Chapter 36
Chapter
“Does Shawn not know you and hot pilot are banging?” Darla asks before I even have my apron untied from my waist. I’m on the tail end of the Saturday morning shift, and she’s here for the lunch run. Usually, I’m bummed when our work times don’t line up.
But then she loudly asks about my sex life, and I start not minding so much.
“What?” I sputter on the word. “Why—no—don’t talk about me banging here!” I whisper-yell the last bit, my eyes flicking over to where Mrs. McGuire’s head popped up, her shrewd eyes focusing on the two of us.
“Why not? Riann isn’t here. No young ears to corrupt.” Darla spins a butter knife between her fingers with the dexterity of an assassin. My friend really is terrifying.
“We’re at work.” I offer the excuse that I know won’t mean much to her.
“Yeah. That’s the thing. Shawn came in here last night looking for you.”
Oh no. “He did?”
Darla nods, her gaze more discerning than Mrs. McGuire’s could ever be.
“He said you canceled book club because you had to work. But you weren’t working here.
So all I can think is that you were shacking up with George and didn’t want that annoying ray of sunshine you call a brother to know about it. ”
“What did you tell him?” I ask, evading her question as my palms start to sweat.
This is going to be a fight. I’m going to fight with my best friend, and I need a moment to brace for it.
“I told him to stop being nosy.” Darla twirls the knife faster. “And that if he could keep his mouth shut for twenty whole minutes, I’d make out with him behind the diner on my break.” She smirks. “Not a peep from him after that.”
“Cool. Don’t need a play-by-play of that, but thanks for using your feminine wiles to hypnotize him for me.”
“I did it partly for you, and partly because he’s less annoying when his mouth is occupied.” Her eyes narrow. “Now tell me. Is the mile-high club a secret?”
“We don’t have sex in the plane,” I grumble. Just a heavy petting session pressed up against it. “And no. Shawn and I haven’t talked about it, but what George and I are doing isn’t a secret.”
The knife stops.
“Then why,” she asks, voice cold, “exactly, are you lying to your brother? About another thing?”
I wince. She might as well have jammed that butter knife under my ribs. “I wasn’t lying. I was working last night.”
Darla, already a few inches taller than me, seems to have grown a foot during this conversation. “Where? At the airport?”
If only. I shake my head, close my eyes, and let the truth spill out because although I may not share everything the moment it happens with my best friend, she is the one person I’ve never lied to.
There’s something freeing about having a friend who is constantly pissed off.
Mad is her default setting, and so I’m less scared of admitting the truth.
“I want to pay Shawn back as quickly as possible, so I looked for a second job, and the only one in town with hours and better than minimum wage pay that I’m qualified for was”—big breath and brace for a punch to the tit—“Beefies.”
There’s a loud metallic clang. I blink my eyes open and realize Darla has slammed the knife down on the counter, palm flat over the potential weapon.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Beth!” She’s seething, and I swear I see smoke billowing out of her nostrils. “Beefies? You’re already working more than full-time here, and you decided the best thing to do was get a job at that shitty, meat-filled man cave?”
Darla isn’t keeping her voice down, announcing to the whole diner my shame.
I cringe, not exactly feeling up to defending the place after what went down last night.
“You’re working at Beefies?” The quiet question comes from just behind me, and my stomach bottoms out, landing with a splat on the turquoise tiles beneath my stained sneakers.
Slowly, I turn, feeling like I’m in a horror movie when I see that both Sally and Sam stand mere feet away. Sally’s eyes are wide with disbelief. And, oh god, are they shining with the beginning of tears?
Guilt punch, straight to the gut.
Sam, meanwhile, simply looks confused. And sad.
“I…I mean…I didn’t…” Finding words, any at all, is a struggle.
I didn’t want to! I long to yell. I hate it there!
Just when I think things are at the peak of horribleness, the bell rings and in walk my mom and Marge.
“Oh good, Beth. We wanted to catch you before you left.” Marge smiles sweetly at me, unaware of the storm they just stepped into. “Can you stay for lunch?”
My mom stands a few inches taller than her wife, and her eyes meet mine over Marge’s head. I see the moment she realizes something isn’t right. The carefully cultivated happiness I know she works so hard to maintain blinks out, overshadowed by worry.
“Beth?”
No. No no no. Everything is fine. Everything is good. Please don’t worry. Please don’t be sad.
These are the reassurances I want to babble out. But right now, with Darla, Sally, and Sam staring at me, the words feel like lies.
I’m so tired of lying.
So what if you’re tired? Mom has been tired for decades, and she deserves a break.
“I’m sorry.” My eyes flick between the five women. My family. The ones I love most in the world.
The ones I still manage to hurt even when I try hard not to.
“I can’t stay.” I grab my purse and hurry toward the rear exit through the kitchen. “I’m sorry.”
I’m halfway to my car, fingers trembling on my keys, when I hear pounding footsteps behind me.
“You can’t run away from me, Beth!”
Darla. Of course, it’s Darla.
“I had to get another job!” I shout without facing her. “I had to.”
And why does it sound like I’m trying to convince myself?
But I did need to. I know that. I need to pay Shawn back even if he cuts off contact with me.
And I need to do it myself, because if Mom finds out I took BBN money to pay for our bills…I don’t even know what that will do to her. Her body and mind have already been through so much.
My key scrapes the paint of my already ratty-looking car as I try to unlock it and hide from my best friend.
But she’s faster than me, a hand flying in front of me to slap the keys from my shaking fingers.
“Please,” I beg, not sure I can take her wrath in this moment. Not after last night. My self-worth is already in the dirt along with my keys. “Please leave it alone.”
“Look at me.”
Shoulders bunched by my ears, I slowly turn to face her, even as I keep my eyes low.
Of course, that’s not good enough.
“Look at me!” she demands.
Biting my lip, I raise my head and find Darla glaring an arsenal of daggers at me. I flinch when she jerks forward.
Belatedly, I realize her arms are around me not in an attack, but in an uncomfortably tight hug.
Is this affection? Is this a threat?
Maybe it’s both.
“You made my moms sad, and I’m fucking pissed off at you,” she hisses. “But I still love you, you annoying bitch.”
I let out a choked noise, worried I’m about to start sobbing. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ll have to say that to them. And mean it. And explain why you’re working for the enemy.” She rattles off each demand while keeping a tight hold on me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, already envisioning the conversation. Where I tell them the diner doesn’t pay enough. Not for what I need.
After everything they’ve done for my family, it sounds so ungrateful. Even if it’s true.
“Okay,” I mutter into her shoulder. “I will. I promise.”
“You’re going through shit,” Darla grouches.
“I get that, you know?” Her voice loses the sharp edge, thickening with suppressed emotion.
“You didn’t lose your mom, but it was a close thing.
Multiple times. And now you’re terrified all the time of losing her.
Or losing Shawn. Or someone else you care about. ”
“I…”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“I still might shave your head in the middle of the night.” Darla lets go of the hug/threatening embrace only to dig her fingers into my shoulders and scowl down at me.
“You lose people with lies.” I can’t escape the hard ice of her eyes as my terrifying friend lays down some tough love.
“Tell the truth. Blow everything up. Sometimes what’s left after the chaos is better. ”