Reminders of Him (16 page)

“There’s a washer and dryer upstairs,” Roman says.

“There’s another level to the bar?” I haven’t seen any stairs.

He points at the door that leads out to the alley. “Access to the stairs is outside. Half of the space is storage, the other half is a studio apartment with a washer and dryer.”

“Do I need to take them up and wash them?”

He shakes his head. “I usually do that in the mornings. I live there.” He pulls his shirt off to toss it in the basket just as Ledger walks into the kitchen.

Roman is shirtless now, changing into his street clothes, and Ledger is staring straight at me. I know it looks like I was staring at Roman as he was changing, but we were having an active conversation. I wasn’t staring at him because he was momentarily shirtless. Not that it matters, but it embarrasses me, so I turn around and focus on the remaining dishes.

Roman and Ledger have a conversation I can’t hear, but I do hear it when Roman tells Ledger good night and leaves. Ledger disappears back into the front of the bar.

I’m alone, but I prefer it that way. Ledger makes me more nervous than comfortable.

I finish my work and wipe everything down for a final time. It’s half past midnight, and I have no idea how much longer Ledger has until he’s finished. I don’t want to bother him, but I’m too tired to walk home, so I wait for the ride.

I grab my stuff and push myself onto the counter. I pull out my notebook and my pen. I don’t know that I’ll ever do anything with the letters I write to Scotty, but they’re cathartic.

Dear Scotty,

Ledger is an asshole. We’ve clarified that. I mean, the guy turned a bookstore into a bar. What kind of monster would do that?

But . . . I’m beginning to think he has a sweet side too. Maybe that’s why you two were best friends.

“What are you writing?”

I slam my notebook shut at the sound of his voice. Ledger is removing his apron, eyeing me. I shove my notebook into my bag and mutter, “Nothing.”

He tilts his head, and his eyes fill with curiosity. “Do you like to write?”

I nod.

“Would you say you’re more artistic or more scientific?”

That’s an odd question. I shrug. “I don’t know. Artistic, I guess. Why?”

Ledger grabs a clean glass and walks over to the sink. He fills it with water and then takes a sip. “Diem has a wild imagination. I always wondered if she got that from you.”

My heart fills with pride. I love when he reveals little tidbits about her. I also love knowing someone in her life appreciates her imagination.
I had a vivid imagination when I was younger, but my mother stifled it. It wasn’t until Ivy encouraged me to open that part of myself back up that I actually felt like someone supported it.

Scotty would have, but I don’t even think he knew I was artistic. He met me at a time when that part of me was still in a deep sleep.

It’s awake now, though. Thanks to Ivy. I write all the time. I write poems, I write letters to Scotty, I write book ideas I don’t know that I’ll ever get around to fleshing out. Writing might actually be what saved me from myself.

“I mostly just write letters.” I regret saying it as soon as I say it, but Ledger doesn’t react to that confession.

“I know. Letters to Scotty.” He sets his glass of water on the table beside him and then folds his arms over his chest.

“How do you know I write him letters?”

“I saw one,” he says. “Don’t worry, I didn’t read it. I just saw one of the pages when I grabbed your bag out of your locker.”

I wondered if he saw that stack of papers. I was worried he might have peeked, but if he says he didn’t read them, for some reason I believe him.

“How many letters have you written him?”

“Over three hundred.”

He shakes his head in disbelief, but then something makes him smile. “Scotty hated writing. He used to pay me to write his reports for him.”

That makes me laugh, because I wrote a paper or two for him when we were together.

It’s weird talking with someone who knew Scotty in a lot of the same ways I knew him. I’ve honestly never experienced this before. It feels good, thinking about him in a way that makes me laugh instead of cry.

I wish I knew more about Scotty outside of who he was with me.

“Diem might grow up to be a writer someday. She likes to make up words,” Ledger says. “If she doesn’t know what something is called, she just invents a word for it.”

“Like what?”

“Solar lights,” he says. “The kind that line sidewalks? We don’t know why, but she calls them
patchels
.”

That makes me smile, but it also makes me ache with jealousy. I want to know her like he does. “What else?” My voice is quieter because I’m trying to hide the fact that it’s shaking.

“The other day she was riding her bike, and her feet kept slipping on the pedals. She said, ‘My feet won’t stop flibbering.’ I asked her what
flibbering
meant, and she said it’s when she wears flip-flops, and her feet slip out of them. And she thinks
soaking
means ‘very.’ She’ll say, ‘I’m soaking tired,’ or, ‘I’m soaking hungry.’”

It hurts too much to even laugh at that. I force a smile, but I think Ledger can sense that stories about a daughter I’m not allowed to know are ripping me in two. He stops smiling and then walks to the sink and washes the glass. “You ready?”

I nod and hop off the table.

On the drive home, he says, “What are you going to do with the letters?”

“Nothing,” I say immediately. “I just like writing them.”

“What are the letters about?”

“Everything. Sometimes nothing.” I look out my window so he can’t read the truth on my face. But something in me makes me want to be honest with him. I want Ledger to trust me. I have a lot to prove. “I’m thinking about compiling them and putting them into a book someday.”

That gives him pause. “Will it have a happy ending?”

I’m still looking out the window when I say, “It’ll be a book about my life, so I don’t see how it could.”

Ledger keeps his eyes on the road when he asks, “Do any of the letters talk about what happened the night Scotty died?”

I put space between his question and my answer. “Yes. One of them does.”

“Can I read it?”

“No.”

Ledger’s eyes meet mine briefly. Then he looks in front of him and flips on his blinker to turn onto my street. He pulls into a parking spot and leaves his truck running. I don’t know if I should get out immediately, or if there’s anything left to be said between us. I put my hand on the door handle.

“Thank you for the job.”

Ledger taps the steering wheel with his thumb and nods. “I’d say you earned it. The kitchen hasn’t been that organized since I’ve owned the building, and you’ve only worked one shift.”

His compliment feels good. I absorb it and then tell him good night.

As much as I want to look back at him when I get out of his truck, I keep my focus ahead of me. I listen for him to back out, but he doesn’t, which makes me think he watches me as I walk all the way up to my apartment.

Once I’m inside, Ivy immediately runs up to me. I pick her up and leave the lights off as I walk to the window to peek out.

Ledger is just sitting in his truck, staring up at my apartment. I immediately press my back against the wall next to the window. Finally, I hear his engine rev up as he backs out of the parking spot.

“Ivy,” I whisper, scratching her head. “What are we doing?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

L
EDGER

“Ledger!”

I glance up from packing the equipment, and I immediately start packing faster. The mom brigade is walking toward me. When they come at me in group formation like this, it’s never good. There are four of them, and they have matching chairs with each of their children’s names on the backs of them. They’re either going to tell me I’m not playing their kids enough, or they’re about to try to set me up with one of their single friends.

I glance at the playground, and Diem is still out there playing chase with two of her friends. Grace is keeping an eye on her, so I get the last helmet in the bag, but it’s too late to pretend I didn’t notice they were trying to get my attention.

Whitney speaks first. “We heard Diem’s mother showed back up.”

I make brief eye contact with her, but try not to show any sort of surprise that they know Kenna is in town. None of them actually knew Kenna in the brief time she dated Scotty. None of these women even knew Scotty.

But they know Diem, and they know me, and they know the story. So, they think they’re entitled to the truth. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Grace’s coworker told my aunt,” one of the mothers says.

“I can’t believe she actually had the nerve to come back,” Whitney says. “Grady said Grace and Patrick filed a restraining order.”

“They did?” I play dumb, because it’s better than letting them know how much I know. They’ll just ask more questions.

“You didn’t know?” Whitney asks.

“We talked about it. Wasn’t sure if they went through with it.”

“I don’t blame them,” she says. “What if she tries to take Diem?”

“She wouldn’t do that,” I say. I throw the bag in my truck and slam the tailgate shut.

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Whitney says. “Addicts do crazy shit.”

“She isn’t an addict.” I say it too adamantly. Too quickly. I can see suspicion in Whitney’s eyes.

I wish Roman were at this game. He couldn’t make it today, and he’s usually my excuse to escape the mom brigade. Some of them are friends with Leah, so they don’t flirt with me directly, out of respect for her. But Roman isn’t off limits, so I usually leave him to the wolves when they show up.

“Tell Grady I said hello.” I walk away from them and head toward Grace and Diem.

I don’t know how to defend Kenna in these kinds of situations. I don’t know that I
should
. But it feels wrong allowing everyone to continue to think the worst of her.

I didn’t tell Kenna I was picking her up today, but I didn’t know I was until I was on my way to the bar and realized it was almost time for her shift at the grocery store to end.

I pull into the parking lot, and it’s not even two whole minutes before she walks outside. She doesn’t notice my truck. She walks toward the road, so I drive across the parking lot to intercept her.

She sees my truck, and I swear she makes a face when I point to the passenger door. She mutters “Thanks” when she opens the door. And then, “You don’t have to give me rides. I’m fine walking.”

“I just left the ball field; it was on my way.”

She sets her purse between us and then pulls on her seat belt. “Is she any good at T-ball?”

“Yeah. I don’t think she likes the game as much as she likes hanging out with her friends, though. But if she stuck with it, I think she’d be pretty good.”

“What else does she do besides T-ball?”

I can’t blame Kenna for being curious. I’ve put myself in this position by already sharing too much with her, but now the moms have planted a seed in my head.

What if she’s only asking so she can get a handle on Diem’s schedule? The more she knows about Diem’s activities, the easier it would be for her to show up and take her. I feel guilty even thinking that, but Diem is my number one priority in life, so I’d feel even shittier not feeling a little overprotective.

“I’m sorry,” Kenna says. “I shouldn’t ask you questions you don’t feel comfortable answering. It’s not my place.”

She looks out her window as I pull onto the street. She does this thing where she flexes her fingers and then grips her thighs. Diem does the same thing with her fingers. It’s incredible how two people who have never met can have so many of the same mannerisms.

It’s too loud in the truck, and I feel like I need to warn her, so I roll up my window as I pick up speed. “They filed a restraining order against you.”

I see her look at me out of the corner of my eye. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. I wanted to give you a heads-up before you get served papers.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I think what happened at the grocery store scared Grace.”

She shakes her head and looks back out her window. She doesn’t say anything else until we pull up to the alley behind the bar.

I feel like I’ve set her up for failure tonight by putting her in a bad mood as soon as she got in my truck. I shouldn’t have told her about the restraining order right before her shift, but I feel like she has the right to know. She honestly hasn’t done anything to deserve being served a restraining order, but the simple fact that she exists in the same town as Diem is reason enough for the Landrys to file one on her.

“She takes dance,” I say, answering her earlier question about Diem. I put my truck in park and pull up the video from her recital. “That’s where I was last night. She had a recital.” I hand Kenna the phone.

She watches the first several seconds with a straight face and then bursts into laughter.

I hate that I love watching Kenna’s face when she watches videos of Diem. It does something to me. Makes me feel something I probably shouldn’t be feeling. But I like the feeling, and it makes me wonder what it would be like getting to witness Kenna and Diem interact in real life.

Kenna watches the video three times with a huge smile on her face. “She’s horrible!”

It makes me laugh. There’s a joy to her voice that isn’t usually there, and I wonder if that joy would always be present if Diem were a part of Kenna’s life.

“Does she like dance?” Kenna asks.

I shake my head. “No. After the recital was over, she said she wanted to quit and do ‘that thing with the swords.’”

“Fencing?”

“She wants to try everything. All the time. But she never sticks to anything because she gets bored with it and thinks the next thing will be more interesting.”

“They say boredom is a sign of intelligence,” Kenna says.

“She’s very smart, so that would make sense.”

Kenna smiles, but as she hands me back my phone, her smile falters. She opens the door and heads toward the back door, so I follow suit.

I open the back door for her, and we’re greeted by Aaron. “Hey, boss,” he says. “Hey, Nic.”

Kenna walks over to him, and he lifts a hand. They high-five like they’ve known each other a lot longer than just one shift.

Roman walks into the back holding a tray of empty bottles. He nods at me. “How’d it go?”

“No one cried and no one vomited,” I say. That’s what we consider a successful day in T-ball.

Roman gets Kenna’s attention. “She had gluten-free. I put three of them in the fridge for you.”

“
Thank
you,” Kenna says. It’s the first hint of excitement I’ve ever seen come from her that had nothing to do with Diem. I have no idea what they’re talking about. I was gone for a few hours last night, and it’s like she developed personal relationships with everyone here.

And why is Roman buying her three of whatever it is they’re talking about?

Why am I having a slight visceral reaction to the thought of Kenna and Roman becoming close? Would he hit on her? Would I even have a right to be jealous? When I got back to the bar last night, they were taking their break at the same time. Did Roman do that on purpose?

Right when I have that thought, Mary Anne shows up for her shift. She hands Kenna a pair of what look like noise-cancelling headphones. Kenna says, “You’re a lifesaver.”

“I knew I had an extra pair at home,” Mary Anne says. She passes me and says, “Hey, boss,” before heading to the front.

Kenna hangs the headphones around her neck and then ties her apron. The headphones aren’t even attached to anything, and she doesn’t
have a phone. I’m confused about how she’s going to listen to music with them.

“What are those for?” I ask her.

“To drown out the music.”

“You don’t want to hear music?”

She faces the sink, but not before I see her expression falter. “I hate music.”

She hates
music
? Is that even a thing? “Why do you hate music?”

She looks at me over her shoulder. “Because it’s sad.” She covers her ears with the headphones and starts running water in the sink.

Music is the one thing that grounds me. I couldn’t imagine not being able to connect with it, but Kenna is right. Most songs are about love or loss, two things that are probably incredibly difficult for her to absorb in any medium.

I leave her to her duties and head to the front to start on mine. We haven’t opened just yet, so the bar is empty. Mary Anne is unlocking the front door, so I pause next to Roman. “Three what?”

He glances at me. “Huh?”

“You said you put three of something in the fridge for Kenna.”

“
Nicole
,” he corrects, looking across the room at Mary Anne. “And I was talking about cupcakes. Her landlord can’t have gluten, and she’s trying to stay on her good side.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, something about her electric bill.” Roman side-eyes me and then walks away.

I’m glad she’s getting along with everyone, but there’s also a small part of me that regrets leaving for most of my shift last night. I feel like they all got to know Kenna in a way I don’t know Kenna. I don’t know why that bothers me.

I go to the jukebox to start up a few songs before the crowd arrives, and I analyze each song I choose. It’s a digital jukebox with
access to thousands of songs, but I realize it would take me all night to find even a handful that wouldn’t remind Kenna of Scotty or Diem in some way.

She’s right. In the end, if there’s nothing good going on in your life, almost every song becomes depressing, no matter what it’s about.

I put it on shuffle to match my mood.