Joyride (11 page)

“Mama's got to go away for a little while, but Daddy will take care of you, okay, little darlin'?” For what it's worth, it does appear that Rose seems more remorseful this time. Probably because she's going to jail.

“Daddy has boo-boo,” Caden announces. “Mama hit Daddy.”

“Mama loves Daddy, okay?” she says. “We just get mad at each other sometimes.”

Arden rolls his eyes.
Way to teach your son that domestic violence is the norm
. Arden's quite certain little Caden would understand if Rose said something more accurate like, “Mama isn't supposed to hit Daddy. That's bad.” But instead, she splits the blame between them. Glass calls it classic abuser syndrome.

If only Henry would grow some balls and say it himself. But everyone in this yard knows that will never happen.

Glass opens the back door of the car for Rose and helps her in. “Hi, Arden,” she says. “How's your mama doing these days?”

Arden grinds his teeth. “She's doing.” The truth is, she isn't doing, not much anyway. She's awake half the night and sleeps during the day and in between she apparently fusses over Cletus. She must miss having someone to fuss over, now that Amber is gone.
At least Cletus is good for something.

“Well, that's good.”

Arden's not sure what's so good about it, but Rose isn't really interested in talking pleasantries. As soon as Glass gets in the driver's seat, she starts in immediately, pressing her face against the metal, netlike barrier between the front and backseat. “You know that hag May's going to fire me over this,” she says. Arden perks up. Rose works as a waitress at Uppity Rooster Café on Highway 98. Has for as long as Arden can remember. His aunt Dorothy was best friends with the café manager and owner, May Haverty.

“You really want that to happen?” Rose continues. “I support us, you know. Henry hasn't had a job for six months now. Who's going to feed my Caden if I'm in jail?”

At this Arden is surprised. The Walker house is in a good neighborhood. It's a nice house. They even have their lawn cut regularly by a lawn care service. At least, they have a sign advertising a lawn care company stuck in the ground by the sidewalk. The Chevy truck parked in the driveway looked new.
How much could Rose possibly make as a waitress?

“You make good money there?” Arden says. Deputy Glass looks at him as if he's grown double D breasts. Arden shrugs. He usually doesn't take to talking to the backseat guests, but this could be pertinent information. Arden turns around to face the husband beater.

Her chin raises slightly. “I make enough to pay the bills, feed us, and then some. I make sure my little Caden doesn't want for nothin'.”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you started on one of your fits again,” Glass says to the rearview. He makes a slow left turn. He could take a more direct route to the station, Arden knows, but apparently he's humoring Arden's newfound interest in interrogation.

Rose scoffs. “Henry knows just how to push my buttons is all.”

“So what shifts do you normally work?” Arden says, determined to make her focus. “Breakfast?”

“I get the best shifts, since I've been there the longest.”

“Which are?”

“What do you care?”

“I'm just trying to make conversation,” Arden says, hoping his smile looks authentic. “You've had a rough night and I wanted to get your mind off things.”
And I want to fill your position pronto.

This softens her up a bit. “That's awfully sweet of you, Arden. Isn't that sweet of him, Deputy Glass?”

Glass casts him an ironic look. “It is, Ms. Walker. Arden here's a sweet boy when he wants to be.” And by the sound of his tone, Glass doesn't believe that's what Arden's being right now.

“You get a lot of snowbird action at the café?” Arden presses. It's still hot outside, but school's already started in most states, and the tourist traffic has died down a lot in Destin. Snowbirds usually keep the place up and running, especially some of the more popular hangouts like Uppity Rooster.

“Oh yeah. I work breakfast shift Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and the weekends. Saturday and Sunday are my bread and butter though. I make more on Saturday morning than I do all week.” Rose is particularly proud of this. Then her countenance falls as if weighted with a concrete block. “I
did,
anyway. I'm pretty sure May's going to let me go over this. I already got wrote up last week for taking too many smoke breaks.”

Perfect.

 

Thirteen

I hear Arden's truck and feel the rumble on the dirt road. I know it's Arden because this has become his ritual the past two days: follow me home from school and beg me to speak to him, driving alongside me as I pedal my bike faster and faster before coming to a complete stop when he doesn't expect it, then dart through the woods while he's trying to back up.

It's an exhausting but necessary ritual. And slightly entertaining.

Today shall be no different from the last two. I already have my sights set on which part of the woods I'm going to launch off into. He'll never see it coming.

Unfortunately I don't see something else coming: a soft spot in the dirt road. My front wheel pirouettes almost backward, bringing me to a violent, immediate standstill, which nearly sends me flying over the handlebars. As it is, I turn at an unnatural angle, and my right ankle scrapes against the pedal and I'm forced to forfeit the bike into the red clay and my pride along with it. Also, I trip, fail to catch myself, and land squarely on my rear.

My hurt ankle and mutilated ego make it difficult to want to get back up.

Arden's truck skids to a halt beside me as I begrudgingly pull myself to a standing position, patting a red dust cloud off my butt. I continue to ignore him as I attempt to arrange the handlebars in rideable order. There's no getting around the fact that he saw everything. If our roles had been reversed, I would find this funny for the rest of my days. The kind of funny that, out of nowhere, cracks you up in the middle of a library or someone's funeral or an important conversation.

But Arden isn't laughing. I know this, because I steal a glance at him—his eyes are all determination and his mouth is set in a straight line. Laughing is the furthest thing from his mind. Because for the second time in our brief history, Arden Moss steals my bike again. With superhero ease, he snatches it from my hands and puts it in the back of his truck, sliding it to the middle of the bed.

I can't decide where I'm going to hide his body after I murder him.

Before I can say that, or anything, his hand is covering my mouth and he's turning me around in his arms so that my back is to his stomach and it dawns on me that maybe I'm the one being kidnapped and that nobody will find my body and that even if they do he'll get off scot-free because he's the sheriff's son.

A scream wells up inside me.

“For God's sake, will you just listen to me without opening your mouth?” he says in my ear. His voice is gruff, like he has a cold.

I try to bite the soft part of his hand, but he cups it just in time. He tightens his grip on me and presses his cheek against mine. I stomp on his foot and he grunts, but doesn't let go.

“I'm sorry, Carly,” he says. “So sorry. I'm a pathetic particle of dust that doesn't deserve to land on your feet. What I said at lunch was the stupidest thing that's ever come out of my mouth. But I'm trying to make it up to you. Will you just listen to me?”

Trying to make it up to me? By stealing my bike? Holding me hostage?

“I have good news,” he continues, as if I'm not squirming like a hooked worm. Arden is rock solid. It feels like struggling against the inside of a stack of tires. “I got you a job. A better one than the Breeze Mart. You can start this Saturday if you want. It's good money, less hours.” With this, he turns me loose and shoves me away from him.

He wipes his wet hand on his T-shirt; he didn't release me in time to avoid me spitting into his palm. It was the least I could do.

I want to push him against the truck and kick his nuts up his throat. But his words are sinking in. And I want to hear more of them. It's then that I realize I'm about to hyperventilate.

Arden seems to realize it at the same time. “Whoa, you don't have asthma or anything, do you? Calm down. Breathe in, breathe out. Put your hands on your head. I hear that helps with asthma attacks.”

“I don't have asthma, moron,” I screech. “It's not asthma attacking me, it's you!”

He wipes both hands down his face, then interlaces them behind his neck as if trying to appear harmless. “I wasn't attacking you. I was … subduing you.”

“For real? That's what you're going with?”

“Ohmigod, I can't talk to you! You're impossible to deal with!”

“I'm impossible? You took my bike—again! Then you … you…”

“I'll give your bike back. I'm sorry I sub—took actions to neutralize your anger. I knew you wouldn't listen to me.”

I cross my arms and start to walk in a circle. A tight circle that traumatized people walk in when they're trying to get a grip. “He's stalking me,” I say more to myself than to him. “Why is he stalking me?” I stop and face him. “Why would you stalk me?”

He looks mortified at the thought. “That's reaching a bit, don't you think?”

“Look up the definition of stalker, then get back to me on that one.”

He shakes his head, cussing under his breath. Then he reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a folded-up piece of paper. Slowly, he hands it to me. “This is the restaurant. They need a waitress for Saturday and Sunday mornings. You'll need to talk to Miss May. She's the manager. Tell her I sent you and you've got the job.”

I open up the paper and examine it:

Uppity Rooster Café

Miss May

Saturday
+
Sunday from 6 am to 1 pm

I've never seen Arden's handwriting before, but I'm betting it's his. It's definitely boy-scrawl, anyway. It doesn't have all the frilly loops and neatness of a woman's penmanship. “I don't understand” is all I can say.

He sniffs. “Look, I know I've pissed you off worse than an alligator in a bathtub. But I'm trying to make it up to you. This is a good-paying job. These two shifts are the best, and I guarantee you'll make more money there than the Breeze Mart. I talked to one of the servers who used to work there. She said she can make up to three hundred dollars a shift. Cash.”

Three hundred bucks a shift. That's nearly six hundred dollars a week. That's more than double what I make at the Breeze Mart. “I've never waitressed before,” I admit, awestruck at the revelation. Julio would melt in my hands if I brought home that kind of money.

“How hard can it be? You learn the menu, take people's orders, then bring it to their table. Believe me, if Rose can be a waitress, you can.”

I don't know who Rose is, but Arden's argument seems valid. I'm not helpless. I'm a hard worker—that is, if there was actually hard work to do at the Breeze Mart. “But then I'd be working seven days a week.” I say this more to myself than to Arden.

Standing at the Breeze Mart cash register isn't exactly strenuous, but never getting a day off? Could I really do that? In the back of my mind, I think about my grades. I know it's wrong to think about myself at a time like this, to think about what if. What if I can keep my grades up and get a scholarship after my family gets back to the States? What if I can make something of myself? But I have to let go of selfish thoughts like that. I have to keep focused on the most important thing. As Julio says, family first.

But the disappointment frothing in my stomach betrays me.

“Why would you need to work at both places?” Arden says. “Think how much more time you'll have during the week if you just work weekends.”

I shake my head. “I don't need time. I need money.”

Arden bites his lip. “Can I just interject something here without getting you all pissed off again?”

Knowing Arden, probably not. “Sure.”

“Well, it just seems that you're uptight all the time. I know you and your brother need money, and I don't blame you for wanting to take on both jobs. It's just … what about you? This is supposed to be the best time of your life. Geez, we're in high school. We're supposed to look back on this time in our life and remember how fun it was. How can you do that if you work yourself to death?”

“When I look back, I'll have something to be proud of. That I helped my family.” I don't expect Arden to understand. Really and truly I don't. But I don't want to have to explain it to him, either. Especially when doubt has become a congealed puddle in my gut.

“You said that if you didn't have to work so much you'd spend time with me. That you wouldn't mind having a little fun. Was that a bunch of BS?”

I look down at the paper in my hands. He's gone to a lot of trouble on my behalf. This boy who has pulled a gun on me, scared my friend half to death, stolen my bike (twice), insulted me in front of practically the entire school (accounting for gossip), and held me hostage for one-point-five minutes.

This boy who stood up for me in the hall, gave me a ride home, let me dump a carton of milk on him without retribution, checked on me at the store in the middle of the night, and has now procured me a good-paying job if I so want it.

God, but Arden Moss is confusing. Confusing, and persistent.

I meet his eyes. “I'll check into this restaurant thing. And we'll go from there. No promises.”

His eyes light up. “Awesome. You'll need to see Miss May this Saturday at two p.m. That's when things slow down at the café.”