father buying the wrong soda in the middle of the road so everyone would hear it. The very idea that Sam was going somewhere semiprivate to have this discussion was the only thing that had her following the path her mother had blazed rather than storming out.
Her mother’s bedroom was the least decorated part of the doublewide, probably because few people came in there. The rest of the house had cheap dollar-store dust catchers and needlepoint pillows. Here the bedspread was plain, the curtains were simple, and there were two dressers, both of which probably belonged to Sam. Her mother was sitting in a small wooden chair stuffed into the farthest corner, tapping a cigarette expertly out of a pack.
Now Cora knew there was trouble. Not just dramatics, but real honest-to-God trouble. Her mother did not smoke inside the house. Even when it was raining pellets, Sam Anderson would throw on a jacket and hoof it out to the carport to smoke out there. She was very particular about making sure nothing might stain any of her little treasures.
With the practiced motion of a lifelong smoker, Sam popped the cigarette between her lips, tugged a lighter from between her breasts, and turned the tip of the cigarette a bright cherry with just a few quick puffs of her lips. The movements accentuated the lines she’d done her best to hide.
Cora didn’t need to be asked to close the door. She just pushed it closed and stood there, waiting for her mother to drop whatever bomb had brought them in here.
“I don’t hate you,” her mother said. She took a long drag and blew out a perfect ring of smoke. It hung in the air for just a moment before folding in on itself and becoming a cloud of misty gray. “I know we don’t have a lovey relationship. It’s…well, part of it’s me.”
Cora resisted the urge to pinch herself and make sure she hadn’t slipped into a coma somewhere between the kitchen and here. “What?”
Her mother scoffed again, shaking her head and flicking the cigarette ash into a Solo cup that Cora hadn’t realized was there. She dragged her Day-Glo nails through her peroxide hair, and before it had fallen back into place she went on. “I mean it, Cora. I don’t hate you. You were my very first baby. I don’t know that anything shakes up your world quite like that. I mean, there I was, barely twenty years old and fine as hell and swollen tits…and there you were. Tiny as could be with these big damn eyes that just took in the whole world like you couldn’t wait to win it over.”
“Were you scared?” Cora asked.
“Terrified. I wasn’t ready for you, and I didn’t always know how to handle everything that happened. I probably should never have been a mother.”
It was the listless giving up in her voice that had Cora sitting down on the edge of her parents’ bed. “Mom,” she started, but she couldn’t figure out how to end it. The word just hung in the air with the same cloud as her mother’s accumulating cigarette smoke.
“You were the most independent child. Do you know that? Ornery, too. Right from the start. You wouldn’t wear socks. You just pulled them off the moment my back was turned and would toss them anywhere. Threw one right on the stove once.”
“I did not.”
Her mother laughed. It was a bright shock of sound that bubbled up from the place where memories lived. “Oh, you very well did. You were sitting in your high chair with this great big smile on your face while I was screeching for your dad to put it out. Singed off my eyebrows.”
“Oh, my God.” Cora shook her head.
“It was an adventure. It wasn’t easy, I’ll never say it was easy. You had this I-can-do-it-myself attitude that you were never willing to give up on. I remember this one time I was sleeping in—you had just celebrated your third birthday—and I woke up when something smashed in the living room. I was so scared. I thought someone had broken in. I picked up your daddy’s baseball bat and went out to the kitchen, and there you were. You’d tugged out one of the living room chairs and crawled up on the counter and were trying to make yourself some cinnamon toast. That was your favorite.”
“Still is,” Cora admitted, warmed by the memory. “I don’t eat it as often now.”
Her mother shook her head and waved her hand dismissively. “I didn’t bring you here for platitudes, Cora. I brought you in here to give you what little motherly advice I have left in me.”
Cora felt a slithering weight in her belly. This definitely was not a good situation. The very idea of her mom handing out advice was so foreign that Cora was rendered completely speechless.
“You are a good woman, Cora. I know I give you a hard time and I probably don’t tell you all the things you need to hear. I know you left here for your own reasons, and you don’t have to tell me what they are. I’m sure I was part of the reason. I screwed up with you, and now I’ve screwed up with Oliver. I’m not an idiot…I see it.”
“Mom, I’m sorry.” Cora didn’t know what else to say. She had always thought her mother hadn’t even realized what was going on in the house, and especially not in her children’s lives.
“I don’t want your damn apology,” Sam said without any real heat. “Just listen. I know I screwed up where you and your brother are concerned, but just hear me out. Finn is not for you.”
“I’m sorry…what?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions here. I know what I’m talking about. Finn is fine if what you want is a little bit of action with a pretty body. He is pretty from the top of that Native black hair to the bottom of his cowboy boots. I don’t blame you for the time you are spending with him. Thirty years ago, I would have done the same.”
The sick feeling in Cora’s belly began to heat up. There was something incredibly uncomfortable about the idea that her mother was supporting her sexual relationship with Finn. She shifted on the bed and drew her legs up toward her chest.
“Mom…”
“How do you manage to run a business empire like you do if you have such a bad habit of interrupting people?”
“It’s hardly an empire,” Cora defended.
“Your business alone is worth over a million bucks annually, daughter of mine. If that’s not an empire, it’s close enough. It’s more than those fancy spray-tan boys who use their daddy’s money to make a company. You built it with your own two hands from the very beginning, and that means something more. You are a driven woman, and I can respect that. It’s my opinion that you are just going to get better.”
It was the closest thing to a compliment Cora had ever received from her mother. “Thank you,” she said. She even meant it.
“You’re welcome. Now, let me be clear here. I don’t know a whole lot about building a business empire, but I know you can’t do it if the guy you are lugging around with you has a criminal record and sports a patch from a motorcycle club. So, go ahead and use him, but don’t keep him. After this crap with Oliver is squared away, cut him loose.”
The fact that Cora had planned on doing just that made her feel a little sick inside. She and her mother had come to the same conclusion. Finn was not for her. He was for someone else, some pretty barista model or one of the many girls that followed around the White Tigers’ club. They were two very different people. Right?
He came from a small town and no money. Cora knew that. They both had wild backgrounds and dreams. Not so different there either. It was their views on the world at large that really separated them. He didn’t see a reason for the law, but Cora did. Maybe her mother had a point. God, Cora never thought those words would happen.
“I…I don’t know what to say,” Cora finally managed.
“Don’t gotta say shit.” Her mother took another long drag on the cigarette and blew out a series of rings. “Just take the advice for what it is. Do what you do, help Oliver, go back to your job somewhere else. Whatever. It’s all up to you.” She blew out a last bit of smoke and then shoved the last of the stick into the bottom of her cup. “It’s always been up to you, Cora, ever since you were a kid.”