Dig Too Deep (4 page)

Six

“You wanna go inside?” Cole asks.

I'm shivering already and don't think even the bonfire would do much to warm the chill that's settled against my skin. “Yeah. If you don't mind.”

“No. I can tell you're cold.” He takes my hand and smiles at me. I'm kind of melting as he pulls me toward the house. “Your nose is running like a leaky faucet.”

Great.

He turns and heads for the house, my hand still clutched in his, pulling me after him. I stumble along the uneven ground, past piles and piles of cast-off junk.

As we climb the steps, I realize the house isn't a house at all, but a trailer with a shingle roof built over it. A wood deck stretches down the side and dead-ends into an RV that's been welded to the end of the trailer … like an addition. The deck is cluttered with furniture that wasn't technically designed to be outside and one rusty appliance (I think it might be a stove) lying on its side. The music is so loud, Cole has to shout for me to hear him.

“Stick with me, okay?”

“Sure.” I don't bother pointing out the obvious, that I don't know anybody else.

The air is so smoky it seems nearly solid, and by the smell, I can tell there's more than just tobacco here. There are about twenty people inside, standing in groups of threes and fours, red cups and cigarettes in hand.

What I wouldn't give for Iris's wit right now. She'd say something clever, and everybody would laugh and love her right away. Me? I stand here, holding Cole's hand, looking around like I'm super interested in the decor.

“A'ight, y'all,” Cole says. “This is Liberty. She's going to Plurd now.” He pulls me forward and tucks my hand under his arm. “Y'all say hi.”

A couple people do. Most go back to their conversations where, judging by the glances directed at me, I seem to be the new topic. One of the girls—long, blond hair, dark eyes—gives me the once-over, complete with raised eyebrow and frown. I know the look. It says, “You don't belong here.” Or maybe it's, “You don't belong with him.”

I dislike her immediately.

I put my free hand on Cole's bicep and smile at her. It's catty, I know, but nobody tells me where I belong. Or with whom. And if she thinks
she
can just because I'm new, she can kiss my—

“Well, hello, Lady Liberty!” says an oily voice.

The crowd in the living room parts as a man swaggers down the hallway from the back of the trailer. He's got a bottle of whiskey in one hand and, by the way he's hanging onto the walls, it looks like the empty half is in his bloodstream. Cole pushes me behind him and I realize …

This
is the infamous Dobber's Dad.

The fact that I actually stay behind Cole is a pretty good testament to the
scary
this guy gives off. His jeans are filthy, a couple sizes too big, and tied around his skinny waist with some kind of twine. Black hair hangs like yarn past his eyes. He's not wearing a shirt, unless you consider four tattoos and some half-healed sores clothing. Topping it all off, a square box is strapped to his ankle. House arrest monitor.

“Looka here.” He leans toward us, grinning through scabbed lips and pitted, brown teeth. “Shit, girl. You look just like your mama.”

Cole puts his hands up, but stops short of actually touching the guy. I feel the tension in his shoulders and realize he's afraid. “Hang on, now. Aren't you supposed to be in your shop?”

Mr. Dobber's still staring at me. “I took your mama to the junior prom.” His laugh sounds like a Doberman's bark. “Betcha didn't know that.”

No way! This man's the same age as my mom? He looks ancient. But it figures MFM would've been hooked up with this whacko. She always was a crappy judge of character.

A guy the size of a tree lumbers past me and, laughing, wraps an enormous arm around Mr. Dobber's neck. “Daddy! What you doing out here? Don't make me hurt you.”

Cole points. “That's Dobber.”

“I gathered that,” I say.

Mr. Dobber pulls and pushes against his son who's dragging him down the hall toward the RV addition. “I just come out to get some water, jackass.”

“A'ight. You and me'll go back in your shop. Cole'll bring you some water. Won't ya, Coley?”

“Sure thing.” Cole and I head for the kitchen.

“House arrest?” I whisper.

Cole nods.

“What'd he do?”

“Attacked a guy in town.” Cole looks over my head to make sure Mr. Dobber is out of earshot. “Tried to strangle him. It took four men to pull him off.”

“They didn't think he might be better off in jail?”

“Guess not.” He rinses out one of the red cups in the sink and fills it with water from the tap. It's bright orange here too.

“Is he going to drink that?” I ask.

“It's fine, Lib. Just got a little iron in it.”

He pushes his way through the crowd toward the hallway. As I try to decide whether I'd rather stand alone in a room where everybody's staring at me or go with Cole and brave another encounter with Mr. Dobber, somebody bumps into me.

Hard.

I step aside as the pretty blond girl from before pushes past me to the sink. “I bet where you're from, tap water's clear, ain't it?”

I can't tell if she's making conversation or lining up for the kill. “Generally, yes.”

“Well then.” She turns, her arms crossed over her chest. “Maybe you should go home.”

“Maybe I am home.”

“Yeah?” She glances around, and just for a second, the tough mask slips and her eyes go desperate. Like all the dreams she ever had winked out at once. “Too bad for you.”

Given the choice between cold and mud or Dobber's dad and the bitchy blond, I decide the bonfire doesn't sound so bad after all. Cole gets the ick blanket from his car, and we slip-slide our way across the mud field. My boots will never be the same, but Cole keeps his arm around me, which kinda makes up for ruined suede.

The crowd at the bonfire is more laid-back. Three girls sitting at a picnic table pass around a bottle of pink wine. Some guy with a banjo is picking it quietly while another guy follows along on a harmonica. I haven't heard banjo music since Granddaddy died. I remember him playing it after dinner while Granny danced in the kitchen. I'd try to keep up with her, but her footwork was so fast. Like hummingbird wings.

Cole and I take an open bench close to the fire and he pulls the blanket across our backs. We have to sit close for it to cover us both. That's when I decide bonfires don't suck.

His face is really close, and I can smell the orange Tic Tacs we ate on the way from the car. The fire's turned his skin gold and thrown his dimples into sharp relief. He is. So. Beautiful. I wonder if his lips are soft, if his skin smells like soap, if his mouth tastes like oranges.

“So,” I say, to cover the lust bunnies hopping around my head.

“So?” His voice is different. Deeper. “What?” It's a rhetorical question, since we're both already leaning toward each other. When our lips touch, warmth shoots through my body. I don't feel the wind. I don't feel the fire—just Cole's lips and his tongue, teasing mine. His hand slides up, and I tense, thinking he's going to grab my boob, but he touches my face instead, the back of my neck, pulling me into him.

I relax and melt against him, relieved he's not moving too fast. Just fast enough, as Iris would say. The warmth of his hand, the fire, his lips—I'm lost in this moment. This orange-candy-flavored, soap-scented moment. Just as I'm sliding my arms around his neck, something heavy lands on my back.

“Coley, my brother!” Dobber's behind us with a hand on each of our shoulders. “You gonna introduce me to your new friend?”

Cole looks like he'd rather punch him in the face. We untangle ourselves as Dobber laughs and sits down next to me on the bench.

“Sorry about him,” Cole says to me. “Dobber learned his manners from goats.”

“Manners?” Dobber snorts. “What manners?”

“Ain't that the truth. Liberty, this is Dobber. Dobber, Liberty.”

Dobber holds out an enormous hand and I shake it. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance.” He's so tall I have to lean back to look up at him. His dark hair is a little long, but not stringy like his dad's. His eyes are light, maybe blue. He's nowhere close to cute, not like Cole. His teeth are crooked, and his face is wide. But he's charming. Way charming. Maybe that's why Cole told me to stay away from him.

“It's nice to meet you,” I say.

“So, where you from?” Dobber asks.

“Far, far away,” Cole says. “Where I wish you were.”

“Did I ask you, butthead?” Dobber turns to me, waiting.

“DC,” I say. “But Kat Briscoe is my granny.” I'm not sure why I add that. Maybe to prove I'm not an outsider.

“Is'at right?” He looks surprised. Or impressed. Or maybe he's just being nice. I can't read him at all. “You just visiting or you staying for a while?”

“I'm staying.” Funny how that gets easier every time I say it.

“Sweet! We could use another pretty girl 'round here.” His smile has gravity, tugging on me like the moon on the tides. I suspect he has half the girls in town wrapped around his giant little finger. “How you liking Ebbottsville so far?”

Cole groans. “Come on, man. Can't you get the 411 some other time? We were kinda in the middle of something.”

Dobber laughs loud, and everybody around the fire jumps. “A'ight, fine. Go back to your previous activities.” He stands up and the bench springs a little. “Be safe though.” Winking at me, he adds, “You know what I'm talking 'bout, right?”

“Ignore him. He's a dog,” Cole says as Dobber walks off. He's smiling though, and I can tell they're good friends.

Dobber walks over to the three girls near the picnic table. The wine bottle is empty now, sideways on the ground. The girls are huddled together, smoking. Now that they're standing, I can tell the girl on the end is pregnant. Really pregnant.

“She shouldn't be smoking,” I say.

Cole snorts. “She shouldn't have done a lot of things.”

“Well … yeah, I guess.”

“Casey's like a public telephone. Half the county's dialed her up.”

“Cole!” Maybe it's true, but the way he just discounts her … It makes me not like him so much.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “That was mean.”

“Yeah, it was,” I say. “She made a mistake. Maybe a lot of mistakes.” Cole's leaning away from me, and I'm desperately wishing my mouth would stop moving, but for some reason, I'm driven to defend this girl I don't know. “She's still a human being, you know.” The minute MFM's words come out of my mouth, I stop cold.

Cole's eyebrows are pulled together as he looks at me. I'm still reeling from my brief mind meld with MFM. At the same time, I'm expecting Cole to tell me off or say I should find someone else to take me home. Instead, he stares at me and says, “You're different, Liberty. Different from people 'round here.”

Unexpected, that. Is it a good thing? Or a bad thing? “Different how?”

But then his arms slide around me and his lips are on mine again, and I can't remember what the question was.

Seven

“You can't be serious,” I mumble from under the comforter.

“Serious as a heart attack,” Granny says. “Get your skinny butt up and get dressed for church.”

I listen as her flip-flops shuffle down the hall. It's not like I hate church. I'd just rather keep replaying in my mind the kisses from last night. At the fire. In the car. At the front door. Mmm. Cole's a great kisser. Way better than Ryan Miller, the drool machine.

“Liberty! I don't hear no movement in there!”

“All right, you cranky old—”

“You sure you wanna finish that?” She's back in my doorway, this time with a rolled up newspaper.

I fling the covers back and sit up. “Happy?”

She just grunts and walks away.

Unity Baptist Church hasn't changed much since the last time I was here. The pews are still hard, it still needs paint, and despite those things, it's still packed full. Granny takes her usual seat, outside aisle of the second row.

I recognize Granny's friend Myrna Lattimer sitting just ahead of us.

She takes my hand. “Libby darling, when you walked in, I coulda sworn you was your mama.”

Ergh.

“You are the spittin' image!”

I try to smile around my gritted teeth. “It's nice to see you again.”

“How is Jamie?”

Clearly, Granny hasn't told anybody about MFM's arrest. I wish I could have gotten away with that in DC.

Luckily, Myrna doesn't wait for an answer. “Lordy, I can still see her, stomping around the courthouse with that sign of hers. What was she so fired up about, Kat?”

Granny snorts. “Which time?”

“Ain't that the truth? She was a serious little thing. Always trying to save somebody,” Myrna says. “I had her in kindygarten. It was her job to hand out the cookies, 'cause I knew she'd make sure ever'body got the 'xact same amount.”

I can't listen to this anymore and start scooting out of the pew. Granny grabs my arm before I get two steps.

“D'you do something new to your hair, Myrna?” she asks. “Looks real nice.”

“Thank you. I'm so tickled you noticed.”

I'm pretty sure Myrna's hair looks exactly the same as it did five years ago, except grayer. Actually, the whole congregation is looking pretty gray. And a little scary. There are enough people breathing off oxygen tanks that I'm starting to worry about the lit candle over by the organ.

Glancing around, I see a few people from the party last night, including my new blond frenemy, looking very Taylor Swift with her big, brown eyes. Banjo guy is there next to the organ, but playing a guitar today. Pregnant Casey's here too, and Cole's in the back row with some guy I don't recognize. I start to get up, thinking I'll go sit with him, when Granny grabs my arm again.

“No way, Jose,” she says.

“I was just going to go sit with—”

“I know exactly what you was gonna do,” she whispers through a fake smile for the benefit of the church ladies. “But this here's church, not a dating service.”

“I was just going to
sit
with him.”

“And now you're not.” She shoves a book into my hands. “Find me hymn fifty-three. Them daggum page numbers is so little, I can't tell the eights from the sixes.”

Shaking my head, I flip to the right page and hand the hymnal back.

I never loved church, but sitting here now while a hundred voices harmonize on “The Sweet By-and-By,” I can see why Granny comes. It's peaceful. Whether it comes from the presence of a Holy Spirit or just knowing that this—the service, the people, the singing—will never change, I don't know. But I like it. Even the sermon, which always lasted forever when I was little, flies by, and before I know it, the preacher is announcing the final song.

“We're gonna wrap up with hymn one-oh-three this morning. I'd like to dedicate the song to our brothers and sisters in Christ who couldn't be with us today, being sick or laid up.” He takes a sheet of paper out of his bible. “Please join me this week in praying for …”

The names go on, about sixteen in all, which seems like a lot for a small church. But there are a lot of old people here.

The preacher folds his list, says amen, and then we're singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” I've always liked that song, and I actually join in, despite the fact that I'm completely tone-deaf. Granny puts her arm around me and says in my ear, “Sing it loud, girl. God don't care about the notes!”

I check my messages in the churchyard while Granny chats with her friends. There are a few texts from Iris, which I return. And a voice mail from MFM that I delete.

I'm texting Iris,
party last night with the cutest guy ever
, when Cole walks up.

“I didn't take you for a churchgoer.” He leans against Granny's car, next to me, so close, I can feel the heat of his arm even through my coat.

“I wasn't given an option.” I hit send and slide the phone into my pocket.

“Me either. Mama even makes us come when we're sick.”

I laugh, which is lame because that wasn't all that funny. “Well, it's Christian to share, right? Even germs.”

“I reckon.” He glances across the parking lot. “How come your mama didn't come?”

I knew there'd be questions about that woman. “She's not living here. Just me.”

“She stayed in DC?”

I nod.

Cole frowns. “I don't get it. If she's living there, seems like you'd wanna stay at your fancy school.” He stares at me for a second, then smiles. “Unless you got kicked out.”

I'll take any opportunity to steer the conversation away from MFM. “Something like that.”

He slides one arm around me. “Dang girl. You don't seem like a hell-raiser. What'd you do?”

“I'd rather not talk about it.” I'd rather focus on how his thumb is resting right on my hip bone.

He half smiles, staring at my mouth.

With a spasm somewhere near my bellybutton, I realize he's going to kiss me. I snuggle into his arm and tilt my head up, just a little, hoping Granny's looking the other way.

“Gagging!” My new blond frenemy is standing in front of us. “Really, Cole? Is she the best you can do?”

“Go to hell, Ashleigh.”

Ah. A name. I bet she spells it with two
E
's. Maybe three.

“Nice language,” she says. “I see church made a big impression on you.”

Cole mumbles something and plants a quick kiss on the side of my head. “I gotta go,” he says quietly. “I'll call you.”

“Okay. See ya.”

I watch him walk away, acutely aware of Ashleigh's eyes boring into the side of my head.

“He won't,” she says.

I wait a few seconds before turning to her. “Won't what?”

“Call you.” She smiles, and I hate the fact that she's drop-dead gorgeous. “So don't get your hopes up. He'll shit on you just like he shit on every other girl he's dated.”

“Like you?” I return the poison smile. “I'm not every other girl.” But I'm wondering just how many other girls there were.

“Right. You're special. You were born somewhere else. Someplace rich. Someplace you can drink the water without getting sick.”

“Wait … what?” That's the second time she's mentioned the water.

Before Ashleigh can answer, Granny flip-flops up beside me.

“Ashleigh, shug, how's your granddaddy?” she asks. I've seldom heard her voice so gentle; it's like she's talking to a baby.

Ashleigh turns to Granny, looking more like a blond cherub than the glare-y witch I've grown to know and not love. “He's hanging in there. Thanks for asking.”

Granny pats her arm. “You tell him I asked after him. Y'all is in my prayers.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Briscoe.” Ashleigh smiles and I have trouble believing this is the same girl who just bitched me out for being born in a different town. “I'll tell him.” She heads across the parking lot without so much as a parting sneer for me, which seems weird. It's not like her to miss an opportunity for meanness.

“What's wrong with her granddad?” I ask, staring after Ashleigh.

No answer.

I look over at Granny, and she's glaring daggers—no, more like Uzis—at me. “What?”

“Didn't I tell you church ain't no dating service?”

“Huh?” It takes me a minute to realize she's talking about Cole. “We didn't do anything. He was just standing here.”

“Get in the car.” She pulls open the passenger door, which squeals like a garbage truck, and flops down.

“So I'm not even allowed to talk to him?”

“Just get in the car.”

“Is that just at church? Or everywhere?”

“Get in the dad-blame car, Liberty!” And then she's coughing again.

“Nice language.” I slam her door and walk around the car to the driver's side. Inside, I fumble through her purse, looking for the water I put in there this morning. “There is nothing wrong with me standing next to Cole or sitting next to him at church.” I open the bottle and hand it to her. “This isn't 1950.”

“It ain't Worshington, DC, neither.”

I look across the churchyard, past the old people, at the squared-off top where Tanner's Peak used to be and think about what Ashleigh said about the water. Then I look at Granny, trying to rub the little drops of blood off her hand before I see them. A spasm of worry shudders through my chest.

No
, I think.
This is a long way from DC
.