Chapter 4
Eli
The air conditioning blasted from my vents.
We drove north, up a rocky mountain, supposedly to some ranch.
I had a soggy crate of beer in the back of my truck.
My cab smelled like McDonald's, and in the passenger seat was a woman way outta my league.
She sat ramrod straight, arms wrapped around her kid like a harness.
Nina dug salty fries out of her red and yellow cardboard box.
I avoided fast food on the road, but the smell pulled the teenage addict out of me. “Can I have one of those?”
Nina licked her finger before handing me one.
“Thanks.” Just as greasy as I remembered. “I’m going the right way?”
“Yes.”
I glanced at Ava. She looked ready to eject. Was it something I said? “I knew I should've gotten you one, too.”
She blinked over a smooth, tanned shoulder at me. “What?”
“A Happy Meal.”
“They’re for kids.”
I cut her sideways smile, wondering at her age. Maybe a few years more than me? Not that it mattered. “We’re all kids at heart.”
The road curved, so I had to go back to driving, but her focus stayed on me. Hopefully to admire my winning jaw line.
“I’ll reimburse you once I get my purse. For the gas and the food.”
Or was she noticing my frayed, old baseball cap? “No need.”
“Really. I’m sure this is out of your way.”
I shrugged.
After a lull, Ava said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” I waited while her eyes roamed the dashboard, while she fiddled with the air vent, and adjusted Nina’s position.
She sat back, heaved a sigh, and ran a slender hand along the center console. “You have a nice truck.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
“Thanks?” After a beat, I added, “You’re not gonna steal it, are you?”
“What? No!”
Her shock convinced me. “Okay, good. ’Cause I just paid it off.”
“No. It's … It’s a refreshing change from luxury sedans.”
With those kinds of clothes, I had trouble seeing her in anything but a “luxury sedan.” With luxury guys. Hell, here I was, a Ford Pinto.
“Surprisingly refreshing,” she added. “I think I need a change.” Her face steered back to me, studying me from top to bottom. Long enough, I figured she’d found something wrong.
“Elijah T. Andersen …” she repeated, just like when she’d read it off my license. “What’s the ‘T’ stand for?”
My lip twitched. “Guess.”
“Seriously?”
“Man’s gotta have some secrets.”
She huffed, but there was humor to it. After a beat, she said, “Thomas?”
“Nope.”
“Travis?”
“No.”
“Tucker?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” She laughed. It was like the sun poking holes in the clouds. “Are we in a western?”
“Do you like westerns?”
Her eyes climbed over me again. “You don’t look like a cowboy.” They stopped at my face.
I shoulda shaved this morning. “No?”
“No. It’s those boots.”
I glanced down at my steel-toed Cats. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing, they just aren’t cowboy boots.”
“Mama, help.” Nina shoved the wrapped toy from her Happy Meal at her mom’s chest.
Ava ripped it open. “Trenton?”
I shook my head, smiling.
“Toby?”
“Toby? What? No! Come on.” I waited for her next guess, but it didn’t come.
It’s because her eyes were wide on the wrought iron sign mounted over the road. Hidden Meadows. It was the only thing not gray or rocky for miles. Ava frowned out her window as we drove under it and past a quarter-mile line of tree stumps.
The road dumped us on a wide dirt patch. “Where do I park?”
“Um …” She’d gone pale. “In front of the arena.” She pointed to the ring. Half of its posts teetered at odd angles. When I cut the engine, she unbuckled her seatbelt and slid out of the truck, kid and all.
I met her around her side, scanning the scene. No cars. No people. “Is this the right place?”
“Yes. But …” She glanced back at the road we’d just traveled.
“Are you okay?”
“There used to be trees.” The way she hugged Nina to her chest reminded me of that kid in Charlie Brown with the blanket.
I followed her into what looked like a ghost ranch.
Lots of splinters and dust. A horse huffed, but I couldn’t see it.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept two steps behind her.
She looked so outta place. Curiosity had me glancing left and right.
The place seemed vaguely familiar. What were we doing here?
When we reached the barn, a hunched form in the shadows turned toward us. “Ava?” it called. It wore an unbuttoned brown flannel over a white t-shirt. Not a spirit– just a man one missed meal shy of a flagpole. But what had me staring was the massive white mustache dominating his face.
Ava’s posture changed as he came out into the sun. Her back got straight, and her voice cracked. “H-hi, Terry.”
Deep, leathery lines stretched around a grin. At least I think that’s what hid under the hairy white horseshoe. “Well, I’ll be damned.” The man set a screwdriver on a post at the mouth of the barn, then dug his thick, gnarled fists into his sides. “What a surprise! Look at you! Both of you!”
I rocked back a few steps to let them have their reunion.
Ava widened her stance and adjusted her kid at her hip. “Nina, this very shaggy man is Terry.”
Terry stared at Nina with hearts in his crinkling eyes. “I knew you when all you did was poop and drool.” He tapped her on the nose. “You like my mustache?” he asked.
She shook her head.
Kids. Gotta love their brutal honesty.
“It’s gotten a little long,” he admitted, combing his fingers through it. “Probably time for a trim.”
“I’m sorry to just show up like this,” Ava started. “I tried calling but–”
“Oh, stop!” He swatted the air like her words annoyed him.
I wondered at her hesitance. The man was obviously pleased to see her–them.
His eyes wandered over to me. “Who’s this?”
Hold up. Was this her dad? I stepped forward, but Ava cut me off.
“This is Eli. He gave me a ride. I actually came to pick up my truck.”
Truck? My pulse spiked. I studied her profile. She just kept getting more interesting.
“Mmhmm.” Terry nodded, still eying me. “Eli, good to meet you.” He held out a calloused hand, which I took.
“And you, Sir.”
He laughed. “Sir? Ava, you pick ’em good.”
We spoke at the same time.
“Actually …”
“Oh, no–”
But Terry was already walking off, saying, “It’s a little different from when you left.”
Ava skipped after him in her heels. Her footing wobbled over the uneven ground. “That’s an understatement,” she told him. “Your hair alone has me reeling.”
I took up the rear.
His laugh reminded me of an old wagon wheel rolling over clumps of dirt. “Kipper threatened to leave if I cut it.”
“Oh, really?” Her tone sounded teasing.
Ava’s stride grew longer and more confident as we walked toward a sun-beaten single-wide past the barn, across from another cockeyed ring. It might’ve been brown once, but now it matched the rest of the gray landscape.
Nina watched me over Ava’s shoulder. Those little eyes were curious.
Or maybe calculating. I covered my face with my hands, then took them away and mouthed “peek-a-boo.” That earned me a smile.
Definitely curious. I hid my face behind my hands again and peeked through my fingers. That made her giggle.
“What happened to all the trees?” Ava asked, glancing back at me.
I dropped my hands and shrugged. Nina giggled harder.
“Some kind of disease,” Terry was saying. “Spread to the lot of ’em. Cost a fortune to cut down. But cheaper than a lawsuit.”
Ava’s feet slowed, then stopped. “Hey, um, where’s the trailer?”
When Terry turned, his caterpillar of a mustache drooped, like the thing got dehydrated. I felt a little dry myself. My shirt stuck to me, and the sun seared the back of my neck.
The older man sighed and ran knobby fingers through his wild hair. “We had to haul it out. The whole inside was covered in mold.”
“Oh.”
Who knew a single syllable could sound like heartbreak? My eyes dropped past her shapely legs to her classy heels, now dull and covered in dust, looking for clues. Truck. Trailer?
“I would’ve saved it if I could,” Terry told her.
“No. I understand.”
He studied her under a dark, bushy brow, arms now crossed.
I couldn’t see her face, but the way her shoulders sank, like twin battleships, gave me a weird indigestion.
Something happened here, something that kept her away.
We had more in common than I thought. If I’d known I’d be bringing her into the thick of it, I would’ve forced the Happy Meal on her. Or at least an ice cream sundae.
“You gone in to see ol’ Kipper, yet?” Terry asked her.
She shook her head. “Don’t let her hear you call her old.”
“What? Eh.” He waved a dismissive hand, but his weathered face turned red. “I’ll go in with ya.” He climbed the steps of the single-wide and held the door open for us.
Ava’s eyes lingered on the prickly weeds growing in the splitting planter boxes under the windows as she entered.
Terry put a hand on my chest as I reached the door. In a low voice, he asked, “How’s she been?”
“I, uh … she’s having a rough day.”
“Has she been eating? She looks too skinny.”
“I heard that,” Ava muttered from just inside a small, dusty office. “And you’re one to talk!”
The moment to correct him passed again. He waved me inside and let the door slap shut behind him.
Ava stood in the center of the room between two desks.
Terry moved in next to her. I felt like the fourth wheel of a tricycle, but it beat facing Dad back at the ranch. I could do no right with that man.
“Well, well. Look who the cat dragged in,” said an attractive older woman from behind her desk.
She dropped a highlighter on an open notebook and tapped her glasses down her nose to stare at us.
Her stern face reminded me of a high school math teacher.
“I heard you were selling houses now. What brings you in here, fancy pants?”
Ava glanced at me, but when I met her eye, she blinked away. “We just came by to say hi. And get my truck.”
This Kip woman didn’t go gooey like Terry.
In fact, the room felt a little crowded.
I faded back, pretending to be interested in other things.
A dented desk on another wall hid under a bunch of cardboard boxes.
A ceiling fan covered in spider webs groaned as it spun.
Nina hung on her mom’s side like a baby monkey playing with a dangling earring.
“Ouch, baby.” Ava grabbed the kid’s chubby fingers. “No, thank you.”
Where was the kid’s dad?
The woman behind the desk pushed her glasses back up her nose. “Well, while you’re here, tell this old goat to call it a day, before he breaks something.”
Terry’s laugh brought to mind sandpaper. “Kipper, I’ve been fixing barns for forty years. I know what I’m doing.”
“I wasn’t talking about the barn.” She shot him a scolding glare.
Ava elbowed Terry. “She has a point.”
“Not you, too?” he grumbled. “Shoulda known you women would gang up on me.”
“Maybe it’s because we care,” she shot back.
“Alright. Alright.” Terry slapped my shoulder. “How about you and I take a look at that truck? It might need some coaxing.”
I snuck a peek at Ava, feeling bad for leaving her.
“Come on, Loverboy.” Terry steered me to the door.
“No, I–” I nearly tripped down the stairs, not watching where I was going. “I’m not–We’re not together.” Finally, out in the open, and the man strode way ahead of me. If he heard, he didn’t respond.
I jogged to catch up. What did a city girl qualify as a truck? My bets were on one of those new Mavericks, or a Santa Cruz. “You have a nice truck … a refreshing change from luxury sedans.”
Oh God, so help me if it’s an Escalade!
I followed Terry around the back of the single-wide where he hauled up the door of a standalone garage. Inside was a friggin’ dual-tone Chevy. A C10. Early 70s, judging by the trim. Interest revved up to a full-on crush.
Who was this woman?
“I think the battery’s a goner,” Terry commented. “But she never came by to get it fixed after she had it hauled.”
“Is it open?”
“Yup.”
I ducked into the cab, released the hood, then came around the front and slid my fingers under the hot metal for the release. The hinge groaned as I lifted it overhead.
Sweet mother of automobiles, the thing was beautiful.
“You know much about cars?” Terry asked. Something odd struck me about his voice. Humor?
“I know a thing or two.”
“Guess that adds up.” He leaned over the engine with me. “What do ya reckon?”
“I can bring my truck around and give her a jump. See if we can get her started. Then go from there.”
“Good plan.” He patted my back, then strode off, saying, “I’ll leave you to it. Gotta finish something before I lose the light.”
I spun my key on my finger, feeling optimistic for once. Finally, a chance to do something I was actually good at.