Chapter 5

I thought you were in a bad mood, but it’s been a few years, so I guess that’s just who you are now.

-Text from Janie to Cora

Cora

It was the phone call that I never expected to get.

“Hello?” I answered, curious as to who was calling me.

It was a different area code than what I was used to receiving calls from, and I didn’t know anyone in town who had my number yet.

“Cora?”

I’d know that raspy, deep voice anywhere.

Whether I was fully conscious or deeply asleep, awake or in my dreams, that voice was like a homing beacon…for my vagina.

“Hey, Coke,” I said, suddenly nervous. “Is everything okay?”

I didn’t bother to ask how he’d gotten my number. There were only two people in this town who had it, and I didn’t want to speak to either one of them. If I did, they’d probably give me shit for flaking out on them last night—something I totally did, no doubt about that.

“Yeah, everything is fine,” he answered, sounding amused. “Except I got your package at my place. I was going to drop it off on the way to work, but your gate was locked, and I was running late, so I took it with me. I didn’t want you to wonder where your package was, so I wanted to make sure that you knew I had it. It also says that it’s time sensitive and very fragile, so I thought I’d call you first thing.”

I wiped the sleep away from my eyes and tried to remember which package he was speaking of.

Then I sat up in bed. “My chickens!”

“Chickens?” he asked.

“Yeah! Chickens!” I cried. “Are they alive?”

He was silent for a long moment. “This box weighs like ten pounds, and it doesn’t say that there’s anything live in it. Surely if there were live animals in it, the box wouldn’t be sealed…or left on my front porch.”

I frowned. Other than chickens, I hadn’t ordered anything else.

“I’ll be there in just a minute,” I said as I rolled out of bed. “I have to put some pants on and find a bra.”

He was silent for so long that I had to think about what I’d just said, then immediately blushed profusely.

Along with my one time only, limited edition fire crotch, I also got another trait of redheads. I blushed bright red, despite my darker skin.

It was awesome.

“Uhhh,” I hesitated. “Ignore that last little bit. That was an overshare on my part. You probably didn’t need to know that. Just like you don’t need to know that I don’t have under…I’m hanging up now. Goodbye.”

I hung up on his laughter and felt my belly roll.

I was a social dumbass.

I didn’t know how to act in public. It was something that just didn’t come naturally to me, so most of the time, I didn’t have much to do with people in general. A few months ago, I’d had to call the Teledoc—a doctor you called on the phone, so you didn’t have to go into a clinic—when I was sick.

Even then, I’d shared quite a bit of information with the doctor that he hadn’t asked for or even needed, such as my sexual status and the fact that I was considering having a baby via turkey baster.

I was in my mid-twenties, single and a virgin.

I didn’t see any of those things—besides my age—changing in the immediate future.

When I bought this house, I even made my mom call about it for me. She was the one who negotiated the price and set up the meetings. The only thing I did was walk inside and sign for it.

When it came to jobs, I negotiated most of the details online leaving just final interviews to be conducted face-to-face. But, people that worked with computers and did what I did knew the type of people they were hiring and attempted to work with their quirky personalities. I was fortunate that they recognized my introverted nature.

I sighed and tossed my phone on the bed, torn between excitement to see my chickens that may not actually be chickens, and embarrassment about how my thirty-second phone call had just turned south.

Steeling my spine and making a decision, I walked into my closet and put on a bra and panties—my cutest ones—and found a slim fitting t-shirt and my skinniest pair of jeans.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

But, as I was slipping on my boots, I realized that I might be giving him an impression I wasn’t ready to give. Might never be ready to give.

Along with my social ineptitude, I also had deep-seated issues with my own self-confidence. I didn’t have any.

I never had.

But, I pushed all thoughts of my outfit and how I looked in it away and walked out the door.

It was when I was in the car and halfway to Coke Salvage when I realized I’d forgotten to brush my hair.

I looked at it in the rearview mirror and winced.

It was everywhere.

My hair was long, about two inches past my ass when it was straight, but today it wasn’t straight. I had a natural wave to it when I didn’t straighten it, and since I’d taken a shower right before I went to bed last night, that meant that it was even more crazy than normal thanks to how rough I slept.

I tried to run my fingers through it, but despite pulling out a few tangles, it was in no better shape when I pulled into the parking lot where Google had led me.

I pulled right up front, stopping about three feet short of the door, wondering idly whether it was an actual parking spot.

My eyes took in everything as I scanned the parking lot.

The salvage yard was massive, and large, tin walls painted white spanned as far as the eye could see in each direction.

I couldn’t actually see over the wall, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I walked up to peek through a small crack.

Cars were everywhere. In some places, they were even stacked about as high as the wall.

I’d always been a curious person, and I couldn’t help but watch as a man lifted a car into this contraption with a back-hoe type machine that had a claw. The device basically looked like an open elevator car with a thick roof and floor mounted on a rather large engine. Once he had it where he wanted it, he pressed a few buttons on something and the top piece of metal started to lower, crushing the car.

It was surprisingly satisfying to watch, really.

Something that started out so large and bulky was condensed into a flattened piece of metal a fraction of its original size.

Amazing.

With a smile on my face, I pushed through the door of Coke Salvage and my eyes took everything in—or tried to.

There was a big, open room with a counter running along the back wall, nearly the entire length of the large room. On that counter was a computer and to the left of it, I could see sitting next to it there appeared to be all sorts of…stuff.

A side-view mirror that looked like it had come off of a truck. A small tire, seemingly sized for a go-cart or a golf cart, rested against the computer monitor. A standard transmission with the stick shift standing straight up and a bright pink ball on the end was on the far side. Then there was what looked to be brake cables spanning the right side of the counter. The funniest thing, however, was the pair of truck nuts hanging off of a black trailer hitch assembly suspended above the counter by a wire that caused my mouth to turn up in a smile.

“Can I help you?”

I looked at the woman who I’d completely missed, sitting behind the computer. She was standing now and looking at me like I clearly didn’t belong.

June, the girl who had come with Janie and Kayla to my house.

I assumed she didn’t recognize me out of my work garb of sweatpants, holey t-shirt, and glasses.

“Is Coke here?” I asked quietly.

June looked me over, pursed her lips, and then nodded.

Protective of her boss, I could see.

I won’t hurt him, I gave her my best smile.

She disappeared through a doorway at the end of the long counter, and I waited as I took in the walls.

They were covered with those posters that men liked. Women posing in front of cars in their bathing suits. Some of them were beer posters, while others were of women posing erotically—although, luckily, all were fully clothed.

All of them were dated, I could tell. Some of the women still had big hair from the eighties.

I giggled.

“Can I help you?” Coke said, walking out of his office with his head down.

June followed close behind him.

“Uhh,” I paused. “Yes.”

Coke’s head snapped up, and a smile lit his face. “Hey, neighbor. Come on back.”

June’s mouth fell open.

Coke gestured for me to follow him, and I did, careful not to look at his ass the entire way back.

My luck, he’d look over his shoulder and catch me.

I didn’t want that.

I’d probably trip, fall and smash my face on the floor in embarrassment.

Coke turned suddenly, and I blinked rapidly.

“I looked at the box, and whatever you ordered is from the hatchery, but I seriously don’t think there is anything live in there. The box is too small,” he explained.

I shrugged. “I have no clue what I got then.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat, then took a sharp left into the door at the end of the hallway.

We entered into a large, open office.

The first thing I saw was a large picture frame on the corner of his desk with a young girl about sixteen or seventeen standing in a field of wildflowers. The girl was beautiful, and she was frowning as if she’d rather be anywhere but where she was, doing what she was doing. It was her dad, who was looking at her like she was a pain in the ass, that had me smiling again.

“She wasn’t happy that we were taking photos together,” Coke said as I peeled my eyes away from the photo to focus on him. “Those were her senior pictures.”

“Senior pictures?” I asked with a raised brow.

“My baby graduated early. She was sixteen, and too cool to take a picture with her old man.”

My lips twitched. “I graduated about a year early, too,” I admitted. “And my dad tried to get me to take senior pictures, but I told him that was unacceptable. I most certainly didn’t want to remember that time in my life. High school was absolute hell for me.”

“Was it?” he asked quietly.

His rough, raspy voice made my eyes bounce away from his to take in the wall behind him, and what I saw made my heart stutter in my chest.

Why?

Because the cartoon that I’d drawn for him was hanging on the wall, in a picture frame, in a place of honor.

“Uh, yeah,” I admitted, tongue-tied now. “I think life is hell for all of the people like me and your daughter. We don’t always fit in. The seniors didn’t like me because I was so young, and the kids in my actual age group didn’t like me because I was a senior. It was a lose-lose situation.”

He seemed thoughtful as his eyes went distant. “She never said anything.”

I laughed. “Do you really think that we’d want our dads to know that we weren’t happy? I don’t know about you, but if mine had known that people at school were being mean to me, he would’ve lost his shit.”

He chuckled. “Sounds like you had a good dad. That’s what I would’ve done…were you bullied?”

I thought about that question for a moment. “Not bullied, per se. More like teased relentlessly. But, I grew up around Janie and Kayla, as well as about fifteen hundred other kids.” I might or might not have exaggerated the number of children at the compound, but there were a lot once everyone was done having their children. “My dad and his buddies formed this sort of compound type place when they were fresh out of the military, and there they kind of had a village where all of their kids were raised. We were all different ages, and all of us were hard on each other. Not a day went by that I wasn’t taken by surprise by at least someone at Free—that’s what we call the compound. It was more like a small village.”

He raised a brow.

I giggled and said, “Just kidding. But really, think of it like a small neighborhood that you had to have the right credentials to enter. They’re very safety conscious. No joke. But, anyway, I’m veering off topic. I won’t even begin to explain how worried my dad is now that I’m living alone. Wow, seriously off topic. So, no, to be bullied, you have to care that people are saying mean things to you. You have to care what they think, and I didn’t. I had this hard shell that protected me, thanks to my family. I was raised right, and I’m sure that your daughter was raised right, too.”

“You’re saying that since I gave my daughter shit, she probably didn’t care that she was bullied?”

I found myself smiling. “Yes! Exactly! You gave her the right tools to combat the bullying.”

He made a soft sound in his throat.

I kind of felt stupid as I was explaining it to him, but I was happy that he understood my convoluted way of trying to get my point across to him.

“My daughter and you would get along famously,” he laughed. “You’re probably a Star Wars fan, aren’t you?”

I found my lips twitching. “JarJar Binks, all the way.”

He stared at me like I’d grown a second head.

I burst out laughing. “I’m just kidding, Jesus! It’s Yoda, okay?”

He gave me a droll look. “I was going to say that you were a pretty cool neighbor to have until I heard you say that. Now I’m not so sure.”

I snickered.

He gave me one last, lingering look before he walked to the box that was sitting on the corner of his desk.

“Here it is.”

I walked over to it. “Let’s open it and see what I ordered, I guess. Maybe it’s the starter stuff they asked if I wanted at checkout.”

“Have you ever had chickens before?” he asked as he moved around his desk and pulled out a large hunting knife from somewhere underneath his desk.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s a big knife.”

He snorted. “That’s not a knife, this is a knife.”

I smiled. “Crocodile Dundee!”

His eyes caught mine and held for a long moment. Something passed between us, and all of a sudden, I felt like I was being inspected underneath a microscope.

“You’re not like any girl I’ve ever met.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything, I just gave him a little shrug.

He walked back around the desk and took the knife to the box. About ten seconds later, what looked like kitty litter started to pour out of the opening.

“What the fuck?” he asked.

I cursed. “I’ll clean it up, I swear.”

He grunted. “I have a cleaning lady who comes tonight. The mess isn’t a big deal. She’s dealt with worse. Sometimes I pull transmissions from trucks and set them in the front—”

“You have one up there right now,” I interrupted.

He grunted again. “Yeah, but I let that one drain outside. Sometimes I don’t have the time and just pull it straight in, especially when it’s raining out. She’s dealt with a lot. That’s why I pay her well.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Maybe I need to borrow her. I hate cleaning.”

“I’ll give you her card before you leave,” he said as he opened the flaps of the box, and then peeked inside. “Eggs?”

I looked down into the box and saw the top of an egg carton.

“What the hell?”

He pulled the first egg carton out, and inside were eggs. Fertilized eggs, actually.

I blinked.

“So, what did you think you were ordering?” he questioned, a large smile filling up his face.

“I thought I was ordering a random assortment of eighteen chickens.” I paused. “Not a random assortment of chicken eggs.”

He started to chuckle.

“Well, looks like you’re gonna be hatching some chicken eggs.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

He swept the packing material that’d spilled from the box down onto the floor, and then walked back around the desk to replace the knife into a sheath that I could just barely see now that I was looking for it.

“What do I do with them?” I wondered, looking at the box.

Coke snorted. “You have to get an incubator.”

“An incubator?” I asked, worry filling my voice.

“Yeah,” he said. “These are fertilized eggs that you ordered. Put them in an incubator, and they’ll hatch. Same thing.”

Not the same thing. Not anywhere close to the same thing.

“But…I don’t have an incubator,” I hesitated.