Elizabeth Finn - Unforgiven

“Coffee?”

She said nothing for a moment. She was deciding. She looked toward the building and then back to him, and her eyes narrowed. “I s’pose I have time.”

“Well, aren’t I the lucky man. Hop in.”

The moment she was in his SUV, he relaxed. It was as if being close to Michelle was like being close to Bailey. He felt close to Bailey for the first time in two weeks, and it was calming. Not in the attraction sort of way. He wasn’t at all attracted to Michelle, never had been. She was just Michelle, and if anything, she reminded him of Jess, but she was as close to Bailey as anyone, and frankly, she was his only link to her.

Michelle’s uncertainty stuck with her until she was seated across from him at a small picnic table outside a little coffee shop on Main Street. “How are you, Darren?”

He nodded for a moment. It answered nothing, but it seemed like the thing to do. “Okay, I guess. You?”

She smiled. “Well, personally, I miss my good friend, Bailey, but otherwise I’m just grand. I assume that’s why we’re here? To talk about her?”

He didn’t answer. He just stared at her for a moment. She’d always been a cheeky brat, and he liked her just fine for it, but she wasn’t going to make this easy on him. “Okay, yes. How is she?”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“What? Wanting to know how a woman I care about is doing now that she’s moved away? Seems like a legitimate question to ask.” He could be as cheeky as she was.

“She told me something.” Now she was taunting him.

“Such as?”

“Such as you slept with her on her last night here.” Now chastising.

But it was enough to get his sarcasm fired up. “You girls and your cute little words for fucking.” She suddenly smirked, and he was instantly reminded of Bailey. After growing up together, Michelle, Jess, and Bailey had adopted many of the same mannerisms. He’d noticed it before, but right now it was like looking at a piece of Bailey sitting in front of him. Michelle’s smirk was missing the incredible crimson cheeks that Bailey would have at his use of the word “fucking” in front of her. He loved her blush. He missed her blush.

“Fucking is such a brash word.” Still smirking.

“And yet, it’s so damn much fun. Are you going to tell me that you’re pissed at me for fuck-ing”—exaggerated enunciation—“her when she was leaving the next day?”

“No. I’m pissed that she was still crying about it when I arrived the next morning.” His face fell and his eyes did too, to stare at the tabletop. Their brief amount of sarcasm and levity had been much needed, but it was surely over now. “I’m sorry.” She must have caught the change in him. Not too hard considering he was suddenly catatonic with pain. She sighed loudly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

He shook his head. She’d just been serious. Apparently making love to Bailey had caused her enough grief that she’d still been upset even a couple hours later. Should he have expected anything less? Hell, he’d been wallowing in self-deprecating misery himself for two weeks.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt her.”

“I know. She knows. I didn’t say she regretted it, only that she was upset. She was upset about leaving you.”

“You do know it was her decision to leave, right?” Michelle nodded, but she didn’t look very convinced.

“And yet, you did nothing to try to get her to stay.”

“She was right to want to be away from me. Michelle, I was really pretty awful to her.” He studied her for a moment. “’Sides, thought you’d be happy she was away from me.”

She harrumphed at that. “Did I ever tell you I used to have a crush on you?”

His brows shot up in interest. She had most definitely never mentioned it. “Why, not you, Michelle Taylor. I can’t believe it.”

“Don’t get cocky, asshole. I said used to. And it was me and about every other girl in school.” She smirked again. When her face suddenly turned serious, he stowed his sarcasm and decided this must be important. “See, the thing is . . . you didn’t seem to really notice anyone except her. Not ever. Hell, not even with a girlfriend on your arm. You still watched her.” She smiled at him. “If she was in a room, you were next to her. And vice versa. You two just found your way to one another. She held your attention in a way no one else could.” He looked away then, but she wasn’t done speaking. “You two were supposed to be together.” She shrugged then. “It’s sad that you can’t be. But I get it. How do you move past something like this?” She studied him for a moment, and then she stood. “But wouldn’t it be quite a thing if you could?” She walked away to the garbage, tossing her napkin away. He stared after her, unable to formulate a response at all.

He didn’t say a word to her as they walked back to his car, and when she was sitting beside him, he finally turned to her. “How is she really?”

“How do you think she is? She walked away from everything she needed because she was afraid what she needed would end up destroying her in the end.”

“She was right to leave.”

“No, she wasn’t.” His eyes snapped to hers in shock. He’d not expected that response. “And you weren’t right to let her. But the two of you have never quite been able to figure out how to be more than friends. Chickens, both of ya.”

“I don’t want to hurt her.”

“Then don’t.” She shrugged. “Simple.”

“Can I get you folks anything else?” The man ignored her, and his wife followed suit. Assholes. She cleared her throat . . . and then she cleared it again. Eventually, he looked up at her and sneered. He shook his head as though she was an idiot for even asking. She tore the ticket from her pad and set it on the table. He eyed it as though she might have cooties, and she rolled her eyes as she walked away.

She’d managed to land the job within a week of arriving in Memphis. The gig had started out in the kitchen, prepping food, washing dishes, and bussing tables five weeks before. But she’d made the mistake of mentioning she’d waitressed before in high school, and that meant the first time someone called in sick, she was recruited. She shouldn’t complain. The money was loads better, but with a piss-poor attitude that she’d not had the last time she’d been a waitress, it was just no longer her cup of tea.

She was entirely too young to be wearing orthopedic shoes. She was also entirely too young to be wearing a food-service dress. Yes. The very one that came to mind when a person thought about any diner in any town in any country in the world—a mustard-yellow monstrosity with white cuffs. She was an English major once, for God’s sake. She’d spent hours debating authors she failed to even remember now. She’d had opinions, strong ones at that; she’d had tastes, distastes. She’d once wanted to write herself. Tell a story. Create a story, a world, a feeling, something, anything at all that could resound in someone’s heart. Now . . . well, now she waited tables in Memphis, nowhere near Beal Street, but rather a dingy hole-in-the-wall diner that was open twenty-four hours a day. She met with her new parole officer once a week. He didn’t like her nearly as much as her old one did. Harold had always treated her like a misguided child who needed nurturing and support. This one, he treated her like the criminal she was.

He’d already shown up twice at her mom’s house demanding to search her room. For what? She’d driven drunk . . . once . . . when she was twenty-one. Given the suspicious look on his face, he thought she was hiding cocaine in her booty for a Mexican drug cartel while turning tricks, knocking over convenience stores on her break, and then moonlighting as a hitman for the Mafia on her days off.

She’d made the mistake of “duh-ing” one of his more ridiculous comments the second time he’d shown up.

“You getting smart with me, girl?” She almost said duh again to that one. Not too hard to get smart with a man who had the IQ of her mattress—which happened to be halfway off her bed thanks to Mr. Duh-mmy Parole Officer and his amazing smart detector. Rather than respond to the man, she recited her favorite Dr. Seuss book in her head, imagining the man was saying the words while dancing the jig in front of her. In reality, he was lecturing her, and she was hearing nothing.

“You better keep your nose clean. You got me?” She nodded. She had no idea what that meant. Soon her PO was gone, and her mom was helping her straighten her bed.

“Well, honey, I don’t guess I right know why that man hates you so much.” Her mother smiled at her own sarcasm, and Bailey laughed. She didn’t know, either.

“I don’t know why he doesn’t want to be my friend, Mom.” She gave her best puppy-dog sad eyes, and it was her mother’s turn to laugh.

“Well, I’m your friend. And this friend wants to take her favorite daughter—”

“Only daughter.”

“Only daughter out for dinner. It is your birthday after all.”

“So long as we don’t visit a particular diner three blocks away.”

Her mother nodded her head, grabbed her purse, and pulled Bailey by the arm toward the door. But just as they were headed out, the phone rang. They were likely the only people in the world who didn’t have voice mail, but their digital answering machine worked just fine.

“Umm. Hi . . . Bailey . . . Uh . . . Michelle gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind that I called, but I wanted to wish you a happy birthday. I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you. I hope you’re doing well. Michelle said you found a job at a restaurant. Umm . . . Well, I’m guessing it doesn’t compare to being covered in Macy drool every day.” He laughed nervously. She was just standing in the doorway, clutching the door frame. She stared at the answering machine, not knowing if she should answer it or not. Her mother was watching her, and she looked petrified. “I should . . . I should probably go. Probably best that you weren’t home to answer . . . I guess.” He cleared his throat, and she was hurting just listening to how hard it was for him to speak. She thought again that perhaps she should answer, but she couldn’t seem to let go of the door frame. “Okay . . . Happy birthday, Bailey. I hope you’re doing okay.” Click.

Her breath left her in a rush. She’d been holding it since she heard his voice, and it wasn’t until he was off the line that she could breathe again.

“Bailey, are you okay?”

“Hmm? What? Uh . . . What?” She was staring at her mom as though her question had been unintelligible.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh . . . no. No, I mean, yes . . . Yes, I’m okay.” She was definitely the unintelligible one.

Her mother drove them to a restaurant. A small rib joint that had them both covered in barbecue sauce within fifteen minutes, but hey, when a gal wasn’t out to impress, she didn’t much care if her face was wearing her dinner.

“So, Darren. . .” Well, if that wasn’t a leading intro, Bailey didn’t know what was.

“So. . .”

“Wanna tell me about that?”

“That would be an inappropriate conversation to have with your mother.” She waved a rib bone in her mother’s direction to drive the point home.

“I see.” Interest. Not disdain, outrage, or any other reaction one might expect when such secrets are divulged to a parent, but then, she was twenty-seven after all—strike that, twenty-eight—and her mother couldn’t possibly think she was a virgin at this point. “Well, that couldn’t have made leaving any easier.”

“No. It didn’t.” She bit her lip as she looked at her mother.

“Honey, why did you choose to come here? Ignore the fact that I’m thrilled you came or that I asked you to come, but why did you agree to come?”

“I love him.” She spit the words out before she could think of some way to rationalize them.

“Huh . . . I fail to see that as a logical reason to leave him.” She spoke slowly as though trying to whittle it out in her head as she spoke. She was confused. Join the crowd.

“He doesn’t love . . . Okay, well . . . actually, well . . . maybe he does.” Given the utter confusion on her mom’s face, Bailey wasn’t clearing things up for her in the least. “So . . . hmm . . . Well, the funny thing is . . . it turns out it’s hard for a man to get over the loss of his sister when he cares for the one responsible for her death. Causes all sorts of conflict for him, less than kind behavior on occasion, really downright cruel behavior at times.” She was being sarcastic, but there wasn’t an ounce of lie in her words.