Chapter Seven
Kayla spent an hour setting the chairs down and wiping all the tables and the expansive concrete bar. The silence was odd but soothing. Since she’d never worked a Sunday open, and typically took the later weekday shifts, she’d never been in the place when it wasn’t already noisy and teeming with patrons.
She chose the music theme—a non-committal jazz-like station—and sat a few minutes, taking in the calm silence of her new workplace. As she wandered behind the bar, letting her fingers trail along the cool, clean surface, she realized what she wanted to do, right now.
She grabbed her backpack from underneath the cash register and pulled out the cheap sketch pad and charcoal pencils she’d treated herself to after an especially good night of tips. The ‘art thing’ as she’d come to think of it had begun during her last days at the detox camp. Her therapist had been aggravated at her when she’d kept insisting that she had no real hobbies—she didn’t like reading, didn’t play any instruments, hated to cook, didn’t sew or make anything else with her hands and had no real desire to do any of it. But she’d needed something, the woman had kept saying to her, while Kayla had kept shaking her head, telling her that was part of her damn problem—nothing to distract her. No job. No real prospects. No hobbies. No significant skills, unless you counted blow jobs and faking orgasms. Oh, and rolling joints and mixing cheap martinis.
“Stop it,” she muttered as she sat and stared at one of the tables, with its flower stuck in an old beer bottle, the condiments, the rolled utensils and stack of self-serve coasters. Something about it struck her. It was representative of her new world, up to and including the flaws in the wood, the stains on the chairs, the sad dip of the two-day-old flower in its faux-chic bud vase.
The therapist had presented her with her first sketch pad and charcoal pencils. She’d scoffed but after a day of glaring at them from across her small cell-like room, she’d opened the book and drawn the first thing she’d seen—the contents of her bedside table. A box of generic tissues, a half-empty glass of water, five different pill bottles, most of them tipped over, a cracked lamp.
She’d shown it to her therapist the next day, encouraged when the woman had seemed surprised by it. The final weeks of her time in the camp had been spent scribbling and scraping away on the pad until she’d filled it up and worked the pencils down to nubs.
When she’d been set free from that place, with nothing in her possession but a backpack full of shitty drawings, a bus pass, an address for a halfway house and twenty bucks for food, something about her hours spent being creative had given her hope. She’d used the ticket to get home to Grand Rapids, after almost twenty-five years away, realizing that she wanted to reconnect with her brother, now that she was clean. The stack of sketch books was tall enough to serve as her bedside table in the warehouse, alongside the mattress. She’d gone back into them and filled every possible corner of both sides of the paper. Then she’d made herself wait until she had three hundred bucks put away before allowing a thirty-five dollar purchase of fresh pads—the sheets grainy and cheap but blank—and some new pencils.
It freed her for a few minutes—the act of drawing. She had zero delusions about her talent, regardless of what the therapist had said about her early forays. But she had all kinds of faith in its power to distract her from her worst urges, her most violent memories. As she let her hand move, she kept her eyes on the subject as the soft jazzy music filled the air around her.
When the door slammed open, the sun shone in, blinding her for a moment. “We aren’t open yet,” she called, flipping the sketch book closed and tucking everything away in her bag. It was only ten-thirty but she’d forgotten to lock the door behind her so she figured she might as well earn a few bucks early.
“It’s me,” Melody called out.
Kayla blinked, confused. Her boss’ voice sounded strangled, as if she had a cold. Or she’d been crying. The woman walked around behind the bar so fast Kayla couldn’t get a good look at her. She ran through the kitchen that was occupied with cooks doing prep work. Following her, worried in a way that she chalked up to female intuition, she waited outside the staff restroom door that had just slammed behind Melody.
“No es bueno,” one of the cooks said. The other one made a clucking sound with his teeth but shrugged at her.
Kayla waited a few minutes, then heard the bar door open again, so she headed out, a smile on her face, ready to earn more sketch book money.
It was freeing, the art. But it was also freeing to only be worried about that—not about where to get her next hit, or how to pay for it. Not that she wouldn’t love to have one. The sweet rush to the brain, the odd sensation of swelling in all her nerve endings, ready to receive all the good the world had to offer. How colors were brighter, sounds more compelling, her sense of touch intensified. Until she lost the high and her body staggered into needy mode.
She shook her head at herself as she approached the couple settling themselves at the end of the bar. After about an hour, she heard a new voice in the kitchen behind her. A somewhat strident, bossy-sounding female speaking rapid Spanish. When she had a spare second, she ducked her head into the busy kitchen and saw a woman who was a shorter, older version of her boss, helping Melody out of the bathroom.
“Hi, Kayla, sorry,” Melody said. “This is my mother. She’s…here to help out this afternoon. A couple of the guys are down with the flu.”
The older woman smiled and shook Kayla’s hand then cluck-clucked at her daughter, who looked as if she had the same problem as the missing kitchen staff, toward her small office at the back of the kitchen. She shot a worried glance over her shoulder then shut the door behind them.
The bar was getting busy, so Kayla headed back out, eager to lose herself in the work for a few hours. She’d almost forgotten about Melody and her mother’s presence but after a while realized the older woman was, indeed, working away in the kitchen, chopping, stirring, prepping, bossing the rest of the staff around like a pro.
Once things had calmed down a bit, she started putting away cleaned glassware. She greeted the second shift of bartenders and servers then filled a couple of beer orders, loving the way she felt in control of this, of herself, for the first time in years. She’d even managed to flirt back with some of the older guys who were semi-regulars, and with the cute young guy sitting alone and watching a Tigers game on one of the televisions.
She grabbed a towel to wipe a few spills, humming under her breath before she saw a man perched on the edge of a chair, fiddling with his phone. All the blood drained from her face. Her ears went buzzy. Her knees weak. He frowned at her.
She swallowed hard, opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. Her vision began to dim from the outside edges, going gray and fuzzy and strange. It was Trent, of course. She’d seen the picture of him—the broad shoulders, olive-skinned face, strong jaw and nose. She’d know him anywhere.
But he looked so much like his father—her stepfather and abuser—it burned her throat like acid. The hand she put to her throat was ice cold. The man’s—Trent’s—eyes narrowed further. He rose, something in his expression making her realize he recognized her but didn’t want to believe it. She took a step back and decided to jump right into this thing.
“Trent, it’s me. Kayla,” she managed.
He got up and ran around the bar, then was standing in front of her, towering over her. She attempted not to cower. Something about him was so powerful. Something not at all unlike his father, until that man had let the drink get to him, weaken him enough that she could whack him in the head and run away one cold fall night.
She put a hand on Trent’s chest and felt his heart pounding against it. As she sensed herself sliding to the floor, he gripped her arms, firm but not too tight. “Kayla,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “It is you.”
She nodded and before she could disentangle herself, he had her crushed to his chest. She sighed and let him hold her a few minutes, then pulled away, anxious from the close contact. “Sorry,” she said, tugging at the sleeves of her long T-shirt. “I’m sort of not great with…hugging.”
He nodded. His eyes—the exact color of hers, an odd mix of green and brown—were shining. His smile so wide it was cartoonish. He opened his mouth to say something, but someone called his name from the kitchen. He stood, blinking fast. “Wait, so, you work here? For Melody?”
She nodded. “Don’t be mad at her. I wouldn’t let her tell you. I needed to…see you first.”
He ran a hand around the back of his neck. Someone called his name again, louder this time. He held up a finger. “Don’t leave. I’ll be back and we can talk.”
She smiled. “I’m working, remember? I’m not going anywhere.”
“Jesus… Okay, I’m coming, Josefa, uno momento.” He stared at her a few more seconds, shook his head then headed into the kitchen.
By the time he made it back out to the bar, it was busy again, demanding all her attention. He sat, watching her as she worked. She felt that strange thrill of familiarity again combined with a distinct fear, given his sharp resemblance to her tormentor. The man who had yanked her innocence away from her, leaving her a shell, ready to accept anything and anyone who’d fill it up.
At one point, she glanced over at him and saw he’d been joined by a pretty teenaged girl. She hesitated before heading over to them, not sure she could stand being around someone so lucky to have Trent as a father, money to pad her life, real paternal love to cushion her landings. But when the girl smiled at her, she unstuck her feet and fixed a smile on her face.
“Oh my God, Dad, it is her. She looks just like you!” The girl jumped up in her seat, leaned over the bar and gave her a tight hug around the neck. Kayla suffered it as long as she could then pulled away. “I have an aunt! I love it!”
“Hi, you must be Taylor,” she said, fiddling with the girl’s coaster, unable to meet her eyes. She felt dirty, filthy, slimed with the disgusting detritus of her past. She knew a sign was flashing over her head, neon and complete with arrows pointing down and saying, “Slut. Whore. Junkie.”
She gulped and took a few steps back from her brother and his perfect daughter, as a sick surge of jealousy filled her gut. She blinked fast, gave them a little wave and turned away, hoping someone at the other end of the bar needed a refill. They did, and she was able to ignore Trent and Taylor for a while longer. But they stayed put, waiting for her. Finally, she gave up and faced them, bringing her lidded ginger ale cup with her.
“Where have you been all this time?” Taylor beamed at her. Trust the teenager to jump right into the morass and stomp around. “I mean, are you a journalist or something? Some kind of world traveler?”
Trent put a hand on his daughter’s arm, keeping his soft gaze on Kayla. “Honey, lighten up. Give her some space.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just so weird, you know?” She raised her smart phone and held it up, then typed away on it. “I just Insta’d you. That okay?”
“Since I have no idea what you’re talking about, I guess so.” Kayla smiled, unable to keep from getting caught up in the girl’s enthusiasm.
“Me neither. It’s like Greek or Latin,” Trent said, pushing his empty glass toward her. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” she said, happy to have something to do with her hands. “Taylor? Another root beer?”
“No, thank you.” The girl patted her flat belly. “I will take some of the crack fries, please. Extra spice.”
“Okay, I’ll put that in for you. Trent? Hungry?”
He shook his head, still staring at her in wonder. She smiled at him then looked away, her face burning hot, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
She put the basket of fries in front of Taylor, who smiled up from her phone. “You’re so thin,” she said, giving Kayla a frank once-over. “How do you do it?”
“I don’t have much appetite. It was the drugs.”
When Taylor choked on her fries, Trent pounded her back then trained his gaze on Kayla. “We have a lot of catching up to do,” he said.
“Yes, we do,” she agreed, giving the bar a perfunctory swipe with a towel. “But I’m not one to mince words, fair warning.”
Taylor glanced at her father then stared at Kayla. “So fuckin’ cool,” she said, tucking into the fries like a little kid.
“Language,” Trent warned.
“Something like that,” Kayla said as she refilled the girl’s water glass. “It is really good to see you,” she said to Trent.
His grin widened. “I never thought I would see you again. I just figured you were dead.”
“I was, kinda, for a while.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, folding it between his two giant ones. She pulled away on reflex, fiddling with her shirtsleeves and strands of dangling hair. “Sorry. I’m not…into touching.”
“No, I’m sorry. Will you come to our house tonight maybe? Have dinner? Stay?”
“I can’t do that. Not yet.” She studied them—her family, her blood relatives. “I will though, soon. I promise.”
Taylor finished her fries and glanced at the ever-present phone. “Brad’s here, Dad.” Trent’s face fell, his gaze darkened. “It’s fine. We’re just studying.” She rolled her eyes. The rush of emotion that filled Kayla’s chest was an odd mix of jealousy and protectiveness.
“Studying, eh,” she said, putting the dirty basket in the tub under the bar.
Trent raised an eyebrow at her. “Be safe, Tay.”
“I always am, jeez.” She reached out and grabbed Kayla’s hand, gave it a squeeze then let go before Kayla could wriggle free. “I’m so glad to see you, to meet you. I can’t wait for you to come over. I could use some help with this guy.” She punched her father’s shoulder then got up and kissed the top of his bald head. “Love you, Daddy.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, watching her as she flounced through the bar, drawing plenty of eyes in her yoga pants and T-shirt. “God, I hate being a parent some days.”
“I admire you for giving it the old college try,” Kayla said, taking his empty. “More?”
“Better not. Just some water. I actually should go.” He glanced around Kayla as if hoping Melody might appear. “She was pretty sick.”
“Yes,” Kayla said. They stared at each other. “I wish I were better at this.”
“At what? Coming back from the dead? Making my day? I’d consider you pretty damn good at it.” He leaned forward then righted himself when she moved the corresponding space apart from him. He frowned at her. “Kayla, you…you ran away. I know why.”
Her heart seemed to skip a few beats then caught up with itself. “Oh. Well…okay.” She looked down at the rubber mats under her feet. She shut her eyes against the urge to scream. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” His voice was sharp, with an angry edge to it. She glanced up at him, her pulse racing.
Don’t hate me. Please. Don’t hate me.
“I killed him. Did you know that? I killed my own father.”
“He’s…dead?”
“Yeah, the sick fucker. He killed our mother on his way to Hell. But I beat the living shit out of him and he never woke up from it.” He said this with a level of matter-of-factness that made Kayla hate the sick son of a bitch all over again.
“How old were you?” She took a step toward him, permitting herself the few pleasant memories she still retained of him, of them, as sister and brother, playing, reading, eating, hiding from his temper-prone father and making a game out of it.
“Too young,” he said. “But I was acquitted once it was determined what he’d done to our mother. Self-defense. Which it was, of course. Asshole beat on me pretty heartily most days, too.”
“I am so, so sorry, Trent.” She put her hand on his then withdrew it as if he’d shocked her.
“Stop saying that, God damn it.” He scowled at her, making her heart pound and her throat close up with raw, primal anxiety.
Don’t hate me.
She’d said that a lot, at the end. She’d also said it to her last pseudo-boyfriend, who’d been her dealer for a while until he’d sniffed out her inner needy little girl and turned it to his advantage.
“Don’t hate me,” she said, meaning it.
Trent stood to his full height, towering and powerful again, soothing her with his presence. “We’re going to work on this. I’ll find you a therapist and pay for it. Anything you need.”
“No, no you don’t have to—”
“You may not want me to touch you yet, but I will by God help you get through this. We’re family, Kayla. You and Taylor are all I’ve got left in that arena.”
“Taylor’s mother?”
“Not in the picture anymore. And thank your lucky stars for that.” He slumped against the bar chair, checking his phone for the hundredth time.
“And Melody?” She crossed her arms, feeling brave all of a sudden. “She’s not family?”
“Not yet, but she will be.” His lips were set in a firm line. “But I really do have to go. I need to check on her, okay? I’ll… We’ll talk. You call me.” He flipped a business card onto the bar. “Whenever you’re ready. I won’t push you but please know I need to help you, and I will. Whatever you need me to do.”
He had an expression on his face then that shot her straight back to their childhood. He’d always been a worrier, even as a little kid. And since she’d practically raised him, even though she was only five years older than he, she recalled that worried Trent face. She reached over the bar and touched the line between his eyes. He smiled and let her. Her hand dropped.
“I’ll call. I promise. Probably sometime this week.”
The bar door opened, sending a shaft of late afternoon sunshine into the dark space. For some reason, she glanced around Trent, wanting to see who’d walked in. Her face flushed and she put her cold palm to her throat when she spotted Brock, re-shouldering a backpack and blinking as his eyesight adjusted to the gloom. Trent seemed surprised by her reaction then turned to see who’d caused it.
He raised a hand at the man, then treated her to the sort of protective glare that surprised her. “Brock Fitzgerald is a fucking hot mess, Kayla,” he muttered under his breath.
“Yeah, Trent. I guessed that, thanks.” She swallowed past the lump forming in her throat and grabbed up his beer glass and Taylor’s water. “Takes one to know one.”
He glared while Brock settled himself at the opposite end of the bar and opened up a laptop without glancing at either of them. Then he sighed. “I have to go check on Melody.”
“Go, already.” She flapped the bar towel at him. “And don’t worry about me. I don’t like to be touched, remember? Mr. Hot Mess isn’t getting in a country mile of me. But he does seem like he could use a friend. So, I may give that a shot. Relax.”
“Fine,” he said, jamming a ratty Tigers ball cap on his head. “Talk to you soon.”
“Yes. Soon.” She smiled.
He shook his head again and mumbled, “I still can’t believe it.”
She sighed, arranged her face in a neutral expression, then poured and served Brock his ginger ale. He grunted at her when she put it on a coaster next to his computer. “Don’t spill it,” she warned before heading down the bar to assist some other newcomers.
When she checked back on him, he’d drained the drink and was still pecking away at his keyboard. “Hungry?” she asked as she passed by him.
“Maybe,” he said, not looking up. Without asking him, she put in an order for a mushroom burger, something she’d developed a hankering for in the last few weeks. Her taste buds were shot and she found eating to be a waste of her time, most days. Going for days high as a kite had a funny way of training your body not to require food at regular intervals. Something told her Mr. Brock Fitzgerald had familiarity with that. But the way the earthy, rich portabella ‘shroom was grilled, then served hot with a slice of locally sourced white Cheddar and a side of borderline kimchi level fermented slaw hit her long-dormant taste buds like a sledgehammer.
She ordered it up for him then served it with a small jar of grainy, horseradish mustard. He blinked at it then up at her. “Damn. You’re a mind reader. Cool.”
“No. I’m not. But whenever I’m hungry that always tastes good so…” She shrugged and plucked a strand of the fermented cabbage out of the small bowl and ate it.
He grinned at her. And it almost made her faint. He was so fucking cute. So guileless, innocent and kind. But he wasn’t, of course. She knew that. Short of a secret handshake, a junkie knew another one as if he or she were staring into a mirror. She offered him a small smile, refilled his soda then ignored him, alarmed at her reaction to a guy who was very possibly the worst thing that might ever happen to her.
You are such a sucker, she thought as she kept a peripheral eye on him, eating and staring at his screen as if it contained something crucial to his existence. Every now and then, he’d catch her looking and smile at her, making her flutter like a teenager. As if she knew what a real teenager got to experience.
“Stop it,” she said, staring at the beer tap she was pouring from. “You are almost forty-two years old. That guy is thirty if he’s a day. And you’re both the hottest of hot messes. Let it go.”
“What’s that?” One of the closing bartenders moved past her with a full tub of dirty dishes.
“Nothing. Sorry.” She served the beers and kept ignoring Brock, letting her colleague serve him, until she realized that he’d left.