Bottom Feeder Page 11

  “Thanks for driving,” Janelle says and wraps her arms around my shoulders.

  “You want me to stay?” I whisper.

  She shakes her head. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Call me if you need anything, okay? I promise I’ll be here in no time.”

  “I don’t like Jackson,” she murmurs. “I wanted Lamont to notice me.”

  I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure she could have just talked him.

  “Friends,” he says again. His brow furrows. “How will you get home?”

  “Dixon,” I lie.

  “Okay, good.” He smiles. I return the smile. It might be a grimace. I’m not sure.

  Once everyone is inside, I tighten up my Vans and curse myself for attempting to jog in an underwire bra.

  “You’re walking, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Liar.”

  “I’m jogging.”

  “Let me call you a cab.”

  “No.” If I showed up at the house in a cab, Daddy would ask too many questions I’m not ready to answer. I’m too tired to think of a good lie.

  “Let me take you home.”

  I swing around to face him. “Abso-freakin’-lutely not.”

  Jackson

  “You’re crazy, Maddy. It’s two a.m.!”

  She narrows her eyes. Oh crap. “I am not crazy.”

  “Look, we can share a cab. I want to know about the best part of your day.”

  “Jackson, please.” Maddy squeezes her eyes shut. Opens them. “For the love of God please stop pretending you are interested in anything about me. I respect that you are working for my father, but you are not my minion. You don’t have to pretend to like me.” She exhales a cleansing breath and adds quietly, “Because it kind of hurts, okay? Please just stop.”

  “What?” I ask stupidly.

  “There are no security cameras here. My father is not around. Take care of Lamont and make sure Janelle gets home safely.”

  She walks to the edge of the parking lot and changes pace to a perfect runner’s form.

  On the way up to the seventh floor I call a cab. A suddenly-sober Janelle is attentively watching a semi-sober Lamont, who is on the floor staring blankly at the Pentagon Channel.

  “I’m not feeling too hot,” I mumble. “Can I get you a cab, Janelle?”

  She glances at Lamont. “Is he going to be okay?”

  I change the channel to a workout infomercial. “You good?”

  Without blinking, he replies, “Oo-rah,” like a true Marine.

  Janelle and I ride to her house in silence. She looks out the window while I text Maddy to see if she has made it home.

  Almost is her reply.

  “I’m sorry,” Janelle says. She swipes at tears rolling down her cheek. “I really—I’ve liked Lamont for a long time. He wouldn’t talk to me.”

  I laugh. “Did you play me tonight?” A sad smile splays across her face. “Look, Janelle, you’re beautiful. I hope you know that, okay? I’m sort of an asshole so coming on to guys like me to get at their best friend is not the best idea in the world. You have to handle Lamont at a time when more blood than beer is running through him.” I grab her phone and add Lamont’s number to the contacts. “Give him time to sober up and call him. He deserves to have something good in his life.”

  “You don’t seem like an asshole,” she says.

  “Most of us don’t.”

  After Janelle is safely inside her house, I call Maddy.

  “I wanted to make sure you made it home safely,” I say when she answers.

  “Yes, thank you for calling.”

  And that was that.

  The smell of sweet potato pancakes and bacon frying spring me out of bed a few hours later. I never sleep through bacon. Ever. I saunter into the kitchen where Mama is pouring a cup of coffee. She points to the counter. My face lights up at the expectation of food.

  Instead of perfectly cooked pancakes drizzled with homemade pecan syrup, my eyes land on the wallet I left at Laney’s house. I avert my attention to stare at anything except Mama’s scrutinizing face. Apparently she knows about Laney’s game, too.

  After breakfast I wash dishes and work in our small backyard, pulling weeds and fixing anything that needs to be fixed.

  I learned to fix things around the house early in life. Michael, the sperm donor, left when I was six. He met an amateur model on a business trip to Los Angeles. Mama and I were history as soon as he returned to Georgia.

  I was thirteen the last time Michael came here. He threatened to kick us out of the house if we didn’t let him stay. Since the house is technically his, she had no other choice but to allow him.

  From the moment he suggested that Mama sleep on the couch while he took the bed, I hated him. This was after I overheard her refusal to sleep with him. He never said a word to me the entire weekend, which was fine. His silence fueled my hate. The thing that pissed me off the most was how he acted like he did us a favor by allowing his presence in the house.

  Mama received an email from him three years ago. He was in London on his fourth model.

  And I still hated him.

  I save the worst chore for last: cleaning up the mess karma made in my room yesterday. I drag the pieces of cheap laminate to the curb, trying to clear all thoughts of the one person who has invaded my life for the past two days. The person who is everything I need and nothing I want.

  I cannot help but wonder if maybe I keep hurting her on accident, or if being selfish comes naturally.

  I walk to Mrs. Brenner’s house Monday afternoon after a failed attempt to Facebook-stalk Maddy. Mrs. B offered to pay me for the work, but she is doing me a favor by keeping me busy. I was ready for the odd jobs and errands until I the list she handed to me was a mile long.

  “I’m working that aggression right out of you,” she said when I protested against repainting the exterior of her massive house.

  She was right. After working all day, my mind is too tired to think distracting thoughts. I call Lamont to join me the next morning. I have a feeling he could use a little help, too.

  For the next two days, Lamont and I work from before daybreak to hours after sundown. We don’t talk. We listen to music on our iPods and pound nails into wood, uproot dying trees, prune, trim, paint, pick flowers and vegetables, plant flowers and vegetables, power wash everything that can be washed and clean every nook and cranny inside and outside Mrs. B’s house.

  At night I sleep through the nightmares. I wake up feeling sick, but rested.

  I am out the door by four a.m. Thursday morning to drive a truckload of vegetables from Mrs. B’s garden to a farmer’s market a couple towns over.

  I come to a stop at a red light and spot Maddy waiting on a bus stop bench.

  I pull a U-turn.

  “Need a ride?” I ask, smiling at her Free Hugs t-shirt. Cute.

  Maddy glances down the street. “Are you dropping those at the market in Statesboro?” I nod. She settles on the passenger seat of Mrs. B’s Ford pickup. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Who are you waiting on at this time, anyway?”

  “A friend.”

  Not much else is said on the hour-long drive. I search for songs on the ancient radio while Maddy sends texts on a cell phone that doesn’t look like the same one she had last weekend. I spot that phone peeking out of her purse.

  Why does she need two phones?

  “I’ll be back in thirty minutes,” she says when I pull to the market’s front loading dock. I watch her disappear down Main Street, noticing the back of her shirt reads (Restrictions Apply). Feisty.

  While unloading bushels of vegetables, I notice a man exit the market. He is dressed in a not-very-practical-for-a-South-Georgia-summer black suit and talking on a phone similar to the one Maddy was texting on five minutes ago.

  “How far?” he asks over a mouthful of Granny Smith apple. “Uh-huh. Black sedan. Romeo Alpha November One Niner Seven.” I glance at this guy spouting off
the phonetic alphabet outside a small town farmer’s market like it’s a war mission. He eyes me suspiciously before adding softly, “Get in the back. There in two.”

  Instincts tell me the man is talking to Maddy. When a black sedan drops her off at the end of the street exactly twenty-three minutes later, my suspicions are confirmed.

  “You’re not fooling me,” I say when she enters the truck.

  “Jackson . . .”

  “I’m serious. What’s going on?”

  “I’m not fooling anyone, Jackson.” She turns to look out the window. “I’m in over my head.”

  “Cordell Carrington for Jackson Monroe,” the formal female voice said after my greeting.

  I sighed internally. “This is Jackson.”

  “One moment, please.”

  “Jackson, my boy, how’re things?” Before I could respond, he continued. “Good, good. I hear your plans were to take Maddy out tonight.” Huh? “I have an overnight business trip to the Everglades that sprung up. If you don’t mind I’d much rather she stayed home. If you could move your date within the confines of the property, I’d be much obliged.” Huh? “Instead of eight o’clock, six would be better.”

  After a moment of silence, I realized I was supposed to speak. “No problem, sir.”

  “All right, son, I’m glad we had this chat. Take care, now.”

  Weirdest. Conversation. Ever.

  I received that call a few hours ago. It is now ten minutes to six o’clock and I am ringing at Cordell’s gate, wondering what he has in store for me tonight.

  I lift my face to the sky, allowing the warm breeze to seep as much fresh air into my lungs as possible. The distant sound of soft music drifts on the wind, carried by the massive oaks surrounding the home.

  “Jackson?” Maddy’s faint voice calls. I look up to see her leaning over the rooftop. “I’ll be down in a few. Let yourself in.”

  When the gate glides open, I walk up the pavers to the front porch. I swing the door open and see Maddy, dressed in yoga shorts and a tank top, rushing down the stairs.

  “Hey,” I greet awkwardly. “Um, so our date is here tonight, I suppose?”

  Maddy furrows her brow. My face is possibly mimicking hers.

  “My father?” she finally asks. I nod.

  “What were you doing on the roof?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No, thanks. I was eating when Cordell called.”

  She turns to lead me to the back of the house. Her hair pulled up in a messy bun and the back scoop of the tank top shows me a range of deep, white and red angry scars on her back. A fresh red gash runs half the length of her right thigh. What the fu—

  She suddenly stops. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  I take in my surroundings, trying to get the sight of those scars out of my brain. I focus on a large table sculpture of a Cherokee rose. I run my fingers over the five vivid white petals. The feel of the matte finish makes my skin crawl, like when you hear nails scrape a chalkboard. I continue tracing across the yellow-gold stamens, down to the prickly bristles of the stem.

  My first day here, I admired the architecture, the art, the marble, the hardwoods. Everything. I wanted these things, felt like I needed them. The blood money it took to furnish this multi-million dollar home makes me sick. It’s funny how only a few days of bad experience can change a person.

  “The bristles represent protection,” Maddy says behind me. “The flower is delicate, beautiful. It’s like it knows everyone wants to touch it, to pick it, to place it on display for the world to see its quiet beauty. It has one defense mechanism to help keep its form intact.” She runs her fingers down the stem and back up. “But that defense doesn’t keep people from uprooting and moving it to fit their own selfish wants.”

  Something tells me she’s talking about more than Georgia’s state flower.

  “I’m really sorry he called you,” Maddy says. She has thrown a hoodie over her tank top and changed into a pair of black yoga pants.

  I shrug. “It’s not your place to apologize.”

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  I follow her to an enormous game room and settle on a bar stool. Maddy walks behind a fully-stocked bar and begins to pump syrups into tall, slender glasses. She adds ice then pulls out a liquid siphon and fills the glass to the brim with club soda.

  My tastes buds dance a little jig when I take a sip of the sweet red liquid. The drink is an exact replica of my favorite soda.

  “You don’t have to stay, Jackson.”

  “Is Dixon coming over?” Or does she not want me here?

  “He’s in Tennessee for a few days.”

  “Do you have other plans?” Maddy shakes her head. “Good. We can be each other’s plans. What were you doing before I arrived?”

  Instead of answering, she asks, “Would you like to watch a movie? Go out on one of the boats? We have over an hour of sunlight left.”

  I vote for the boat ride. To my surprise Maddy climbs into a two-person John boat anchored to the party barge. I untie the rope as she starts the motor.

  “Let me,” I say, climbing to the end. After a quick assurance that I know what I’m doing, she gives up the seat and allows me to take over.

  She glides down to the bottom of the boat and reclines her head. She begins to hum a soundtrack for our short trip to the opposite end of the peninsula.

  Sounds of water lapping lazily against the boat, distant blares of tugboat horns and the heartbreak song of crickets chirping in the trees remind me of how much I miss this place.

  I cut the motor and gently lower the anchor.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  A sleepy smile plays on her lips. “Not at all.”

  To make room for my six-one length, I throw my legs over the seat. Water splashes inside the boat as I glide down next to Maddy.

  I do not think about insurgents or ammunition or nightmares. Serenity overtakes my thoughts. For the first time in months my disturbed mind is not screaming for mercy.

  We lie in silence—our arms and legs touching accidentally on purpose—until well after the sun dips beyond the horizon. I reluctantly head back to the dock before complete darkness takes over.

  Maddy leads us down a hallway of plush red carpet lined along the sides with movie theater lights. The walls are covered with movie posters ranging from Gone with the Wind to The Goonies to foreign films with titles I’ve never heard of. Oversized leather recliners line up in rows of stadium seating in the main room. A wall-sized movie screen is embedded in a sleek frame, giving the effect of an ornate picture.

  Maddy shows me how to work the touch screen controller before she goes for popcorn and drinks. I scroll through a list of thousands of movies.

  Please no chick movies. Please no chick movies.

  “No romantic comedies or dramas, please!” she calls from another room.

  I smile to myself and pick a comedy.

  “I love this one!” Maddy exclaims, handing me a tub of popcorn mixed with peanut butter M&Ms.

  I sit next to her at the back of the room. I should not sit too close, but I need to be this close to her.

  I mimic the lines from the movie in an attempt to make her laugh. The torch is passed when she begins reciting the lines in perfect unison, including the ridiculous accents and facial expressions. I clutch my stomach and crumple over from laughing so hard. It feels good to laugh like this again.

  Maybe I will be all right after all.

  I take her hand. Maddy’s fingers twitch at my touch, like she is going to pull away. She doesn’t. With a smile not focused directly at me, she squeezes my hand and rests our hands on her leg. Does she notice how our fingers fit perfectly together? How each caress of her soft skin with my thumb is doing things to me that I’ve never experienced before?

  Does she know how wrong it feels for me to feel like this?

  “When is Cordell expected to be back?” I ask when the movie ends.

  “
Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “It’s okay if I stay a little longer?”

  “If you’d like,” she whispers.

  I smile and take her hand again. “Show me the roof.”

  Maddy leads me to her bedroom, out a set of French doors that open to a large terrace and around a set of Adirondack chairs. The terrace comes to an end at a spiral staircase near the back of the house.

  Only an iHome and a bed-sized chaise lounge adorn the small space. Our view overlooks part of Back River and the private peninsula attached to the property. With no moon or stars, the night is all darkness. The blue-black of the sky meets the inky black water, giving the effect of being in the center of a massive black hole.

  I recline on the chaise, stretching my legs as far as I can to make sure Maddy has no choice except to sit next to me.

  I know what you’re thinking. I’m not trying to have sex with her. Maddy is not the type of girl someone can treat like a one-night stand. She is worth taking things slow. Too bad I’ve never been that type of guy.

  I cannot believe I’m thinking this. What is she doing to me?

  For the next few hours, Maddy and I talk about everything and nothing. When the conversation lulls, I fall asleep with my head across her lap and Maddy’s fingers running through my hair.

  The Kevlar vest is heavy and rough against my bare chest. My helmet is not enough cover for my head. The gun feels too light in my hands. I aim, shoot. The clip is empty.

  The pleading faces of Sergeant Hauton, Specialist Gorney, and Private Trakt appear through a cloudy haze of gunpowder and sweat. A sniper’s bullet whistles by my head in slow motion. My legs sink into the mountain when I try to run. I cannot save them. I can never save them.

  Gunfire drowns my screams of how much I hate this fucking war.

  “Shhh, Jackson. It’s okay.” Maddy’s voice seeps into my nightmare. I scream, plead for an end. “Shhh . . . it’s okay,” Maddy repeats. She shouldn’t be here. Why is she here?

  “It’s not okay!” I shout. Through my incoherent, tearless sobs, Maddy’s arms remain draped around me. “I couldn’t do anything! Not a damn thing. They . . . The boots . . . I left them untied. The bullet . . . oh, God. That bullet was meant for me, and I was busy tying my fucking boots. I should’ve died, Maddy. Why didn’t I die? I deserved it. Not them.”