3. Nicolette
Nicolette
W hat a dick that John Lennon-wannabe was with his scraggly facial hair and dirty grass clippings stuck in his beard.
I was tired. And dirty. And did I mention tired?
I slid, unceremoniously, into the bathroom of the Piggly Wiggly. The minty toothpaste refreshed my attitude, albeit slightly. I applied a little makeup to cover the dark circles under my eyes, still reeling and bitter from the night before.
I was about to storm down the stairs and mother-fuck my pervert uncle up and down the Big Coal River, but I stopped myself.
I was pissed, sure. But what was I supposed to do?
Watching an adult video on the internet wasn’t illegal.
We weren’t related, not really, and I was twenty-five in the recording.
Confronting him would only bring more noise I couldn’t afford to make.
Watching his quasi-niece’s sex tape didn’t make him a predator. Just a real fucking creep and I wasn’t going to let him occupy any more of my time than he already had. So instead of facing my slimy demons, I twisted my ankle in the jump from the upstairs window before driving away from them.
A disgusted shiver went down my back. I growled to myself in the mirror before brushing my teeth again.
I emerged into the store, tossing some items into a basket before heading to the checkout. The cashier’s eyes followed me, doing that obnoxious thing where she tried to figure out who I was by staring harder. I pulled my sunglasses down and smiled at her .
“Find everything okay, dear?”Her chubby cheeks were red, her eyes bloodshot. Her hair was thinning and teased in an attempt to appear thicker.
I felt as haggard as she looked.
“A phone charger?”I held my phone up, showing her the port. I left mine plugged in at Uncle Jacob’s house, and I was certainly not going back for it.
The cashier turned around and spent an inordinate amount of time rifling through the little hanging boxes.
“I think it’s that one,”I piped in, pointing to the one she’d touched three times already.
“Oh, yes. Thank you, dear. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”She gave me a sheepish grin, ringing me up before I threw my credit card on the counter.
“Nicolette Parker… is that you?”a voice shrieked behind me. I cringed and turned, but blew out a relieved breath.
Chelsea Rhodes had been my best friend in high school and the only person I missed when I left town.
Guilt scratched at me for how we’d lost touch over the years.
I watched her life progress over social media.
She’d invited me to her bridal shower, her wedding, her baby shower, but I’d opted to send expensive gifts instead.
And now here she stood in front of me with a baby on her hip and a toddler in her shopping cart. She looked the same, only older, a bit paler, and very tired.
“Chelsea, you have no idea how glad I am to see you!”I hugged her like a lifeline.
The smell of her shampoo brought me back to all the nights we snuck out of our houses and met up to smoke cigarettes and drink cheap beer in the shed of the water tower.
“Oh my, is this Amelia?”I put a hand on the toddler’s shoulder. “She’s so big!”
Chelsea laughed nervously.“Um, this is Olivia. Amelia is seven now. She’s in ballet class. And this is Erin.”She rubbed her nose against the baby in her arms.“We’re doing a little girl’s shopping until Amelia gets done.”
A pang of guilt struck me. She had a seven -year-old? How was that possible?
“Wow…” I exasperated. “That’s so—”
“Sorry, honey, this declined.”
I spun around where the red-cheeked woman held out my credit card. I frowned at her.“Can you try it again?”
“I tried it twice already. It says to call the bank.”She offered a timid glance.
I dug through my purse for my debit card and slid it over to her before returning my gaze to Chelsea.
“I’m so glad you’re the first person I ran into. This whole trip has been one headache after another.”
Chelsea pouted at me.“What brings you—”
“Excuse me, sorry, this one declined too.”
I turned around to face her. What was going on?
“That’s… impossible.”I pulled out my phone and swiped to find my banking app.
“Here you go, Edna.”Chelsea handed a fifty-dollar bill to the woman, and I smiled with gratitude.
“I’m sorry, my bank must have frozen the cards. I’ll pay you back, I’ve got cash in the car—”
She waved at me dismissively.“Please, you supplied all the booze and nicotine in my teenage years. Bill’s working the night shift tonight; you should come over after dinner to catch up.”
My spirits lifted a beat.“I’d love to. Where are you living?”I asked.
“Oh, same place.”I raised my eyebrows.“Mom and Dad retired to Savannah and sold us the house for a dollar.”
“Oh,”I said, offering a supportive nod.“That’s cool.”She still lived in her two-bedroom childhood home? With three little girls?
She pressed her lips together in a thin smile.“I better get these girls in the car before meltdown o’clock.”
I wasn’t sure what that was but I gave her a hug and thanked her again for picking up my tab.
As I got back in my car, I scrolled through my email and, sure enough, my accounts were frozen for fraud suspicion. The irony of American National Bank not recognizing Godot, West Virginia.
I had a handful of hundred-dollar bills stashed in my glove compartment.
That would have to last until I got a hold of a human being.
My fingers perched over the 1-800 number but froze when two voices chattering on the park bench arose a few feet away from me.
I leaned toward the open passenger window.
“Is it true the Asher boy is dating Katie Plainbottom? I heard she’s over at his house every night.”
“No, no. She told me in church that she’s trying to help him get back on his feet.
She even got her dad to hire him at his auto shop.
That girl’s always taking on too much. I don’t know how she can stand to spend so much time with that man.
I told her to be careful.”Disdain radiated off the woman who shook her head, out of the corner of my eye.
“I never thought I’d see the day that Riot Asher showed his face back here.”I pulled out my small notebook, scribbling notes down.
Katie Plainbottom.
Her name sounded familiar, and I was fairly certain she was in my grade, but if she was who I thought she was, we never crossed paths.
There had been nothing remarkable about her.
She wasn’t one of the smart girls. She didn’t play sports.
No musical talent. But she was involved in the church and Junior League and Daughters of the American Revolution and every other community activity.
She wore fake pearls and long skirts and pastel-colored headbands.
So, Little Miss Perfect Katie Plainbottom is shacking up with a convicted killer.
The idea almost impressed me.
I started to search for Plainbottom Auto Shop Godot when my phone went black. Groaning a sigh of frustration, I plugged the new charger into the cigarette lighter.
I spotted a liquor store across the street. I grabbed some cash from my glove compartment, letting my phone charge while I picked up wine for the night.
The sun was already warm and a thin layer of sweat started to humidify my back as I jogged across the street. I pulled the door handle but fell backward.
Of course, it wasn’t open yet. I rested my hands on my hips and cursed at the sky before re-crossing the street to my car.
I grabbed the driver’s side door handle and once again fell backward.
No, no…
“Ughh!”The frustration broke from my chest. My keys were in the ignition, powering the car that powered my phone. And I was locked out.
Fighting the overwhelming sense of defeat, I sank to my heels, pulling my hands through my hair so I didn’t punch something.
“Are you alright, sweetheart?”I peered up at an elderly woman who gazed at me with such concern I felt self-conscious.
“I locked my keys in my car,”I said, deadpan.
“There’s a garage one block down. I’m sure one of those handsome young boys can help you. They’re so good. They helped me reprogram my radio last week.”She smiled as if it were the greatest kindness in the world.
I stood up.“That’s not the garage that Mr. Plainbottom runs, is it?”
“Well, I don’t think he does much work himself anymore, what with the cancer and all, but yes that’s his.”
The auto shop was just as the old woman described, a garage with lots of handsome young men. I pulled my hair into a loose braid that hung over my shoulder and I shifted my boobs in my bra, so my cleavage popped. I smacked my lips with the cheap tube of lipstick I bought at the Piggly Wiggly.
I strutted into the garage and walked up to the front desk. The back of a desk chair faced me, and a low voice grumbled into the phone cord. I looked around and smiled at a few of the gazes through the glass window that peered into the work bays.
I waited for the person to get off the phone .
And waited.
The phone clicked back on the cradle. I turned my smile up a watt.
But I still waited. Whoever was on the phone hadn’t turned around.
Maybe they hadn’t heard me walk in. I shuffled my feet and coughed, calling attention to myself. But they still didn’t turn. My impatient shoe tapped the cement floor. The chair turned a few degrees but then turned back.
My patience snapped.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find Riot Asher?”I said in my sweetest, damsel-in-distress voice.
The chair spun around. My smile fell to a scowl. The same moss-faced man from this morning stared at me, his expression bored. His fingers were peaked with his elbows on the side of the chair.
“Not here,” he said, impassively.
Rude.
“Well, can you tell me when he’ll be in?”I smiled, reaching a hand up to stroke my braided hair.
The man-beast followed the motion for only a second beforescowling at me.
“I locked my keys in my car,”I waved like what a silly wench I am, “and I heard he’s practically a magician with a Slim Jim.”
The Chewbacca narrowed his eyes at me and blinked, considering. He stood with a grunt and brushed past me. I couldn’t help but catch the smell of motor oil, grass clippings, and something else familiar I couldn’t put my finger on.
He disappeared into a small room, and I opened my mouth to yell“excuse me”when he returned with the flat tool in his hand. He paused at the front door.
“Where?”
God, did this walking carpet only speak in one and two-word sentences?
“Outside the Piggly Wiggly.”
Without looking at me or saying another word, he stalked in that direction .
“If it’s an inconvenience, I can wait for Riot to get here,”I said, skipping to keep up with his long, brisk gait. I hissed when my ankle reminded me that it was still sore from my midnight second-floor escape.
Captain Whiskers twisted his head slightly at my sound but kept moving forward.
I almost demanded he stop and answer me about Riot, but I reminded myself I was here on a delicate mission.
I had to remain professional and not show my hand.
I didn’t have the luxury of alienating anyone.
Even though this guy had certainly not extended me the same courtesy.
He stopped in front of my car.
“Got ID?” he asked.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
His eyebrows twitched with surprise.
“How do I know it belongs to you?” he asked.
“So, he does speak in actual sentences!”I put my hand to my chest, feigning shock.
He glared in response, but I caught his eyes move briefly to where my hand was pressed below my throat. Professionalism be damned. I wasn’t going to get any kind of story with Fuzzy Wuzzy standing in my way.
“You woke me from a dead sleep by pounding on this window a few hours ago.”I smacked my hand against the driver’s side.
One side of his lips twitched. But he didn’t flinch, only crossed his grizzly arms over his muscled chest and stood his ground.
Heat crept up my neck. Did he have that many muscles earlier this morning?
Stomping my foot, I winced again; how had Grizzly Adams managed to turn me, Nicolette Parker, the Bloodhound of New England, into a petulant child?
“My ID is in the car.”I made overt gestures with my hands and enunciated my words.“If you open it — then I can show it to you.”
He narrowed his eyes again, and I reminded myself that I still needed him to open my car.
Just like I needed Chelsea to pay for my groceries.
Just like I had needed Jacob’s house to stay at.
My throat tightened. I was suddenly tired and sad and angry with the foreign feeling of being so goddamn dependent on everyone else all of a sudden.
“Look, I’ve had a really bad night and morning. Please, can you just help me?”
At that, Hairy Houdini pressed his lips together reluctantly, or I think he did, it was hard to tell through all that fur.
He took one stride and towered over me, his defined chest inches from my face. His arm brushed mine, and we both looked down as if the connection had created something tangible to examine. I took in another deep breath of his musk before stepping aside where he went to work on opening the car door.
When it popped open moments later, I let out a giant breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“God, thank you…”I whispered. I ducked in to grab my wallet to show him my ID but when I turned around, he was already walking back toward the garage.
“Hey, what do I owe you?”I called, holding up a few bills.
He stopped walking and turned his head to the side, so I only caught his profile. He paused a long beat, ignoring my question.
“Riot’s out of town all week. You should move on.”
I scowled at his back, stalking away. Yeah, no shit, Fuzzy Wuzzy .
If only it were that easy.