He looked at her under dark, thick lashes. “Think maybe you can run a little business announcement in the paper when we launch these ads? I’m thinking next week.” She hesitated, and he rushed on, “We’re thinking of doing two color full-pagers next week, really make a big splash.”
She nodded quickly. “Sure. It’ll have to be short, but we can do that.”
He sat back, grinned. “I really appreciate that. Maybe you can let me take you out to lunch on Wednesday, celebrate the opening of our Aberville facility.”
She opened her mouth, then shut it as quickly and stood, smiling. End of conversation.
“I’m not free Wednesday, but if you come by later in the week, we can go over the details of the ad, line up this month’s schedule.”
“Perfect.” And he was out the door, the purr of his sleek Audi loud and powerful.
Rebecca went to the coffee machine, poured another cup.
“I don’t like him,” Millie said to no one and everyone, lips pressed into a thin line.
Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh. “Why in the world not?”
“He’s a ‘player,’” the secretary pronounced, like she’d eaten bad fish and wished she could spit it out.
“Well, he’s helping to keep this newspaper afloat.”
“Hmpf. At what cost? Besides, it’s doing better.”
“I’m not sure that’s quite the point.”
Millie looked like she wanted to say much more, but she didn’t respond, just turned back to her classifieds. The others said nothing, Tiff lost in a story, Dinah on the phone.
Rebecca took a seat, staring at the Wennerman folder, the yellow sun on the company logo nothing at all like the one dangling from the rearview mirror in her car.
CHAPTER 22
Devon
Devon was starting to get edgy. Uncle T hadn’t returned. As time passed, he found himself watching cars on the road, looking out for his uncle’s brown Cadillac. Waiting. Dreading. Once he’d seen a brown car and almost wrecked his bike for real, but it was only an old Chevy, and when it passed, a big rusted panel on the side, Devon saw it looked nothing at all like T’s except the color.
“Careful you don’t feed your worries too much or they’ll grow fat on you,” Memaw used to tell him sometimes, when she’d catch him staring out the window, frowning. Uncle T didn’t come around much back then, and certainly didn’t bring his friends over. Memaw wouldn’t have stood for that. His biggest worries then were how to stop Marquis from picking on CJ, or staying on top of his homework. Now his worries were far different. Far worse.
Though he didn’t let himself worry when he could help it. The worries tended to sneak in, catch him unawares. Like now, when he was supposed to be in the recliner doing his reading log but instead kept jumping every time he heard a car door slam outside at the neighbors’, or someone yell from across the way.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart” came back to him then,and he sighed, fiddled with the pencil. He’d told Miss Becca to give it to God, and he’d meant what he’d said. For the most part, he tried to live that way, just throw himself into work and camp and church and anything else that came his way.
But sometimes like today, he’d find himself sitting there, staring out the front window, heart all tight and knotty, waiting to hear the familiar putt-putt of T’s engine, or the bang of the screen door. He’d wake late at night sure he’d heard laughter or someone’s hand slam down hard on the kitchen table, then realize he’d dreamed it, and T really wasn’t there at all. His bruises were almost gone now, and his ribs didn’t hurt whenever he lifted his arms. But he was afraid of letting his guard down, afraid to relax too deeply.
Like a caged rabbit, he didn’t want to sleep for fear the wolf would come and eat him alive.
If there was one big positive it was that Memaw was doing much better. Yesterday, he’d come home from camp and found the bread on the counter instead of in the fridge where he’d left it, a knife with peanut butter in the sink. When he’d checked on her, she was sleeping, but her hair smelled like shampoo, and he knew she’d been up, been moving around the house.
He’d gone back to sleeping in his own room again, and this morning, she’d been awake when he popped in to say goodbye before camp.
“Have a good day, honey,” she said, and she almost sounded like her old self.
But today she was sound asleep when he’d gotten home, and he realized that was the worst of it. The quiet. The absence of sound made him want for the sound.
That was it. He tucked the reading log in his backpack, then slipped out the door, turning the lock and pocketing his key. Five minutes later he was pedaling down Aberville Road.
For the next two hours he helped Mr. Allen stock shelves, sweepthe floor, and wash the windows. After, Mr. Allen gave him a few dollars and a bag of apples.
“When you get old enough, you can come work here at the counter, like your mama did, Son,” Mr. Allen said in his raspy voice, smiled. “You’re a good boy, and a good worker.”
