Something Of A Kind (14 page)

 

“So… if you’re not going to go home and pack your bags for the
next flight,” Noah teased. “Are you as ready to crash as I am?”

“Yeah, definitely. It’s nice to go home by myself, totally f
ree
from Greg.” Aly sighed, almost wistful. “When he’s not there, it’s
like I can actually call it that. It’s… comforting.”

She followed him out the door as she spoke. He sat down
beneath the window, free from the eyes behind the wall. She
frowned, looking
between her car and the space
at his side.
Grinning, he grabbed her sleeve, pulling her down beside him. She
laughed, crashing
into his embrace. Sobered, she swallowed,
scrutinizing his expression.

As she slid her arms around his neck, Noah shuddered. Aly
hesitated. Holding still, he waited for her to relax in his arms. She
smelled like lavender, with vanilla.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confessed.

“Me neither,” she whispered.

 

Noah bit his lip, staring at hers.

Her fingertips brushed his jaw, warm palms loosely resting
against his cheeks. He could taste her breath, like sweet mint. Her
eyes, wide and blue, met his, letting him decide. He moved his
hands to her waist, pulling her close. Taking a breath, he pressed his
lips to hers. In his arms, Aly shivered.

The doors at her back flew open. She slammed her hands into his
chest, pushing herself away. Lee stood beside them, paisley shirt
unbuttoned over his beer belly, his hair greased into a low pony tail.
Half-hunched, his fists curled into is hips as he stumbled back and
forth, swiveling as he looked to and fro.

Having broken apart, they weren’t seen by his father. When he
spotted them, Lee peered down from behind his glasses. They had
slid to the tip of his nose, his sleeves rolled halfway up is forearm.
An upper lip curled in a sneer, revealing yellowed teeth and gums
blackened with tobacco.

He looks like a half-cocked librarian cowboy.

 

Jerking his head at Aly, chin wiggling, Lee snapped, “Get.”

Noah gripped her hand as Aly stood up. Squeezing it, she pulled
away, forcing a polite smile. Offering a tiny wave, she nodded
towards Lee. Noah’s jaw set, eyes narrowing to a glare at his father.
Before he could say a word, she gave him a warning look, slightly
shaking her head.

Does she smell the booze too?

Hating himself for not having words, he realized he had been too
stunned to speak. As Noah blinked to clear the haze, Lee cleared his
throat, launching a series of coughs. Noah ignored him. He jumped
to his feet, watching as she pulled out her keys.

Swaying to Greg’s car, Aly paused, spinning around to face
them. Cocking her head to one side, she cracked a smile. Chin up,
she called, “And Noah?”

“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad your sister’s okay.”
~

“Get out of here.” Noah glanced out the window to see
the man
running; ducking as though it would cover him from the pouring
rain. “My sister’s fine. Ole Jakers here has her covered.”

Noah forced a smile, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Kennedy
looked across the table to Sarah, as if seeking permission. A dimple
sprouted with her half-smile, followed by a quick nod. As he
dragged himself out of the booth, he hung his head, as sullen as ever.

“Tomorrow?” he clarified. Sarah winked, jerking her chin
towards the door. He put his hands up, his hair falling over his face
with a nod. “Alright, I’m going, I’m going.”

Kennedy traded positions with Jacob, a shorter guy slightly
packing on weight with age. With curly brown hair and a goatee, his
windbreaker and mud-soaked jeans made him look more like a lost
hiker than one of the only people in town with medical knowledge.
He
always talked a
little
off, an unidentifiable accent from
somewhere on the east coast masked with a soft-spoken clarity. He
had a puppydog kind of presence, like he’d lay down to take a
bullet for a group of misunderstood kittens, but a resilience that
made it seem like he already had.

“I’ll be gentle,” Jacob promised, already pulling apart the
bandages. “It’s not too bad. It will hurt the least if I do it really fast,
like
a
BandAid. I don’t want to make
you
suffer through it
gradually. Think you can handle it? I thought so. You’re being really
brave.”

Sarah gasped through her teeth, visibly holding back tears.
Stringy beads lapsed between the burn and the bandage. It looked
like saliva. Noah hoped it was the aloe.

“I know it hurts. We can make that go away. This stuff smells
funny, but it only stings for a second. It’ll clean it out and keep it
that way, and numb the pain a bit. It should help the healing process
along, too.
You, Miss Sarah, are a trooper.” As he spoke, he
distracted her as he cleaned the gauze from where it started to fuse
in, asking about school starting in the fall and summer plans, how
the day was and what happened. “There you go – all set. I’m going
to talk to your dad about getting some of this for the next few weeks.
There’s a salve you use every three hours, and a wet bandage that
you should change every morning, just like I did it. When it drives
you crazy, you can take two Tylenol.”

Jacob stood up, disappearing through the kitchen doors where
Lee’s head bobbed. It was barely a moment before he returned,
flattening a crumpled script. He approached Noah with a concerned
frown. “It appears your father isn’t interested in investing in
medication.”

Noah blinked. “You’re serious?
He refused the prescription
because he doesn’t want to pay for it?”

 

I can’t even imagine how much they spend on alcohol and
chewing tobacco in a week.

 

Jacob sighed, scratching his head. “So it seems. I don’t know if
you can convince him, but it’s really in her best interest.”

 

Noah set his jaw, glaring at the kitchen doors. “I have no power
over that man, at all, whatsoever.”

Jacob furrowed his brow. "I'm taking the wife to Anchorage this
weekend. In the big stores, there's a generic brand that's over the
counter."
Noah chewed his cheek, mulling over the silent offer.

“How much?” he asked finally.

 

Jacob hesitated, face twisting in sympathy. “Thirty-five on the
low end.”

 

Noah stifled a groan, all business. “I can cover twenty now. I get
paid again on the twentyfifth.”

 

Jacob reached into his bag, shoving a handful of samples into
Noah’s arms.

 

“That’s on me. For the big can, I can cover the rest.” Jacob
insisted, “You’re a good kid, Noah. Your sister's lucky to have you.”

Noah dumped them on a table, sliding a duct-tape wallet from
his back pocket. Pulling out the last of his paycheck, he forked over
the bills.

“It's family,” he shrugged. “You know how it is.”

 

“Something tells me 'family' is limited to you and Baby Bear.”

 

“Most days,” Noah laughed. “Does that make me Goldilocks?”

 

“You might need to borrow Lee’s mullet.”

Noah tried to maintain a straight face, but the image of the
outrageous mane acting as a backwoods understudy for the golden
tresses of the childhood tale was too much. An eruption of laughter
exploded from his chest, resounding in his throat.

Ridiculous suits him. What else do you call a father who can’t
even take care of his kids without four-letter-words?

 

Jacob patted Noah’s back and wiped tears from his own eyes,
still shaking with chuckles as he left the diner.

 

“I’ll pay you back,” Sarah swore.

 

He shook his head, unable to rouse the unspoken ‘hell no’. She
nodded, refusing his refusal.

 

“Put it away for school,” he said, attempting an encouraging
smile.

Reminded of her dream means of ditching Ashland, Sarah burst
into tears. Drawing her knees to her chest, she slid back in the booth,
bandaged arms uselessly at her side. He climbed in the low seat
back-to-back with hers, pushing to the very end.

“Hey –
it’ll be okay. I swear,” he promised. Sarah whimpered,
shaking her head, rubbing her face with her sleeve. “Alright, Sar, let
it out.”

“I’m so angry,” she blurted, voice agonized, face twisted. “I’m
angry at the situation, angry at our parents. I hate this place so much
I feel like I’m going to die if it doesn’t kill me first.”

“This is not forever, though. You’ve got to know that. We’re
going to get out of here.”

 

“No,” Sarah muttered bitterly, “You are.”

 

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You’re going to leave the moment you’re out of school and
you’re going to have beautiful babies and move across the world and
I’ll be stuck in this hell of a town forever.”

“Sarah, I’m not going anywhere without you. We are family.
We’re in this together,” he insisted, fist clenched. “I would never do
that to you.”

“What about Alyson? She’s freaking perfect. What if she wants
you to go away to college? To run away like Aunt Maria?” She
reasoned, looking aggrieved, as if it had already been decided.

“Then I’d send her packing,” he joked. “Seriously, Sarah, Aly
doesn’t change anything.”

 

Not yet.

 

“You’re going to get all wrapped up in her,” she mumbled,
burying her face.

“What if I want to?” Noah sighed, running a hand through his
hair. “Sarah, it doesn’t matter who I know or what I’m doing. We
will get out of here– just not today.”

Sarah raised her face, pieces of hair sticking to her damp cheeks.
His stomach dropped. Noah couldn’t tell if she was glaring or just
broken, but her expression struck him, pain flooding his chest. Her
lower lip trembled, another wave of tears filling her big eyes. Voice
cracking, she pleaded, “I don’t want to be here.”

He hated feeling this way
– seeing his baby sister shattered,
wordlessly begging for an escape.
But he was a cellmate in her
prison, his chains twice as tight because of her. Orange suits and
plastic spoons were just as bad as aprons and silverware, concrete
walls and shackles no different the poverty behind Yazzie’s open
door. They weren’t patrons – the diner was a one way ticket until
graduation papers said otherwise. There was a year until there were
options, best scenario including Sarah’s immediate recruitment in
the great escape, the three-hundred and sixty-five day waiting room
hopefully filled with the incredible curveball of Alyson Glass.

For now, they’d have to duck their heads and scrub the damned
tables.

 

CHAPTER 9 | ALYSON

Recovering from a late night fit of insomnia suffered under the
flashing of a muted television, Aly had slept in for the first time
since her mother died.

It was ten
o’clock before she had cleaned up and gotten dressed;
skipping breakfast to ration what remained from the semi-traumatic
grocery trip.

Her arrival fell
into what Noah called the Weekend PostHangover Breakfast Rush. He had joked that the townies crawled
from the bar to the diner, ready to waste the rest of their pennies on
strong coffee and solids for a queasy stomach.

Despite the crowd, he had insisted she be outfitted with brunch,
on the house, while she waited for the shift to end. She watched him
work, strangely efficient. He was fast, always too nice, always
pathetically tipped. She made a point of paying at the register when
he slipped in the back, once again relieved to drop it on her father’s
tab.

His mother had attended her, both shaking and drowsy, her voice
flowery and curt at once. She was a short and pudgy woman,
dressed in a belly-hugging russet-colored maxi dress and loafers, her
hair in a cropped pixie.

Mary-Agnes sang to herself as she worked, twisting the rosary
looped around her neck in rows, still long enough to hang at her
bosom. At first, the woman seemed too dazed to notice Aly, not
aware enough to remember last night. It wasn’t until Aly claimed the
bill never came when Mary-Agnes examined her, a mix of shifting
expressions – partially toothless grins and heavily lined frowns.
Adding a chunky tip to the tax, the signature neon paper slip was
gone long before she had returned to her seat.

Now, Noah sat at her side. He smelled like green apples, having
freshly showered and changed after having worked the morning.
Sarah had locked herself in her room the night before
and
disappeared before sunrise, muttering that she was spending the day
at Kennedy’s. Noah claimed his parents were embarrassed, quick to
pull up facades and flash shining faces for the Sunday evening
patronage. When he demanded his sister get the day off, MaryAgnes decided Noah should have the afternoon as well, eager to
prove herself to the community without his justified commentaries.

“So a group of people came to my house last night,” Aly
announced.

 

"What?”

“I guess I fell asleep on the couch,” she began, biting her lip. “I
woke up because I kept hearing people yell, ‘Glass! If you don’t
cooperate, we’re going to get a warrant!’ and there were flashlights
through the window, all over the wall. It was so weird.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?”

“I’m sure. They were out there for like ten minutes. I was so
freaked I didn’t fall back asleep for hours,” she sighed. “I hid behind
the chimney when they came to the back deck and looked through
the sliding windows. I walked out there and stood in the dark for a
while.”

It had seemed mob-like, several officers showing up as the sun
fell below the horizon with threats of destroying her life. At first she
went through the options – Greg would get arrested, she would live
with Lauren until she turned eighteen, then she’d go off to school
and figure things out. Her toes cold on the damp wood of the deck,
she thought of those six months without a mother or a father, the
limbo of grief and distance. She was better now, it would be better. It
didn’t seem so complicated until she felt her fingertips running over
her lips, smiling in spite of her fear.