Chapter 10 Everett
Chapter ten
Everett
It’s the first afternoon for at least a week that I haven’t spent hours talking to Ruth.
It’s wild how much I miss the sound of her voice.
In such a short space of time, she’s taken over my mind; my day exists only in the countdown to when I get to speak to her again.
But when she texted me earlier, she said she’d be spending the evening with her best friends.
She’s told me all about them. There’s Amie, who is the mother of Ruth’s little goddaughter, Maisy.
Katy is the sweet one, and Paloma is the crazy one.
They all sound like a hoot, and I can’t wait to meet them.
Am I going to meet them? Is that where this is headed?
Fuck… I hope it is.
I rub a hand over my hair, pushing the unruly curls back from my eyes. I really need to head into town soon and get it cut; it’s far too long, but I just never seem to be able to make the time.
No, that’s a lie. I have plenty of time.
I just seem to manage to find all the possible ways to avoid it.
It’s not like it’s a long drive; the ranch is only twenty-five minutes out of the small town of Skillett, which itself is about an hour and a half north of Austin.
But heading into town means driving past the crematorium, which is the last place Grandaddy’s soul was with us before we set him free.
And heading into town means acknowledging all the people I’ve neglected to stay in contact with since his funeral.
It’s a little after two in the afternoon. My ranch chores are done for the day, and without Ruth, the rest of my day looks pretty bleak. I’m just about to climb into the cab of my Silverado when my phone buzzes in my hand.
ROO
Evvvv my friends want to know if you’re a serial killer
are u a serial killer evvvvvv
Everett
might be? Who’s to say?
I’ll be anything you want me to be
maybe not a donkey
but anything else is fair game
ROO
okayyyyyy ill let them know
Everett
Ruth… are you drunk?
ROO
o can neither confirm nor deny
I set London up on my world clock app a couple days ago, and when I check the time, I see it’s after eight at night.
It’s a perfectly reasonable time for Ruth to be drinking with her friends.
I pocket my phone with a smile at the thought of Ruth having fun, turn the key in the ignition, and swing my Chevy out onto the dirt road.
I make the drive on autopilot. I’ve known the route since I was tall enough to see out of the window, and I’ve been driving it since the day I first sat behind the wheel.
But today, it feels different, somehow. It feels lonelier.
Even though I’m still driving Grandaddy’s rusty Silverado, with an old, half-empty pouch of tobacco still in the glove box, because I can’t bring myself to toss it out.
Even though his old tool box is still stashed under the passenger seat.
Even though his scratched and battered keychain still hangs from my key in the ignition.
By the time I swing the truck into a parking bay outside Miss Celia’s—the diner she’s been running for nearly forty years, with the best damn milkshakes in all of Texas—I’ve resolved to get over my pity party for one.
It’s been nearly a year since Grandaddy passed, and I’ve avoided everything—everyone—for long enough.
I don’t know what it means, but the thought of Ruth is what’s giving me the strength to open the door and hop out of the cab.
My boots barely make contact with the asphalt before I hear my name being yelled from the other side of Main Street.
Bootsteps thud towards me before a large hand claps me on the shoulder as I lock the truck.
“Everett Tanner, man, I haven’t seen you in a minute.”
“Hey, Cooper,” I say. “Bethany.” Cooper Tell’s family owns the tavern, and his older brother, Granger, was in my homeroom class almost every year in high school.
His sister, Julianne, runs a podcast where she spills all the local secrets like some kind of small-town Gossip Girl.
Bethany, Cooper’s apparent girlfriend and my old high school sweetheart, looks me up and down as she stands beside him, a possessive hand wrapped around the stars and stripes tattooed on his bicep.
“You still workin’ the ranch?”
“Sure am,” I say, leaning a hip against the door of my truck. This is awkward as hell, especially because although Bethany’s hot-pink, pointy talons are lightly scratching the ink on Cooper’s arm, she’s standing there cocking a hip as she undresses me with her eyes. “Family business. You know.”
“I guess I do,” Cooper laughs. It’s one of those uncomfortable laughs designed to fill an awkward silence. There’s an elephant in the room with us here, and it’s wearing Grandaddy Smith’s old tan hat. “Well, I’ll see ya around, man.”
“Yeah, see ya.”
It was never my intention to cut ties with people in town.
For a time, it hurt too much to visit. And then it just became easy to avoid.
And the more I avoided the town, the more I avoided the people, too.
And then it just became easier to not do the thing, rather than to just rip the Band-Aid off and put up with the two minutes of pain involved in actually doing it.
When Ruth told me she was flying out to Austin to see me instead of flying straight home from New York next week, I almost lost my damn mind there and then.
I’ve been dreaming of oranges, of that sweet, summertime fragrance from our first meeting, and I’m desperate to breathe it in and pull her into my arms.
I started making a list of all the things I wanted to do—things to do to prepare for her visit, and things I wanted to do for Ruth.
With Ruth. I want to give her flowers. I want to take her up to my favourite spot on the west ridge, where you can see almost all the way out to Austin on a clear day.
I want to cook her Texas potatoes and sausage casserole, I want to sit with her and watch the moon paint darkness over the Texas sky sunset, and hold her hand as night brings out the stars.
There are a hundred thousand things I want to do with Ruth Bevan at my side, and already, I fear those hundred thousand would not be enough.
My first stop is to visit Old Man Alan. He’s owned his store on Main Street for at least fifty years now, and it’s been in his family for even longer.
He must be in his eighties or nineties, but he’s sprightly as anything, and he greets me with a yelled “Howdy” from the back room as I step inside.
The store is like a treasure trove: it’s one of those dimly-lit holes in the wall, cluttered to the brim with just about everything you could ever need but couldn’t categorise.
There are tubs of nuts and washers and bolts of all different sizes.
There are reels of ropes and ribbons, packages of plaster and sand and cement, batteries, fabric offcuts, bundles of shredded paper for guinea pig bedding.
Screwdrivers, pens, reusable water bottles.
It’s always smelled a little like diesel and coffee in here, and searching for a diamond amongst rocks was one of my favourite activities whenever Dad or Grandaddy would bring me in.
I find a padlock that looks perfect to replace the one we had to cut on one of the tractor barns, and a pack of cable ties that look sturdy enough for some minor repairs at Mom’s house until I get a chance to take a proper look.
I also grab three packages of rechargeable batteries, because there are never any around whenever we need them.
Before I check out, I spot a reel of maroon ribbon, and it catches my eye because it’s the exact shade Ruth had painted on her fingernails last time we talked.
I have no idea what I’ll do with it, but it reminds me of her, and I ask Old Man Alan to cut me a length of it before I hand over a couple of crisply folded bills from my wallet.
I drop my purchases at my truck before walking a few doors down to Skillett’s only barber shop. Through the window, I see one man in the styling chair and no one waiting, so I shoulder my way through the door and take a seat. The barber’s face lights up when he spots me.
“Tanner! Nice to see you back in town, man. Gimme ten, and I’m with you.”
Henry Duquette’s easy manner and genuine greeting lifts some kind of weight off my chest. Henry is only a year or two older than I am.
He inherited both the barber shop business and his name from his father, Henry senior, who—last I heard—was living a retired life of luxury with his wife somewhere in south Florida.
True to his word, Henry finishes with his last client within a few minutes, and after grabbing us both cold bottles of water from his mini fridge, I slide into the chair and stare at our reflections in the mirror.
“So, what are we going for? Buzz cut? Naked baby face?”
“Just tidy me up, Junior,” I answer with a laugh, kicking my foot back to catch his ankle lightly. “No naked baby faces.”
“You’re enough baby face even with this stubble, Tanner,” Henry says with a smirk, reaching for a spray bottle.
He squirts cold water on my head and I try not to flinch as he dampens my hair.
We fall into a companionable silence as he works, the only sound between us the light snips from his scissors and then the rasp of the straight razor he still uses.
By the time he’s done, I look fresher and younger, and I don’t even need the hat to hold my curls out of my eyes anymore.
“Don’t be a stranger, Ev,” Henry says with a handshake. He tucks the two notes I hand over into his shirt pocket. “Your Grandaddy is missed around here, but so are you, dude. I mean it. It’s good to see ya.”