Burn Girl (16 page)

Neither option could be described as easy.

“Let me think about it. And if a day makes a difference, then Cody's feelings aren't as strong as you believe.”

“Your decision, girl, but if it were me, I wouldn't wait another second to let him know how I felt.” She kissed the top of my head. “Got to get home for dinner. Call or text if you need me.”

Mo crawled across the bed and stood in the doorway. “And don't worry about your stepfather. They'll find him and then he'll get what's coming to him.”

Frank had said the same thing earlier. They both seemed so sure.

So why wasn't I?

After another hour, my head was pounding and my nerves were raw from the whine of the table saw and the thwack of Frank's nail gun. I decided to ask him to stop for the evening.

Nothing about the outside of the house had changed, but Frank had been busy creating a maze of interior walls. I walked from one room to the other by sliding my body sideways through the studs that hadn't been covered with drywall yet.

“You ready to call it a day?” I asked.

Frank turned to me and wiped the sweat from his face with the front of his T-shirt, revealing a bulging, hairy belly. I grinned.

“Hey, Budweiser and I worked hard to get this body. Don't make fun.” His joke couldn't lift the worry that cloaked us.

“You've been out here since this morning. Want to take a break? Maybe get a burger and shake at Sonic, and then Putt-Putt?”

My uncle removed his tool belt and sat down. “Out two nights in a row? My, how social you've become.”

I sat down next to him. The concrete foundation was cool compared to the air inside the half-finished structure.

“You holding up?” he asked.

“Sure. I guess. Maybe I'd feel better if we went out. It might take my mind off things.”

“And you'll eat a burger and not just drink a shake? You'll eat a real meal?”

“Fine. I'll eat a burger too, but let's just get out for a while. I can't take much more of that nail gun. I might be tempted to use it on you.”

Frank kept the windows of the Suburban rolled down as we drove up to the college soccer fields on the mesa overlooking downtown. The evening air whipped my hair around my face, and I struggled to keep it out of my mouth. He parked near the railing on the edge of the road and killed the engine.

“Much better view for dinner.” He rummaged through the Sonic bag to find his burger.

“Agreed.”

“Sorry about the wind. I'm just a little rank from sweating all day,” he said. “Thought we needed the fresh air more than you needed a perfect hairdo.”

I tapped my finger against my nose. “Can't smell a thing, remember?”

“Jeez. I don't think I'll ever get used to that. I can't wrap my head around it.”

Sometimes even I forgot. I'd had this chemical sensation for so long that I thought of it as normal—at least for me. “Right now I wish I could smell those fries though. Must be pretty damn delicious for you to attack them like that.”

Frank flashed me a greasy, potatoey grin. “They're pretty awesome.”

I told him Cody had said he couldn't imagine giving up the taste and smell of pizza and hamburgers and fries—that grease was the primary food group in his diet because nothing tasted as amazing.

“He's right. The taste, the mouth feel, the aromas. But even more importantly, memories attach themselves to food.”

I understood mouth feel because textures were the only way I related to food right now. Taste, aroma, and memories definitely had no bearing on my food choices.

“What's your favorite food memory?” I asked.

“Now that's a tough one.” Frank put down the fries. He seemed to rifle through the files in his brain until he could hit on just the right memory.

“If I had to choose one thing, I'd say my grandmother's pecan pralines,” he said. “They weren't chewy like caramel, but soft and buttery. She'd make them for Thanksgiving and Christmas so I associate them with family. The times when everyone is together.”

I couldn't identify with the idyllic scene he'd painted. Mom and I had spent the holidays alone. And before the accident, when we lived with Lloyd, it was just the three of us. The last Thanksgiving that I remember with Lloyd, we ate pizza from a gas-station deli and then went to a movie.

“The way you described the holidays sounds nice.”

“Jesus, I'm sorry. I guess you didn't have any family except your mom and stepfather.”

“It is what it is. You have to stop worrying about saying the wrong thing.”

I slurped my shake and soaked in the last of the warmth the sun could muster. Sunsets in Durango were rarely fiery red because the air was too clear, but tonight a slight pink haze tinted the clouds that streaked across the skies to the west. I loved this town, even when Mom and I stayed at the women's shelter or in our car when we couldn't afford the motel. I could walk almost everywhere, and the free trolley could take me to the farthest edges of town I couldn't reach by foot.

Our time at the Animas View Motel was the happiest because we had hot water and television and a door that locked, but also because of the easy access I had to the Animas Mountain Trailhead. I often hiked up the steep path to the highest point overlooking the Animas Valley and the winding Animas River. Or I'd take the cutoff to the Sailing Hawks Trail and wind down the rocky path shielded by pine trees. Lloyd was not welcome in a place I'd finally come to see as home.

“When we're finished with the house and you have some time on your hands, I'd like to show you my favorite trails,” I told Frank. “Some exercise might help with that belly. You could eat more fries that way.”

“Genetics are to blame, not inactivity or french fries. You're just lucky to have your mom's and your granddad's genes. Both were string beans. You could just as easily have ended up a squat, female version of me.”

He laughed at the image in his head. All I could picture was a hobbit.

I dutifully took another few bites of my burger before wrapping up the remainder and stuffing it back into the bag. I put my bare feet up on the dashboard and sucked down the rest of my shake.

“The other night when you said, ‘Regret is a bitch,' was that from personal experience?”

Frank dug into the bag and retrieved my unfinished burger. He tore it in two and handed me a portion. He took a bite from his half.

“It's a boring story,” he said, his mouth full. “Now eat some more of that burger, or I'll puree it at home and force you to drink it.”

“Seriously, Frank. I'd like to know.” I drew my legs onto the seat and leaned into the passenger door.

“I had a girlfriend. It didn't work out. And yes, it was my fault.”

He took another bite of the burger I'd tried unsuccessfully to discard. His curtness told me I should've dropped the conversation.

“There are usually two sides to every story,” I said. “Seems like you're telling me her side and not yours.”

Frank grinned. “Who's the grown-up here?”

“I'm old enough to know that right and wrong are pretty subjective. And old enough to know we take on guilt for things we can't really control.”

I patted his shoulder. I'd come to really care about Frank, and I was interested in his life before Durango.

“Lily was the executive director of the Habitat chapter in Corpus. I met her on a build. I'd volunteered to be the main contractor for the framing portion,” he said. “We started dating and were together about five years.”

“That's a long time. What happened?”

“Um … you don't really want to hear this stuff.”

“You and I are family now, right?” After withholding so much of myself these past months, I should've known to stop pushing, but I wanted to hear more about Lily.

“If I say more, I might upset you.”

“I don't understand.”

“Lily wanted to have children and I didn't. So it was my fault. That was a deal breaker for her, and I wouldn't change my mind.”

“I see.” He gave up the woman he loved because he didn't want to be a father, and yet he was now stuck parenting a teenage girl with a complicated past and possibly a very complicated present because of Lloyd.

“Those dark eyebrows betray you all the time, Arlie. When you worry, they dip down in a vee.”

“I'm fine. Really. I'm sorry it didn't work out.”

I turned to face the windshield. The sky had grown dark and the night had taken on a chill. We'd been spoiled with the warm April days that made us hope winter was long past. I wished I'd brought my hoodie.

Frank must have noticed because he turned the key in the ignition so he could raise the automatic windows.

“Lily and I broke up twenty years ago. My reasons for ending our relationship have nothing to do with you and me now. It's completely different.”

He'd had the freedom to make a choice about Lily. When social services tracked him down about me, he probably didn't feel he had a choice. He was too good a man. Not the type of guy who'd allow his niece to stay in the foster care system until she turned eighteen.

“If Mom hadn't died, and you didn't have to take care of me, what would you have done with the money?”

“First, I don't
have
to take care of you. I want to. And second, I don't even know what I was saving up for anymore. I'd tell myself I needed the money to one day build a house and retire comfortably, but before I met you, I'd done nothing to make that happen except draw house plans over and over.”

The plans that had only existed in Frank's mind and in his sketch pad were now taking shape and form: windows and doors and rooms and a roof. Our home.

Frank nudged my chin so I'd have to look at him.

“Sometimes things happen exactly the way they're supposed to happen. I may never have considered Durango, but it's beautiful here. And I have family again after not having family for a very long time. It's all good.”

I nodded. Speaking would have just led to tears, and I just didn't have any more energy after what I'd been through in the past twenty-four hours.

“Let's skip Putt-Putt and head home.” Frank put the truck in gear. I nodded again and turned to look out the passenger-side window.

As we made our way down the winding mesa road and back into downtown Durango, I struggled with a new and troubling feeling. I was relieved that Mom was no longer in my life and Frank was.

CHAPTER 20

ONE YEAR AGO—PLAYBOOKS

Mom sat cross-legged on the bed facing me. Between us lay a green plastic tackle box of cosmetics, although most of its contents were strewn across the bedspread.

“Did you know you can curl your eyelashes after you put on mascara? Just be sure the mascara is dry or you'll yank them out,” she said.

I blinked uncontrollably as my mother moved the crimper toward my eye. She'd given me this same advice every time we completed our Saturday afternoon ritual of hair and makeup.

“There. You're a masterpiece.” Mom snuffed out her cigarette in a Styrofoam cup of coffee sitting on the nightstand. “Now it's my turn. And make it dramatic.”

She didn't have to instruct me. I'd been doing her makeup for years and knew Saturday nights meant heavier makeup and twice the amount of hair spray.

I rummaged through the rainbow assortment of Maybelline and Cover Girl eye-shadow compacts Mom had accumulated over the years. She'd figured out it was easier to shoplift from Walgreens than Walmart. Each time she came home with a pocketful of goodies, I'd leave an envelope with money at the cashier's the next day. My note always said the same thing: “My mom forgot to pay for her recent purchase. Enclosed is full payment.” Who knows? Maybe they continued to let her get away with it because they knew I'd always make good.

“Blues or greens?” I asked. “Green makes your eyes look larger.”

“Just make me look beautiful.”

“You're already beautiful.”

Mom gave me her public smile, the one where she pulled her lip down over her top teeth to hide their decay. She'd started using it more and more with me.

I dabbed foundation on a triangular sponge and swept it across my mother's gaunt face. She looked older than thirty-eight, and heavy makeup only magnified the rapid aging brought on by meth use.

“Arl, I was hoping I could borrow some money. You have any stashed away?” Mom kept her eyes closed while I applied a shimmery gold base to her lids.

“I have a little.”

Mo held on to most of my money so I wouldn't have to carry it on me. If I hid it in the motel room, Mom would ferret it out. She had before.

“You're still working, right? I mean, rent's due soon and I'm short this month.”

“Don't worry, Mom. Keep your eyes closed so I can finish.”

I cut grass in the summers, raked leaves in the fall, and shoveled snowy sidewalks and driveways all winter. Two older women who lived alone in massive Victorians on Third Avenue paid me to run errands and buy groceries. Sometimes they paid me to just sit with them and read aloud. I took whatever jobs paid invisible money, the kind that didn't require Social Security numbers and home addresses.

“You'll have to curl your own lashes,” I said. “That thing creeps me out.”

Mom scooted off the bed and stood before the dresser mirror. While she worked on her sparse lashes, I combed through her tangled hair. The boxed bleach had made it yellow and brittle, not supple and shiny like the model's on the label. Sometimes, I'd rub baby oil into her hair to add shine, but then she'd complain it looked thin and lifeless. She looked thin and lifeless regardless of how she wore her hair.

“I wish you wouldn't go out. I could find jobs that paid better.” I rested my chin on her shoulder.

“I'm just going out with friends. I won't be late.”