Goodbyes and Second Chances (The Bleu Series Book 1) (3 page)

“Dimples, is
that you?” I holler to the next shower stall over and have to laugh when he
grumbles in aggravation. He knows he is so busted and won’t be enjoying his
lady friend on this night.

“Don’t call me
that!” he groans. I hear a faint thud and I can guess he just rested his head
on the stall’s wall beside me, knowing I’m not going to let him have his fun.
He hates my nickname for him, by the way. “It hurts my manliness,” he says.

“But you’re just
a boy!” I laugh some more, and I do believe I hear his female company join in.
“Honey, don’t let that manly physique fool you. He really is just a baby.”

I’m barely dried
off before I start pulling on my clothes. I hurry up before they decide to run
off. “Good night, my sweet Dimples,” I say as I dart out of the bathhouse. I
rush straight over to Leona’s to rope her into my scheme. I find her stretched
out on the small couch watching the
Late
Night
show, with her eyes halfway shut. She tries to stay up to watch the
bands that perform on these shows. It’s as close to MTV we can get, beings that
none of us have cable.

“Get your happy
butt up. We got business to take care of.” I pull her off the couch and to her
feet.

She seems to
wake up and slides on her shoes. “Who’s our victim tonight?”

“Dimples. He’s
entertaining a girl in the bathhouse, and I think we need to put out that
fire,” I say on a laugh as we walk briskly over to the small community
laundromat where the ice machine is housed.

Leona helps me
fill two buckets with ice, and we top them off with water before hauling them
over to the bathhouse. We ease back in and tread lightly so our steps don’t
echo. I hear Dillon whisper something, causing the girl to giggle. It’s all I
can do not to giggle myself. The idiot should have known not to linger in the
very spot he got caught in. Leona and I perch the buckets up and do a silent
countdown before launching the ice water over the top of the stall. Squeals and
yelps follow, and we quickly dash back out. That should cool the lovebirds
down.

We make a run
for it, laughing all the way back to our trailers. I quietly reenter my trailer
and tiptoe to my small room. I turn off my lights, and I ease open my window
and wait for only a little while before my lullaby begins. Dillon serenades the
trailer park most every night, whether he intends to or not. It’s just chords
and melodies he strings together at random, but they are always beautiful.
Tonight there’s a bit of an edge to the song. You can feel the aggravation in
the melody, and I have to smile with the knowing of what’s behind that. No
matter, it’s still beautiful. I listen until I doze off.

Morning comes
way too early. I roll over in my twin-size bed and grumble. One side of my
small bed is butted up against the wall with the window, so I only have one side
of the bed to wake up on. Today it is definitely the wrong side. My back is
tender from the cleanup efforts of yesterday. Also, my shoulder somehow got
slammed into the side of the canoe on impact with the dock during our
stunt-gone-bad. Today it finally decides to hurt. I inspect it in my small
mirror and discover a bruise painted on the back side. I rotate my shoulder a
few times, trying to loosen it up, but I give up on the notion of making it
feel better quickly. I drag my achy body to the small dinette area and find
Aunt Evie dressed for the day in a white tank top and tie-dyed skirt. Her gray
hair is braided in a low side ponytail. My great-aunt is a hippie in her own
right. This trailer park has been in her family since she was a baby, so she has
grown up on these coquina paths and beautiful shore, just as I have. Aunt Evie
is a uniquely meek woman. It’s a characteristic that’s not too common in this
world anymore. Nothing much gets under her skin. Although she’s not hard on me
and Kyle, she does expect us to know the rights from the wrongs that she has
instilled in us. We’re pretty upright kids with the exception of a few
occasional mishaps. We remember where we came from and how she rescued us. I
can’t even fathom what horrible situation we would be in today, had she not
taken us in. It’s been over a decade and we’ve still not heard one thing from
our parents. I’m not even sure they are still alive. Most days, I don’t really
care one way or the other.

Aunt Evie has us
in church every time the doors are open, but I don’t mind. Those good folks are
like family to us. Living in the poverty that we do, you have to lean on one
another. When one is doing better than the others, they don’t squirrel it away
for themselves. They spread it around as thinly as they can. Someone’s electric
bill or rent may get caught up anonymously or a box of groceries will show up
mysteriously on your porch. In our low-income world, it’s not about outdoing
your neighbor as it is on the other side of the lake. Nope. It’s about trying
to keep your neighbor’s head above water right along with your own. I’ve seen
Aunt Evie do a lot of this for her neighbors.

She is thumbing
through a hymnal while sipping her coffee. I grab a cup and join her.

“Whatcha doing?”
I ask as I try to stretch out my sore back.

“Looking for
some songs for Dillon to play at church tomorrow.” Dillon agreed a few years
ago to play the piano once a month to get the old ladies off his back. The boy
can play anything, and our church family wants him to share his talent.

“You think they
are going to want a jailbird playing the offertory hymn in the morning?” I rise
slowly to grab a few aspirins and a Pop Tart. My young body feels too old
today.

“Ain’t nobody
perfect. They won’t hold a stupid stunt against him. Speaking of which, I
forgot to tell you that the Lakeshore Times called yesterday.” She jots down a
page number before eyeing me. Her watery blue eyes look at me with some
trepidation that I don’t understand.

“Awesome. I’ll
call them back before I head to the dock building project this morning.” I have
to use the phone at the park office beings there’s no phone in our trailer.

I’m totally into
writing. It’s my thing. I’m a good enough writer to be the editor of the school
paper, but not good enough socially to hold the position. They only allow me to
be a featured writer. That sucks. I may talk slow, but I’m not stupid. You did
take note that I did not use
ain’t
.
I’ve won several essay and descriptive writing contests throughout the school
district over the years. Good enough in fact to be awarded some scholarship
money, but still not enough for me to actually go. I have no gas fund, much
less a college fund.

Just as Dillon
has been born to create music, I live to write. My fingers get itchy sometimes,
and I just have to sit down and pour out my heart on paper. I am lucky enough
to get the opportunity to write for the local paper every now and then. I also
publish the campground’s monthly newsletter that I had talked Aunt Evie into
letting me create my freshman year of high school. It’s just a one page
bulletin about the coming events and some other whatnot information.

Dillon bugs me
sometimes to help him with lyrics to a song. I love to write, so I agree to
help him out, even though he doesn’t need much. I’m nearing graduation and this
is exciting, but at the same time it’s been disappointing. I can only afford
community college and there are really no writing and journalism courses there.
It’s not my dream come true, but normally dreams don’t come true in my neck of
the woods. I just have to go with it. Really, what can I do?

Aunt Evie brings
me out of my thoughts. “They don’t have a writing assignment for you, Jillian.
They want a statement on the mess y’all caused the other night.”

“Ugh. No
comment.” I place my head on the table. Great. Just great. My jailbird status
has probably cost me that ray of hope for working with the paper full-time one
day.

“Young lady.”
She pauses, and I know I’m about to get a lecture. “You need to start making
better choices. If you don’t, one of these days you’re gonna make a choice
that’s going to haunt you the rest of your life.” It sounds more like an omen
instead of a warning, and it makes me shiver.

I rise and head
for my room. “Yes ma’am.” I turn back to my aunt and gently wrap my arms around
her. “I’m really sorry for screwing up again, Aunt Evie.”

“I know, honey.”
She pats my arm before I release her and head to my room.

I beat on Kyle’s
door to rouse him as I pass it. I rummage through my clothes and decide on a
pair of cutoffs and a holey T-shirt. I plait my hair in a long side braid to
keep it out of the way while I work today. After dressing, I find Kyle sitting
at the table eating his own Pop Tart.

“Did you feed
Dog?” I ask him while I study our goldfish.

“Yep. He wouldn’t
quit barking until I did,” he mumbles as he opens a second pack of Pop Tarts
and continues scarfing them down.

I smile at the
little orange fish in appreciation. He is as close to a dog as we will ever
get. There’s simply no budget for pets in this trailer park life, so you won’t
ever spot a cat or dog scurrying around. Aunt Evie surprised Kyle and me last
Christmas with the goldfish. He’s probably as easy and as cheap of a pet you
can have, and we like Dog pretty well. He keeps us content in the pet department,
but when the need to have a furry, frisky dog eats at us, all we have to do is
hop on our bikes and strike out to Shimmer Lakes Farms. The owner has a
gorgeous yellow lab named Peaches, and neither he nor she minds us paying her
an hour or two of attention once in a while.

After Kyle
finishes up breakfast, we meet the guys outside. It’s already screaming hot.
Ugh. This is going to be a long day. We decide I will be driving us over today.
I’m too sore to think about a twenty minute bike ride. Leona has to work, so
it’s just me and the boys today. We all pile in my Mustang like a bunch of
sardines to head over to the dock. Mave’s knees are pushing through the seat
and jabbing me in my back. I’m working really hard at not getting annoyed about
it. I scoot the seat as far up as it will go, hoping he takes the hint. At
least he’s not backing out on helping us.

I eye Dillon
before pulling off. “Good morning Dimples. Did you have a good night?”

“You suck,
Jewels,” he says as he leans his head on the passenger window. I can’t resist,
so I lay the pedal to the metal and cut out of the parking lot in a jolt,
making him tumble around unexpectedly. I give him a hard time and he grumbles
the rest of the ride.

This guy named
Jack, who lives in the trailer park, is past-due on his rent to Aunt Evie.
Lucky for us he is an out of work construction worker, so she agreed to let him
work off his rent by helping us out today. He meets us there and goes about
instructing us on how to do the job properly. He grabs a hammer and goes to
work right along with us.

We knock the
dock out relatively easily, even though this extremely humid Georgia day makes
it tough. Shimmer Lakes is nestled in the deep southern part of the state where
the air is so thick and sticky in the summer that mosquitos can get stuck in
midair. No joke. Well, okay, that was a joke. But southern humidity is not a
joke.

We really only
needed to replace two posts and the top decking. Most of the damage was to the
boat itself. As the day progresses, so does my frustration. The heat has put a
mean whooping on me today. My hair is completely soaked with sweat and my
clothes are sticking to me with no pity. With blistered hands from hammering
and my sore shoulder, the whole life situation is weighing me down today. Life
is not fair, I know this. But man, wouldn’t it be nice to catch a break every
now and then?

We pile back
into my car by suppertime, and I am absolutely wiped out. Once we are all
shoved back in, the begging and pleading begins for food. I knew it was coming.
I am too tired to put up a fight, so I make the mistake of asking “where to?”
After listening to them go around and around about what they want to eat, I
crank up Pearl Jam and head to my favorite hangout. These boys can really act
like a bunch of old ladies, not able to make up their minds about something and
then bickering when the others make a suggestion. I ain’t got patience for that
mess. Yes, I used ain’t. It makes a better point sometimes, don’t you think?

Fat So Moe’s
Burger Joint has the best burgers around, hands down. We push through the front
door and find the jolly owner at the counter.

Kyle is the
first to greet the owner. “Yo, Moe!”

Moe looks up
from the counter. “Yo, bro!”

It’s their usual
routine, and we always laugh at this. Moe looks like Santa but with a really
long goatee and several silver hoops through his ears. He wears shorts and
T-shirts year-round with combat boots. He is a cool character for sure and has
starred in many of my fictional stories. He talks as though he should live on a
surfboard in the ocean and not in a boat on a lake.

We make it to
the counter and grumble when he takes the opportunity to rag us a bit over our
latest fiasco. “You scrubs finish walking the plank for the rich and
flameless?” He’s just a-grinning. He thinks he’s funny. He ain’t.
See. It just sounds better sometimes.

I glare at him
for good measure before I order the pimento cheese burger with Cajun fries and
a vanilla milkshake to help cool me off.