Shelf Life (18 page)

chapter thirty-two

My alarm sounds well before the sun’s up. I slap at it several times before finally picking it up and hurling it at the wall. I roll over and moan, keenly aware that every muscle in my body is on fire, stretched tight, then stretched and abused again, until they have no choice but to grow stronger or snap. I wiggle my toes, which are the only part of me that’s cold. I crack open one eye and discover they’re poking out the bottom of my quilt. I snag it with my feet and pull it down to cover them, but this leaves the top half of my torso uncovered.

Fuck it.

The hard floor does precious little to clear the cobwebs from my head. I shuffle into the kitchen. Mom’s already there, reaching overhead for a cast iron skillet. “Omelet?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she says, as she cracks eggs into a bowl.

“What?”

“Be a hero. Every night I go to sleep and I don’t know whether to cry or sing praises. You didn’t sign up for this. We’re stealing your youth. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Mom—”

“I’m proud of you. Proud that you’re becoming such an independent, hard-working man, but I still feel guilty, that this is somehow my fault.”

“Mom, there’s nothing to feel guilty about. I chose this. You tried to talk me about of it, but I insisted, remember? Right at this kitchen table, I told you that you all could move to town, but I was staying here no matter what. If anything, I should feel guilty for making you stay.”

My empty stomach tightens when Mom wipes at her face. She scrapes at the eggs in the skillet. I move behind her and circle her waist, hunching to rest my chin on her shoulder.

“Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too, Pete. You want ketchup with this?”

“Yes, please.” I squeeze her before letting go to retrieve a fork.

“You eat all of that now, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I reply, giving her a mock salute with the fork. She grins.

“What are you two smiling about?” Sweat beads up on my forehead when Sarah strides into the kitchen fully dressed. She and I need to talk about what she told me and what I know in my gut is true. “You enjoy those eggs while I go out and get us some more. Slacker.”

“Princess.”

She turns around and shoots me a dirty look, but I’m ready for her. With ninja-like precision, I launch a forkful of eggs. They hit her right in the face, sliding down her nose and plopping onto the wooden floor.

“Kids!” I swear we all jump out of our skins at Dad’s voice. “Your mother got up to make you an omelet and that’s how you repay her? By flinging it across the room and wasting it? I’ll be sure to remind you of this when it’s February and you’d kill for fresh produce.”

“Honey,
it’s fine—”

“No, it’s not fine,” he interrupts. “You kids need to learn respect.”

“Michael, that’s enough. Can I make you something for breakfast?”

“No. I’m not hungry.” He turns on his crutches and hobbles into the living room.

Sarah and I stare, wide-eyed, at his retreating back.
What the fuck?
I look to Mom for an explanation, but she just presses her lips together and shakes her head.

I return to my room and pull on a T-shirt and overalls. It’s too quiet back here, which gives me time to think. My sister’s dealing drugs, my dad’s turning mean, and everything’s gone to hell. What’s next? What the hell else could possibly go wrong? The law of averages says we’ve had our share of hardship and things can only get better. Murphy’s Law sticks out its tongue at my optimism and delivers a roundhouse kick to its
nutsack. In the mudroom, my boots are the last things I need before shoving open the door. I’m greeted by darkness.

And
someone slamming my back into the side of the house.

“
The chickens are dead!
” Sarah’s voice is practically hysterical.

“Dead?
Did an animal get them?”

“Only if it could break their necks.”

“All of them?”

“Not quite, but most.”

“
Shit
.”

“Come look.” Sarah takes my hand, pulling me
across the yard to the hen house. Under the glare from her flashlight, the ground is littered with feathers.

My stomach heaves with the same sickening rage as when I discovered the trashed bunker. I take a shaky breath and attempt to remain calm. “Put them in a sack. Leave it by the barn. I’ll pluck them after I finish with the cows and we’ll tell Mom and Dad together. We’ll be eating
good tonight.”

Mom freaks. Dad shuts down and goes back to reading his newspaper. I’ve got to hand it to Sarah, though. Instead of making me the bearer of bad news, she tells them herself.

“Mom’s a freaking mess,” she says as we walk together toward the barn and chicken coop. A couple of the hens are strutting around the yard, but most of their sisters are lifeless feathered heaps scattered in front. I count six dead. That leaves only three alive, plus the rooster.

“I know. I’ve never seen her like this.”

“What do we do?”

I shrug, really not sure. “Keep doing what we’re doing, I guess. Right now, I’m going to milk the girls, so if you could gather them up and put them outside the door, that’d be great.”

“Sure,” she says, nudging one of the birds with her toe.

“Thanks.”

“Actually, thank
you
.”

Wait, what? This day couldn’t get any weirder.
“For what?”

“For…this.
Everything. Keeping us all from falling apart. I still think you’re a disgusting maggot, but I know what you’re trying to do and how hard you’re working.”

“Um, thanks?”

“Oh, and I don’t know if you still care, but Lewis dropped out.”

I stop in my tracks. “What? Of course I care. Why would he do that?”

She lifts her shoulders. “All I know is, I haven’t seen him in weeks. You think it’s because of what happened at Helen’s party? Because he really needs to get over it if that’s the case.”

Ah, my sister.
Sweet one moment, a complete bitch the next. “I haven’t spoken to either one, so I have no idea.”

“Lindsey’s really being a bitch, huh?”

Takes one to know one
. “I don’t know what the deal is. See you in a bit.”

I duck into the barn and thank my lucky stars I can lose myself for an hour with Katie, Scarlett and Ashley before I have to strip the hens that laid the eggs I ate this morning.

***

That afternoon, I’m ass-deep in manure when I hear my name. I keep up my momentum, not wanting to prolong this task any longer than I have to. I love my girls, and their shit makes our tomatoes grow to the size of my head, but it certainly doesn’t smell like roses.

“Pete!”

To no one in particular I say, “I swear that sounds like my long-lost best friend Lindsey Linger, but she decided she didn’t want to play with me anymore, so there’s no way it’s her. Guess I’ll just keep shoveling
shit. At least I know I’m in my element that way.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Pete. I came to apologize.”

“Girls, did you hear that? Did one of you pass gas?”

“Grow the hell up,” she barks. “I knew I shouldn’t have come.”

“Wait, I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know. I don’t know what to say to you.”

“You don’t have to say anything. If you’d shut the hell up for a second, I’d do the talking. Jeez. Guess they don’t teach listening skills in college.”

“We gonna trade insults all day? Because I’ve got a job to do.”

“That’s why I came here. I heard what happened with your dad and the mill.” She wipes the back of her hand across her forehead as the late August heat beats down. “I want to help.”

I lean on the shovel and stare at her. “Help?”

“Yeah.”

“No thanks. I don’t need your kind of help.” It’s wrong of me to turn my back on her, but hell if I’m over her backstabbing earlier this summer.

“Yes, you do. Don’t be stubborn. It’s almost time to harvest the field corn and you’re going to need me.”

“I’ve got Mom and Sarah. We’ll manage.”

“Your mother is nearly fifty years old and Sarah is a princess. You and I both know I can do the work of a man. Let me help.”

“Why?”

“Why what?
Why should you let me help?”

“No, why do you want to? Is this some pity thing? Because you can take your false pity and trot on back
to the feed mill.” The look on her face makes me wish I could swallow those words back down, but they’ve been kicking around in my head far too long. I turn back to the shit I’m supposed to be shoveling.

“What happened to us?”

“Oh god, do we have to have this conversation now? You were just talking about doing the work of a man but now you’re getting all…
girlie
. Make up your damn mind, because if—
if
—you work with me, there’s no room for that.”

She looks at the ground, chewing on her lower lip.
“Deal.”

I did not expect that.
“Seriously?”

“Seriously.
I work during the week, but I can be here in the evenings and weekends. I don’t want to be at home and I have nowhere else to be, so I might as well do some good here.” She sniffs. “Can I be a girl for just another minute?”

I sigh and nod.

“I also miss you. Us. Nothing’s been the same without you hanging around.”

“That right?” I take off my hat and run my hand through my short hair. I could be wrong, but I swear I just caught Lindsey Linger checking out my biceps. You know, now that I have some.

“Don’t try to tell me you don’t miss us, too.”

“By
us
do you mean you and me, or you, me and Lewis?”

“Both, I guess. Not sure it’ll ever be the three of us again, but I’d be a fool not to try and salvage you and me. Unless you think there’s nothing left to save. If that’s the case, I’ll still stay and help, but I’ll keep my distance. I understand. I hurt you pretty good,
though I didn’t mean to.”

I close my eyes and a soft breeze makes the sweat on my forehead turn cold. Along with the stench of manure comes a faint hint of lavender—Lindsey’s signature scent. When she first began wearing it, Lewis and I made fun of her. I think we were in middle school when I noticed it on the bus one morning. There was no way I was going to tell her she smelled pretty and that it made me want to lean closer to her, so I’d pinched my nose and told her she smelled like my grandma. Most girls would get all embarrassed and maybe even cry, but not Lindsey.

“At least I don’t smell like I’ve had my hand up a horse’s ass like you,” she’d said. One of the other students told the bus driver and she’d had to sit in the front seat for a week, but I never made fun of her perfume again.

Now, every time I smell lavender soap or talc or whatever else they make out of it, I think of Lindsey and her fierce eyes that day on the bus. It makes me smile.

“What?”

I shake my head.
“Nothing. I know you didn’t mean to cause trouble, and Lord knows I didn’t mean to cause any for you or Lewis. Listen, I’m about done here, but I could use your help with the tractor. The clutch is messed up and I need it in top shape before it’s time to do the field corn. Think you can handle that?”

She narrows her eyes. “You
wanna tie one hand behind my back while I do it?”

Damn
, I forgot how cute she is. “Man, I missed you.”

“I know.
Me, too. Now stop being a girl, Pete, and please stop looking at me that way. How can I be all butchy if you’re mentally undressing me?”

“So help me God, I’ll throw a handful of shit at you.”

“The hell you will!” She takes off running toward the garage, but not before she flashes me a wide grin. Putting the hat back on my head, I turn and shovel another load of cow shit, but for some reason, it seems to weigh less now.

chapter thirty-three

T
he air’s at least ten degrees cooler in the shade of the garage. Lindsey’s legs and feet stick out from under the Ford 3000 I’ll be using in a few weeks to pull the small combine. I can get an animal to do nearly anything, but I don’t speak machine. That talent passed me by.

“Dad says the clutch is stuck.”

“Yeah,” she says from under the transmission. “It was. Not anymore.” She shimmies out and sits up. There’s a streak of grease on her cheek and another on her neck. I never wanted to lick petroleum products so badly in my life. Instead, I hand her a can of contraband Pepsi I hid in my truck.

“Sorry it’s warm.
Can’t exactly put it in the fridge next to the organic watermelons.”

She shrugs and gulps down the whole thing in one shot. She follows this manly display with a belch that shakes the rafters.

“That’s hot.”

“You know it,” she says, and crushes the can against her forehead.

“Okay, when I said to not be such a girl, I didn’t mean you had to turn into a guy. What’s next? A farting competition?”

“If you insist…”

“Shut up,” I tell her, and run my thumb over the grease on her cheek. Two months without her and my world fell apart. Two hours with her back and it’s been fused together again. I’d be a fool to think it’ll ever be as innocent and perfect as it once was, but I’ll take this new, battle-scarred version.

In our time apart, I did some things I’m not terribly proud of, and others that I wouldn’t change, even if they hurt her. Better that she finds out now and accept that I’m not perfect, but I think she already knows. She’s always been a realist. I didn’t know how to describe it when we were younger, but that’s it. Lindsey wouldn’t expect me to put my life on a shelf like a jar of preserves. Life’s meant to be consumed, even when it’s more tart than sweet.

She stills for a moment then takes off her work gloves, avoiding my eyes the whole time.

“Listen,” she says.

“No. There’s nothing to discuss. All is forgiven and forgotten on my part. Plus, you promised not to go girlie on me again.”

“Fine, fine.
So what’s the schedule? Field corn, then pumpkins?”

“Yeah, but in the meantime, we’ve got to harvest the last of the tomatoes and finish canning. Mom’s been at it for a couple weeks already, but it was a good year.”

“Awesome. All the farmers have been saying what a rough winter it’s supposed to be. Early, too.”

“They say that every year.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she says, shrugging.

We spend the rest of the day plucking the last of the tomatoes from their sagging vines. She takes the last of the Genovese and I handle the Brandywines. They’re smooth, red, and the size of my fist. Some of them will be stewed before being canned, but most go
into Mom’s spaghetti sauce. It’s famous around here. I keep telling her to sell it to a local restaurant, but she won’t hear of it. More for me, I guess, plus we need to replace last year’s leftovers that got destroyed.

After dinner, we sit side by side on the back porch, removing stems and leaves from our tomato haul. Cicadas start up their nightly racket, but I’m thankful something’s breaking the awkward silence growing between me and Lindsey. I’m out of jokes and ways to tease her. I’m tired, and quite honestly, I don’t understand why she’s still here.

“You can go home, you know. I’ve got this covered.”

She puts down the tomato she’s working on and rests her arms on her knees, looking out over the back yard. “Please don’t make me leave,” she whispers.

“I’d never make you leave, but if you’ve got something better to do…”

“I don’t.”

“Okay.” She picks up another tomato and begins plucking at it, not really accomplishing anything, but she seems pretty intent on exacting some sort of revenge on the poor vegetable. Or fruit. Whatever. “How’s your mom?”

“Okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Probably worse than that,” she says.

“Wow.”

She swipes at her eyes with the inside of her elbow.

“Crap, don’t cry. My parents will think it’s my fault.”

“Not everything is about you, you know.”

“No, but the last time you cried, some heavy shit went down and I took the blame. Not really in a hurry for a repeat of that.”

She glances at the door and, in the light from the
porch, I see tears streaking her face. “Come on.” She places her hand in my outstretched one and I pull her across the yard to the barn. It’s silent since the girls are still out in the pasture, and it smells of sweet hay. I lead her up into the loft and we settle in front of the open, square doors.

Below, the grass is nearly black as the last rays of sun die a beautiful death on the horizon while a few brave fireflies begin their nightly routine. Soon, the heat of summer will be replaced with crisp mornings, chilly evenings, and already there’s a sweet hint of rotting leaves. I wish I could pause this time of year to enjoy it just a little longer.

“Tell me what’s going on with your mom.”

“You know she drinks a lot,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“Well, now she drinks constantly.”

“How is she working?”

“She’s not. She lost her job.”

That sounds familiar. “So you’ve had to pick up the slack?”

“Pretty much.”

“I wish you’d told me. I could have helped. I still can. I mean, why are you here if you’ve got all that going on at home?” A beat too late, it hits me. “Oh. You need an escape. You’re safe here, you know. No worries.”

Our shoulders touch. I pretend not to notice even
though I’m turned on from being so close to her. That doesn’t matter much. Right now, she needs the Pete who’s been there for her through thick and thin most of our lives. She needs a friend. I brush my thumb over her knuckles and she inhales, but she blows out a breath and relaxes when I take her hand and give it a light squeeze. “You don’t have to do this alone. Tell me everything.”

For a minute, I’m not sure she’s going to open up. Instead, she stares out at the night unfolding across the farm. “She’s stealing,” she says, then turns her face away.

“Stealing what? Stuff from stores?”

“Probably, but mostly from us—me.”

“Money?”

“Yeah.
I’ve tried hiding it, but she gets upset. Not angry, but really agitated, and then she guilt-trips me into giving her part of my paycheck. She swears she’s going to use it for groceries or gas money. Lewis wants to believe her. I don’t think he’s ready to face facts yet. I mean, he’s not facing much of anything these days. Mom told us she lost her job because the new manager was a young guy right out of college who wanted to get rid of all the older employees. Said they’d drain the company with their pensions when they retired, so they trumped up reasons to let them go. Showing up piss drunk seems like a good reason to let someone go.”

What do you say to your best friend when her mom’s gone off the deep end?
Sorry?
That doesn’t seem adequate.
That sucks?
It does, but that isn’t enough, either. I’m afraid if I say the wrong thing, she’ll stop talking and shut me out. Seems like keeping my big mouth closed is the right thing to do, so I reach back and put my arm around her shoulder. To my great relief, she nestles closer in the hay. I know I should be focusing on comforting her, but it feels great to have her back and have her close.

She sniffs, but tough girl that she
is, there aren’t any tears on her face. “Anyway, stuff’s been going missing. Five dollars here and there, a bracelet, some of Lewis’s hunting knives. And you know, I could forgive her if she really needed it for groceries or gas money, or even cigarettes.”

“What’s she spending it on?”

“More alcohol. She thinks she’s being all sneaky, but it makes her dumb and apparently she thinks we’re dumb, too. I’ve found bottles in her car, buried under other trash in the garbage can, like I can’t hear them clinking. I’ve even found it in the garage behind the paint cans along the wall. What happens if she spills some of it near those chemicals and then lights up a cigarette? I lie awake at night waiting for the explosion. The worst part is, sometimes I think we’d be better off if she did accidentally kill herself. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about Lewis being home when she finally does something horrible. What kind of daughter
does
that?”

Suddenly, my problems seem insignificant. Yeah, we’re in trouble, but we’ve got a plan and everyone’s on board. So what if we have to give up cable and a landline? I have to work long hours and put up with Sarah fraternizing with Jay Leaher?
Big deal. Those are tiny zits on the ass of my life while Lindsey’s dealing with full fucking impalement in hers.

“One who’s had way too much to worry
about. This isn’t your fault and it’s not up to you to fix it.”

“If I don’t try, who else is going to keep our family together? God, Mom’s so busy drinking herself to death that she can’t see how messed up Lewis is, or else she does see and doesn’t know what to do, either!”

“We’ll figure this out. I know that sounds dumb, but I promise, we will.” I would never tell her, but I’m not sure there’s much there worth saving. Everyone wants their family to stay together and be happy. God knows Lindsey deserves that stability. She should be taking classes with me so she can get out of this town and do something with her life. She’s one of the smartest people I know, and it doesn’t seem fair that she’s stuck working in a feed mill so her mom can drink away her paycheck. Quite frankly, it pisses me off. Mrs. Linger’s always been good to me and welcomed me into her house, but this is too much. I’ve lost Lewis. I won’t lose Lindsey again, too. “This isn’t what we thought life after high school would be, is it?”

She shakes her head.
“No, not really. I knew I’d probably stay at the mill, but I never imagined I’d have everything on my shoulders.”

“Is there something I can do?”

“You’re already doing it. Just this—” she motions between us “—helps. It’s awful not having anyone to talk to.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“But you’ve made tons of friends at school, right?”

“A couple, but nothing
like what you and I have.”

“Thanks, Pete. That means a lot.”

“Did you really think you’d be that replaceable? I mean, okay, now I sound like the girl, but this doesn’t happen every day. At least not in my experience. You and Lewis were my sister and brother.”

A shadow crosses her face. “Do you still think of me as your sister?”

“Only if we lived in Alabama.” She giggles, a sweet sound I’ve been dying to hear for the longest time. I take a chance and pull her closer. I’m not putting any major moves on her, but I need her to know that even though she’s still my best friend, she is definitely not a sister to me anymore. “I think that night in the tree should put to rest any ideas of us being like brother and sister. You know you’re more than that.”

“Yeah, I know,” she says, and snuggles into my side. Her breath hits the side of my neck, testing my resolve to not push for more. I feel her eyelashes flutter against my skin and it’s like we’re both waiting…waiting for the other to make the first move.