Chapter Seven Boise, ID Present Day
Chapter Seven
Boise, ID
Present Day
The nightlife of Boise on a Tuesday night, while better than what Medford had to offer, wasn’t much to write home about.
Scarlett led Chrissie into a classy, black-and-white themed piano bar within walking distance of their hotel.
Proximity, Scarlett had maintained, was the only real prerequisite she had for their evening’s entertainment.
She said she wanted a place to show off Chrissie’s haircut that wouldn’t require them to spend any more time in the car—and if live music was a part of the deal, even better.
“I’m sure this place picks up after dark,” Scarlett promised as she plucked a happy hour menu off the table. “The only people here this early in the evening are the olds and the cheapskates.”
“And which ones are we supposed to be?” Chrissie asked.
Despite her hesitation, she wasn’t displeased to find that they were only two of a handful of people inside the bar.
As much as she was enjoying her new look—including the sequined tank top Scarlett had forced her to buy from a pricey boutique, she didn’t particularly want to shout to be heard all night.
“Neither. We’re women who refuse to let society dictate our actions.”
Scarlett set the menu down with a grimace. Although Chrissie was dressed to the hilt, Scarlett wasn’t looking her best. Her face was pale against the cropped black turtleneck she wore, dark circles starting to form under her eyes.
“Is that why you’re wearing a turtleneck?” Chrissie asked. “I thought for sure I was going to be treated to an obscene display of the new girls tonight.”
“Nah, I didn’t want to overshadow you. That’s why I’m also going to start my night by ordering a hot chocolate instead of a martini. I wonder if they’ll let me bring one in from the café next door.”
It was on the tip of Chrissie’s tongue to say that they could just as easily go to the café next door—or better yet, crawl into their pajamas and call it an early night—but she was stopped when a familiar face started moving toward them.
“Hello and welcome to—Oh!” River stopped a few feet short of the table, her one visible eye even more made up than before. “It’s you.”
“Chrissie,” she reminded the girl in a friendly voice. She pointed at her hair, which swished around her shoulders like a curtain of silk. “Thanks for the suggestion, by the way. I’ve been getting compliments all afternoon.”
“It looks great,” River agreed. Then, with a nervous glance over her shoulder, “What can I get you two to drink? Pretty please don’t order anything blended or smoked. The bartender’s in a foul mood. If I have to ask him to make pina coladas all night, I’m not sure I’ll get paid.”
“Just water for me,” Scarlett said.
Chrissie couldn’t remember the last time Scarlett had ordered water at a bar, but she figured her friend was taking it easy on the girl.
“And I’ll take a glass of house white,” she said. “But you know it’s illegal for you to work without getting paid, right?”
The look River cast her was so much like her daughter that she almost laughed out loud. She managed to hold herself in check until the girl took herself off to put their orders in with a bowlegged bear of a man who did, in fact, look to be in a terrible mood.
“The poor thing,” Chrissie said as she watched River start to wipe down tables and light candles on the several dozen tables surrounding a glossy grand piano on a raised platform in the center of the bar. “She had to work all morning at the hair salon, and now this? I wonder if I should—”
“No.”
Chrissie swiveled her gaze back toward her friend. “But you didn’t even know what I was going to say!”
Scarlett held up her hand and started ticking off the possibilities.
“You’re either going to talk to the manager, call up the workers’ rights complaint hotline, write her a check for several hundred dollars, and/or adopt her as your second child.
Third child if you count Rufio—which I don’t. That cat is a menace.”
“The workers’ rights complaint hotline exists for a reason.”
Scarlett snorted. “This is our vacation, Chrissie. Our chance to kick back and spend some much-needed time together. I absolutely forbid you from bringing in strays. There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet.”
A frown tugged at Chrissie’s lips as she watched River start to carry away a tray of dirty glasses that weighed almost as much she did. That last bit—about the things Scarlett wanted to tell her—seemed important, but not nearly as important as the girl’s plight. “She looks barely older than Kat.”
“And I’m sure she has a perfectly adequate mother of her own to worry about her.” Scarlett rapped her knuckles on the table. “Now. Tell me about Walsh. I want to hear all about his unrequited love for you.”
Chrissie allowed herself to be distracted, but not without first remembering what River had said about her mother and the cancer that had taken her life. There was no age at which losing a parent was easy, but she must have been awfully young.
“‘Unrequited’ is a strong a word to describe our situation.” Chrissie shrugged as she did her best to push the thought of a small, tear-streaked girl clutching a pink cosplay wig out of her mind.
“Walsh asked me out a few years ago. I was tempted, but I pointed out how inappropriate it would be while Kat was one of his athletes, and he agreed. Ever since then, he’s been a good friend. ”
“Friends don’t ask friends to send bikini pictures.”
Chrissie’s cheeks flamed. “You do.”
“Yeah, but only because someone has to remind you what a hot piece of ass you are. Have you guys ever chaperoned a volleyball tournament together?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Did he make any moves? Buy you a few strong drinks at the hotel bar? Ask you to put on those tiny volleyball shorts and do a dance for him?”
“Scarlett, there are like twenty girls on the team! Whenever we’re at tournaments, we’re so exhausted from trying to feed them and drive them around and make sure they aren’t sneaking vodka into their hotel rooms that it’s all we can do to keep our eyes open.”
“Hmm,” Scarlett said, her lips pursed as she absorbed this. She was still absorbing it when River returned with their drinks.
“I’m s’posed to tell you that your first drink is half off,” she said as she set the glasses down in front of them. “The piano player called out sick, so wine is all the entertainment we have tonight. Bottoms up.”
“No piano player?” Chrissie echoed. She stretched her fingers in an unconscious motion, a few of her knuckles cracking lightly as she did. “Is that why the bartender is being so mean to you?”
“No,” River said. She clamped her mouth shut as though unwilling to say more, but then she sighed and dragged a hand through her hair, flashing Chrissie a sight of both her eyes at once.
“He’s mad because we broke up last week and I haven’t been able to find a new place to crash.
He says he can’t bring any other girls home until I’m out of his hair.
For some reason, he thinks me sitting on the couch watching old Buffy episodes is ruining his vibe.
” River snorted. “His vibe. Please. Before I moved in, his coffee table was literally a stack of pizza boxes.”
Chrissie stole another glance at the bartender, who was cutting limes as though each one had offered him a personal insult. She wasn’t adept at guessing people’s ages, but his short buzz cut and abundance of tattoos aged him in a way that made her think he’d never again see thirty.
“How old are you?” Chrissie asked suddenly.
“Omigod, Chrissie, you can’t ask people that.
” Scarlett rolled her eyes up at River. “You’ll have to forgive my friend.
She’s basically an old woman in sheep’s clothing.
Do you know what she had for breakfast this morning?
Oatmeal. With raisins and nonfat milk and some weird packet of seeds that she brought from home. ”
“They’re chia seeds, and they’re very good for you. It’s like snacking on crunchy vitamins.”
Scarlett and River exchanged a look that made Chrissie flush to the roots of her hair.
“Lots of people eat chia seeds. They’re very hip right now. And I’ll have you know that oatmeal is delicious. With enough brown sugar, it tastes just like a wet cookie.”
“Yummy.” A grin curled River’s lips, making her look very much her age. “Wet cookies.”
Chrissie laid a gentle hand on the girl’s forearm, unable to suppress the maternal instincts that arose from the sight of that youthful smile. “Do you have people you can rely on, River?” she asked. “Do you need anything?”
River’s whole body stopped in a way that spoke magnitudes, and in a volume that carried with it the force of a hurricane.
Chrissie recognized the signs at a glance.
She’d long ago cultivated a similar habit of stillness—of taking up as little space as possible, of making sure each action, each word, each breath would be welcome before she let it out.
Scarlett was never still. Kat wasn’t, either. It was one of the things she loved about them both. They moved through the world as though they belonged in it—or, if they didn’t, as though making space for themselves was only a matter of pushing out a few elbows until everything fell into place.
But not River. Not this girl who’d lost her mother and who worked two jobs to make ends meet, who was living with a man who was much too old for her because she had nowhere else to go.
“I’m eighteen,” River said in a voice Chrissie had to strain to hear. “I turned eighteen yesterday.”