All the Sky (Signal Bend Series) Page 5

  She’d worked the bar five days so far, and it had gone okay. Havoc, the manager, was a sexist jerk with a short fuse, but so far he’d only been a jerk and not an outright asshole. That flare-up they’d had a few weeks ago, when he’d flipped her off, had been the worst, and that had happened before she’d gotten the job. Bonnie had told her that, while, yes, he was a total Neanderthal, there was an okay guy under the leering snark. Cory hadn’t seen anything but leering snark yet, but she’d be patient, and she’d hold her tongue. Because it was a good job, and it gave her and her boy a little hope.

  By some crazy streak of sudden good fortune they also had a place to stay, because Bonnie had overheard her on the phone with Nolan, talking about their looming move to the Beast. Before Cory had her phone back in her pocket, Bonnie had offered them the Winnebago.

  Cory had wept. Behind the bar, leaning against the door to the office, Cory had broken down and cried. She rarely cried, but that had been worth a few tears.

  She stood up in their new home, walked over and tousled her boy’s dark, shaggy curls. “Okay. Let’s unpack the Beast. There’s fried chicken waiting for us.”

  Nolan looked up, his brow furrowed. “Do we have to go in? Can’t we just hang out back here on our own?”

  “No, kiddo.” She sat in the passenger seat. It was almost a recliner. “Bonnie has done something really great for us. We can’t hide back here like hermits. We’ll help around the place, we’ll accept her invitations, and maybe we’ll be able to do something nice for her soon, too. Small footprint, remember? We need to try to leave a small footprint, try to be gracious and not make her life harder because we’re here. Better we make it easier. That includes being company, if she’d like it.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t look up. “I just…I feel like everybody’s always watching us, all the time. Waiting to see what we’re going to fuck up next. I want some time alone.”

  She knew how he felt. She’d been judged by other people as long as she’d been able to know it was happening. Living under that kind of scrutiny had dug into Cory’s brain, so that even when she was alone, there was a voice in her head that provided the commentary. Like her lack of concern about Nolan’s language. He’d been swearing in front of her since he was eleven, and she truly didn’t care. She cared much more about name-calling than simple expletives. She wouldn’t tolerate hearing him call somebody ‘stupid’ or anything like, but she didn’t get heartburn over ‘fuck.’ Still, she’d tried to teach him to choose his audience carefully, to recognize that, while she didn’t mind the occasional frustrated, therapeutic ‘fuck,’ most of the rest of the world was offended.

  And every time he swore around her, the church lady in her head puckered her lips in judgment.

  “Bonnie’s not judging us, Nolan. She’s helping us out. You know she’s cool. And we’ll have some time on our own tonight after she goes to the bar. We’ll get this RV set up like a proper little home. And then I’ll kick your ass in Pente. Okay?”

  He finally nodded again and stood, and they went out to unload the Beast.

  ~oOo~

  Cory heard him get up late in the night—or down, more like, sliding open the privacy curtain on the loft and climbing out. She’d left the door to the little bedroom open a little, to maximize what cross breeze could be found on a warm, still, muggy Missouri night at the end of June.

  It was a night too hot to sleep, so she’d been lying on top of the bedspread, her eyes closed, letting her mind roam. She felt pretty good—better than she had in awhile. A solution for her problems, a balm for her cares, seemed to be on the horizon, so she could set them aside. What she’d been doing, then, instead of worrying, was writing a song in her head.

  She never wrote a song down until it was finished. Her head worked better like this, left to move how it wanted, without being forced into lines on a page. She hadn’t been writing much lately at all, really. Online and in the bars and coffeehouses where she gigged, people mostly wanted covers of songs they knew. Whenever she posted an original online, it got maybe a third the hits of a cover, if that. And people tended to start to chat again when she played an original at a gig. A couple of the managers had very pointedly told her to stop, if she wanted to keep the gig.

  She tried not to take it personally. She knew her stuff was good, and the feedback she got from those who would listen confirmed what she knew. But for the most part, people liked what they already liked.

  The music thing wasn’t going to happen, not in any real way. Cory knew that. She knew she should give it up, focus on finding some kind of steady work that would provide some security for Nolan.

  She simply couldn’t. Her head was quiet and calm only when she was creating something. She’d lose her marbles if she gave it up. Sometimes, she felt right on the edge of marble-lessness as it was.

  So on this heavy, still night, Cory was gathering her marbles, writing a song in her head, seeing the chords emerge as the lyrics did, when she heard Nolan climb down, dress, and leave the RV. Except that they were in a new, unfamiliar place, she wasn’t worried much. This was a thing he did, his way of gathering his marbles. She wrote songs in her head; Nolan walked. She wished he’d taken a flashlight, at least, because this was deep country, and it wouldn’t take much to walk beyond the reach of the dusk-to-dawn lights in each front yard on Bonnie’s little one-street neighborhood of mobile homes and end up in blackness.

  But he was a smart boy, so he’d be okay.

  ~oOo~

  He was gone about two hours. By then, Cory was up, still not exactly worried, but certainly curious. She’d pulled a beer from the little fridge and gone outside to sit in a plastic Adirondack chair, under a nearby tree. The mosquitoes were in fine fiddle on this early morning, but as much as she could, she ignored their feasting on her bare arms and legs.

  Finally, he came trudging up from the back, having apparently crossed a weedy field from the woods beyond it. He didn’t see her until he was almost at the tree; when he did, he jumped back a little, surprised.

  “You okay, Mom?”

  She patted the plastic arm of the empty Adirondack next to her. “Yeah. Couldn’t sleep, either. Wasn’t it dark in the woods?”

  “Not bad. Moon’s bright.”

  “You have a good walk, get things straight?”

  Nolan sat down, dropping all at once into the chair, the way all teens seemed to do. “Do you think he just stopped caring at all?”

  Her heart constricted. Matt hadn’t been in any kind of contact at all for almost three months. It was baseball season, but until these past few months, he’d always been sure to call, at least once a month. He hadn’t seen his kid in person in four years, but at least he’d call, and sometimes Skype. Never before had there been this total silence, not even returning Cory’s calls and texts. She was pretty sure he’d found somebody and was distracted from his past by the prospect of a future.

  But he had a child in his past. She was finding it harder and harder to wish him well.

  “No, kiddo. Your dad loves you. You know he loves you. It’s the season, you know how busy he gets. Since he started coaching, even busier. That’s probably all it is.”

  “But he’s been busy before, and he’d still call. Last thing I got from him was a reply to a text I sent. Three weeks ago. A smiley. Only a smiley.”

  She hadn’t known about that. She took a breath to say something encouraging—she wasn’t sure what—but he waved her away. “You don’t have to stick up for him, Mom. I know the deal. I’m okay, really. I just want to be mad at him. It makes me feel guilty being mad when you make excuses for him.”

  Thwarted from her normal course, Cory didn’t know what to say. So she reached over and squeezed his arm. He was getting some muscle tone. Interesting. The time was wrong to comment on that, so they sat in silence, listening to the cicadas and the night birds.

  “They’re right about him, huh? He is a loser.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Nolan. A
m I a loser? Lots of people think I am—Aunt Linz and Uncle Alex do. Your dad and I are a lot alike. Some things are hard, even when we want to do them.”

  “But you’re here. I always know you’re here. You listen. Like now. Mom, he doesn’t even know me anymore. He doesn’t care.”

  “Is there something you want to do about it?”

  He looked out across the yard. A raccoon ambled across the dusty scrub, near Bonnie’s house. It stopped and looked over at them, sitting back on its haunches. Its eyes shone eerily in the glow of the dusk-to-dawn light. Once it decided they were harmless, it headed on its way.

  “I just need to reset my expectations, you know? Not expect him to even care. Then I’ll be okay.”

  Matt had been a decent father, once. When they were married, and when he was home. He and Nolan had some major differences in their personalities—Matt was an athletic extrovert, who could barely stand to be indoors, and Nolan was an introvert who preferred video games to sports—but Matt had been carefree and fun, good at pulling Nolan out of himself. Not much of a disciplinarian, but Nolan had never needed much disciplining. Not in her opinion, at least.

  And then he’d given her an STD, and she’d had enough of his extroverted dick. Splitting had been her idea—her demand, much as it broke her heart—and after not much more than a year divorced, Matt had moved away, to a team in Nebraska—and then he’d just moved on.

  Nolan was right. It was time to acknowledge that Matt didn’t want to be in their lives at all. But Cory found herself unable to say those dire words to their son. So she said only, “I love you, kiddo.”

  “Love you, too.”

  ~oOo~

  “It’ll be fine! We’re usually quiet on Mondays, anyway. And this isn’t Tuck’s. He won’t get into trouble here.”

  “You think Havoc will have a problem?”

  Bonnie shrugged. “Doubt it. But he won’t be around until just before close tonight.” She turned to Nolan, who was sitting at the end of the bar, his laptop open. “Hey, bud? You should probably go out to the Beast around midnight, quarter past, okay?”

  He nodded, and Bonnie leaned over the bar and patted his shoulder. Cory saw him glance at her friend’s prodigious cleavage, blush a little, and look back at his screen.

  “Okay, I gotta go. I got the shipment in and logged, just needs to be shelved.”

  “I got it—thanks, Bonnie.”

  “No trouble, sugar—have a good night!” And out the door went Bonnie, dressed to kill. Monday seemed a strange night for a big date, but her steady was an over-the-road trucker, so she took him when she had him.

  And then, an hour before open, Cory and Nolan were alone in Valhalla Vin. The cook, Drew, would be around in half an hour or so, prepping the tiny kitchen for the few small plates they served. In the meantime, Cory would stock and prep. Nolan was with her this evening because he was bored and the bar had wifi. She was nervous; she’d only had this job just more than two weeks, and she didn’t want to cause a problem, having her teenage son at the bar.

  But it had been Bonnie’s idea, and she’d been working there since the place had opened. And Nolan really was bored. Through all their troubles, he’d always been able to get online. Being limited only to his phone at the RV, and not always even that, was making him surly again.

  He also had his sketchpad and pencils with him, but those were stacked against the wall. For now, he pushed earbuds into his ears and started to play. Cory was heartened at the way his expression eased as soon as he was in-game.

  The evening passed smoothly. There was a steady, if small, group of people. Cory hadn’t been around long enough to distinguish Signal Bend residents from anyone else, but she had noticed a little group of fairly regular customers. No one seemed bothered by Nolan at the end of the bar. In fact, when, about halfway through the night, he closed his laptop and started to sketch, he attracted some amiable attention. Cory could see that it made him feel awkward, but he showed what he was making whenever someone asked, and he was shyly gracious in response to their praise.

  It was a dragon, becoming more and more detailed as the night went on. He really was good. Nolan was fifteen, but he’d never expressed much of an idea about what he wanted to do with his life. Cory blamed herself for that—they lived a life in which they were always focused on getting to the next day, in which the next thing was the next downward step into penury. She supposed it was hard for him to think beyond that. If he wanted to do something with art, she’d support his choice. But she also knew that it probably meant a life in which he’d continue to focus on getting to the next day.

  Around ten-thirty, Havoc came in through the front door. He wasn’t supposed to be here so early. The nerves in Cory’s stomach twitched uncomfortably. She darted a glance at Nolan, but he was engrossed in his drawing. It was too late to send him outside at this point, anyway.

  As always, even now, when she was worried she was about to get yelled at, or worse, Cory’s baser interests first made note of how hot Havoc was. About six feet, or an inch or two more, he had a broad, athletic build, muscular without being gym-bound and veiny. His head was shaved, and he had a full, but trimmed and nicely groomed, black beard, threaded with grey. She guessed him to be late thirties, maybe forty. His eyes were so dark brown they might as well have been black.

  He had sleeves of ink over both of his upper arms—a blackwork tribal piece on the right, and an elaborate piece on the left. She hadn’t been able to figure that one out, because he always wore snug, black t-shirts that covered his shoulders and the tops of his arms. For all the definition of his body those t-shirts showed off, they did obscure his ink.

  He was hot, but he was still a jerk. Cory had yet to see the decent guy under the jerk exterior. So far, in his best mood, he was abrupt and uncommunicative. And he had a tendency to say things like “calm your tits” and “don’t get your thong all twisted up.” Truly, he was a delight.

  But Cory had kept her lips zipped, swallowing down every retort that entered her head. She’d had so many in these past weeks, she thought there might even be a song in them—and it might be a kick to sing it here, though she knew he’d never notice.

  He walked behind the bar, his eyes instantly on Nolan, who still hadn’t noticed anything but his dragon. Cory girded herself for whatever was going to happen next.

  “Who’s that?” He nodded at Nolan’s tousled black mop.

  Suddenly, she realized that there was something worse than getting fired. There was Nolan seeing her get ripped by her boss. “That—that’s my kid.”

  His dark eyebrows went up in obvious surprise, but he said nothing.

  She reached over and patted her hand on the bar next to Nolan’s sketching hand. “Nolan. Hey, I want you to meet my boss.”

  Nolan looked up. Seeing Havoc, he dropped his pencil, stood, and reached his right hand over the bar. “Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Nolan.” Cory was proud.

  Havoc, however, laughed out loud, and Nolan’s forehead wrinkled in confusion.

  “Only people call me sir, kid, are the ones facing my fist.” He reached out and shook Nolan’s hand; Cory could see Nolan’s shock at the firmness of the shake. “Havoc. No booze, kid. Not here.” Then he took a step up to the bar and leaned over, examining the sketch Nolan had been making. “That’s good. Make a good tat. That what you want it for?”

  Nolan shook his head, fighting the proud smile trying to lift the corners of his mouth. “No, s—no. I’m, uh”—he blushed bright red—“I’m trying to design a game.”

  “Like that dungeon thing, D&D or whatever?”

  “Not really. More like a video game. Like Elder Scrolls, but with time travel, so other kinds of worlds, too.”

  “Time travel. Cool.” Havoc leaned on the bar, his arms crossed. “What system you play on?”

  “Xbox.” That was true, but Cory had had to sell their television when she was trying to hold off the last eviction. “Or, you know, PC.”

  “I play Xbox, too.
Got a sweet setup at the clubhouse. I like shooters more than RPGs, though.”

  Nolan nodded. “I like those, too. Call of Duty, that kind of stuff. There’d be worlds like that in this game.”

  “That’s badass, kid. Nice.” Havoc stood straight, and, without another word, went back to the office.

  Nolan watched him go. When he met Cory’s eyes, he was beaming with pride.

  And Cory was utterly gobsmacked. She’d seen the decent guy under the jerk after all.

  ~oOo~

  After she’d finished her close, as Nolan was packing up his stuff, Cory went back to the office and knocked on the door frame. Havoc was working up the deposit. He came in every night to do it, never allowing anyone else to cover for him. He looked up, his eyebrows lifted in expectation.

  “I just wanted to say thanks for not busting a seam over Nolan. Sorry I didn’t ask first.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t fuckin’ serve him, but as long as he’s not in anybody’s way who’s payin’, it’s okay with me. Doesn’t he have any better place to be?”

  “He hasn’t met anybody around here yet, and we don’t have internet where we’re staying, so he had a good time, being able to game online and draw. It’s what he likes most anyway. That and taking stuff apart and putting it back together. So he was good. Thanks.”

  For a couple of awkward seconds, he gave her a weird look, like there was something he wanted to say. But then he just looked back down at his work. After another quiet second in which she determined that the conversation was over, she went out, collected her kid, and headed home to their borrowed RV.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Havoc ducked as Steve Bohler swung. Before Steve could recover, Havoc came in and nailed him in his side, just under his ribs. He pulled a little at the end, not looking to take out a kidney or anything, but still Steve went down, winded. Havoc grinned down at him, and then turned, looking for the next place to land a punch.