The Evening Hour (17 page)

“More food for us,” Ruby joked.

Cole exchanged a glance with his mother, and knew she was as relieved as he was. But he said, “Sorry, Grandma,” not sure what he was apologizing for.

“I hope you're hungry,” she said sharply. “We've got enough to feed an army.”

Instead of eating at the dining room table, they set up TV trays and watched
It's a Wonderful Life.
The angel showing old Jimmy Stewart how miserable everyone's lives would be if he hadn't been born. His mother and grandmother were engrossed. Cole was bored. Still, he didn't want to leave. He didn't know where he'd even go—the bars were closed, the pillheads had stocked up yesterday, and Lacy didn't want to see him. When he couldn't eat another bite, he lay on the floor, wrapping himself up in one of his grandmother's afghans. He breathed in the scent of the Christmas tree and closed his eyes and listened to the voices on the TV and stretched his fingers through the holes in the yarn links, the way he used to do when he was a kid, pretending to be caught in a web and fighting his way out.

Chapter 13

“This shit is humiliating.”

Cole was at Lacy's watching an old episode of
America's Funniest Home Videos.
Brides tripping down the aisles, kids dumping bowls of spaghetti on their heads, guys getting nailed in the nuts.

Irritated, she told him to lighten up. “It's funny.”

“Yeah, it's funny,” Sara Jean agreed. “Lighten up, Cole.”

He glanced at the clock. He had customers who were expecting him, but he knew how Lacy would act if he left. Although they had made up after their fight on Christmas and had been seeing more of each other, it didn't feel right. She was suspicious and he was living a double life. The tension put him on edge and made her distant. Now she was sitting next to him but not touching him, her arms crossed over her chest. Cole drummed his fingers on the coffee table.

“I was thinking we could go to the Eagle.”

She looked annoyed. “What about Sara Jean?”

“Can't your sister watch her?”

“I work there, Cole. You think I want to go there on my night off?”

On commercial break Sara Jean scooted between them, and in her hands was the camera that had caused the fight. Lacy said she was over it, but it still reminded Cole of what was not right between them.

Sara Jean showed him the digital pictures on the camera's screen, and he had a hard time seeing them. Brown hills, flattened land. “We went up to another reclaimed site with Michael,” she explained. “He told me to take pictures of everything. Always document what you see.”

“Don't you ever do anything for fun?”

She looked at him with her deep brown eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Fun kid things. You're too wrapped up in this.”

She nestled closer and he smelled her clean hair and hesitated and then put his arm around her and looked over. Lacy was watching them with a faint smile, but her eyes were sad. Sara Jean showed him picture after picture, the same blurs of land, and then one of Lacy appeared, a close-up; laughing, her head thrown back, mouth open, eyes squinting. “I want you to print me one of those,” he told her. There was one of him too. She pushed the little arrow until she came to it. He was startled.

“When did you take that?”

“The other day.”

In the picture he was sleeping. He was stretched out on the couch in a T-shirt and jeans. The sun shone in soft waves on his face; he did not look like anyone that he recognized.

“I'll print you one of these too.”

The phone rang, and Sara Jean answered. “It's Michael.” Cole shot Lacy a look, but she ignored him and took the phone.

After she hung up, Cole said, “Well?”

“He's coming over. There's a photographer with him. They went up to Stinkweed Hollow. Some old couple let them on their land.”

“The Williamses,” Cole said.

“You know them?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you'll want to see the pictures.”

“If I want to see, I'll go up there myself.”

“You won't ever go.”

The phone rang again. This time it was for Cole. Lacy looked at him strangely. “Work,” he lied. “I gave them your number.”

He carried the cordless into the kitchen and made plans to meet with his customer. Cole warned him not to call this number again, and the man apologized, sounding desperate. Cole hung up. He watched out the window. Headlights cut through the darkness. The slam of the car doors. Front door opening. Voices. Michael was living here now, temporarily, renting a trailer that Lacy had helped him find.

Cole went back in the living room, wearing his jacket.

“Hey, Cole. How are you?” Michael, in a gray sweater, black jeans, and a light blue scarf, looked like he should be posed on the cover of some kind of fashion magazine. Cole still didn't trust him. He should go back to New York where he belonged.

“I'm all right.”

“This is Trip,” Michael said. “He's shooting photos for me.”

Trip was tall and lean, with red hair and a trimmed beard. Jeans, black leather jacket, boots. “Nice to meet you, man.”

Cole was surprised to hear a slight twang. “Where you from?”

“Kentucky. Letcher County. But I've been living in Brooklyn for about twenty years.”

Trip was older than Michael, deep creases spreading out from his mouth, his eyes. Silver hoops glistened from each ear. He also wore several rings, but no wedding band.

“You want me to come out and shoot some photos of your place?” Trip stood too close, and even though he still had a country lilt, he talked city-fast. “What's good for you, man? I can come out tomorrow.”

“I was telling Trip about where you live,” Michael explained. “I'd still love to talk to you more about it, Cole. What it was like living there when you were a kid, and now.”

“Actually, I got to get going.” Cole wondered how much Lacy had told Michael about him. Abandoned by his mother. Raised by a crazy snake-handling grandfather. “Work,” he explained.

Lacy looked at him. “You have to go in now? What in the world for?”

“Another aide called in sick. Sorry,” he said, pretending to be disappointed.

He went to kiss her good-bye, but she moved so that he only got her cheek. He told everyone he'd see them later. Through the window he saw Michael in the spot where he'd been sitting, Lacy on one side of him, Sara Jean on the other. Cole released the clutch, and backed out.

He stepped into the smoky darkness of the Eagle and felt more relaxed. He ordered a beer, then saw his customer and followed him into the filthy and dimly lit bathroom. The man thanked him and he said, “No problem.” When he walked out, he heard his name and turned.

“I know I said I'd stay out of your way,” Ruby said, “but I was feeling kind of crazy. I had to get out.”

“It's a free country.”

“My son, a man of few words.”

She was dolled up, wearing a sleeveless shirt, dark jeans, a thick white belt, and high heels. Lipstick, eye shadow, red nails, and big hoop earrings. A middle-aged man in khakis and a button-down stood behind her, holding a cue stick.

“Steve Nolan,” he said.

“This is Cole. My son.” Ruby smiled. “Where's your girlfriend? When do I get to meet her? He's dating an older woman,” she told Steve. “She's almost my age.”

Cole couldn't tell if Ruby was drunk or just happy to be out of the house, but she was extra talkative. She ran the pool table; Steve Nolan didn't have a chance.

She turned to Cole. “You next?”

He racked and his mother broke; Steve went to get more drinks.

“What do you think? He's a nice guy,” she said, answering her own question.

Cole knocked the nine ball into the far corner pocket, but on his next turn, he scratched. The last time they played together, when he was ten, he had loved looking at her, being near her. He had wanted her to take him away.

Steve handed Cole a beer and tried to make small talk while Ruby knocked in one after another. When Steve said he was an engineer for Heritage, Cole looked at his mother, but she just lit a cigarette. “You're up,” she said.

Cole hit the eight ball in. “Shit.”

“You can't win them all.”

“I should go,” he said.

“No, don't.” She grabbed his hand. “Come on, lighten up.”

“Why does everybody keep saying that?”

At the bar, they shot tequila, chased it with beer. “You sure you should be doing this?”

“Baby, drinking is the least of it. You wouldn't even know.” Ruby smirked. “Maybe you would.”

When he didn't respond, she patted his leg. “Come on, let's just have fun.”

As the night went on, they drank more, and she told stories about the places she'd lived and the people she'd known. Cole stopped thinking about how she'd left him for all of that. She made him laugh a few times, and he realized he was enjoying himself. He only wished that the Heritage engineer wasn't hanging around. This guy wasn't one of them. He didn't even live here—he was in town visiting a site that he'd helped design. He laughed at the wrong times, and seemed nervous that his friends hadn't shown up.

While Steve was in the bathroom, Cole said they should ditch him. “He's a nice guy,” Ruby said again. “Boring, but nice.”

“He's Heritage.”

“Your cousins work for Heritage too.” She lit a cigarette. “You can't expect me to sit home all the time. It gets lonely.”

“Maybe he wants something.”

“Yeah, he wants me,” she said. “What, is that so hard to believe?”

“You sure he ain't trying to get at Grandma's land?”

“Oh, hell. The land, the land. He doesn't have anything to do with that.” She sighed. “Listen, I've got to tell you something. I quit my job.”

“So?”

“It wasn't enough to live on. I don't know how you do it,” she said. “I mean, maybe I do, but I don't want to know.”

She was fishing hard, but Cole gave up nothing. A customer walked in, made eye contact. “I should go,” Cole said.

“Wait. Look, when I left Pennsylvania, I was in debt up to my eyeballs. I declared bankruptcy, cut up all my credit cards—”

“I don't have any,” he said. “I don't owe anyone anything.”

“What I'm saying is I wanted a fresh start, and I'm not going to get that here.” She paused. “What I'm trying to say is that I'll be leaving soon.” She gave him a weak smile. “I'll come back, visits and all. But living here, well, this just isn't me.”

He looked away. He knew this day was coming, but he was surprised how the words hit him, how they scraped down his throat like little pebbles.

“I'm not leaving yet,” she added. “A couple of weeks, maybe.”

“That's cool.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, but Steve came up behind her, draped his pudgy arm around her shoulders. “I'll get the next round,” he said, overexcited. “What's your poison?”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Hey, leave us alone for a minute.”

“Huh?” Steve looked confused.

“No, it's cool.” Cole grabbed his jacket. “Have fun.”

He nodded to his customer, went out to his truck. After the guy left, Cole slid the bills in his pocket, his headlights punching through the dark like fists.

A few weeks later, Ruby was still around. “I thought you would have left by now,” he said. He should have known not to believe anything that came out of her mouth.

“I told you, pretty soon. That doesn't mean tomorrow, that means pretty soon. Why, you want me to leave that bad?”

Cole said he didn't care one way or the other, and she blinked, but said nothing. Though he'd never admit it, he was glad that she was still here to keep his grandmother company. Lately, his time felt stretched too thin, between work and dealing and spending time with Lacy, who'd hinted that she wanted something more from him, something that he didn't know if he could give.

This morning he just wanted to get away from it all. Before his shift started, he drove up to Clay's Branch to see Leona Truman. This was one of his favorite places. When he was up here, he didn't worry about anything; it was always easy with Leona.

The wind whipped the thin cords of locust and ash saplings, and when he stepped out of the truck, it snaked down his shirt. Leona's land was untouched by the coal companies; pristine, like a postcard. A mix of field and forest, with winding streams, old cow paths, and rusty barbed-wire fences. Skinny chickens pecked at the dirt yard and the porch was cluttered with milk crates, split firewood, bags of chicken feed. Wind chimes rang out from the trees like fairy music.

Cole knocked and called her name, and after a few minutes, Leona pulled open the squeaky door. “Git in here, boy, stop your hollering.”

Leona was hunched and spindly, with short white hair and thick glasses. She'd battled breast cancer and survived, but she was weak and often in pain. He wondered if the cancer had returned. He followed her into the house that was built over seventy years ago by Buddy, her late husband. How had they ever raised five kids in a place this small? The inside was swept clean; potted flowers and plants sat in windowsills, and sun-catchers sparkled in the windows. Leona brought him a glass of milk and a plate of sugar cookies. She sat across from him and talked about the old days, the way she always did, but today she seemed anxious, looking around, tapping her fingernails. She stopped and started, and he wondered if she'd taken her pills.

“You all right?”

“Oh, I'm fine.” She thought for a second. “Where was I? Oh, how me and Buddy used to grow just about everything. Corn, beans. All kinds of vegetables.” She looked at Cole. “You ever growed a garden?”

“No, can't say I have.”

“I worry about you young folks. Used to be family and neighbors helped each other, but nobody wants to work like that anymore. My grandkids, you can forget about them. If you was to take away all these stores and computers, most people today wouldn't know how to survive.”

“I guess I'd be one of them,” Cole said.

“It all changed so fast, and I'm getting so damn old. Hell, I can't even take a walk in the woods by myself, too weak.” Her mouth turned downward. “It's the damn coal company, getting to my kids. Think they're gonna get rich.”

Heritage was planning to mine the mountain behind her, and her kids were pressuring her to take their offer. “Don't you want to have a little extra money, they ask. I do all right with what I got. What do I need all that extra money for?” Her eyes blazed. “I ain't ever had money.” She paused. “You know what my mother used to say?”

“What?”

“Us poor folk have poor folk ways. But rich people have mean ones.”

Cole laughed. “That sounds about right.”

“Greed, that's always been our downfall.”