Chapter 7 – GLENNA #3
We cross through the mudroom, and instantly, I’m ten-years-old. The house has the exact same pine scent, and there’s the same framed cross-stitch of the barn, and mahogany hall tree, and porcelain umbrella stand with hummingbirds and lilies.
Voices filter in from the next room. The house has super high ceilings, so when the Walls are all together, it gets loud. I’m remembering now.
I follow Cash down the short hall and into the kitchen. Silence falls. The only sound is the screeching of kids from another room.
My stomach goes blump .
Everyone’s here. Mr. and Mrs. Wall. John and his wife Mona.
Kellum and Shay. Jesse. Dina and a gigantic, hairy biker.
I heard she got married to a very large man.
It’s hard to believe, but here she is, staring at me with a wild-haired dude resting a ginormous paw possessively on the small of her back.
The guy is menacing. My mouth goes dry.
Dina turns to Cash and frowns. “Why are you wearing church clothes?”
“Hey, Dina. I didn’t know you and Heavy were coming,” Cash says, squeezing my hand. He’s not addressing his sister, though. He’s staring at his mother, eyebrows high.
Mrs. Wall is put together as always, shoulder-length gray bob sculpted like a piece of Lego hair, expensive but casual older lady’s activewear straight from a catalog. She’s holding a glass of white wine. Her nails are manicured, and her rings glitter.
It’s strange. The kitchen smells like food, but there are no pots on the stove or dishes in the sink. There is a plate of veggies and dip on the marble island.
“When you told us you were bringing Glenna, I thought it’d be a nice opportunity for the girls to see each other again.” Mrs. Wall sips her wine. “Welcome, Glenna. Would you like something to drink?”
Hell yeah, I do, but that’s a bad idea.
I was expecting awkward. Maybe unfriendly.
But this is verging on hostile. Only John’s wife, Mona, is offering me a genuine smile.
Everyone else is giving me stink eye or a polite, noncommittal lip curve.
Except for Dina and her biker. Dina doesn’t do polite, and the biker’s expression is obscured by his Hagrid beard.
Oh, and Jesse’s sitting at the table, munching carrots and keeping his head down. Wish I could.
“No, thank you,” I answer Mrs. Wall.
Cash drops my hand and goes for the fridge. “Beer?” he asks me.
“No, thanks.”
He helps himself, and then he comes back to stand beside me, but he doesn’t take my hand again. It’s fine. Less weird for everyone, probably.
I don’t like it. I don’t know what to do with my hand now. Before I can stop myself, I wipe it down my top. Everyone’s staring at me, so everyone sees me do it. I flush.
“We were surprised when Cash told us you were the friend he wanted to bring to dinner.” Mrs. Wall glances at her husband. He’s stone-faced. No drink. No carrots. Just standing in the middle of the kitchen, arms folded.
Mr. Wall is an amalgamation of his sons.
Big, but not quite as big as John. Good looking for his age, but not quite as handsome as Kellum and nowhere near as pretty as Jesse.
He has the redneck vibe like Cash, but he’s not quite as rough around the edges.
He intimidated me as a kid, and I guess he still does.
He’s got that air of authority. You get the sense he knows what’s right, and you aren’t quite it.
“Girlfriend, Mom. Not friend,” Cash says over his shoulder as if it’s nothing as he drops his bottle cap in the trash.
I swallow down air.
We didn’t discuss that. Or, I guess we did. Shit. I’m not ready. I don’t know what I’m doing.
“You’re dating Cash?” Dina asks me in her direct way. Coming from her, it’s a sincere question. She doesn’t do sarcasm.
“Um. Yeah. He brought me flowers.” I have no idea why I said that. I don’t need evidence.
“I thought you hated each other,” Dina says.
“There’s a thin line between love and hate,” I say. I’m at such a loss that I’m quoting movie titles.
“Heavy considered killing me when he met me.” Dina pats his broad stomach fondly. Heavy emits something that sounds like a growl.
Mrs. Wall laughs as if it’s a joke, but I get the sense it’s not. “How about you kids take it into the dining room? Shay and Mona, will you help me serve? Jesse, go round up the kids?”
Mrs. Wall reaches for a potholder. Oh. I guess the food’s heating in the oven.
Everyone obeys and files into the next room.
I feel like I’m in a video game, and I’ve narrowly completed a level with all my lives intact.
I follow Cash into the formal dining room with the huge bay window overlooking the barn.
In the distance below, like a model train’s picturesque village, the whole town of Stonecut lays spread out.
Church steeples, bridge, and river, everything is small and perfect.
Cash pulls out my chair, and I try to lower myself gracefully. The table is set. Really set. Fabric napkins. Wine glasses and water glasses. Two forks.
There’s a centerpiece of fall flowers overflowing a woven basket. Cash sees where I’m looking. He’s been paying a lot of attention to me. It’s weird—feeling visible.
“I got that for Mom last week at Tansy’s,” he says.
“Oh.”
“Now, that’s better,” he murmurs in my ear. “You didn’t frown this time.”
“I wasn’t frowning at your flowers.”
“I know,” he says so low that only I can hear. “You thought the flowers are my game. You don’t like the idea that I’m playing you.”
I tense and keep my eyes on the centerpiece. I can’t believe he’s saying this here. At least with the kids pouring in, there’s enough ruckus that no one’s paying attention to us.
“I’m not playing you,” he says. “I’m serious.”
My cheeks heat. “This isn’t real,” I mutter into my lap. “And you know it.”
“Wanna sneak off to my old bedroom? I’ll show you how real it is.” He grins, glances down at his own lap, and winks. He’s scooted his chair up to the table, so I can’t tell if there’s anything to see or not. I hope not. This is already awkward as hell.
“Does it still smell like socks and tackle?” I ask.
“Probably.” He chuckles, totally at ease. Of course, he is. This is his family. No one’s judging him.
And that’s when I realize everyone is staring at us. John’s taken the pretty dish towel off the bread basket, and he’s tearing big pieces off a roll while he watches Cash and me. Like we’re the entertainment.
“You can’t honestly be with Cash,” Dina blurts from her seat opposite me. Her husband’s thick eyebrows rise, but he relaxes back in his chair as if he, too, is ready to be entertained.
“We’re together,” I say.
“But why?” She’s perturbed. She’s flicking her thumb. That’s an old habit. When we were girls, I’d grab her hand and hold it when she started, but then she explained it made her feel better, so I stopped.
“She digs me,” Cash answers in my stead.
“You have nothing in common.” Dina scowls. This must bother her on a logical level.
“Dina, you’re being rude,” Kellum interjects, cool and calm with that innate authority that always impressed me—and which never fazed Dina in the least.
“We’re both into nature, hiking, the mountain.” Cash ticks each item off on his fingers. “Wildlife conservation—for different reasons, but it still counts—dogs, coffee, swimming in the lake.” He turns to me. “Do you like tubing on the river?”
I nod. I haven’t been since Mom, Dad, and I would go each summer, but it was a good time, floating down the Luckahannock, listening to them cut up as they passed a joint between them.
“Tubing,” Cash is on his eighth finger, and it’s the middle one. He flips it at his sister.
“That’s all shit you have in common with Brice. And Logan. And Jaxson.” Dina stops at her third finger and flips it back at Cash.
John tears into another roll, his eyes crinkled and twinkling. He’s clearly enjoying himself.
“I don’t wanna fuck Jaxson,” Cash says.
A strangled yelp comes out of my mouth.
“Sorry,” Cash says to me.
“Shouldn’t you apologize to Jaxson for that one?” John says with his mouth full.
Cash rolls his eyes. “Glenna is a freaking amazing photographer, she’s hot as shit, she’s fun, and she’s chill. Why wouldn’t I want to be with her?”
My insides do a funny flop. Literally no one has ever said I’m fun before.
“I’m not doubting why you’d be with her ,” Dina says. “I’m wondering what she would see in you .”
Ouch. That was mean.
And if I don’t say anything, Cash is gonna say it’s because of his huge dick. I can hear him thinking it.
“He’s nice,” I rush to answer.
John splutters. Crumbs fly. Kellum winces. Heavy actually laughs.
“No, he’s not.” Dina finally looks in my direction. She generally doesn’t make eye contact, but she used to, sometimes, when she was really intent on what she was saying. She’d never go directly eye to eye, but she’d kind of stare at my ear. That’s what she’s doing now.
“He’s apologized for all—for being a jerk back in high school.” It sounds weak even to my ears.
“You don’t like someone because they apologize,” she says.
An image of him on the stairs at my apartment pops into my head.
We were talking about him eating my cookies, and his expression morphed from incredulous to cajoling to distraught.
At first, it was only a dessert, no big deal, and then he understood, and it wasn’t just a dessert to him anymore, just like it hadn’t been to me.
He felt sorry, and I could feel that he did, and it fixed something inside me, something that didn’t really have to do with him.
Life shouldn’t have sucked so bad when I was just a kid, and in that moment on the stairs, there was another person who believed that as much as me, and it made something right in a world where shit keeps going wrong.
But how do I say that?
I didn’t realize it until this moment.
Dina’s waiting for a reply.
“Well?” she says.
I’m at a loss.
So I say, “To be honest, he has a really big dick.”
Which is what Mrs. Wall hears when she swings through the door with a tray of beautifully plated meals.