What You Leave Behind (12 page)

“I don’t know.”

“Then why the fuck did you call me?”

“Have you seen her?”

The question hits Austin with an unseen force and he pitches forward. Unsettled, he roughly grips the back of the sofa to steady himself, his fingers sinking right through the thin leather. Though somewhere in the back of his mind, Austin knew that he would, he cannot believe Liam actually has the gall to ask about her, and it leaves him in a shocked sort of silence.

Liam counts the quiet as permission to proceed and continues, “Harper—I haven’t said her name in so—”

“You don’t get to ask about Harper,” Austin snarls, getting his bearings, getting upright. He paces as much of the room as the corded phone lets him, fury in every step. “You lost that right when you fled town like a little pussy.”

“Austin, please—”

“No.”

“I just need to know she’s okay.”

“That’s it? You just need to know she’s okay? Well, she’s fine, Liam. She’s perfect.” Austin’s answer is biting sarcasm, but the pained gasp on the other end of the line tells him that Liam hasn’t caught on. Realizing this, he takes it further, digging the knife of his words into wounds that deserve to be fatal. “I guess you did the right thing.”

“You’re joking,” Liam says brokenly into the line and Austin cannot help the satisfied smile that graces his mouth at the sound of Liam’s pain. “Tell me that’s not—I only did this so that I’d know—so she’d know, you know?”

“I don’t, actually,” he tells him, his tone outright unsympathetic. With his anger leveling off, Austin’s goal changes. He’s done putting Liam in his place. He wants to see if he can hurt Liam as badly as Liam has hurt Harper, instead. His smile grows wider and for the first time, he’s thankful that Jimmy’s sadistic blood runs in his veins. “I do know that you did the right thing by leaving her, though. She’s better off without you. I mean, this new guy she’s—”

“New guy? What? Do—do I know him?”

“Does it matter who it is?” Austin asks with a lazy shrug of his shoulders. “Does it matter? You didn’t want her, right?”

“I did—I do,” Liam counters. “I love her.”

“Yeah, well, what’s done is done,” Austin replies as he reclines against the wall next to the phone’s base, and rolls up his sleeves as if it’s the most casual and unimportant conversation in the world. It isn’t either one, but Austin feels like he’s accomplished what he set out to do.  Liam is broken and banished, and Austin relishes the soft sounds of his cries on the other end of the line. He checks the time on his wristwatch, sees it’s officially lunchtime, and decides he’s wasted enough time on Liam. “Look, I’ve got to get goin’. Some of us have jobs to keep and shit. Look up my cousin while you’re there. She’s a petite, little redhead—just your type, you know. As for the one you left behind, you’re probably better off leaving that for good.”

Without waiting for a reply, Austin disconnects the line.

In the quiet aftermath of the call, Austin rakes his hands over his face and heaves out a sigh. Whatever exhaustion he felt before was purely physical. Now, he’s spent in every sense of the word. Locking the break room door, he turns off the overhead lights, curls onto the battered sofa, and closes his eyes, hoping to recoup some of his lost energy during his lunch break.

Not even a minute into his attempted nap, there’s a jiggle of the locked knob, followed by a soft knock at the door. He throws his arm over his eyes and tries to ignore the sound. The knock grows louder, turns to a pounding, and Austin resigns himself to enervation as he gets to his feet and pulls open the heavy wooden door
before another knock can sound.

“Hi.” Harper stands on the other side of the threshold, blank-faced and wide-eyed, with a brown paper bag held to her chest with crossed arms. “Is now a bad time?”

Austin smiles softly, still weary but vivified at the sight of her. “Of course not,” he says, stepping out of her path. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you,” she tells him, and she knows the words sound sad—like there’s the wrong kind of emphasis on
wanted
. She carelessly drops the brown bag onto the sofa and crosses her arms over her chest again. She leans back against the wall beside the door, completely ignoring Austin’s widespread, welcoming arms. Dodging his stare, she looks at the linoleum between them and quietly asks, “So, how’s your day going?”

“Oh, you know, same ol’, same ol’.” Harper sees the tips of his boots come into view as he takes a step toward her. He crouches, attempting to look her in the eye as he gently asks, “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know, Austin. Is it?” Harper snaps.

“I’m asking you,” he counters slowly, his eyebrows pinching together in confusion and worry. “What’s going on?”

“You tell me.”

“I would, if I knew.”

“So, you aren’t aware you just talked to Liam? Or that you told him that he did the right thing? You aren’t aware you just outright lied to me?” Harper asks bluntly, leveling her stare on Austin, as he pales and staggers out of his crouch. Before he can get to her, she says, “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” and walks out of the break room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Austin goes after her as quickly as he can, but his smoker’s lungs can’t keep up with her runner’s legs in the cold winter air, and he loses her before he even makes it off the yard. Shaking his head and cursing to himself the whole way, Austin half runs, half walks the half mile from the lumberyard to the deli, only to find she’s nowhere in sight. He’s terrified he’s lost her in more ways than one.

Through the dense lunch crowd, he spots Kevin, standing out like an awkward lighthouse overlooking the sea of customers—his lanky frame reaches even higher than Austin’s. 

“Is Harp here?” he shouts at Kevin, hurriedly pushing past patrons and leaning over the cold case. Kevin, overwhelmed and undermanned, doesn’t even register Austin’s question, let alone his presence. With a heavy exhale, Austin reaches out and snatches Kevin’s hairnet, gaining his notice. “Carter, I asked you a question.”

“Sorry, um, what’s—what’s up?” Kevin asks with a stammer, nervously handing Austin his undivided attention as the customer beside Austin sighs dramatically. “Sorry, ma’am,” Kevin mutters to the older woman. His gaze darts back and forth between her and Austin—the latter being much larger and more threatening, and thus, who Kevin aims to tend to more urgently. “Just one second.”

“Is Harper here?” Austin asks again, less of a shout this time and more of a whimper. “I need to find her.”

“I don’t know if—”

“She’s not here, Austin,” Hilary says brusquely as she appears, blocking the doorway to the back of the shop with her meat cleaver prominently displayed in her hand. “Haven’t seen her all day.”

Hilary isn’t fooling him, but Austin knows better than to tussle with Mrs. Reed, particularly when she has a cleaver in her hand. Though Hilary seems like the world’s friendliest woman, with her Christmas sweater, silvery hair, and smile lines—a modern Mrs. Claus, really—he’s well aware of the fiery temper and fierce protectiveness that lingers within her, constantly at the ready. “Well, if you do see her,” he says loudly, hoping Harper can hear him over the crowd from wherever she’s hiding in the shop, “please let her know that I’m sorry. Incredibly sorry. Beyond sorry.” Hilary’s face remains impassive, as he says this, and he knows when to quit. “Okay. I’ll just—I’ll be going then. But please tell her.” Defeated, he nods at Hilary, who nods in return, and drops Kevin’s hairnet atop the cold case, before sulking out the door and out onto Main Street.

In the back of the shop, Hilary returns her cleaver to her knife block, dropping it in with a heavy thud. At the sound, Harper heaves out a sigh and her taut body slumps back against the stainless steel table, her palms catching her slackening body against it as she comes undone.

“Is he gone?” she asks, distress clear in her tear-strangled voice.

“Yes, ma’am. Now, you’ve got some explaining to do,” Hilary says tersely, eyeing Harper with enough seriousness in her glance to unsettle her even more so than she already is. “What’s going on?”

“It’s complicated,” Harper laments with another sigh as she scrubs her hands over her eyes, smearing her makeup beyond repair. Mascara and eyeliner mix with the dampness of lingering tears and leave black smudges all around her reddened eyes, but she doesn’t care or notice. Hilary does, however, and licks her thumb in an attempt to erase the marks from her daughter’s skin, but Harper pushes her hands away. “Mom, stop. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Hilary opposes, nodding toward the knife block beside her. “When you ask me for a favor that includes the words,
Mom, I need you to go out there with a big knife and tell Austin I’m not here
, that’s the exact opposite of fine.”

“I don’t even know how to explain it.”

“Start with ‘Mom, I needed you to threaten the life of a man because…’ and go from there.”

After Harper explains everything as best she can and is all cried out, Hilary tells her, “Harp, maybe—and just hear me out here—but maybe it’s time to, you know, work on you a little bit. Be alone for a while. You were with Liam for so long and you haven’t given yourself the proper time to heal. I know you’re a little better than you were before, but three months isn’t near enough time to fully recover from ten years. I think you need to figure you out, who you are without someone else, before you do any more damage to yourself—or to Austin.” Harper doesn’t say anything, only nods slowly, absorbing the advice and storing it away for later, when she might be able to process it. “And this is what I meant, by the way, when I said to be careful about Austin. Not because of—I didn’t really give a fuck about the arrests. I mean, everyone knows Jimmy Hayward’s a piece of shit. I meant because he loves you and I didn’t want to see either of you hurt, honey—more hurt than you already are.”

“You knew?”

“You didn’t?” Harper’s mouth falls open, searching for words, but before she can answer, her phone rings sharply from where it sits in her purse in the office—
A State of Texas
by the Old 97s cuts cleanly through the silence from the other room. Without asking her to, Hilary goes after it and answers the call. She cups her hand over the receiver as she whispers, “I can’t knife him over the phone,” before moving her hand away and saying, “Austin, just don’t, okay? Give her some time.” When she hangs it up, she gives Harper a shrug and tosses her phone into the trashcan beside her desk.

“Bit extreme, maybe?” Harper asks, fishing out the phone from where it’s fallen beneath an array of envelopes and stacks of used takeaway coffee cups from the front of the shop.

“This from the girl who asked me to stab a guy,” Hilary retorts. “Now, go get yourself a manicure or read a book or do yoga or some shit. I mean it.”

“I’m not really in the mood for—”

“I don’t care. Go.” Hilary hugs Harper firmly and as she kisses her cheek, she tells her, “You’ll thank me later.”

CHAPTER NINE

Harper has never been on the frilly, pink end of feminine—a butchery apprenticeship since she was thirteen, a penchant for running, rafting, skiing, and getting sweaty—so she has trouble reconciling the pale mauve polish that’s lacquered onto her short fingernails by a nice man named Jung-Su. But Clare says it looks pretty with her skin tone and Harper knows that if anyone knows pretty, it’s Clare Carter. Though she’s Kevin’s twin, they’re fraternal, and the genetics were distributed as unfairly as possible, weighing heavily in Clare’s favor. As odd and awkward as Kevin is, Clare is normal and composed. She’s long legs and blonde hair, blue eyes and white teeth, tanned skin and a tiny waist, brilliant and kind, too. Clare is a classical kind of perfect, something which Harper has always admired, but never envied. But Harper is trying to find herself and she wonders if maybe more Clare-like is what she’s supposed to be, which is what has led her to accompany Clare to the Blue Giraffe Spa in the middle of a Thursday afternoon.

“You haven’t touched your wine,” Clare notes, blowing on her rose-colored polish before picking up her own glass and drinking down a sip or two. “Not a fan?”

“Wet nails,” Harper says dully, as if it isn’t obvious that Jung-Su has just finished polishing them. She may not get them often, but this isn’t her first manicure, and she knows better than to attempt to do anything with freshly polished nails. “I don’t want to mess them up.”

“You don’t use your nails to pick up stemware,” Clare laughs softly, giving Harper’s glass an encouraging nudge in her direction. Harper smiles at Clare wryly, grabs the glass, and pointedly takes a sip. She’s rewarded with a quiet clap and a proud, “There you go, champ,” from Clare. “That color looks really good on you, by the way. Good job on that, too. All-around winner.”

“You picked it,” Harper reminds her humbly.

“Yes, but you didn’t turn it down, so you’re equally responsible for its greatness.” Clare takes another sip of her rapidly disappearing Prosecco and asks, “What’s it called?”

Before Harper can shrug, Clare continues, “It’s on the bottom of the bottle.”

“
Blushing Bride
,” Harper reads off the label, and then scoffs, “Only not. Ever. At all.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Clare objects, wagging one perfectly manicured finger at her. “You’re not supposed to be thinking about your love life—either love life.” Clare looks thoughtful for a moment before she reaches for the bottle of wine that sits between their manicure stations and fills Harper’s glass to the brim. “What? Your mother made me promise to distract you at all costs.”

“I don’t think she meant to—”

“Drink up,” Clare instructs, ignoring Harper’s protestation as she pours herself another glass. “I mean, come on, if you don’t get drunk, how am I ever going to get you to tell me what happened?”

“Isn’t that the direct opposite of distracting me at all costs?” Harper asks, but takes a sip anyway. “I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Yes, but we’re friends now, right? Friends tell each other things.” Clare nods knowingly and tops off Harper’s glass—the progress her small sip made vanishes instantly. “And, I mean, I can’t help you, if I don’t know what’s wrong. And I’m supposed to be helping you, helping you figure out who you are and what you want and how to be happy. I don’t want to, like, talk about ponies, if ponies somehow remind you of Li—Am I allowed to say his name?” Harper nods with an amused smirk, liking the way Clare talks and thinks. “If ponies remind you of Liam.”