The Last Days of Summer (28 page)

‘My sister's now.'

Yancey glances over the stack of papers. He flips through a couple of documents and lets the pages fall into a pile. ‘Where're your folks at?'

‘Dead.'

‘All right …' He makes a mark on a page. ‘You plan on stayin' there awhile?'

‘I got nowhere else to go.'

‘You payin' rent there?'

Jasper hesitates. ‘At the moment, no.' Then, louder, ‘That land's half mine.' More defensive than he'd intended.

Yancey looks over his glasses at him. The lenses on them have fogged up from the heat. He takes them off carefully and wipes them on his shirt to dry them, but it's so hot his shirt is moist with sweat, and the fabric only streaks the glasses, does not fully dry them. He looks to the files and papers before him. ‘You finish high school?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘State requires you to work. With the conditions of your parole. And you're not to leave the state, and not to leave the country neither.' He pauses. ‘You lazy, boy?'

Jasper shakes his head. ‘I never had any problem with workin'.'

Yancey snorts, as though what Jasper's just said amuses him. Jasper feels his blood go cold, despite the muggy heat that fills the room. He'd like to show Yancey just what he's capable of, just what he can do. He'd like to work the other man's face into a nice dark shade of purple. It's been a long while since anyone laughed at Jasper.
Been even longer since anyone got away with it. Jasper cracks his knuckles. Reminds himself that he's all done with trouble.

‘Before prison, you were –' Yancey flicks back another page.

‘I was a mechanic, sir,' Jasper cuts him off. Can't quite keep the sneer from his tone.

Yancey leans back in his chair. He's not laughing now. But he's not quite respectful neither. Slowly he nods. ‘A mechanic,' he murmurs. He glances down to the stack of papers before him. ‘Are you aware,' he says, ‘of the whereabouts of Ms Saunders?'

Jasper recoils from the surprise of her name. Anger fills him and he has to shove it down to keep himself from leaning over that desk and grabbing the man behind it. He swallows, struggling to keep control. ‘I reckon I could find her, if I was so inclined.'

Yancey slowly removes his glasses and sits up straight. ‘
Do
you intend to find her, Mr Curtis?'

‘Can I ask you a question … sir?' The words spill out of Jasper before he can stop them. His lips curl as the words leave them, the disdain in his voice unmissable.

Yancey nods, slowly placing his glasses on his desk. ‘Shoot.'

‘Are you trying to be my friend here, or my next girlfriend? 'Cause it seems to me for jus' meetin' we're gettin' awful cosy.'

A slow grin spreads across Yancey's face. ‘Damn, boy!' He claps his hands together. Once. Twice. ‘That just made my day. Got ourselves a firecracker!' he calls down the hall. Then his tone shifts. Eyes narrow. ‘Now, you
listen here and you listen good, you smart alecky motherfucker. I control your life. You wanna piss? I tell you where to do it. You understand me, boy? You ain't free till you're free of me.'

Jasper bites the inside of his lip till he tastes blood. Something about the feel of his teeth locked into his flesh calms him just a little. The clock ticks. Out in Reception the phone rings and is answered, and her voice sounds sweet again.

‘Now,' Yancey says, reclining once more, ‘you need a job, don' you? Conditions of your parole … Let's see what I've got here for a fine convict like yourself, shall we?' He grins. The playful, malicious glint returns to his eyes. ‘Yes, sir,' he says, ‘we've got a bright future for you right here. Must be your lucky day. There's a chicken factory a bit short on staff. It's halfway to San Antonio, but I'm sure you won' mind the drive.' Yancey looks down, marking quickly on a form.

‘A chicken farm?' Jasper cannot mask his surprise.

‘That's what I said.'

‘What kind of work is it?'

Yancey looks up and holds his gaze. ‘Honest work. That's what kind.'

Jasper bites back the words he wants to say. He can feel them boil up inside him. He swallows his anger. Says instead, ‘I never done dishonest work.'

Yancey snorts but does not answer him. He's ticking boxes on some form Jasper cannot read.

Jasper clears his throat. ‘What will I be doing there?'

‘Does it matter?'

He hesitates. ‘Yes.'

A smile plays on Yancey's lips. ‘Why? What does it matter what scum like you do?'

Jasper looks to the tiny window that teases him with light. It's hard to breathe in the room it's so stuffy. So hot. ‘It's my life,' he says, his words hanging vulnerably between them. He waits for an answer that never comes, then asks, ‘Ain't there any other jobs goin' I might be better suited for?'

Yancey doesn't even bother looking back to the list he had previously referred to. ‘See, that's the problem, son,' he says. ‘You ain't suited for a good life.'

Jasper can't bite his lip any more. The rage inside him boils up and spills out. ‘You must not get any action,' he snarls, ‘when you're not fuckin' people over.'

Yancey smiles. A look on his face as if he's enjoying this. ‘I sure as hell get a whole lot more than you do, son,' he says, and chuckles lightly.

Jasper's fingers dig into the armrests of his chair. He can feel his nails cut into the cracked dry leather. It's like he's in prison all over again, no air, no room to breathe, some guard up in his face telling him he's unworthy to live. And maybe I am, Jasper thinks, maybe that's why death has always come more easily.

Yancey Sutton tears off a corner of the piece of paper he'd been writing on. His eyes mock Jasper, and Jasper wishes this were prison after all and not the office he sits in now. In prison there were ways to deal with enemies, even if they were guards. Outside, it seems to Jasper, it's too hard to tell just who's right and wrong. Seems the whole world, these days, is made up out of enemies. Of wrongs he's done he'll never be able to put right. He takes
the paper the other man's handed him. A phone number and an address are scribbled there.

‘You call that number 'n' they'll give you your work details. Pay ain't great, but you weren't an easy sell.' Yancey chuckles. ‘Now get on outta here.'

Jasper rises slowly, paper still clutched in his hands, eyes still lowered to it. He is in the doorway already before he stops. ‘I ain't gonna be one of the ones like you mentioned earlier,' he says. ‘One of them ones that goes on back. I'm done with trouble. I just thought I'd tell you that.'

Yancey shakes his head. ‘Boy,' he says, ‘you got trouble stamped all over you,' and returns to the papers on his desk.

The sun bakes the concrete, reflecting, blinding, off everything it touches. Uneasiness has crept over Lizzie, and she cannot quite place what's newly unsettled her. Watching Jasper walk into the parole office for a moment had felt like he was gone again. And there'd been a part of her that breathed easy when she saw him walk away. There was another part of her afraid to let him go. Afraid he might not come back. She sits out in the parking lot waiting for Jasper to return from his parole meeting, parked in the shade cast by the buildings. Sunlight reflects off car doors and mirrors. She's got the window rolled down; her elbow rests in its open frame. The engine and the radio are both off. A small part of her thought of just driving away. Of leaving him there. But where would he go? The townsfolk had certainly made Jasper's unwelcome clear in church the day before, scorn etched deep on every face. What would she tell her girls if she came
on home alone? The question she does not ask herself, is ‘Would you miss him?' She's not sure she has an answer to that. She's not sure she's ready to know it. Joanne would miss him. She had never thought her daughter would grow so fond of him.
What was I thinking letting a man like that get so near her?
And yet Lizzie feels it's OK somehow. She trusts her brother not to hurt her child. Or so she tells herself again and again. It's good for Joanne to have a man to look up to; Lizzie simply can't help but shudder at the choice of man.
And yet
, she thinks,
whose fault is it but mine?

She's still thinking about her daughters when the door to the parole office finally swings open, and Jasper steps blinking from the dark shadows of its doorway. He shields the sun from his eyes, though he still stands in the building's shade. Like some pale creature out of a dream, newly released from some long-forgotten nightmare. She does not honk her horn. He knows where she is parked.

He stands there, letting his eyes adjust to the brightness of the day. What little rain fell the night before has long since dried up, the whole world around them still parched and cracked and dry.
We need a proper rainstorm
, she thinks, and wishes for a breeze to cool, but when the wind finally does gust, the air still feels hot, and there's dust that blows along with it, sticking to her sweaty arms and neck as grime. He starts to cross the parking lot to her. His hands deep down in his pockets, shoulders hunched. Had she just seen him now for the first time in all those years, would she have known him as her brother? A part of her thinks not.

Then her heart locks and she wants to scream. She can
see what is about to happen before it does. Her mouth opens, but there is no sound, and she is not certain what she meant to scream. A warning? But, no, there are no words for this, and her mouth falls closed again, silent.

Lizzie watches recognition dawn on Jasper's face. The woman stops short, maybe twenty feet from him. She's wearing a green dress with a floral pattern that reaches down just below her knees. White sandals. Her dark hair is long and loose and blows behind her.
Oh, God, no
, thinks Lizzie,
please, God, no.

Jasper opens his mouth to speak. He says something Lizzie cannot hear; nor can she read his lips. He stands motionless. His arms rise slowly, outstretched, palms open as though pleading. The woman spooks like a rabbit. Zero to full speed in a blink. Runs inside the nail salon, door swinging after her. Jasper stares after her, but does not follow. He stands a moment and runs his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. Then he turns back towards Lizzie, and slowly starts walking to her.

He opens the door and slides onto the seat and closes the door after himself. Hard enough that it shuts tight. Just short of a slam. Lizzie can't control her breathing. Her mouth's gone all dry. He does not look at her. Says, ‘I hadn't counted on that.'

Both hands on the steering-wheel, but the engine still off, Lizzie stares straight ahead, afraid to turn to her brother, afraid of what she might see etched in his face beside her. ‘What'd you say to her?' Lizzie's voice scarcely a whisper it's so soft.

For a moment she is not sure he plans to answer her. ‘I
told her she looked beautiful.' He turns to her, his eyes unfocused as though seeing another face than hers.

A trucker from Illinois spilled his coffee on her near the start of her shift, and now, as she sweats, Katie can smell the overwhelming richness of the brew as its odour clings to her. It smells to her like she's sweating coffee, and that, mixed with the deep-fried scent that always clings to her after even the slightest moment in the kitchen, is enough to make her stomach turn. She wonders sometimes just how Tom does it, stuck in that sweltering kitchen all the time, bent over the cooker and hot tubs of grease, deep frying. But then again, she thinks, Tom doesn't also have the coffee smell to deal with.

She's nearly certain that trucker spilled the coffee on her on purpose, too. Right across her breasts when she'd leaned over to take his plate away. The coffee hadn't been hot, he'd been there nursing it for the last couple hours, but the shock of the liquid against her flesh had still made her cry out. She hadn't liked the gleam in his eyes as he apologized either, his eyes glued to the stain as it spread across her chest. It's dried now, the stain that is, but the dark colour of it against her white blouse still draws unwanted attention to her cleavage, and Katie feels self-conscious with every customer she serves.

The dinner rush, if you could call it that, is long over now, the diner mostly empty. Tom's sitting on his stool in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette and flicking through yesterday's paper, the usual sizzle of the kitchen quiet all around him. A trucker sits at the counter finishing off his chicken fried steak, his jeans low on his hips so that his
crack hangs out as he leans forward, his pants too tight to accommodate the large expanse of his gut. A family sits in a booth by the window, a mom and dad and their little tot, up now long past her bedtime. She's a cute kid, and Katie's enjoyed watching her while she worked. Katie brought the tot crayons earlier while her parents were waiting on their food, and the little girl drew stick figures and a house. The parents had chatted to Katie for a while, and they had seemed real nice. They were from Dallas on their way down to South Padre Island. When Katie said she'd never been to Dallas, they had laughed and said they didn't believe her. After that, she didn't have the heart to tell them she'd never seen the ocean. ‘That's why we're taking Molly,' the woman had told her, smiling. ‘This'll be her first time to the beach.' They seem to Katie a happy family. The kind of family she hopes herself to have one day. The kind that eats together and takes vacations. And laughs at the nonsense their little girl coos. The kind she would have liked to grow up in. She wonders if maybe, one day, she and Josh will have that together. A family like that. She wonders if he'll send for her next year when he's off at college. If he'll remember to drive back home to see her. It seems to her that maybe, if he could just take her with him, she could truly leave all this behind. They could start their own family and find some new place to call home. They could just pass through towns like this.