Chapter 10 – GLENNA
GLENNA
B y the time Cash picks me up to go to dinner at the Carrolls’, I’m more than ready to go.
I’ve spent the day listening to Dad talk to media types on the phone, more excited than I’ve ever heard him, truth be told.
Someone said “Pulitzer,” and I don’t think his head is ever gonna fit in any of his hats ever again.
I’m happy for him.
If he’s happy, I’m happy. That’s the way it’s been for a long time now. If he’s doing well, I don’t need to worry. As much.
And I’m not mad about the coffee shop. I don’t mind the work.
It doesn’t feed my soul, but I like coming up with new sandwiches, and it’s the perfect amount of socializing for my introverted self.
I say hello and how are you to the customers, but I don’t have to sustain a conversation.
So it wasn’t the worst job, but I’m a little bit giddy at the prospect of a few months to see what I can do with the photography. I have some ideas.
If I’m a hundred percent honest, though, I am mad.
Dad blew up my life, and he’s over the moon about it.
And Toby didn’t leave gracefully. He called after Dad let him go, ranting about how Dad owed him and how I needed to stand up to him for once.
I have no idea what he was getting at, but with Toby, I never did half the time.
I was lacking, and I needed to fix myself, but it wasn’t his job to tell me how.
I can’t want better for you, Glen, he’d say. You have to want it for yourself.
Why didn’t I hang up?
Why didn’t I walk out?
Anyway, screw Toby. I’m going to distract myself from it all with a healthy dose of social anxiety.
Dinner with the Walls sucked, and I’m not super excited about dinner with the Carrolls, but I’m telling myself it has to be better than being cooped up with Dad while he crows to other old newspaper guys, hanging up on them accidentally every time a new call comes in and he tries to switch lines.
I head downstairs when I see Cash’s truck out the window, and I meet him halfway down the stairs.
He stops. I stop. For once, he’s shorter than me.
“Hi,” I say to break the silence.
“Hi.” His voice is gruff. He’s dressed casual—a gray Henley and jeans. Camo hat with fishhook on brim, flipped backwards. Tan work boots. He’s not wearing cologne. I can smell the soap he uses. The green kind.
Nerves start fizzling in my belly.
My gaze falls to his lips. I remember his lips. And the desk. And his bristly beard on my inner thighs. The red rash it left after.
“You gonna kiss me hello?” he asks.
There’s something in my throat. I swallow. I can’t tear my eyes from his lips. He licks them, slow and hungry with anticipation. I bend forward, and at the same time, he grabs me, a hand at the back of my neck, another behind my head, and we’re kissing.
Kaboom. Out of nowhere.
I clutch the front of his shirt, ball it in my fists. My insides swoop and soar. It’s like a shot. A drug. A burst of something wild and strange, and yet perfect and familiar.
He lets go. I straighten up, blinking.
He looks like he got whacked in the face.
“Oh, wowser,” I breathe out. Wowser? I hide a wince. Now he’s gonna make fun of me for being awkward.
“Fuck yeah, wowser,” he says. “You hungry?”
Without waiting for an answer, he grabs my hand and leads me down the stairs. His legs don’t seem to be shaking, but his chest is rising and falling as fast as mine.
He smiles sheepishly as he opens the truck door for me, scrubbing the back of his neck like he does when he’s nervous. It’s flushed red.
I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror. I’m blushing, too.
We both are.
I buckle up and fuss around in my purse to avoid conversation. Eventually, I take out lip balm and smooth it on, just for something to do. When I glance up, he’s watching me, brown eyes blazing black.
The air is thick in the cab. I crack a window. Crisp fall air flows through.
I clear my throat. “Where’s Granger?”
“Brice has got him. He’ll be happy to see you when we get up there.”
“Granger doesn’t know me.”
“He does, too. Always asking me where blueberry head is at.” Cash’s gaze flickers over, checking how his joke landed.
“I like my hair,” I say and hike my chin.
“I do, too.” Cash reaches over and tugs a strand, but not hard. “I tell Granger, watch your mouth, son. I don’t want my woman running off ‘cause you have a dumbass sense of humor and no clue when you’ve gone too far.”
“Oh, is that it? Granger has a dumbass sense of humor?”
“It’s been known to get him in trouble.”
“Maybe he should think before he speaks.” Cash and I are darting each other glances. I understand that he’s trying to say something to me. Apologize maybe. Explain.
“He should, but I don’t think he can . You might not have picked up on this, but he’s kind of an idiot.”
“ Granger’s an idiot?”
“You know what I’m talking about, woman.” Cash signals to turn onto the highway leading north toward Anvil.
“Are you apologizing for all the dumb things you’ve ever said to me?”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
He shifts in his seat, forearms tense and grip tight on the steering wheel.
“Like all of it.”
“Name one thing you said that you’re sorry for.” I bet he can’t.
“I wouldn’t want to repeat it.” He keeps his eyes straight ahead on the road.
“You can’t. You don’t remember.” I don’t know why I feel a small sense of victory as I make the accusation.
He exhales, and his mouth turns down. He looks genuinely perturbed. “I actually don’t. To this day, people come up to me at the bar. Remember when we were in math class in eighth grade, and you said blah, blah, blah? They’re laughing their ass off, remembering it all, and I don’t. I just don’t .”
Finally, he looks over at me. “But for everything I said that hurt you, I’m sorry. And if it helps, if you tell me now what I said, I’d be ashamed. Even if I wasn’t crazy for you. Which I am.”
Heat blossoms in my chest, tingling all the way to my fingers and toes. My face is on fire. I roll the window down to halfway.
He said he’s crazy for me.
Is that possible?
I clutch my purse in my lap. “We’re fake dating.”
“No, we’re not.” He says it like it’s obvious.
“You can’t real date me without my consent.”
He sniffs and then he barks a laugh. “I am incapable of arguing with that.”
“Because I’m right.”
“You’re always right.” It’s not a jibe. He says it fondly. As if he means it.
“Heck yeah, I am.”
He chuckles. “You wanna pick the radio station?”
For a second, I’m going to say, “You can.”
But then I don’t.
Whenever Toby and I went anywhere, he picked the music. I didn’t really care, so I didn’t mind. I went along with whatever he wanted.
Because I didn’t care.
I went along.
And when Toby was awful, I didn’t walk out—because I didn’t care. He was comfortable, he was there , and I didn’t care enough to want better for him or myself.
It’s a sucky realization, and it’s hella weird to have it in the cab of Cash Wall’s Dodge Ram.
At least I’m not rushing into an ill-advised and poorly defined relationship with my high school bully.
Shit.
I shove that thought deep down and flip from station to station. Country. Classic Rock. Country. The Word 101.9, Stonecut County’s Good News station. Country.
“I have satellite radio.” Cash taps a button. Now there are hundreds of choices. I leave it on an 80s station because I’m getting nauseous looking at the screen.
Wouldn’t you know, Cash sings along the whole drive up to the mountain. He knows every word to every song. He’s got a terrible voice and no shame.
After a while, I sing along, too, when I know the words. It drowns out some of his caterwauling. When he notices, he grins and sings louder. The hour drive passes quickly.
When I go to the mountain, I usually park at the lot at Lowland Notch or Silver Gorge on the lower peak and hike up to Harrow Ridge.
Sometimes, I’ll hike the west peak, but I usually stick to the south face.
The north face is mostly private property, and there are some colorful characters who live that way. Well-armed colorful characters.
Cash drives us along the river, up the divide between the west and east peaks. It’s an old mining road, bumpy and rutted. He slaloms to avoid potholes, and I get queasier.
“Sorry,” he says, wincing when his tire lands in one, and I bounce so hard the seat belt engages.
“We almost there?”
“Almost.” About halfway up the mountain, he turns off onto a well-worn, two-track lane. The road winds down into a snug holler.
He comes to a stop in a yard surrounded by low buildings with crimp metal roofs. There’s a squat, long house with a smoking chimney, and further back, an identical house nearly hidden by tall pines.
There are outbuildings and a garage and a barn. There’s a fenced-in garden, mostly fallow except for a patch of what looks like radish and beets, and a weathered chicken coop. Hens wander around, pecking aimlessly. They paid no mind to Cash as he rolled up.
It’s cozy. The mountain rises high beyond, the red and yellow of the changing oaks and maple and buckeyes giving way to the dense green of conifers, and the fall sky is gray. Before I even open the truck door, I can smell the woodstove and the nip in the air.
As soon as my feet hit loose asphalt, a great barking rises from the surrounding woods, and a trio of bloodhounds bursts through the gap between outbuildings, tearing toward us in formation, ears streaming, snouts extended, lips peeled back from their teeth.
I recognize Granger as he leaps up on Cash, slurping his face chin to hairline. The other two race in figure eights around us, yapping and howling.
“That’s Red Tail.” Cash nods at the dog with the reddish coloring. “And that’s Fancy.”
Fancy is half the size of her brothers, but she’s got twice the energy. She sniffs my sneakers, and then Cash’s boots, and then her brother’s behind, tail whipping so fast it almost blurs.
A deep voice booms from the doorway of the house. “Don’t let that dog jump on you. You’re teachin’ the others bad manners.”