New Life (20 page)

But Jason’s phone went straight to voice
mail, and my texts went unanswered. Maybe his battery was dead, or
maybe he was ignoring me. I’d rejected his apology, and he’d
retreated into silence. I decided I’d go after him this time.

When I waited after work and tried to catch
him on the night shift, a new guy wearing janitor coveralls was
mopping the foyer floor.

“Excuse me.” I addressed the Hispanic man
with thick glasses. “Can you tell me where the guy who usually
cleans this building is? Jason?”

He put his mop in the bucket and shook his
head. “No
se
. Not here. I clean.”

One of Jason’s rare nights off, then, so
maybe I could catch him at home. I thanked the man and drove across
town to Jason’s place. I could see from the street that no lights
were on in his apartment, and when I buzzed him, there was no
answer.

A woman carrying a grocery bag in each arm
trudged up the steps and struggled to get her key into the
lock.

“Hey, I’m waiting here for a friend,” I said.
“Can I help you with that?”

She accepted my help in unlocking the door,
but when I tried to follow her into the building, she said, “You
can’t come in unless your friend buzzes you. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m a friend of Jason’s. You know
him? He lives in the front apartment on the second floor.”

“That guy with the limp? He’s gone.”

“Yeah. But I’d like to wait for him to come
back.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time. He moved
out.” She shifted the bags in her arms.

“Wait. Are you sure? It’s only been a few
days since I talked to him. Do you know where he’s moved to?”

“I don’t know. I never talked to the guy.
Thanks for holding the door, but I gotta go now.”

She went inside, and I caught the door with
my toe before it could close behind her. I waited until she’d
disappeared into one of the first floor apartments, then I went
inside and ran upstairs. I knocked on Jason’s door until one of his
neighbors came out and yelled at me. I needed to actually see his
empty apartment before I would believe he was gone. But the
neighbor reiterated what the lady had said—Jason had moved out a
couple of days earlier.

I tried his phone again—still no answer. What
the hell had happened during these past few days? Had he had some
sort of relapse? Had he moved back in with his parents? Had he lost
his job? Maybe that last was one thing I could find out fairly
easily.

I drove back to the office building. Of
course the front door was locked, but the cleaning guy had to pass
through the foyer at some point. I was determined to wait until his
shift was over to catch him, if that’s what it took.

Nearly a half hour passed as I sat on a bench
within sight of the brightly lit foyer. I huddled in my coat,
shivering, until a flash of movement caught my eye. I sprang from
the bench and raced to the door, pounding until the glass shook in
the frame.

The janitor came to the door and spoke to me
through the glass. “What you want?”

“What happened to the guy who usually cleans
here? Jason Reitmiller?”

He shrugged. “Not here. I clean now.”

He started to move away, and I slammed my
palms against the glass. “Wait. Please. You must know something.
I’m a friend of Jason’s. I need to talk to him.”

The guy stared at me, then nodded slightly.
“Jason don’t work here no more.” He drew a finger across his
throat. “Fired.”

“Oh no! Can you tell me where he might
be?”

“Don’t know. Sorry.”

He walked away, taking my hope with him. What
the
hell
had happened to Jason? Lost his job, abandoned his
apartment, and stopped answering his phone—or maybe his service had
been cut off. How could I find him? Where would he go if he was
broke? Back home to Pickens made the most sense. A little voice
that sounded too much like my mom’s murmured that maybe that would
be for the best.
Just let him go.

Questions swirled around in my brain as I
drove home and took Baby for her last walk of the night. By the
time we’d gone around the block, I knew I wasn’t going to give up
on Jason so easily. I was a lawyer, for God’s sake. I had
investigative skills to track down details about clients and cases.
Finding Jason shouldn’t be difficult at all.

“We’re not letting him go, Baby,” I assured
the dog as I ruffled her fur and met her trusting gaze. “I’m
getting Jason back for both of us.”

Chapter Twenty-three

When you’ve hit rock bottom as many times as
I have, you start to redefine what “bottom” means. Is it the moment
when you wake up from a coma and realize you’ve lost half your
memories? Is it the time when you collapse during rehab and
seriously doubt you’re ever going to walk again? Is it the look in
your girlfriend’s eyes when she tells you to go away? Or is it
later when your boss fires you, you realize you’ve been more or
less drunk for days, and you can’t pay your bills and have to move
back in with your parents?

My shitty apartment and low-paying job may
not have been much, but they were mine, my first step toward
regaining independence. Now both were gone, and I was swept back to
those humiliating days of recovery when I had to depend so heavily
on my family. I hated myself for screwing up yet again. I hated the
stifling cushion of home when I should have been grateful. I
basically hated everything and threw myself a giant-ass pity party
for the better part of a week.

One day, Katie came to my room, stood in the
doorway, arms folded, and stared at me as if I were a zoo animal in
a cage. “You suck.”

“I know.” I rolled over in bed and stared at
the motocross poster on the wall of my teenage room. The jumper was
frozen in a perfect moment of flight, never changing, never
crashing and burning and breaking his legs.

“You can’t just give up. Get out of bed and
stop being a little bitch.”

“Hey, watch the mouth.”

“Everybody at school says bitch. Kiera says
it all the time.” Katie strode across the floor and bounced on the
edge of my bed.

“Is she one of the mean girls?”

“Are you kidding? Do you ever listen to
anything I tell you? Kiera’s my best friend,
not
one of the
mean girls.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Could I do anything right? I was
a bad listener, a bad big brother, a bad son, a bad boyfriend, a
loser who couldn’t keep a job or an apartment or a girlfriend
or—

Katie grabbed the covers and hauled them off
me. “Stop it! You’re sighing again.”

“Leave me alone.” I tried to pull the blanket
and sheet out of her hand, but she stood and snatched them all the
way off the bed.

“It’s Mom’s birthday today. Try to think
about somebody besides yourself for a change. I bought the gift,
but you’re going to help me make a card to go with it, and you’re
going to smile and make Mom’s birthday happy.”

I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. It
felt oily.

“And take a shower. You stink.”

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and
stared down at my bare feet.

“Seriously. Do you need meds or something?
What’s the matter with you?” Katie had dropped the bedding and
stood with her arms folded, a scowl creasing her smooth forehead,
unmarked yet by pain or misery or even acne. “That girl dumped you,
didn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry. That sucks.” Her voice softened for
the first time since she’d marched into my room. “I know how it
feels. I loved Connor Tinesdale all last year and he never noticed
me. He just saw me as a friend, and then he started going out with
Kiera.”

I looked into her sad eyes. “She’s your best
friend, and she didn’t know you had a crush on him?”

She shook her head. “I never said. Not even
to her. So I couldn’t be mad about it. But it hurt. A lot. So, I’m
sorry about you losing your girlfriend.”

“Thanks.”

“And I guess you have a right to whine for a
while, but not today. Today you’ve got to get it together.”

“I will.” I stood and felt a little dizzy
after lying down for so long.

Katie was right. A shower made me feel more
human, and I tried to focus on the positive. I had loving parents
who forgave my multiple screwups, a pretty cool little sister, and
a home to live in so I wasn’t out on the streets. Count the
blessings.

After I was showered, shaved, and dressed, I
went to find Katie and helped her by wrapping the present—a new
pair of gloves and a bottle of perfume.

“You owe me forty bucks, but you can pay me
when you’re not broke.”

“I got it,” I said, pulling out my wallet and
handing her the money. “Damn, that’s some expensive perfume.”

“The good kind always is. I wasn’t going to
buy something from the Dollar Store. How does this look?” She
showed me the card she’d made on the computer using various photos
of our family with cartoon bubbles coming from our mouths.

I smiled as I read the funny captions. “Mom
will love it.”

Katie started the card printing and leaned
back in her chair. “I’m glad you’re home again. I missed having you
here.”

“Glad to be here. I missed you too.” The last
part was the truth.

“That girl was a bitch to dump you.”

“Naw. I deserved it. I did something
stupid.”

“Well, did you apologize and try to make up
for it? Did you bring her flowers or something?”

“Tried the flowers. They didn’t work so
good.” I watched the brightly colored card shoot out of the
printer. “Anyway, I don’t think it could’ve lasted. We’re too
different. Better to end it now. If it hurts this much now, imagine
how bad it would’ve been six months or a year down the road.”

Katie started to fold the paper into a card.
“Being in love sucks.”

“Yeah. It kinda does.” I handed her the two
clumsily wrapped boxes and she added bows to the top of each.

The rest of the day, I followed my little
sister’s advice and pulled my shit together, concentrating on
making my mom happy. I insisted on cooking dinner for all of us,
and even though it was only a simple omelet and salad, my mom acted
as if I’d created a feast. She exclaimed over our gifts with equal
enthusiasm, and I felt like a shit for all the times I’d ignored
her calls or texts. It took so little to make her happy.

Later that evening, after cake and ice cream
and after Katie had gone to a friend’s house, my parents and I were
in the living room. I leaned over to give my mom a big hug and told
her how much I loved her.

She pulled away with tears in her eyes. “I
love you too.”

“I’m really sorry I messed up again and lost
my job,” I said, realizing I’d been mute on the subject since my
parents came to move me back home. “I’m sorry for a lot of things,
but I’m going to do better.”

“I know you will,” she affirmed with a
smile.

“In fact”—I looked over at my dad sitting in
his usual chair—“I was hoping maybe you could put me to work at the
store, if you still want to. I’m sure there are plenty of things I
could manage to do.”

Now it was Dad’s turn to beam as if I’d
presented him with an autographed José Acevedo baseball. “Of course
there are. I told you I thought you’d be well suited for retail.
You don’t have to focus on the business end or even work the
register, just schmooze with the customers and point them in the
right direction to find what they’re looking for. That’s an
important part of a small business. People want that personal
connection.”

I was pretty sure most would have preferred
the lower prices of mega stores, but my dad’s local hardware was
handier for picking up small items for home repair projects. I kept
that thought to myself. The old man must be doing something right,
because his business was holding steady despite the recession.

“When can I start?” I asked.

“How about this week? You can come in and
help out where you’re needed. Later on, after we figure out what
you can do, I’ll work you into the schedule officially.” My dad
looked at me with serious dark eyes that people had said were
exactly like mine. “I know you’re feeling pretty bad about whatever
happened while you were out on your own. But I know, until
recently, you were being responsible. Everyone makes mistakes.
You’ll get back on track.”

“Yeah, but not everybody’s mistakes land them
in a coma or get them fired. I’m done doing stupid things. I want
to work at the store and maybe take an online class. I can do more
with my life than what I’ve been doing.”

“Glad to hear you say that, son. You know, I
don’t expect you to stick with the hardware business for the rest
of your life. It’s just a jumping-off point. There’s no shame in a
little nepotism to get you started in the work place.” Dad smiled
and changed the subject.

I was happy to talk about the Reds and
batting averages. Baseball was an easy topic, and I’d done enough
soul-searching for one day. But later that night, lying sleepless
in bed, I yearned for Anna. My head might be ready to move on, but
my heart wasn’t.

Chapter Twenty-four

“I think this single-stage snowblower will be
fine, Mr. Hamm. Anything more would be overkill.” I smiled at the
indecisive customer and shifted my weight off my left hip, which
was killing me from being on my feet most of the day.

The man examined the machine’s pretty basic
components as if they were complicated before he finally nodded.
“Okay. You’ve sold me. And thanks for being honest. Some salesmen
would push the more expensive blowers.”

“I want you to have the right machine for the
job, not raid your wallet.”

Another happy customer walked out of
Reitmiller’s and I collapsed onto the stool behind the counter. I
looked around the quiet store at the shelves of hardware,
electronics, lightbulbs, tools, and more. There was a certain smell
that always pervaded the store, a hint of metal and oil probably
from the bins of loose nails, nuts, and bolts. It smelled familiar,
comfortable, and a lot better than the sharp tang of cleaning
fluids every night. The hardware store wasn’t such a bad place to
work. It was a beginning.