Chapter 16
hope
I wasn’t sure if the rumbling of the garbage truck outside her house broke Gran’s storytelling trance or if her memory just suddenly shifted gears, but one moment she was weaving a spell with her words, and the next she was leaning forward, gripping the arms of her chair.
“The photos of Joe—I know where they are! They’re in the attic, in a box marked ‘bed linens.’”
Eddie and Ralph had brought down all the attic boxes—and I’d gone through most of them. “Is there more than one box marked ‘bed linens?’”
“No, just the one.”
“I went through it yesterday,” I said. “There weren’t any photos.”
“It’s hidden under an extra piece of cardboard at the bottom.”
Oh, no. My stomach knotted. “I—I threw that box out.” Remorse welled up like nausea. “And the garbage truck just came.”
“Well, child, go and get it!”
I raced outside. Gran’s old metal garbage can stood empty on the curb, but the truck was stopped in front of Matt’s house. “Wait!” I yelled.
Two trash workers froze, each holding one of Matt’s thirty-gallon plastic bins.
“I need to get back a box I accidentally threw out.”
The shorter man shook his dreadlocks. “If we’ve already emptied your can, it’s too late, lady.”
“Please—you just picked it up.” I pointed to Gran’s empty can. “Can I look in your truck? I’m sure it’s on top of the pile.”
The larger man—he was the size of a mountain, wearing a dirty black T-shirt that read “If you don’t like bacon, you’re wrong” and a colorful do-rag—cocked his gloved thumb toward the cab of the truck. “Ask the driver.”
I ran to the window and looked up at the weather-beaten man behind the wheel. He chomped on a piece of gum, his expression bored. “Please,” I begged. “I accidentally threw out some of my grandmother’s photos.”
He cast me a disinterested glance. “Sorry. Too late.”
“Please—if I can just look. You just picked up her trash—it was the last house—and I’m sure . . .”
He really looked at me for the first time. “You talkin’ ’bout Mizz Addie?”
“Yes.”
“She took my sister’s wedding photos and didn’ charge no fee.”
I’m not named Hope for nothing. I gave him my best smile. “Well, then, you know how sweet she is. It would mean a lot to her to get her pictures back.”
With a sigh, he looked at his watch. “I’m not supposed to do this, and I’m runnin’ behind schedule. But seein’ as it’s Mizz Addie . . . you got three minutes.”
“Oh, thank you!”
“Three minutes, hear? That’s it, then we gotta roll.”
I raced back around the truck, grabbed the railing, and hoisted myself up the tall step. When I stuck my head inside the garbage bay, I was hit by a stench so strong and foul that I gagged. I pulled out my head and took a deep gulp of air. My eyes watered, making it nearly impossible to see.
The large garbageman took pity on me. He climbed up beside me, his weight making the truck dip. “What’s it look like?” he asked.
“It’s an old box.”
The shorter worker spit on the pavement and let out a coarse laugh. “Oh, that really narrows it down.”
“It says ‘bed linens’ on the side,” I added. “You just picked it up.”
“Should be on top. Let’s just pull out all the boxes we can reach,” said the larger worker.
He heaved out two boxes. I held my breath, reached for one, and threw it out. Packing peanuts sprayed all over Matt’s lawn. The worker hurled three more boxes. I tossed one, spewing what looked like rotten lettuce. The man grabbed another box.
“Hey, this is supposed to trash pickup, not delivery,” said an angry male voice from below. “What the hell are you doing?”
The trash worker blocked my view, but I immediately recognized Matt’s voice. My stomach, already tight and queasy, seized into a fist. Why, oh why did he always show up when I was doing something weird?
“Sorry, man,” said the trash worker on the ground. “Your neighbor threw away something by accident, and . . .”
I spotted Gran’s scrawl on a box in the large trash worker’s hand. “That’s it!” I yelled. “The box you’re holding—that’s it!”
“Yeah? Well, then, here you go.” He handed me the box. The top half was dripping with something that smelled like decaying shrimp.
I held it upside down, not wanting to get the bottom wet, and turned around to climb down, only to realize the step was too high for me to manage without hanging on to something.
If I just threw the box on the ground, I might get the pictures wet.
If I jumped holding it, I was likely to crush the photos by landing on them.
Matt stepped into my line of vision, a dark scowl on his face. I hesitated. “I, uh . . .”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Matt reached up, grabbed me around the waist, and swung me down as if I were a doll. When he set me on the ground, I realized I’d coated his suit jacket, tie, and dress shirt with wet, fish-scented goo.
“Th-thank you,” I said to Matt.
He looked down at his clothes, grimaced, then looked back at me. “You’re welcome.”
The burly driver leaned out the window. “All set?”
“Yes,” I called. “Thank you!”
“Tell Mizz Addie that George Myers says hello.” He waved back as the truck rumbled away, leaving me alone with Matt and my remorse.
I shifted the upside-down box to my other hand. “I’m so sorry. If you wait here, I’ll get some paper towels, and . . .”
He held up his palm and looked down at his clothes. “I think this’ll take more than a couple of sheets of Brawny.”
“Oh!” Nervous motormouth-itis kicked in. “Yes, yes, you’re right. I’ll get your clothes cleaned. Just take them off and give them to me, and . . .”
He arched an eyebrow.
Oh, dear—it sounded like I wanted him to drop trou in the middle of the street.
“I mean later. When you’re in private, probably inside your house.
” I was sounding weirder and weirder, and I just couldn’t stop myself.
“You can take them off and give them to me. Not that I’ll be right there to take them.
I mean, I won’t be watching you undress.
” I was just digging a bigger and deeper hole.
“You can bring them to me, or I’ll come and get them, and .
. . and I’ll take them to the cleaners. To get cleaned.
” I wished one of those sinkholes I’d seen on the news would form right under my feet.
He looked at me. I wasn’t sure because the sun was shining behind him, but I thought there might be a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Thanks, but I can manage.” He gestured to the box. “Just tell me one thing: why did we go to all this trouble for an empty box?”
“Gran says she hid pictures in it.”
“It’s empty.”
“It has a false bottom.”
“A false bottom.” He looked at me as if I were ready for a rubber room and a straightjacket.
I felt as if I were. I desperately tried for humor. “I know, I know—it sounds like something from a bad movie. Or the title of a bad country-western song title.” I gave him a hopeful grin. “‘Her bottom was false and so was her heart.’”
Oh, thank God—Matt laughed! The sound was deep and throaty, and it did something funny to my chest.
“The way you look right now reminds me of an actual song,” he said. “It goes something like, “I Like My Women a Little on the Trashy Side.’”
I looked down and realized the front of my shirt and shorts were smeared with gunk. I gave a sheepish grin. “If that’s the case, I must be pretty irresistible just now.”
Wait. Had I just made another suggestive remark? What was my problem? My face heated.
It didn’t seem to bother him much. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
He jogged into his open garage. I carefully set my prize box upside down in his driveway, then picked up the boxes I’d helped throw on his yard and put them in his now-empty trash can.
Matt returned a minute later, minus his jacket, with a roll of paper towels and bottle of hand sanitizer under his arm. He dabbed at his shirt and tie as he walked toward me. By this time I was collecting packing peanuts.
“Here.” He handed me the towels and sanitizer and took the box from me. I cleaned my clothes as best I could as he reached into his pocket and pulled out something shiny.
“A pocketknife?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, aren’t you the Boy Scout.”
“Actually, I was.”
“Eagle Scout?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You should be.” He knelt down and inserted the knife in the corner of the box. “That knitting badge was a bitch.”
Kneeling beside him, I furrowed my brow. “Knitting?”
He shot me a get-real look. “I’m kidding.”
Of course. How could I think otherwise? I felt that old familiar embarrassment creep over me, that sense of being a screwup that I’d often felt with Kurt. I immediately fought to squelch it. “I didn’t know you knew how.”
He looked at me, his brows raised questioningly.
“To kid,” I explained. “Not to knit.”
He laughed again. My chest felt strangely warm as I watched him work the knife along the seam of the box, cutting off the soiled top flaps, then slicing off the sides. His hands were sure and steady, tanned and square and masculine. Watching them made my mouth go dry.
“Son of a gun,” he said. “There is something here.” He pried up an extraneous piece of cardboard, then handed it to me. “Here—you do the honors.”
I lifted the cardboard and glanced at the top photo. It was the profile of a man in the driver’s seat of a shiny car, a car like you might see in an old Bogart movie. My heart tripped.
“Who is it?” Matt asked.
“Gran’s first love.” It was taken at a distance, but he was handsome, all right. Light hair, a dazzling smile, a muscled arm resting on the rolled-down window of an old sedan. He wore a buttoned short-sleeved shirt, and even though it was a black-and-white photo, I could tell he was tan.
“Why’d she hide his pictures?”
“She said she didn’t want my grandfather to see them, but I think she was mostly hiding them from herself. I don’t think she ever got over him.” I swallowed. “And . . . I don’t know. From the way the story’s going, I think a family skeleton is about to be revealed.”
I looked at the next picture. It was the same man in another short-sleeved shirt, at a closer viewpoint. This time he was lying in the grass, his hands behind his head, grinning at the photographer, his eyes warm and lively. Something about him made the hair on my arm stand up.
“Hey—are you okay?”
I glanced up and met Matt’s concerned gaze. “Yeah. I just . . .”
. . . think I might be looking at my grandfather.
Matt leaned over my shoulder and looked at the picture. “He looks familiar.”
Yeah. Real familiar—as in like my mother. Like me.
I swallowed and mustered a smile. “I think I might pass out from the fumes of my own funk.” I straightened and stood. “I’d better get inside and let Gran know I saved her photos. And you’d better change clothes and get to wherever you’re going. Thanks so much for your help.”
“Glad to assist.”
The fact he was being so nice about this when he’d been such a dick about me just being in his bedroom was disconcerting—so I did what I usually do when I’m disconcerted.
I rambled. “I meant what I said—I’d like to pay your cleaning bill.
And I promise to come back and pick up all the packing peanuts on your lawn, and . . .”
He held up his hand. “Don’t worry about it. The lawn service is due to come this morning. They’ll get all that.”
“But . . .”
“Seriously. It’s not a problem.” He peered at me. “You sure you’re okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine.”
It wasn’t a ghost I’d seen, I thought as I scurried across the lawn and up Gran’s porch.
It was my own eyes staring back at me.