CHAPTER THREE
TWO YEARS LATER
Tabby Morgan was banging on the door of a dirt-white trailer like she was the police.
No way was that heifer getting away with this, was all she could think about.
The review was bad enough, but she could live with a bad review.
But for that girl to claim she never even got the food?
To tell a lie like that? There was no way!
Two years ago, when the recession hit Larkin hard and Argyles restaurant cut her hours down to next to nothing, she became a rideshare driver to make ends meet.
She delivered food and delivered people and she did both fast and respectfully.
But what she didn’t do was allow people to take advantage of her.
That was why she was banging so hard on that door that she thought she was going to knock that whole raggedy-ass trailer down.
But when the door was finally opened, not by the girl who had taken the food she’d just delivered, but by a big, burly white boy who folded his tatted arms like he was the real police, she knew she had to calm herself down and temper what she really wanted to say.
Tabby was nobody’s pushover. And she was nobody’s fool.
But right was still right. “I just delivered two bags of food to this address from Deever’s Grocery store.”
He frowned. “So what?”
She knew he was going to be hostile. His stance alone proved that.
But he was looking at her as if she was public enemy number one.
But she still didn’t let that stop her. “The girl that came to the door and got those groceries just gave me a one-star review and claimed I never delivered that food to her when I literally just handed it to her.”
“So what?”
Tabby couldn’t believe he said that. “So I want her to reverse that review and tell the truth. She got that food. And I delivered it on time too. She’s got to tell the truth.”
“She ain’t got to tell shit!” The young man, who looked to be around twenty-seven, which was Tabby’s age, seemed as if theft didn’t require correction. “You better get on out of my face, that’s what you better do. You better get on from ‘round here gal.”
“So basically she’s gonna just steal those people food?
” a kind of shocked Tabby asked him. “Is that what you’re saying to me?
That she’s gonna get the company I work for to reverse her charges and pay nothing for the food she just received?
Which means I’ll have to pay for it. Is that what I’m hearing? ”
He smiled. “You ain’t as dumb as you look.”
Tabby was accustomed to putdowns and ridicule in her line of work so she ignored his little comment. “So she decided she’s gonna get herself some free food today at my expense? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Although,” he said, glancing down at her slender frame, “we might be able to work something out. Because you fine, girl.” His round, pink face lit up with a two-teeth grin.
“And you ain’t bad looking either. You go a few rounds with me then I’ll see what we can do about that little nothing review, and that lil’ food you so worried about. ”
Tabby was accustomed to creepy guys coming onto her.
She was accustomed to all types. That was why she ignored that little comment too.
“You don’t understand what I’m saying to you, sir.
” Her face was serious and distressed, as if going a “few rounds” with him was the last thing on her mind.
“I can lose my job if she claim I didn’t deliver that food when she knows I did. ”
His patience with her was over as he flung that torn screen door wide open so fast that Tabby had to back up to avoid getting hit.
And then she backed off. There was no way she could go toe to toe with a guy that big when she was so small, and there was no way calling the cops was going to help her case. They never believed people that looked like her anyway.
“Yeah you better leave,” he said as she immediately left the front porch of that trailer and got back into her small Chevy Bolt.
When she looked back up, the girl had come out onto the porch eating one of the bananas that was just delivered to her, and both her and that creepy guy were laughing at Tabby like they just knew they got one over on her.
But Tabby didn’t trip. She didn’t hop back out of her car and rage at those losers.
She pulled out her phone, pressed the Play button, and watched the recording she had secretly recorded of that entire encounter on that front porch.
She even had recorded the delivery of those groceries, which was something she learned to do when somebody else tried to claim she didn’t deliver their food too.
She was an independent contractor. The rideshare company she worked for paid her a bonus for excellent reviews and gave her time-and-a-half for working on weekends.
Which made it a decent gig. But she got nothing, and potentially could get fired, for a negative review, especially if the claim was that she didn’t deliver at all.
And that she was the thief who stole that girl’s groceries, and not the other way around.
Her track record was second to none. And that lying cheat of a girl thought Tabitha Morgan was going to just sit back and let her mess with her livelihood? Tabby was a lot of things. But she was nobody’s pushover. She was nobody’s fool.
She checked her phone for her next assignment: a passenger pickup at the airport. She stored that video safely away, where she would show it to her boss at the end of her shift, and then she drove away.
When she glanced back through her rearview mirror, she saw that same big white boy that tried to come onto her slap the shit out of that same banana-eating, thieving-ass white girl.
But Tabby didn’t smile. She didn’t yell out who’s laughing now, bitch!
the way most young ladies in her position would have done.
Because women being abused was a common practice all up and down those trailer parks in Larkin.
Every time she delivered to one of those trailer parks, cops were either going to a call of domestic violence or coming from one.
And not just in the trailer parks either.
It was common practice everywhere in Larkin.
Because mistreatment knew no color. It knew no class.
It was bad no matter where it was perpetrated, and by what manner of person.
And it was never a laughing matter to Tabby.
Besides, when she looked again, she saw that same abusive guy hugging on that abused, thieving girl already, no doubt telling her lies about how it would never happen again.
And she was falling for it hook, line, and sinker.
Which was a common practice too. That was why Tabby turned her large eyes away from that trainwreck of a couple, and focused instead on that long, winding, country road ahead of her.
She didn’t particularly love her job. It was a grind to drive all day long, rain or shine. But she loved the open roads she traveled, and the freedom her job gave her. And since it was just her, it paid all her bills. She was content.