Baggage Check (10 page)

She washed her face, reapplied her smeared makeup, and went to the front desk. A tiny older woman with long gray hair and what must have once been a tattoo of a butterfly on her upper arm gave her directions to Walmart. She also informed Rebecca that the two best options for a late dinner were a sports bar on the edge of town and, of course, the Waffle House next door to the motel. Rebecca thanked her and set out.

She made it to Walmart five minutes before closing, enduring the glares of annoyed cashiers and staff as she zipped past them to the clothing area. With no time to try anything on and not many options available, she grabbed two pairs of inexpensive jeans, an Auburn University T-shirt, and a pack of granny panties. Normally she triple-sanitized new underwear before putting it on, but she decided that since these came in a sealed package it was unlikely they were contaminated.

She paid for the clothes and changed in the restroom—she was too hungry to go back to her hotel room before dinner. Waffle House was a safe choice, she thought, but as she passed by the signature yellow-and-black sign, she could not bring herself to pull into the parking lot. There was something about the glare of the lights and the harsh Formica tables that she couldn't stomach tonight. And she needed a drink.

Dickie's sports bar was on the edge of town, almost halfway to Gadsden on the quiet two-lane highway. A few miles farther and she guessed she might be able to locate some sort of suburban chain restaurant, with fatty appetizers and a predictable grilled chicken sandwich on the menu, but she had no idea how late they would be open, and she was too famished to take chances. She pulled into the gravel drive from the highway, following a blinking arrow sign with crooked letters:
WELCOME TO DICKIE S KAR OKE SUNDAY
.
Just what I need,
she thought darkly. There were a few beat-up cars and pickup trucks in the parking lot behind the building. Maybe, hopefully, Karaoke Sundays were not a big draw.

Inside, the bar was a little smoky, but homey enough. There was light oak paneling on the walls and booths, and vintage neon beer signs everywhere. NASCAR drivers and country singers grinned or smoldered at her from every wall, depending on the mood their particular poster was trying to convey. The floor even boasted a little sawdust and many, many peanut shells.

On the far wall, there was a rickety wooden stage big enough for two or three singers, or maybe two guitars. A single spotlight shone weakly on a rolled-up microphone, which sat idle on top of an amplifier. Relieved, Rebecca steered herself toward the bar, where a sullen girl in a forest-green Dickie's T-shirt and long ponytail glared at her.

“Do I just sit anywhere?” Rebecca asked.

The girl made a show of looking all around the bar and the thirty or so empty tables before responding. “You got a reservation?”

With effort, Rebecca attempted to laugh off the rudeness. “Okay, then, I'll just be over here.” She gestured to a corner booth as far away from the stage as possible. “Do you have a menu?”

Another eye roll, and the girl had retrieved a stained page of cream-colored card stock with about twenty items listed in a simple, centered font. She thrust it into Rebecca's hands with a perfunctory, “I'll be right with you.”

Rebecca tried a winning smile and a thank you that dripped with honeyed courtesy. The girl was not to be won over, however, and she spun on her heel to attend to a couple of large men at the other end of the bar.
Why can I never seem to be charming?
It worked so well for Suzanne. Suze could wheedle anything out of just about anyone—male or female—with a graceful smile and an effortless word. Rebecca had studied her for years and tried her best to emulate her style, but to no avail. Even in the air, she could handle nearly any flight situation, but she did not have the gift for disarming angry customers or plying coworkers for favors, the way Valerie and others seemed to.

She made her way to the booth in the back, focusing on what she would order if the girl ever came over. She debated a salad, her usual choice, but decided that a place like this was more likely to offer her wilted iceberg lettuce with stale croutons and a gallon of ranch dressing than anything with nutritional value. Besides, she was starving. She settled on Buffalo wings with celery and carrots and a bottle of Bud Light. This seemed to meet with the tacit approval of the scowling waitress, who at least did not roll her eyes when Rebecca ordered.

The food arrived quickly and the waitress included a large stack of napkins. Rebecca used the hand sanitizer in her purse to convert one of these to a wet wipe for the surface of the table, which had several names and even a few vulgar limericks carved into it. As she ate, she tried to figure out what her plan would be for the next day. She had felt disconnected from her family for so long. It was strange to be thrust back into Oreville under these circumstances, and even stranger to feel that she was supposed to take charge of the situation somehow.

Rebecca nibbled at the remnants of the last wing and debated ordering another basket. She had to admit they were good, especially for a hole-in-the-wall in the middle of nowhere, Alabama. A few more people had begun filing in while she ate—a group of men in fishing vests and muddy boots, some kids in their early twenties dressed in khakis and matching blue polos, and a few stray women in tight jeans and low-cut tops accompanied by guys in various shades of button-up plaid.

When Rebecca was growing up, the town had hardly been able to support the weekend dance hall that only served soda and doubled as a senior activity center during the day. She wasn't sure how long Dickie's had been around, but it seemed pretty popular, even on a Sunday night. They had turned up some music—country, of course; she even saw a cowboy hat and boots glide by the booth next to hers.

She ordered another beer, having nowhere to go and entirely too much energy for ten o'clock at night. This time a young guy in a tight black Dickie's T-shirt took her order. She saw the scowling waitress mount the stage across the bar and drawl into the mike with a sudden enthusiasm, “Hey y'all—it's time to get going on the third qualifying round of our karaoke tournament. Everybody get your ballots up at the bar if Kevin hasn't brought 'em to you yet—remember you can only vote for three singers, and no voting twice for the same person. Even you, Miss Jeanie—we know your hand, so you can only vote for Matthew once.”

With this last comment, the waitress leaned toward a spiky-haired woman seated at one of the front tables with a younger man who must have been her son. The comment was met with laughter and a scatter of applause.

The waitress smirked and went back to her announcements. “All right, let's kick it off with last year's regional champ, our very own Alex Chen!”

Rebecca's breath caught in her throat as the very same deputy who had been in her mother's driveway earlier that day took the stage at a hop. He accepted the microphone from the waitress, who whispered something in his ear before stepping down off the stage. It was the same guy; it had to be. For one thing, there were probably a total of ten Asian men in a fifty-mile radius of this town, and for two of them to be named Alex Chen was way too much of a coincidence. Also, she recognized his boots: the same dark leather ones he'd been wearing earlier. Though now instead of the pressed khaki of the sheriff's department, he wore broken-in jeans and a flannel shirt with a respectable white undershirt, making him look more ruddy and tan than she had noticed earlier.

Near the stage, a group of guys in cowboy hats and girls in halter tops were catcalling and whooping at him. Alex grinned at them and began to sing a lively version of “Santeria” by Sublime. Rebecca had to admit, he wasn't bad. By the time he was halfway into the song, people had begun to clap in rhythm along with him. As he danced and sang his way through the final verse, the entire place was clapping. He could sing, but that wasn't it. There was something about him—his smile, maybe—that just made you want to root for him.

He jumped down from the stage when the song ended, waving away the applause with a gesture, and sat down to join his friends. A couple of the guys clapped him on the back and a girl with spiky reddish-brown hair streaked in blond handed him a beer in a plastic cup. Next up was a middle-aged man with a sandy beard and large beer belly, which was held in by a belt buckle the size of a dessert plate in the shape of the number three. Rebecca was surprised when he broke into a very tender version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

Sitting alone in a bar where she knew almost no one, Rebecca found it hard to keep from watching the deputy. He laughed and traded draft beer salutes with the people around him, one or two of whom looked familiar to Rebecca. She assumed they had also gone to high school together—probably with her brother, since she didn't recognize any of them as members of her own class. Then again, she had never been particularly close with anyone in high school. She tried again to remember, without staring, what Alex had looked like back then. In this case, it was helpful that there had been only one Asian family in town. David Chen had been in Rebecca's class—that had to be Alex's younger brother or maybe a cousin. She didn't remember David being so outgoing and personable, though. Or so attractive.

She shook her head and looked down at her nearly empty wings basket. She fished the last piece of limp celery out of a puddle of hot sauce and nibbled it uncertainly.
This is not a fun visit,
she reminded herself.
I have to figure out what to do with my mom. And besides
 …

Rebecca remembered the pitying look on Deputy Chen's face as he tried to get her to roll down the car window earlier this afternoon and told her about her mother's situation. The idea of sneaking out the Dickie's side door came to mind. But soon the kid in the tight black T-shirt had brought her the second beer. “Did you want a list?”

“A list?”

“Songs,” he said. He gestured toward the stage. “In case you want to sing?”

“Oh, God. No, thank you.”

The guy shrugged and walked away. Rebecca did not even have a chance to ask him for the bill. She glanced across the room at Alex, who suddenly seemed to feel her eyes on him. He smiled broadly and waved at her, and then turned to say something to one of his buddies, a pasty guy in a cowboy hat with wobbly jowls, who turned to look at her, too.

Great.
That's the crazy girl, you know, the cat lady's daughter.
She wondered if Daughter of the Cat Lady would soon replace Poor Cory Williamson's Sister as her label in this little town. Not exactly a promotion.

She stared into her beer bottle, thinking irrationally that it had something floating in it, and when she looked up, Alex was on his way over to her table.
Too late to run away now
.

“Hey,” he said, sliding into the seat across from her without an invitation. “How you holding up?”

“Did it ever occur to you,” Rebecca said haughtily, “that maybe I don't want to discuss my personal family business with a total stranger?”

Deputy Chen's smile did not waver. “I'm not a total stranger. You may not remember me from high school, but I remember you.”

“I know,” Rebecca said. “Cory's Little Sister.”

“Not just that,” he said. “Anyway, I didn't mean to intrude on your personal business. My apologies.”

“No problem,” she said, hoping he might get up and walk back to his friends.

“So let's talk about something else. What are you singing tonight?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I do not sing. I can't.” It was true. She was a terrible singer. Even her roommates had gently asked her to stop singing in the shower junior year.

“Everyone can sing,” Alex said.

“I hate that expression. People say it all the time, but I know for a fact it isn't true. I'm living proof.”

“I doubt that,” he said. He was looking at her in a sort of appraising way, like he was sizing her up.

“So how long have you been a police officer?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I'm a sheriff's deputy,” he corrected. “About ten years, off and on.”

“Wow. That's kind of a dangerous job.”

He shrugged. “It can be, for sure. But this isn't exactly downtown Atlanta. Around here, a couple of people drive off without paying for gas or hunt deer without a license and it's a crime wave.”

Rebecca sensed he was downplaying the seriousness of his job, but she didn't press him. She remembered the kind Atlanta PD officer, Bonita, who had helped Suzanne so much the year before, and had been killed by a drunk driver while making a routine traffic stop.

He signaled the boy in the tight T-shirt. “Now your job is kinda dangerous, too, right? Kevin, can you get me another round, please, and one for the lady?”

“No thanks,” she said to Kevin. “How do you know about my job?”

Alex smiled, a little sheepish. “Your dad's really proud of you. He and I go fishing together once in a while.”

“You do?” How did she not know this?

“Yeah,” he said. “Well, not so much since he and Sonia…”

He trailed off. Rebecca shifted in her seat. Apparently there were no secrets in this town, at least where her family was concerned. “Ugh,” she said. “It's so embarrassing. Are they—are we—the town laughingstocks or something?”

Alex laughed. “Hardly. People do some embarrassing shit in this town. My dad and my uncle once got in a fight in the front yard and threw chicken feet at each other.”

She clamped her hand over her mouth in spite of herself. “Not really!”

“Yep,” he said. “That was probably the year after you left. I was in Birmingham at UAB, but my brother David was still living here. You remember David?”

“Yeah,” she said, hoping he wouldn't press her for specifics. David had always been a quiet kid who hung out in the band room a lot, if she remembered correctly. Rebecca was not even sure they'd ever had a conversation.