5. Kali
5
KALI
T he first one approached me in the store as I was going over a list. I was by the ham.
Mr. Baldeaver gripped his basket with both hands. That first got my attention—that and the fact that his green cardigan sweater was the same kind my dad liked to wear in the evening. Mr. Baldeaver was in his eighties, and my dad was fifty-eight.
I was so going to use this to tease Dad. The cardigans were showing his age. We still couldn’t acknowledge the salt-and-pepper hair, but cardigans, oh yeah. I was going there.
“Kali.” Mr. Baldeaver adjusted his grip on the basket and looked down at the floor. To the ham. The other meat products. He checked out the freezer behind us.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a man asking about you. He knows I taught you piano when you were young, and he found me at Martha’s Café this morning. You know me and the husbands all meet for coffee. It’s a gossip hour, but gives us a break. Most of the time we want to see who’s still alive. But anyway, he came up to me at the table. Randy and Freddie were there too, but they don’t know you as well as I do. I heard you moved back. I’ve not said anything. You like your privacy. But since I’m approaching you now, I figure it’s the right time to let you know your ex was a fool. He’ll realize it too, and be coming back. Don’t let him back in. You got a better one coming. I know it. Anyway, I thought you should know because I don’t know what this man’s intentions are toward you.”
My heart melted and twisted all at the same time.
I’d hated taking piano lessons, but now that I was older, I could look back on those days fondly.
Also, Mr. Baldeaver always kept candy in a bowl, and I really loved the little gummy bears he kept stocked. I knew he did it for me because none of his other students liked them.
“What did he ask?”
“Just about you. What you were like when you were younger. There wasn’t much to the questions. Felt like he was scoping out how folk around here feel about you. I set him straight on that. Said you were the second-best student I ever had, and anything else was none of his business.”
My heart melted and squished all over again.
“What’d he look like?”
“Tall, tattoos. He came in from a motorcycle.”
My stomach sank all the way to my toes with a hard thud. Shane King. If it wasn’t him, it was someone acting on behalf of him.
Seriously?
Why was he asking around about me?
Mr. Baldeaver seemed like he might keel over. He kept readjusting his hold on that basket, but his chin was up, almost defiant.
I nodded. “Thank you for letting me know. I know who it was. I’ll take care of it.”
“I need to ask and I’m not meaning this in an intrusive way, but in a way where if you need something, you know I’d give you anything you needed. If I didn’t, the Missus would come out of her grave to lecture me so with that said,” he took a big breath. “Are you in trouble? I’m sorry. It’s not my place, but I know the crowd your mom’s bar serves, and your sister, well… And your ex-husband. I just—my Melanie adored you.”
My heart yanked up to my throat. It pulsed there as my throat closed up around it.
Damn . I didn’t want to cry. No way. Not here. All my bad-ass cred would be gone. Noah was working today, and he’d taken one look at me and started actually working . If he saw me crying, he’d likely stop . I couldn’t have that.
“She always said you reminded her of our daughter, Sarah,” Mr. Baldeaver continued. “She passed when she was young. Don’t know if you knew we had a daughter, but when you started taking piano from me, Melanie was always around. She liked when you had a cookie with her, though I knew you preferred the gummy bears.”
“I didn’t know she felt that way. I appreciated the cookies and candy.”
He smiled, his head bobbing a little, his neck jiggling with the motion. “No, no. I taught a lot of children, but you had a special place with us both. Also, I need to warn you that this mister asked others about you. You might be getting more warnings.”
It didn’t take long to realize Mr. Baldeaver was right.
After he departed, AnnaBeth Marcella was next. The ‘motorcycle fella’ had hit her up at the bakery.
My Spanish and biology teachers from high school also shared their experiences. Both let me know, though they weren’t as concerned as Mr. Baldeaver had been, but they still gave me a heads up.
Shane was getting around or the man on his behalf was getting around.
After lunch I was half expecting other childhood friends—or hell, even my college friends—to start texting or calling. The thing with the townspeople is that Shane had opened the door for them to approach me after my divorce. I’d been back three months and hadn’t had many conversations. Mr. Baldeaver was right. I was private, but not really.
Mostly I was embarrassed.
Thirty-six. No kids. I’d caught my husband having a foursome on me.
Yeah. I was humiliated and embarrassed, if that was possible. If there was a distinction between the two, I needed them both. This should have been the time of my life when I was with family, when I might’ve been struggling in my career, but around now was when everything was supposed to start coming together.
I was so far off that bullseye, I wasn’t even in the gun range. I was trying to hit it from the parking lot. Or worse, I was still on the road, not even in the parking lot.
This whole day had me in my emotions. Wanting to cry. Crying, at times (in the bathroom), and thinking I should maybe take up smoking. I also wanted to cry because I had no idea how many people didn’t just like me—they cared about me.
This process was also giving me the 411 about Claudia and how many guys she’d dated over the years. People seemed to be hoping to make me feel better (after they realized I was feeling a certain way), so they told me about Claudia’s exploits in a whole scrambling sort of way.
Still. They cared.
I was taking that to the bank.
But also, I was livid by the end of my shift. I mean, I was livid before that, but that was when I let myself actually feel it. Now I could do something about the Friendly Questioning Inquisition from Shane Fucking King.
Honestly.
Shane Fucking King.
Is that what he thought?
That he was some motorcycle king?
Ghost? That was his road name.
He wasn’t living up to it with this, because everyone saw him, everyone knew about his whole Kali Michaels whatever-he-was-doing. There was nothing stealthy about him, though I guess it was pretty haunting.
Or stalking. Can I go there? Because one more day of this, and that’d be what I was feeling.
My shift ended at six. I clocked out at 6:01 pm.
Otis was in a tizzy, since I wasn’t staying late, but I knew he wasn’t going to protest too much. He’d seemed uber grateful to see me this morning, and I wondered if he’d done some internet searching on the Red Demons last night.
I didn’t want to know what he might’ve found.
By 6:05, I was in my car and heading to a place I hadn’t visited in twelve years.
I was going to my mom’s bar.
I hit call on my phone.
Right as he answered, I cut off his usual greeting, “—I can’t talk tonight, Dad. I’m about to murder someone.”
“Oh, no, no, no. You can’t be telling your pops that stuff. I need deniability, Daughter. Thought I taught you better.”
He still made me smile.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He knew what for. “You know it. Love you, My Little Girl No Matter How Old You Are.”
“Dad!”
He just laughed and laughed. Then he told me he started trying his own dance routines. “Me and Cousin Nick. We’re thinking of putting together an old guys’ dance crew. What do you think?”
“I think you’re going to break a hip, and you need three more members.”
“You’re right. I can get Stevie, Phil, and Pappy.”