The Best I Could (17 page)

Voices drifted around me,
silverware tinkling, but all I heard was echoing remnants of Eli’s
voice saying,
“My mother drugged me when I
was a kid.”

There was no mistaking the resemblance.
Despite the contrast between them—Eli’s rugged features clashing
with Ivy’s refined beauty—there was no doubt Ivy was his
mother.

“Scary, isn’t she?” Eli breathed into my ear,
startling me.

Around us, everyone was serving themselves,
layering food onto fine china. Glass pitchers full of sweet tea and
sprigs of mint were lifted and poured. My hands moved, filling my
plate and glass, but I was simply going through the motions, my
eyes on Ivy.

She was the least scary person I’d ever seen,
and yet somehow that made her incredibly frightening. If I touched
her, would she break? Pale glass on mirrored mahogany.

My gaze slid to his. “She’s sad.”

I didn’t know what made me say the words.

“Sad?”

Conversation buzzed around our heads,
snippets of stuff that had nothing to do with us. Casino business
bounced back and forth. Mandy and Ivy exclaimed over different
designer products, debating the pros and the cons. Pops drew Hetty
into a discussion about the animal clinic, me, and Deena. Deena sat
slumped in her seat, a sour frown on her face. Jonathan picked at
his food, equally quiet.

“Yeah,” I murmured, “sad. Like she’s on the
verge of shattering.”

Eli snorted. “It’s a game with her. She makes
crying a sport. Watch it, or you’ll be fooled like the rest of the
people in her life.”

“Not that kind of sad.”

He studied me. “There’s another kind?”

My gaze slid to Ivy. A smiling dimple flashed
in her cheek, her fork carving an uneaten trail through the food on
her plate, her coral lips parting in conversation. “More like a
brick house with a precarious foundation,” I whispered, my eyes
returning to his. “Remove a brick, and the whole thing
crumbles.”

“You get that from a look? Shit, I don’t
think I want to know what you see in me.” When I didn’t reply, he
leaned forward. “Or do you see that in her because you relate
somehow? Is that why? Are you a crumbling brick house, roof
girl?”

I frowned. “I’m not like your mother.”

“But you’re still crumbling, aren’t you?”

“You’re forgetting the favor I asked of you,”
I murmured.

“Favor?”

“The one where I asked you to stop seeing
me.”

Eli leaned back. “You’re forgetting mine. The
one where I asked you to let me be that roof when things get to be
too much.”

I stared, baffled. I saw the way he looked at
his mother, the disgust when he glanced at his former fiancée.
“Why? It doesn’t add up. For too many reasons. You barely knowing
me, for one, and don’t give me that whole ‘it’s because you don’t
cry’ shit.”

A smile flirted with Eli’s lips. “Truth?” His
hand found the back of my chair. “I don’t know.”

That was the crux of mine and Eli’s brief
relationship. The draw between us was there, so maybe it was time
to quit questioning it, to admit we were friends because we clicked
as people.

“So, I’m curious,” a smooth, velvet voice
prompted, dragging us out of our private conversation. “How did you
two meet?”

Turning, I found myself looking at Mandy
Touchstone, Eli’s former fiancée, her lips curved in a forced
smile.

Conversation at the table stilled.

Deena, spurred on by the
promise of excitement, came alive. “On a hospital roof,” she
answered for us. “You know, because that’s
totally
normal.”

“Hospital?” Mandy asked, eyes dancing. Her
gaze swept over me, touching on my hair and piercings.

People looked at me. That’s all there was to
it. I wanted to believe it was because of the whole punk thing,
that they thought I was cool, but I knew that wasn’t the case. It
was because of me. My body was a tapestry of alterations. My diary.
Badly done at-home hair dye. Four of my piercings performed by my
hands with an alcohol-dipped needle. Mandy wasn’t staring because I
was punk. She was staring because what I couldn’t say about myself
out loud, I said with my physique and body language. I wasn’t
broadcasting “cool”.

Deena grinned maliciously. “It was the day
our father died. He offed himself.”

“Deena!” Hetty cried.

Jonathan pushed his plate back. “Has anyone
seen—”

“Oh, that’s right,” Mandy interrupted, eyes
on Eli, “you were in that alcohol program.”

“You know,” Jonathan cleared his throat, “I
saw this really interesting story online—”

“All thanks to you,” Eli
countered calmly, his hard gaze on Mandy’s. He studied her, little
furrows appearing between his brows. “
The
hell
,” he added in a whisper, too low for
anyone except me to hear, in a way that said he was trying to
figure something out.

She laughed, a little too loudly. “I didn’t
force you to drink.”

Rather than respond, Eli picked up a glass of
sweet tea—no doubt wishing it was alcohol—and downed it, ice
clinking the glass. His gaze ricocheted back and forth, from his
former fiancée to the table and back again.

Jonathan sighed, any attempt on his part to
thwart a quarrel, overlooked.

Lincoln, the cheating cousin, placed a
placating hand on his fiancée’s shoulder and leaned back in his
chair. “You were customizing a Harley Davidson the last time I saw
you, right, Eli?”

“An NCR Leggera,” Eli corrected, his gaze
swinging to the head of the table. “As to where it is now, that’s a
question for Pops.”

Pops cleared his throat, pulled a napkin out
of his lap, and directed his gaze at Hetty. “I apologize for my
family’s behavior. I underestimated their ability to have an
uncomplicated family dinner.”

Nana waved him off, a glare finding its way
to Deena. “It’s no worse than my granddaughter’s behavior.”

They shared a companionable look born from
mutual troubles. It irritated me, a bur that dug itself into my
breastbone. They weren’t the ones trying to deal with our messes.
Those were all ours.

“Look,” Deena spat, her gaze on Nana and
Pops, “they’re bonding.”

Younger or no, my sister was so much better
at vocalizing how she felt than I was, even if it posed a problem
for her.

“That’s enough,” Hetty warned.

Deena surrendered, hands up, a smile dancing
on her lips.

“Eat,” Pops commanded.

The meal commenced, all conversation stilled.
Forks met lips.

I could have been eating cardboard. The food
was good, but the taste was overruled by the curiosity directed at
me. Mandy’s, and more importantly, Pop’s.

“Your grandfather keeps staring at me,” I
whispered to Eli.

He glanced at the head of the table. “Maybe
he sees it, too.”

“What?”

“You.”

I looked at him askance. His hair was
tousled, his rumpled shirt a little too tight, as if it had shrunk
in the wash.

He glanced at me, and our eyes met.

A chair scraped the floor. “Excuse me,” Ivy
Lockston mumbled.

Standing, she nodded at us and left the
table.

Mandy pushed her chair back. “If you’ll
excuse me as well.”

Our eyes trailed her departure.

Eli’s gaze met Jonathan’s over my head.

“This is fun,” Deena chatted. “We managed to
make it through most of the meal and learned that we’re not the
only crazy family in this town.”

“What was that about?” I asked.

Eli frowned.

“Our mother is a little erratic sometimes,”
Jonathan hedged.

Deena grunted. “You didn’t meet our
father.”

We kept our voices low so that it didn’t
reach the head of the table, but it wouldn’t have mattered; Pops
and Lincoln were in deep discussion, Hetty peppering them with
business questions, her eyes bright. Nana was in her element. I
knew now why she was successful at what she did. Even here, in this
small town, she managed to take the leadership role at the clinic.
She loved business as much as she loved animals.

Eli stared at the door, his eyes
narrowed.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

His jaw tensed, his arm flexing as his grip
tightened on my chair. “I need a moment,” he answered, standing.
“Excuse me.”

He left, his empty chair a bigger distraction
than I wanted to admit.

Pop’s head rose, his gaze following his
departing grandson. My stomach clenched, my chest tight. I wasn’t
sure what brought on the panic, but it was there suddenly, seizing
me.

“What’s he doing?” I hissed at Jonathan.
“Where’s he going? Is it normal for people just to leave in this
house?”

He stared at his plate. “Sometimes.”

Pushing my plate away, I shot to my feet.

“Tansy?” Hetty asked.

“Excuse me,” I mumbled, heading in the same
direction I’d seen Eli go.

I didn’t know the house, but it wasn’t too
difficult to figure out. The first level had an open floor plan,
and I stepped through the rooms carefully, peering through arched
entries into empty rooms.

When I didn’t find anyone, I went outside.
Darkness had fallen, throwing everything in shadows. A porch light
threw a glow over the yard, but beyond the glare, the orchard was
an empty hole.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Eli’s angry voice asked.

Tiptoeing down the stairs into the yard, I
found myself staring at Ivy and Mandy, their backs to me, Eli
facing them. No one saw me, and I sank against the side of the
porch into a dark spot untouched by the light above us.

“You think I don’t recognize the symptoms?”
Eli asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Mandy replied.

“The hell you don’t.” He ran his hand through
his hair, lifting his shirt.

“No one asked you to come out here,” Ivy
remarked coolly. “We don’t need you.”

Eli laughed, a hardness I’d never heard
before in the sound. “You don’t ever ask for much do you,
Mother?”

“Ivy,” she corrected.

He laughed again. “Do either of you care
about anyone at all? Or is it about you all of the time?”

“You’re just angry,” Mandy pointed out.

“Of course I’m angry. Hell,
the two of you are the reason I’m in this mess to begin with. I’m
not an alcoholic, but because of you, I’ve spent two stints in
alcohol programs listening to people who really
do
have a problem with it.”

“It didn’t hurt you any,” Ivy said. “You
could use a little more compassion, Eli.”

Eli froze, his gaze on Mandy’s face. “How
fucked up are you? What are you on?”

My eyes widened, my fingers falling to the
bushes I’d pushed myself into.

“You can go to hell, Eli
Lockston. We had it good the two of us. I know that, and
you
know that. You messed
it up. Not me. All you had to do was learn your grandfather’s
business. That’s it. I needed it, and you knew that. I need the
stability. I
need
it,” Mandy fumed.

Desperation filled her voice, the sound
crawling into my body and making a home there. I knew the kind of
desperation I heard in her. I felt it more than I wanted to admit.
She was scared.

“You didn’t trust me,” Eli
told her. “You didn’t trust me enough to find my own way. I don’t
need the casino. I don’t
want
it.”

“You don’t understand,” Mandy hissed. “I
couldn’t take that chance. You’ve seen my family, Eli. You saw the
trailer I grew up in, the way my mom is. I can’t stay in that
place.”

“You didn’t have to,” he growled. “You knew
that. You knew you could have stayed with me.”

“And worry about bills? About food?” she
asked.

“Seriously? There was nothing to worry about!
I may not like depending on my grandfather, but I would have for
you until I finished school. Or until I’d brought in enough from
boxing.”

Mandy’s shoulders slumped. “I couldn’t take
that chance.”

“So you go off and get pregnant. By
Lincoln.”

She shrugged. “He has a future he’s not
guessing at, Eli. He’s sure, and he’s doing well.”

Eli stared at her, squinting. “You’re on
something.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Leave her alone,” Ivy
warned.

“Why?” Eli asked. “Did you give it to
her?”

“Why the fuck do you care?” Mandy snapped.
“I’m none of your business anymore.”

He glared. “You’re carrying my cousin’s baby,
Mandy. I may not like either of you very much right now, but that
baby didn’t do anything to you. Not a damn thing. If you’re on
drugs—”

“Stop!” she cried. “It’s just pain meds.”

Rage filled Eli’s face. Years and years of
rage. Rage I couldn’t comprehend but knew came from his past, from
the years his mother drugged him. My heart rate climbed, fear
skittering down my spine.

“Why you—”

“Hey,” I said suddenly, thrusting myself away
from the porch, “is everything okay?”

Everyone froze, their stares finding me in
the darkness. For the first time since meeting Eli, I realized how
much I didn’t know about him or his family.

“You okay?” I asked, my eyes locked on his. I
didn’t see anything beyond Eli and his rage.

He exhaled, his muscles visibly relaxing
despite the remaining anger on his face.

Mandy stumbled back a few steps. “This is
ridiculous. All of it!”

Eli glanced at her. “Is it?”

She paused, her gaze
flicking from Eli to me. “You’re with
that
? She looks like more of a mess
than I am.”

We spoke together, a jumbled “I’m not with
her” and “I’m not with him.”

“Then what the hell is she,”
Mandy gestured at the house, “and
them
doing here?”