Jensen (The Sovereign Mountain #4)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

JENSEN

AGE SEVENTEEN

I meet Miss Holly the summer I turn seventeen.

I notice she’s pretty, just a quick acknowledgement of that undeniable fact before moving along. Her son Kyle was my closest friend, that year and into the next. Even if I were a legal adult, she’d be off limits. That’s code. I might not have money or anything else, but I’ve got morals and shit.

There’s no avoiding her though. My grandma, Cherry, works at the beauty parlor in Byway, a little no-count town outside Lexington, Kentucky. Holly works with her, but they’re not friends because Cherry doesn’t have those.

Cherry is a mean lady on the surface, but she’s alright underneath. She took me in when my mother passed. Maybe because she’s got some heart in her, or maybe because the social worker said she had to, but that’s the closest thing to love I know in my short life.

I’ll take it, no complaints.

After growing up in the armpit of Harlan, her trailer in Byway is pure luxury.

Between what she makes at the salon and her late man’s social security, we have it pretty good.

I have my own room instead of a couch off the living area, and Cherry is alright, even though she smokes like a chimney inside, secondhand smoke be damned.

By nine AM, she’s up and sitting at the table, bright red cropped hair spiked, going through a pack of Camels like nobody’s business.

She was like that from my first moment in her house, the day the social worker dropped me off in her yard.

Just sitting at the table, staring at me like she’s trying to figure me out.

“What do I do here?” I ask.

She coughs through the thick smog. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I just got here,” I say. “What do I do tomorrow?”

She clears her throat, frowning. “You go to school,” she says. “After school, haul your ass over to the beauty parlor, and you can hang out until I’m done with my shift.”

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll eat dinner, and I’ll watch my soaps. You’ll do your homework tomorrow night, after your first day of school.”

We’re at the ancient table in the kitchen.

Our plastic plates are empty of the sandwiches and chips she put together after I admitted I hadn’t eaten.

It was just deli meat and Miracle Whip on white bread, but it was the first thing I’ve had today, so no complaints.

I’m a teenage boy, a vacuous pit of hunger. Any food I get is a win in my book.

“So…I’m not super involved in school,” I say.

She narrows her black lined eyes. “What grade are you in, Jen?”

I think about it. “Not sure.”

“What the fuck was your mother doing with you?”

I don’t answer. My mother was sick for the last four years. Nobody came to the house when I stopped going to school after a while. Hell, I’m not sure anybody noticed.

Cherry looks at me like this isn’t partially her fault for throwing my pregnant, teenage mother out on her ass seventeen years ago. I shrug.

“I did one year of high school,” I say.

Her jaw works. “Were you any good?” she asks.

“Maybe,” I say. “They didn’t flunk me.”

She looks at me, laser beam eyes narrowed. She’s been mean since I showed up a few hours prior, but after that conversation, she softens a bit. We go out on the porch, and she lights a cigarette. I sit on the porch step and watch the chain link fence shake in the wind.

“Reckon I should get that fixed,” she croaks.

I get up and go over to it, checking it out.

My mother used to tell me I could fix anything, which I relay to Cherry.

Not a brag, just imparting some information.

She gives me twenty bucks and sends me to the feed store in town to get materials.

I have that fence looking pretty good by the end of the night.

Cherry is impressed—I can tell by the begrudging grunt as she inspects it.

The next morning, when I get up to get ready for school, there’s my lunch packed on the table.

That astounds me. I was always a hot lunch kid, arguing with the school over my unpaid bills. There was a lunch lady, Miss June, who gave me my meals even though I couldn’t pay up. Fuck that, she’d say, even though she wasn’t supposed to swear in front of us. They’ll just throw it out anyway.

As a growing boy with a hole in his belly the size of the US of A, I was pretty grateful.

Now, here I am, with my grandmother packing my lunch. Unbelievable. I grab it and vow I’ll pay Cherry back by keeping in line and trying to catch up on all the school I’ve missed.

Things go real smooth for the spring.

Then, it’s summer vacation.

Enter Holly and Kyle. Like my mother, Miss Holly was a victim of a man who sowed his seed and took no responsibility for it beyond court-mandated checks. She never married, just supported herself and her son by doing hair out of her camper until she got a job working at Cherry’s salon.

First, I meet Miss Holly. Or, I see her from across the room and think hot damn. She’s gorgeous, red-brown hair stacked up on her head, makeup all done like Angelina Jolie or something. Then, the door behind me swings open, and in walks Kyle.

I want a friend so damn bad.

Kyle is a cool guy with a pickup truck and a sparse mustache.

He’s about two years older than me, but he was held back two grades, so he just wanders around high school, a whole ass adult among the kids, flunking all his classes.

I’m sure Cherry cringed when Kyle and I became best friends right off the bat, but I was good for him.

At least, that’s what Miss Holly told me.

Kyle and I are inseparable. Being broke and fatherless bonds us immediately. Inspired by his elite truck ownership status, I swing my focus on the thing that becomes my obsession for the entire year: getting myself one too.

Nobody has money for a truck at our age.

The economy is flatter than flat, with no prospects of relief.

None of us kids have anything to do but loiter and steal magazines from the dollar shop.

Jobs are a rare commodity. Apparently, Miss Holly scraped together the money to get Kyle his truck, which Cherry is not about to do.

So, I decide if no place will hire me, I’ll make my own luck. I go into the salon after school one day and announce I can do handyman jobs. One of the ladies says she needs somebody to paint her deck.

“How much?” I ask.

“Fifty bucks, if you strip the paint too,” she says.

Done.

I shake her hand and show up the next day. That night, I have fifty bucks in my pocket. Holding that money feels like winning the lottery.

After that, it takes off. Anytime I’m not at school, I’m doing odd jobs for the salon ladies, and it all adds up.

I store it in my pillowcase. Then, after thinking it over, I go down to the gas station by Cherry’s house.

The gas station is at the intersection where the trailer parks meet the edge of town.

It’s walkable to the salon if you cut through a few backyards.

Kyle comes along so he can buy cigarettes.

I get a bucket of Crisco for one dollar and fifty cents.

We walk home. Kyle sits on the back stoop and smokes a Camel while I clean all the Crisco out and put it in gallon bags, wash the tin clean, and secure the lid on firmly with a pound and a half of duct tape.

Then, I cut a slit in the top, big enough so money can go in, but not come out.

One by one, I slide all my bills inside.

Four hundred and thirty-seven dollars. I need about three thousand, five hundred more to get a truck.

Kyle and I spend the rest of the day talking about how to get more money. He’s thinking of moving to Lexington in a few years. I want a truck by eighteen.

We both have goals.

So, we start a handyman business. Cherry has a printer we can make cards on.

Using her sewing scissors, I cut them all out, earning myself a smack across the back of head when she finds out.

Then, we hit the streets and put them on every doorstep in Byway.

We’re flexible, and our prices are competitive.

By the end of the week, we’re booked solid.

Every penny I earn goes into the Crisco tub.

Then, the hot water heater breaks in Cherry’s house, and we have to take some out, setting me back several hundred dollars.

I couldn’t say no to Cherry. She took me in without question when my mother passed.

She keeps food in my belly, clothes on my back, and makes sure I’m getting an education.

That makes her the first person to do that, and I owe her on that account.

I’m down about it for a day or two, but I get a new Crisco container and take it in stride.

My eighteenth birthday draws near, a momentous occasion.

I graduate with incredibly average grades.

Kyle, nonplussed that I’m no longer at school with him, drops out.

Miss Holly grinds her teeth at the salon for weeks over that one, but Kyle doesn’t give a fuck.

Instead of moving to Lexington, he decides to give up and blow all his money on booze.

Our handyman business is lopsided after that. I’m from nothing, but I know now what it tastes like to have money, and I want that damn truck so I’m not walking all over town for work, especially now that Kyle isn’t showing up consistently. It’s tough dragging all those tools around by hand.

My birthday comes and goes. I’m still four hundred dollars behind. Deflated, I trudge over to Kyle’s house to play video games. He’s in the living room, feet propped up on the couch. I take my boots off in the pristine hallway, grab the second controller, and sink down on the other end.

“Hey,” Kyle says, not looking up.