Damaged Goods

  “No, but if you men keep devolving like I’ve witnessed over my twenty-five years of life, I might consider taking a swing or two for the other team.”

  “That sounds like a first inning I wouldn’t want to miss.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Please. Please keep proving my theory of male devolution.”

  “If you promise I can be present for your maiden voyage into the land of maidens, I will happily keep proving that theory.”

  Twisting in my seat, I lifted my cup of coffee. A couple feet above his crotch. “The only thing I’ll promise you is that if you don’t stop fantasizing about me getting it on with another woman, my fresh, hot cup of coffee’s winding up on your lap.” I gave it a slight tip to prove my point.

  He had the intelligence to wipe the grin off his face and turn back into the counter. So maybe he wasn’t quite devolving—at least, not where his manhood was concerned.

  “So it isn’t a man, or a”—I shot him a look—“or a lover. So then, what is it? What, other than some ex or present lover, could cause a young, beautiful woman to look like the world was about to end?”

  That he was so small-minded to believe there was no other possible explanation for me being low as low could go secured his spot back on that devolution list.

  “A job.”

  That was the first reply of mine that he didn’t have an instant response to.

  “A job?” He couldn’t have sounded more stunned if he’d tried. “Did you just get fired from one or something?”

  “No, getting fired would mean I’d been able to find one in the first place.” I took a drink of my coffee. I was glad it hadn’t wound up soaking his trousers, because the stuff was growing on me.

  “So you’re looking for a job?”

  Jake had as many questions for me as I’d had for Will last night. “I’ve looked everywhere for a job. No one’s hiring. Not even the run-down motel that’s always having to replace a maid since no one can seem to suffer through working there longer than a month or two.” It didn’t advertise renting rooms by the hour, but that was how it kept running.

  “Liar.”

  My mouth dropped open a bit. “Excuse me?”

  “What? Don’t act all insulted. You’re lying.” Jake shrugged, looking totally unfazed by my killer glare.

  “Lying about what?”

  “You haven’t checked everywhere in town.” Another shrug. “You sure haven’t checked my business, because I guarantee I would have hired you had you walked through my doors looking for a job. No questions asked. No references needed.”

  I swallowed. I’d learned plenty of lessons in my life, and most of them had been the only things that kept me alive. One of the top five lessons I’d learned?

  If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

  “What kind of business do you run?” I asked, trying to keep my mind open. At this point, I’d have considered becoming a hit-woman for the mafia if it put money in my pocket and food on the table.

  “It’s legal.” I must have given Jake a strange look, because he continued, “I know that look on your face. You aren’t the first person to give it to me. You’re thinking that if I’m so willing to extend a job offer to someone I don’t even know, whatever kind of business I’m running couldn’t be on the up-and-up.”

  “I’m not asking if your business is on the up-and-up, or if it’s legal. I’m asking what kind of business it is.” I was pretty sure that sensation trickling into my veins wasn’t hope, but it was something at least.

  Jake was reaching into his jacket pocket when Mabel dropped a to-go bag in front of him. “It’s charged to your account, Jake. Extra hot sauce and a fork’s in the bag.”

  “You’re an angel, Mabel.” Jake pulled a twenty out of his wallet and gave it to her.

  Mabel eyed the bill. “I said I charged it to your account.”

  “I know. This is your tip.” He waited another moment for Mabel to take it, but when she didn’t, he dropped it on the counter.

  “Business must be good,” she said with a shake of her head before grabbing the coffee pot and heading to the table in the back.

  “Business is always good.” Jake winked at me then set something else on the counter. He slid it toward me with his index finger. “This is my card. You want a job, you’ve got one. You’d be perfect.” He grabbed his to-go bag and shoved on a pair of sunglasses. “If it doesn’t seem like your thing, no worries. I’ll be sure to let you know when that maid opening comes up again.”

  I considered waving my middle finger at him, but instead I waved his business card as he shoved through the diner door.

  What had that been? A moment of pure serendipity? A coincidence? Fate giving me a hand up? Fate giving me a shove down? Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to turn my back on it. Not when I needed a job about as much as I needed some real food. My stomach grumbled right then, reminding me of its presence. My gaze drifted to the sugar caddy. When I contemplated how one would taste on its own, I gave my head a shake and turned the business card over. It was a thick matte black card with red foil-embossed writing on it. There was nothing but a business name, address, and phone number on it. Nothing to give any indication as to what kind of business it was or what kind of employment I’d be pursuing if I took Jake up on his offer.

  “The Body Shop?” I said as Mabel approached. I flipped the card over to see if there was anything else. Nothing. “Something tells me this isn’t a place where you drive in for an oil change or a tune-up.”

  Mabel dropped a plate of eggs and bacon in front of me. “I don’t know. I’m sure plenty of guys walk in there looking for a tune-up.”

  Her tone and expression should have put me on high alert, but the scent of bacon was the only thing that had my attention. I eyed the plate in front of me, wondering if it was some kind of mirage. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a mix-up. I wrote down scrambled eggs and bacon, but the customer ordered a patty melt and fries. Phil’s slapping one together right now, but I couldn’t let this go to waste, could I?” She shot me a wink before moving on.

  “Mabel?” I waited for her to look back before I gave my first genuine smile of the afternoon. “Thank you.”

  “It’s just a couple of eggs and strips of bacon. Nothing to turn the waterworks on for.”

  “I didn’t come wired with waterworks. I thought you knew that.” Over the course of forty years, Mabel had seen her fair share of waitresses break down in tears when Earl unleashed one of his legendary temper tantrums. She’d never seen me cry.

  “Ah, that’s right. You’ve been moping on your stool for so long I almost forgot.” Her forehead wrinkled as she studied me.

  “Who’s moping? I’ve as good as landed myself a job.” I flicked the business card. I wondered if I should ask Mabel if I could use the diner’s phone to call Jake and take him up on the job offer. He’d left not even five minutes ago, and I didn’t want to come off as desperate. Or at least no more desperate than I had already. The phone at the trailer had been shut off right after I got into town, and my cell phone had been cut off that morning. Even if there were still pay phones on every corner, like there had been fifteen years ago, I didn’t have fifty cents to make a call with.

  Mabel came toward me, her forehead lining even more. She stared at the business card before looking at me. “That’s not the place for a girl like you. Jake’s a decent enough guy, and one hell of a charmer, but listen to me on this one. Don’t call. Don’t think about it. Don’t step inside that place. You want to guarantee you’ll never get out of this town?” She inclined her head at the card. “Go work there, and I promise you you’ll become one of the lifers you’ve always been so terrified of becoming.”

  My eyebrows came together.

  “What exactly do you think The Body Shop is?”

  I knew from her tone alone that ignorance would be bliss. “The kind of place that hopefully pays well.”

  Mabel sighed.

  Ignorance might ha
ve been bliss, but neither bliss nor ignorance had a place in my life. “Okay, so tell me. What is this place?”

  “The kind of place a girl dances at,” was her curt answer.

  That didn’t sound so bad. I’d seen those go-go meets burlesque joints that were huge in big cities. A place out here couldn’t be anywhere near as swanky or chic, but I’d dance and serve drinks until I passed out of exhaustion if that’s what it took. “Good thing I like to dance then.”

  Mabel plopped her hands on her hips. “Where the girls dance on tables. Or poles. Or laps.”

  Okay, so the pieces were coming together.

  “Naked. Or at least close to it,” she added under her breath.

  “A strip club?” I flicked the card again, this time not so gently. “You’re telling me The Body Shop, this great golden opportunity of a job, is a strip club?”

  “I wouldn’t describe it as a golden opportunity, but if you’re going for jaded, I think it would fit the bill.”

  I smiled tightly at her. She smiled tighter back.

  “Perfect. Just perfect.” I felt a few things at the same time: disappointment that the job offer hadn’t really been a “job,” or at least not one I’d place in that category; anger that apparently the only suitable profession for a young girl in that part of the world was one where she took off her clothes and danced for singles; and rage—directed at Jake McSleazy for getting my hopes up only to drop an illicit proposal into my lap. It was like dangling a bottle of water in front of a person dying of thirst, only to tell them that one bottle of water would cost them their soul.

  It wasn’t fair. I sighed. Liv Bennett was rolling in a cesspool of unfair, drawing the short stick at every turn. All was right in the world again, I supposed.

  “Is there still a trash can under the counter?” I asked, leaning over to have a peek.

  “With all the trash in this town? You’d better believe it.”

  “Here comes another piece.” Ripping the business card a few times, I chucked the pieces into the garbage. “Good riddance.”

  I was desperate, but I wasn’t that desperate.

  ALMOST ANOTHER WEEK down, and I was almost that desperate. That low point where you’d exchange your morals and ideals for just about anything that promised to lift you one notch higher? I was almost there.

  After scouring the couch cushions, Kitty’s bedroom, and even the Suburban, I’d managed to scrounge together enough to get the cupboards “stocked” and the phone turned back on. When the electric bill was due next week, I didn’t know what I would do. I’d left no stone unturned, and my relentless job search had come up with a whole lot of nothing.

  I was out on the porch steps, checking my watch every two minutes, waiting for Reese to get home when the shop lights at the Goods’s place flicked on. Then Will Goods appeared, shirtless and ducking beneath the hood of yet another car. If I was honest, my nightly routine of unwinding on the porch wasn’t strictly for . . . unwinding. If I was still being honest, I’d admit I spent more time watching Will than I spent contemplating how to get my sisters and me out of our present mess.

  If he ever noticed me out there at the same time of night he was, he’d never acknowledged it, but I preferred it that way. I didn’t mind admiring him from afar because that was safe. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, something inside me was attracted to something inside—or perhaps outside—of him. The day he got close, if that day ever came, would be the same one I’d stop watching him from my perch on the stairs because that would no longer be in the safe zone.

  Will never had company, I rarely saw him on the phone, and the only noise that came from the Goods’s place was either the engine he was working on firing to life or Mrs. Goods screaming about the tiny pink elephants. Although a couple of nights ago, she had screamed about invisible, flesh-eating ants. Will Goods seemed so at peace with his life, so perfectly in harmony with the world around him, and I found a measure of peace from just watching him. Peace through observation, minute as it was. These days, I’d take whatever kind of peace I could get.

  When I checked my watch again and discovered it was almost nine, I started to worry. Reese had told me she was going to stay late after school to catch up on homework, and she said she’d walk home. I hadn’t thought to ask when because I’d assumed “staying late to catch up on homework” meant an hour or two. Three max. What kind of homework could she possibly have gotten behind on that required six hours of catch-up? Reese was the responsible, almost 4.0 student. I thought I’d have to worry about Paige getting caught up and not flunking out.

  Of course, if we’d all had those modern conveniences known as cell phones, I could have simply called Reese to find out why she was running late, but we didn’t have those. Well, I had one, but it wasn’t exactly working. So I waited, because that was all I could do. When the phone rang inside the trailer, I nearly jumped. Paige was already talking to the person on the other end when I jogged inside.

  “Who is it?” I whispered. “Is it Reese?

  She shrugged and handed me the phone to me. “I don’t know. They just asked to speak with Reese’s guardian.”

  “Reese’s guardian?”

  Paige rolled her eyes. “I’m right here, you know. That means I can’t be getting into trouble.”

  I lifted an eyebrow as I took the phone from her.

  “At least not the kind of trouble where someone would be calling my ‘guardian’ to swoop in and save the day,” she muttered before padding into the living room.

  “Hello?” I forced myself to take a deep breath and calm down. This was Reese we were talking about. The last time the girl had been in trouble was when she’d accidentally spilt milk as a toddler.

  “Is this Mrs. Bennett?” the voice on the other end asked formally.

  “This is Miss Bennett,” I replied. Not even Kitty was a Mrs. Bennett.

  “We need you to come down to the Gas n’ Grocery right away.”

  The only grocery store in town . . . What in the world was Reese doing there? “What happened?”

  “We’ll discuss that when you get here, Miss Bennett.” The man didn’t sound particularly pissed, so hopefully nothing too bad had happened. “Please try and hurry though as the store’s closing in an hour.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” The line went dead. I stayed frozen in place for a few minutes, contemplating how I could get to the store quickly.

  It was a small town, but our trailer was on the outskirts. The Gas n’ Grocery was a good three miles away. If I ran, I could probably make it in about a half hour. But I’d be a sweaty, hot mess when I showed up, and Reese and I would need to hoof it another three miles to get back to the trailer. If there were a bike around, I’d take that. Then we could take turns on the way home. But there wasn’t a bike. If we had a car—a running car—I’d be crawling into it already. But we didn’t have a running car.

  How many dead ends would life throw at me this month? It had to be going for some kind of record.

  Then I heard an engine fire to life in the distance. We might not have had a running vehicle, but I knew someone who did. I was across the trailer and out the screen door a moment later.

  “Liv? What’s going on?” Paige shouted.

  “I don’t know. I’m going to go get Reese and find out. Stay here.” I slipped into my sandals and bounced down the stairs.

  “You forgot the magic word,” Paige said in a sing-song voice.

  Of course when one sister was in who knows what kind of a predicament, the other sister would have to be an obnoxious pain in my ass.

  “Please. Please stay here,” I said.

  “Okay, I will. But only because you asked so nicely.”

  I grumbled under my breath as I traipsed up the hill toward Will. He was in his favorite place—under the hood of a car. If he heard or saw me marching his way, he didn’t show it. I was too anxious to even notice that he was shirtless and sweaty and streaked in grease. Well, I noticed . . . but I didn’t n
otice.

  “Hey, Will,” I called as I approached.

  His head inclined back just a bit, his eyes narrowing. “Liv? Is that you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Do you still want me to work on that Suburban of yours? I’ve been waiting for you to come back so we could figure out when to get it up here—”

  “Will, can you drive me somewhere? Or can I borrow one of your cars?” I interrupted. Several cars dotted the Goods’s front yard. I didn’t know which, if any, were his. I just hoped I could use one to go get Reese.

  “Well, yeah.” He leaned out from beneath the hood of the truck he was working on and flipped his baseball cap back around. He set the wrench down and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Is everything okay?”

  I shifted. “I’m not sure. It’s my sister . . . I’ve got to go pick her up, and I don’t have any way to get there besides my own two feet.”

  “Riding in to save the day with one of the siblings? I certainly know what that’s like.” Will grabbed the T-shirt dangling over the truck’s side view mirror and slid it on. “Sorry, I’m always half-naked whenever you show up. I do wear clothes. Most of the time.”

  If I weren’t so preoccupied with my need to get to Reese right away, I might have frowned at that shirt. “So you’ll drive me?”

  He fumbled around in his pocket before dangling a set of keys from his finger. Will gave me a curious smile then chuckled. “Well, that’s probably not the best idea, but you can use my car and drive yourself.”

  He was clearly busy, and I really needed to get to the Gas n’ Grocery. “Thank you so much, Will. Really, you have no idea how much you’ve just saved me.”

  He held out the keys, and I took them.

  “I told you if you needed anything, to come see me, didn’t I? Those weren’t empty words, you know.” His smile curved higher. “The keys go to the old Chevelle in the driveway. I think there’s still a mostly full tank of gas in her.”

  “Thank you again.” I backed out of the shop, heading for the driveway.

  “Good luck, Liv.” He was already reaching into his toolbox.