Breathe into Me (9 page)

“You had an abortion?”

I looked up at Dolly, the checker I was helping. The appalled look on her face drove the entire situation home, and it was like a blow to the gut. “
No
,” I said emphatically. “I would never do that!”

I knew from the expression on her face that she didn’t believe me.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Macon said, and I rounded on him.

I stared at him, openmouthed, unable to speak. This had to be a sick joke. “Macon, I wasn’t pregnant, I never had an abortion.”

“What kind of person are you to kill an unborn baby?”

I was the center of attention for the entire front of the store, all eyes on me, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. My lungs seized, unable to pull air into my body; nothing could get past my throat. I hadn’t had an asthma attack since I was a little girl. Long ago I’d thrown away my inhaler, not thinking I’d ever need it again. The familiar sensation of a fist squeezing my heart and lungs threw me into a panic, and I fought against the feeling as I struggled to get air.

“Out of the way!” I heard a familiar voice ring through the air, and then Clare was there. “Come on, girl, nice and slow. Just breathe in and out.”

Rob appeared beside us. “What happened? Is Lacey all right?”

“I think she’s having an asthma attack.” Clare’s arm moved around me as she guided me toward the shelves along the front wall. “Lean down and focus on breathing, sweetie.”

“Baby?” Macon crouched down across from me, face filled with false concern. “Are you all right?”

“Get
back
,” Clare snarled next to me, and stepped in front of him. “Come on, nobody’s going to hurt you, just breathe.”

It took several choking gasps for air before I felt my lungs begin to unclench. By now tears were streaming down my face, and I swiped at them with the back of my hand.

“What’s going on here?”

Mrs. Holloway’s voice almost made me go into another asthma attack, and I kept my eyes on the floor.

“Lacey was having an asthma attack.”

“I can see that.”

I looked up to see the store manager staring down at me, her lip curled with disdain. Her frosty gaze moved over to Macon, then Clare, and back to Rob. “Is she better now?”

By now, air was flowing once more. I still wasn’t one hundred percent, but I nodded and answered anyway. “Yes, ma’am,” I croaked, my voice all but gone.

“Very well. Ms. St. James, if you would follow me.”

My gut shriveled into a hard knot. I couldn’t even look at the woman as I straightened up, knowing exactly what was about to happen. My gaze fell on Macon, who’d melted into the background to watch the proceedings. There was a savage glint in his eyes as he watched everyone’s reactions. A small wrinkle at the corner of his mouth told me he was holding back a smile.

Oh, God
. The whole ordeal
had
been a cruel joke, and I was stuck on the butt end of it.

Nearby me, I heard Clare speak up. “Mrs. Holloway, it wasn’t her fault … ”

“Ms. Bishop,” our manager said in tones that brooked no argument, “please return to your customers.”

I couldn’t bear to look at Clare or anyone else in that storefront. As I walked past the cash register I heard someone ask a question in a low voice, then Dolly answered back in a loud whisper. “Bless her heart, she had an abortion.”

“No, I didn’t,” I snapped as I walked by, but it was too late. By the time I was out of the manager’s office, the whole store would know. The truth didn’t matter; this gossip was too juicy to bother with the details.

I followed the large woman through the aisles and into the manager’s offices in the back of the building. It wasn’t large, but there was enough room for a desk and chairs. Mrs. Holloway closed the door behind me. “Do you know why I’ve asked you in here?”

Because you’ve never liked me?
Whatever my grandmother had said in Glenda Holloway’s ear had poisoned the store manager against me since the day I was hired. I’d worked hard, been on time nearly every day, but nothing I could do ever seemed enough.

“You’ve already been warned once about allowing personal problems to affect work performance,” she continued, not bothering to wait for my answer. She sat down and pulled out a drawer. “Please sit down, Ms. St. James.”

I sat, too tired to argue. So Rob had told her about Macon’s previous visit.

“I don’t appreciate having a liar among my workforce,” she continued, thumbing through her files until she pulled mine out. “You’ve made a habit of falsifying your timecard, clocking in either too early or too late.”

I listened mutely as she ticked off a myriad of offenses that were either overblown or blatant lies. I just stared blankly at her, not giving her a chance to see how my heart was breaking. She was thorough, I had to give her that. She showed me every instance I’d gone outside the lines, proving that what was coming was inevitable and all my doing. Rob’s warning was a single-line statement, but it was also included in her laundry list.

“I took a chance hiring you, Lacey, because your grandmother was a friend. Unfortunately, based on your performance, I’m afraid I’m going to have to terminate your employment. You will be escorted to your locker to make sure you only take what is yours and not what is company property.”

Behind the desk, my hands clenched into fists but I didn’t allow any emotion to show on my face. I was going to be escorted out of the building as if I had stolen something, or wasn’t trusted enough to be left unguarded. As much as I wanted to rant and rave about how unfair this was, there was nothing I could do. Such a reaction would only validate Glenda Holloway’s opinion of me, and I had enough pride not to let the bitch win.

She studied me, as if eager for my reaction. Seconds ticked by before she frowned. “Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

When I didn’t give her one, she seemed annoyed by my silence. “Your conduct here will be kept permanently in your file. Any potential employers will be given a full rundown as to why you were dismissed.”

I just stared at her, keeping my gaze blank. The door behind me opened, and Elton, the old security guard, came inside the room. I cringed inwardly at having someone else witness this, but didn’t allow my frustration to show. Tears of frustration were threatening, and my lungs still burned from the asthma attack, but I held everything in. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me beg, or show any emotion that she could gloat over.

Finally, Glenda gave an annoyed grunt and motioned for Elton. “Please escort her out, and make sure she doesn’t steal anything.” To me, she added, “Your grandmother will be so ashamed that you killed her great-grandchild so callously.”

Elton accompanied me silently to the employee area while I packed up my things into a plastic grocery bag. Then I was escorted from the building, left alone only once I’d exited the front doors. Macon was nowhere in sight but I couldn’t care less at this point. I kept on going, walking straight through the large parking lot.

“Lacey!”

Clare’s voice sounded behind me but I didn’t turn, continuing forward toward the main street. Tears stung my eyes but I didn’t stop, even when she called my name a second time. I couldn’t let her see me cry, couldn’t bear for anyone to see my tears.

Beside the shopping center was a six-foot cinderblock wall separating it from the nearby neighborhood. Nothing was on the other side except an alley nobody ever used. I turned up that narrow road, continuing down the dirt path until I was halfway between the two streets at either end and nobody could see me.

Then I leaned back against that gray wall and slid to the ground, bawling my eyes out.

“You seem distracted.”

“Mmm.” It was true I had a lot on my mind. I hadn’t told anyone about my being fired. It was a conversation I was dreading, and I had hoped to replace the job quickly, but my plans on that front weren’t working out so well. The fight with my mother two days prior still weighed heavily on me as well. We hadn’t spoken of it, and the unresolved feelings made me edgy.

I stared at the math problems before me, but my eyes were already starting to cross. Sighing, I leaned back in my chair. “Math has never been my strong suit.”

“Well, you’re doing better than before. That’s a start at least.”

Snorting, I leaned my head over to look at Everett. He was leaning over my latest test, his hair partially obscuring his face. I stared at his profile, the slightly-too-large-for-his-face nose that still fit, the square jaw that on anyone else might have been too much. The T-shirt he wore stretched across his hunched shoulders, setting off the thickness of his arms.

I’d always been a chest-and-arm muscle kind of girl, and Everett had those to spare. I would catch myself staring and have to look away sometimes, struggling to focus on whatever we were studying. It’d been a long time since someone, a stranger to boot, had been this nice to me without expecting anything in return.

Didn’t hurt that he was cute.

“Oh, by the way, I’ve got some good news and bad news about the transmission. Trent said he’s too busy right now to rebuild another one, but he’d be willing to swap yours out with one he’s already got.”

“That’s awesome! So what’s the bad news?”

“Well, it’s only potentially bad. He needs to know what kind of vehicle you have to know whether it’ll work.”

“Admit it, you just want to know what I drive.”

He grinned. “The question has crossed my mind,” he teased, bumping my ribs with an elbow good-naturedly.

Well, it wasn’t like it was a national secret. “It’s a 1973 Ford Bronco, stock manual transmission.”

Everett blinked, and then gave a long whistle. “Now I feel woefully inadequate. Hang on, let me text Trent and see what he says.”

The answer came almost immediately. “He says it’ll work, and he’s free tomorrow.”

Tomorrow was Saturday, and another day off from the sandwich shop. “That could work,” I said carefully. “I need to call my uncle Jake first to let him know not to shoot us when we go pick it up.”

My uncle Jake lived up in the northern part of the county amid the pine forests. We weren’t exactly close relations, but he’d been friends with my grandmother for years and when I’d expressed an interest in cars, we’d bonded.

“How about we move the transmission to wherever you’re storing the truck? Trent can use his dad’s flatbed, so it shouldn’t take much work to get it up there. Probably cheaper than towing the Bronco down here.”

I thought about it for a minute. “Alright, see if he can set it up. Now, chop-chop, I’m paying you to tutor me, not to sit here playing on your phone.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

* * *

The entire swap went without a hitch.

I was surprised by how quickly Trent installed the heavy piece of equipment. The wiry boy still manhandled the large transmission better than men twice his size.

“That boy’s got the knack for them machines,” my uncle Jake said as we watched Trent and Everett work under the truck.

I grinned. “Which one?”

“Not yer boy, doubt he knows a socket wrench from an Allen. That blond boy, though, he’s got the touch.”

Coming from Jake, that was quite the compliment. My uncle probably would have fixed my truck himself if I didn’t have too much pride to ask. As it was, he helped them out, keeping on his feet since both his knees were messed up from an old motorcycle injury.

Trent rolled out from under the truck, wiping his hands on his jeans. “All right, start it up.”

I climbed up into the cab and stuck the key in the ignition. It felt so good to be back inside the big Ford. The view was much higher now due to the jack stands, but I’d missed being surrounded by the huge cab. “Hang on,” I called, then turned the key.

The old Bronco coughed, attempting to start. She’d been sitting for a good while and didn’t like being made to work again. I babied the gas pedal and tried again, and this time it only took three tries for the starter to get her going.

Everett poked his head around my open door. “All right, put it in reverse.”

Crossing my fingers, I slipped the stick sideways on the floor. It shifted much easier than I ever remembered before, and I could tell from my uncle’s whoop that the tires were moving.

“Try cycling through the gears.”

Keeping the clutch pressed, I put it in each gear, my smile growing bigger with each one. By the last gear, I was grinning like a loon: I had my baby back! I hit the gas, glorying in the rough sound of the exhaust, before finally letting it idle in Neutral. “That was awesome,” I exclaimed, sliding out of the cab.

“Son, lemme talk to you a sec.” Jake swooped in and pulled Trent aside, leaving Everett and me alone.

I stared at the Bronco, biting my lip to contain my smile before it overwhelmed me. God, I hadn’t been this happy in so long.

“And you called my car ratty?”

“Hey,” I said in mock affront, “she’s a diamond in the rough. Give her some credit.” Truthfully, I enjoyed what Jake called
patina
; the rust didn’t bother me, only made me identify more with the old girl. “Anyway, don’t judge a book by its cover. Want to see the engine?”

He whistled in appreciation when I finally levered up the hood. “I may not know what half this stuff does,” he said, “but it looks good.”

There had been a time when nearly every dollar I had went into my truck. Call it a phase, but I’d had great plans for her. Reality set in, however, when my transmission went out right just as I’d lost my previous job.

“I’m curious, though, why not ask Jake to take you in?”

His question dimmed some of my excitement. “His wife doesn’t like me much.”

“Ah.” I guess there wasn’t much more for him to say. Emmaline Dupre was only a few years older than me and made it no secret that she didn’t want me anywhere near her husband. The fact that Jake didn’t seem to care only made her hate me more. Jake had been a whole-hearted supporter of my plans for the Bronco, letting me use his yard to do my modifications, and eventually store it. Given the fact that she was closer to my age than Jake’s, she probably thought of me as competition.