Million Dollar Road (8 page)

“Shoot, honey,” Sarah said loudly over the redneck dirge. “That hundred dollars wasn't much at all, not to me. My dear, old, departed daddy owned most of the frontage out there on Highway 190. That was way before the shit-stupid New Orleans invasion rolled in over here and bought it all up. Hell, I've got
plenty
of money.” Sarah cackled, probably not regretting in the least the lost pastures, marshes, oak, and pine trees that were now chain restaurants, auto dealerships, and strip malls.

“Besides, I believe that child's doing the best she can,” Sarah went on. “Know her father, too—stepfather, that is. Bud Hooten's a hell of a good man who's been dealt a shitty goddamned hand.” Sarah's feet, shod in a pair of child-sized cowboy boots and dangling inches above the truck's carpeting, swung in apparent indignation at the thought of Bud Hooten's luckless state.

“How so?” Emma asked, curious.

The old woman snorted. “Known Bud since he played halfback for Covington High, purt near twenty-two years ago. Poor bonehead bastard got himself hooked up with a trashy piece from Tylertown when he was working for the Parish. No-count bitch took off like they always do and left him with two little kids to raise all on his own. Now that gal would be the oldest, Lireinne. She'd be about eighteen by now. Real looker, isn't she?”

Emma kept her eyes on the road and nodded. “She's . . .
beautiful
. Unusually so. Even with that scar, she's just plain gorgeous. Beauty like that must come with its own set of problems, I'd think.”

“No doubt.” Thankfully, Sarah turned the radio down. “Sure has lost a pile of weight, that one. You should have seen her before. I seem to recall she'd always been a kid with a little more meat on her bones than was good for her, but for a while there she ballooned up like a goddamned life raft. Don't know why. Lord knows her asshole mother was never fat. Nowadays I'd almost say Lireinne's the image of her mom, only better lookin'. Classy, somehow, where her mother was always got up like a whore, no better than trash with a coat of paint slapped on it. No, that Lireinne could be a gal in one of those old-fashioned pictures, like the kind they got over in Europe. Good-looking as hell, except you can't miss but that she'd have a story to tell, too.”

Emma said thoughtfully, “And only eighteen. No matter how pretty she is, though, it can't have been easy for her, having no mother when she was growing up. I admire that—her wanting to take care of an abandoned horse, especially when you can tell money's a real problem for her.”

“Ain't
that
the goddamned truth.”

Emma thought some more as the truck barreled down the highway past the turnoff to Million Dollar Road, a mile or so from Sarah's farm. She knew about being eighteen years old with no mother. And, she remembered once more with a pang, her daughter would've been eighteen this year, too. Emma had always been sure that her child would have been a girl, even though she'd lost the baby before the ultrasound could positively confirm it. What hope she'd had when she learned she was pregnant, what elation. Coming so soon after Con's graduation from law school, the pregnancy had been unlooked for but full of joy nonetheless. An only child, Emma had always wanted lots of children, and this baby was the beginning of her big family.

But one overcast day in her second month, Emma had been planting snapdragons and pansies in the yard and felt a sudden cramp in the small of her back, a bad one that grew rapidly worse. Somehow making it to the house, she'd called Con and they'd rushed to the obstetrician's office as the pain threatened to become unbearable. The tests at the hospital soon destroyed all her hope: it was an ectopic pregnancy, one that would never have come to term without killing Emma and her baby. Now the tiny life inside her was dying. The fetal monitor's faint
whush, whush, whush
stuttered, stalled, and then it was gone.

It was the last time she would hear the music of her daughter's beating heart.

“There'll be other babies,” Con had said. He was crying, holding her hand as the hospital staff prepped her for surgery. Emma had been numb, facing the procedure that would separate her from her daughter, but she squeezed his hand. Trying to be strong for his sake, all she wanted was to turn her face to the wall and wish for death to take her, too.

“Lots of babies,” she said faintly.

But there hadn't been any more babies. After years of trying, that chance of a child had been Emma's one and only chance. Perhaps—no matter that he'd said it wasn't the reason—perhaps that was the reason he'd left her. Con had found someone else because she hadn't been enough for him by herself.

But still . . . Eighteen years ago, Emma had had a child of her own, however briefly.

Motherless Lireinne Hooten was eighteen.

“Do you think she'd be offended if I . . . offered to do something for her?” Emma wondered out loud. Not wanting to be misunderstood, though, she added quickly, “With some more money for the cause, I mean. I could do that. I never spend all of my alimony check, and the farm's almost pulling its own weight these days.” Emma's natural reticence prevented a more personal involvement, but if money would make a difference, she was certain she should do it.

Sarah's wrinkled, age-spotted face turned reflective.

“Don't know 'bout that. Those country folks can be prideful. Lireinne only took that money from me because she wanted it for Mose. Damned horses are expensive to keep. She'll blow through that hundred dollars in a hurry, although I'm sure it seemed like a shitload of cash to her. It'd be best to get that old horse moved off the Legendre place before too much longer, find him a real home before winter comes. Didn't sound like he was doing so goddamned hot.”

Emma slowed the truck, making the turn off the highway and onto the gravel road leading to Sarah's forty-acre farm. “Well, you could arrange a rescue for him. Then he'll be fine, right?” Hearing Sarah's proposed plan, however, she felt a sudden, obscure disappointment.

“I could do that, surely,” Sarah agreed. “And I likely will, sooner or later, but that's a ways off yet. I've seen this kind of situation before. Right now that child feels responsible for him, she loves him. You heard her—he's been a big part of who she is, ever since she was a little thing. Lireinne won't want that horse to go, even though she can't afford him. Shit, if you really want to help out, go over there, get to know her. Haul feed to Bud's place while we wait on her to come around. Besides, I'm mortally certain money's not the only problem there. Transportation's got to be a real bitch for those folks, and I'd bet my damned pacemaker Lireinne needs somebody besides an old horse in her life, too. Someone of the female persuasion.”

The big silver truck rolled to a stop in front of Sarah's neat farmhouse, the dust a gritty cloud hanging over the gravel road. Seven cats leapt off their perches on the porch railings and came trotting across the yard to meet them, their tails erect as furry flagpoles.

“Back the truck up to the shed, why don't you,” Sarah said, sounding tired. “These days, a hundred goddamn pounds of feed weighs more than it used to. I'm turning eighty-one next month.”

“Happy birthday,” Emma said absently. She was still thinking. “About the girl, Lireinne—I'm sure she won't want someone butting in.” Actually, her strong, fierce beauty had been fascinating, but a little intimidating as well. Emma hadn't been able to bring herself to offer more than a shy nod to the girl during the whole feed-store encounter.

The two women got out and walked around to the back of the truck.

“Besides,” Emma said with a dismissive shake of her head, “I know next to nothing about horses, and you know me, I'm so stupidly shy, it's embarrassing. Can't I just give you some money for her?” The cats twining around her ankles, Emma dropped the tailgate and swung the first bag of feed over her shoulder. “Where do you want this?”

Opening the door, Sarah pointed to a wooden pallet in the corner of her relentlessly organized shed. “Over there,” she said. “Look, Emma, I already told you money's not Lireinne's only problem. Shit, if that was all that's wanted here, I'd do it myself. Now
you
—you've got nothing at all going on until it's time to put in your fall garden. It's too damned hot to do that yet, so get off your ass and drive out to Bud's place. It's just over there on Million Dollar Road. There's a damned mailbox on the road, says ‘Hooten,' so you can't miss it. You've got a truck, Lireinne needs help keeping that old horse fed, and I know Bud's hardly ever home before dark—if he gets home at all, which seems unlikely. Man's a goddamned fool for work.”

“But I'd need . . .” Emma was appalled at the idea of calling on people she didn't even know. She dropped the heavy bag on the pallet, turning to face her friend.

Sarah said, “What you
need
is to get out more. You're too damned young to spend the rest of your life cooned up on your farm like you do. For crap's sake, it's not natural.”

Emma's reluctance was wavering—until she remembered Con. He was working at the alligator farm on Million Dollar Road, and it sounded likely the Hootens' place was close. Seeing him, even in passing, wasn't something she could withstand. Emma was sure of
that
. Look what had happened after only a phone call. Her fragile equilibrium had been reduced to ash, months of hard-won coping scattered far and wide.

“I don't know, Sarah. Con works out there on Million Dollar Road, you know. What if, what if I ran into him?” It was another reason, Emma thought, to avoid venturing into the Hooten girl's backyard. “I don't think I can afford . . . seeing him, not without a lot of medication.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

Sarah made a rude noise. “What you can't afford is
lonely
. Get over it, Emma. It's been two years, hasn't it? Quit hiding out from your ex, quit burying yourself in that damned little organic hole. Make an effort to know your neighbors at least, since it looks like you're never going to try to get to know a
man
.”

This was a warning shot, a promise of more advice to come. Getting out more and meeting men was one of the old woman's constant harangues, one that always left Emma feeling frustratingly tongue-tied. Any further resistance would soon collapse in the face of Sarah's bullying anyway: besides, Emma knew her friend was only pressing her to do what
somebody
needed to do—no matter that Sarah's somebody did it under friendly duress—and so she capitulated at last.

“Okay, okay! Since you're so godawful pushy, I'll try to go out there.”

“When?” Sarah demanded.

When indeed, Emma was thinking as she heaved the second bag of horse feed over her shoulder. Look at it this way, she told herself. Wouldn't you have wanted someone to help your own daughter if she needed it? Of course you would.

True, too, it had been a long time since she'd reached out to anyone, Emma realized, even in simple kindness. Much too long a time. That, she knew with a new beam of understanding, wasn't a part of herself she should be willing to give up at any price. Helping Lireinne Hooten could be good for her as well. Doing a small favor, costing her little or nothing, would be scary, yes, but it would be . . .
new
. Hadn't she already decided that her life needed to change?

You'll have to reinvent yourself, Emma
.

And surely there'd be little chance of running into Con if she made the trip out to Million Dollar Road when he wasn't likely to be there. He'd never worked Saturdays, right?

“Maybe Saturday?” Emma murmured, thinking out loud. She dropped the bag of feed on the pallet and rejoined Sarah outside. A black-and-white-spotted cat lay flat on the warm metal truck bed, stretching its sinuous length beside Emma's bag of chicken feed. She picked up the cat, stroking a fingertip under its silky chin. The cat purred, its eyes half closed in pleasure.

“Maybe on Saturday,” Emma said. “I'll think about it.”

“Hmmph.” Sarah slammed shut the door to the shed. “Don't think too long. She'll be out of feed by next Saturday. Take a damned bag of oats out there. The piece-of-shit Mercedes won't be fixed by then so I flat can't do it. Somebody needs to help Lireinne out, and that person ought to be
you,
Emma. Be good for you both.”

The warm, pink summer evening was flaming into a cyclamen dusk. Emma's chickens and Sheba would be waiting back at the farm, as hungry for their dinner as though they'd not been fed for a week. With a tired nod, she put the cat on the ground and gave Sarah a quick hug.

Before climbing into her truck, Emma wondered what she was getting herself into, but deep inside she knew Sarah was right. She could do this small thing for someone else. Childless, alone except for a stray dog and a bunch of chickens, wandering around her house terrified of voices that weren't there—something needed to change, and soon.

Emma rolled down the power window. “Next Saturday for sure,” she said. Sarah's stubborn, lined face relaxed into a gratified smile.

“Good,” she said shortly.

“But just the one time,” Emma warned. Just this once, she'd make herself do it. “After that, your car will be fixed and you can take over.”

“Bullshit,” said Sarah Fortune.

T
he alarm clock had gone off an extra thirty minutes earlier this past week, but to Lireinne that lost half hour of sleep was well worth getting up with the sun.

She'd learned to love this new part of her routine, hanging out with Mose while he scarfed his breakfast. Sharing that time with him made her long day at the alligator farm seem a little shorter, too, knowing that she was going to get to feed him again after work. Like, that horse
loved
to eat. He'd hoovered up almost the whole sack of oats already.

This Friday morning in the kitchen, she scooped Mose's feed with a big plastic measuring cup from the scant layer of oats on the bottom of the bag. Lireinne worried that Bud wouldn't be able to take her to Montz's tomorrow. He'd said he'd try, but still: while Lireinne knew he'd do his best, some things just couldn't be helped. Bud's freaking work schedule was one of those things.

It was 6:30 in the morning, the early light a pearled, luminescent gray. Her half brother was still asleep on the sectional and Bud was long gone for the Walmart distribution center when Lireinne walked out back with Mose's breakfast. The old horse eagerly buried his nose in the golden oats, snuffling and chewing in deep contentment until the last kernel was gone. Lireinne waited until he was finished, then dragged the Dollar General dishpan back under the fence.

She climbed carefully through the barbed wire to the other side where Mose waited for her. “Hold still, boy.” Lireinne covered his body with the fly spray, the horse's skin twitching under the mist of fine droplets. Sarah Fortune had said it might be a week or so before the LarvaStop began to work, but already the repellent was helping. A big black horsefly buzzed around Mose's ears but didn't settle on them. Muttering angrily it flew off in search of something more hospitable to chew on.

“Showed you!” Lireinne jeered. “Got to get to work, Mose. See you later.”

When she brought the dishpan back inside the trailer Wolf was still sprawled under the blankets on the couch, snoring. Good for him, Lireinne thought as she pulled on her shrimp boots, trying to be as quiet as possible. School was bound to be starting any day now, and he should get all the rest he could while he was still on summer vacation. Let him sleep, she thought with a fond smile.

Lireinne was at the door and ready to start walking to the alligator farm when Wolf rolled over and rose on one elbow. He blinked sleepily, his head backlit by the pale morning sunlight just beginning to filter through the dusty window.

“Hey, sis,” he said with a yawn.

“Hey,” she replied softly. “I was trying not to make too much noise. I figured you'd want to sleep in. What're you doing up so early?”

“I dunno.” Rubbing his eyes, bare-chested Wolf sat up on the sofa and gathered the blanket around his waist. Sometimes, especially before he put on his black Goth getup and Doc Martens, Lireinne could see the little boy he used to be—a skinny kid, too lonely, anxious around people he didn't know well—and that made her heart ache. Except for the acne, the peach fuzz on his cheeks, and the prominent Adam's apple, he hadn't changed so very much from the shy younger brother she'd helped raise. Lireinne totally understood that shyness: her mother's leaving them hadn't been easy for him either, even though he'd been only four when she'd walked out. It was like there'd always been a woman-shaped hole in both their lives.

But unlike her, now Wolf had
some
friends at least. Before he fell in with the Goth crowd, he'd been as alone as Lireinne and that had been hard for her to take, harder than her own isolation. Pain in the ass or not, he was her little brother, the only blood relative she had who gave a damn about her. She might not say it often, but she loved him and Wolf loved her, too, even though she couldn't remember the last time they'd said it to each other.

When she'd been going through her bad time last year, Wolf had been good to Lireinne, even in the midst of his own self-absorbed sojourn through high school. She'd never talked to him about what Brett had done, but he was bound to have heard the rumors. He never mentioned it to her, but months later, Lireinne learned through the school's grapevine that he'd gotten into it in gym class with some kid who'd shot his mouth off, calling his sister a whore.

Wolf had gotten the worst of that fight. Black-eyed, split-lipped, and sullen, he'd refused to tell Bud the real reason he was suspended, stoutly maintaining it was over bullshit. He wouldn't say another word about it, and Lireinne had been beyond grateful for Wolf's closed mouth. She hadn't felt quite so alone then, knowing that her brother had stuck up for her. Further, without her having to tell him, like her, he knew better than to let Bud find out the truth. No, she and Wolf had never talked about the whispers around school, but that was better than okay with her. Sometimes Lireinne looked after Wolf, and sometimes he looked after her.

But it was past seven and time to get walking to work. Lireinne had opened the door to the damp morning air when it occurred to her that there was something she'd been meaning to ask her brother. “So, when's school starting up?” she said.

“Started three days ago,” Wolf said with another big yawn.

“What?”
Lireinne stopped dead in the doorway. Had the summer really gone by that fast? “So why the hell aren't you there, then?” she demanded.

“Not going.” Wolf shrugged, his eyes narrowed in defensiveness.

“What's that?” Lireinne couldn't take this in. Surely she'd misunderstood.

“I'm not going back, okay?” He fell back on his elbows, shaking his head. “Finished tenth grade, but so what? It's not like I'm going to learn anything, nothing that's going to get me anywhere, I mean. We all know I'm not gonna go to college. This way, I can get a job like you. I can help out and bring in some more money around here.”

But Wolf
couldn't
drop out. Lireinne was aghast. Not
Wolf
.

“You can't!” She shut the door, leaning against it for support. “Don't quit,” Lireinne pleaded. “You've only got a couple more years of high school. Maybe you can get a scholarship or, or . . . a grant when you graduate.”

Wolf lowered his head despondently, his longish black hair tumbling around his acne-pitted face. “C'mon, Lireinne—get real, okay? They don't give scholarships away to guys like me. Gonna end up just like Bud. That's a fact no matter how you want to look at it. Two more years of high school won't change a damned thing for me.”

Shaken by his fatalism, Lireinne sat down on the sectional beside him and slipped her arm around his thin shoulders.

“Don't do it!” she said, giving Wolf a rough hug. “Don't be stupid. Dropping out is dumb as hell. You're good at math, and science, and, and other stuff—not like
me
. You could maybe be an engineer someday. You'd make a ton of money then.” Lireinne warmed to her subject, thinking of all the ways Wolf's life would be different from her own if he went to college.

“You can get TOPS, go to LSU in Baton Rouge,” she added. TOPS was a state government scholarship program for Louisiana high school kids who held at least a 3.0 grade average and scored above a 27 on the ACT. Wolf would easily qualify for having his tuition paid, at least. He was so smart, unlike her. Even before the rape, Lireinne had come to dislike school so much that the only A she'd ever made was in French.

“Yeah?” Wolf countered. “Even if I did, how the hell would I pay for books, and . . . a, a room in the dorm, and all the other shit you gotta have? Like Bud's ever going to have that kind of money. Not.” Her brother pulled away from her, his mouth mutinous. “And I'm not taking out any student loans either. Not gonna go into debt just so I can say I went to college. Fuck no, I'm done with school.”

Wolf gave her a sullen glance. “Leave it alone, okay?”

 

Lireinne was exhausted even before she set out on her mile-long walk to work.

Already running behind, she'd argued with her brother until she couldn't wait any longer, but Wolf was adamant, refusing to consider returning to Covington High no matter what she said. Lireinne had been forced to give up because she couldn't afford to be late again. Harlan Baham, the crew boss, would make her morning even more miserable if she came in after eight. Sick with frustration, she slammed the door on her way out. Lireinne knew her kid brother was making the same argument she'd made to Bud when she'd quit school. He'd tried to talk her out of it, too, just like she'd just done with Wolf. Now she knew how Bud must have felt—sick with frustration and worry.

But her situation had been totally different, Lireinne tried to tell herself as she hurried down Million Dollar Road under a rapidly clouding sky. Wolf didn't understand that there weren't any real jobs for people with no education, none that paid worth a damn. He made mostly A's and B's in school; sometimes he even made the Honor Roll. He could
do
something with his life—if only he didn't give up before his life even began. That couldn't happen. One of them had to get out of here. Anybody with half a brain could see it wasn't going to be
her
.

She'd be hosing for the rest of her freaking life.

It was nearly eight o'clock. Lireinne was already worn out from the confrontation, but somehow she made it to work on time and the omnipresent reek in the barns greeted her. At least it's Friday, she thought, in a weary attempt to find a bright side to this already terrible morning.

Better get on it, Lireinne told herself, and so with a grim industry she got busy hosing, taking it out on the cement floors all through the long morning and the early afternoon, barn by barn. Soon the men left for lunch up at the house and she was alone with the BFG gators, making sure she left the floor spotless before she moved on to the last five filthy floors waiting for her.

No matter how many times Lireinne tried to puzzle out what she could do about this latest trouble, she was left with the same miserable sense of failure, sure that she was letting Wolf make the mistake of a lifetime. She was the only big sister he had, and if she only knew how to explain this to him, he'd
have
to see she was right.

But if there was a gap in Wolf's faulty logic, today Lireinne couldn't freaking see it. Kids dropped out all the time for the same reasons, and it wasn't like she could do anything to help with the money anyway. She only made enough to pay for crap like paper towels, toilet paper, and the occasional bag of dog treats.

A long twenty minutes later, the BFG barn was finished. At the far end down by the entrance, Lireinne slid open the plywood access door to Snowball's tank. The massive gator drifted in ivory somnolence, only the tip of her snout and bony eye ridges visible in the dark water. Lireinne gazed down at Snowball, moodily wondering what, if anything, went on in that big white head day after day. In a long-ago biology class, she remembered the teacher describing reptilian brains as being similar to oversized computer chips, registering only an “on/off” switch.

“A gator is ‘on' when it's hungry, or for only a week or so during breeding season,” the teacher had said. “Any other time, they're essentially turned off. That's it. Hungry—on. Not hungry—off. Sex, on. No sex, off. There's no higher brain function in those animals. They're big, scaly appetites. Period.”

Lireinne didn't know why she'd always been so fascinated with Snowball. Perhaps it was because she was special. The only white gator, at eleven feet she was the largest animal on the farm. Lireinne had always wanted to be special. But maybe it was because the big lizard was all alone, trapped, and seemed pissed off about it, too—qualities Lireinne could identify with, especially today. So . . . what if she and Snowball were both free to do whatever they wanted? Lireinne considered that for a moment. Snowball released into the wild would have a big old time for a little while, at least until some trapper discovered her during the gator-hunting season and killed her for the money her hide would bring him.

But Lireinne couldn't run away to Paris even if through some miracle she got the opportunity because she couldn't leave Wolf, not since he seemed hell-bent on destroying his future. Like she'd do him any favors by staying anyway. She was no role model. She was such a loser, she hadn't even realized it was September, that school had already started.

I mean, look at me, Lireinne thought. Eighteen years old and the only job I can get is hosing crap. Oh, and don't forget that my best friends are an eleven-foot gator and a beat-up old horse.

Mired in these depressing reflections, an inescapable gloom fell upon Lireinne, mirrored in the clouds lowering in the sky outside. They were metallic gray and dense, like a layer of lead painted on the sky, and threatened rain, the rain everyone Parish wide had despaired of seeing ever again after the long, dry summer. She wished it would cut loose and freaking pour. The humid air was like breathing a thick soup of dust.

Below Lireinne's feet, Snowball's length slowly undulated to the edge of the tank. The big gator floated, motionless, until she dropped the ritual dog biscuit into the water. “Here.” Lireinne didn't stay to watch Snowball snap it up, but slid the access door shut and locked it. What was the point? Five more barns; another hour and a half. Not looking forward to going home, not even to feeding Mose his dinner, she lugged the hose outside the entrance and began coiling its heavy length around the iron coupler before she moved on.

Lireinne was almost done, just another ten feet left to wind, when without warning, from behind her someone approached. She turned around, holding the hose's nozzle at her hip.