The Debt 4 (9 page)

Raven put a hand to her forehead.
 
She was getting a throbbing pain behind
her eyes.
 
“Jake, you never even
asked me.”

“Listen,” he said, “you’re the one who
told me you wanted to do this for me.
 
You said you would use your history to help me fight the negative press
I’ve been getting.”

“I know I said that, and I meant it.
 
But I need to be included in these kinds
of decisions.”

“This is my career,” Jake said.

“And it’s my life,” she replied, pointing
at her own chest.
 
“I’m the one who
has to open up my old wounds, and the least thing I should get is the courtesy
of a discussion about what scenario is best for me.”

“Kurt would have put you on stage
tomorrow to do this,” Jake said.
 
“I
had to fight hard to back him off.
 
The longer we wait to put you out there, the more people condemn me and
the worse my chances get to fight this thing off.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it,” Raven
said.
 
“What’s so hard for you to
understand about me wanting to be included in the decision making process?”

He sat back folded his arms.
 
“You don’t want to step out and do your
job,” he said.
 

“That’s so not true.”

“It is, Raven.
 
Face it,” Jake told her.
 
“I had to push you to bring me back to
Southbridge to meet your family and do the photo op together.
 
You didn’t want to do that and now you
don’t want to give this speech next week.”

“I keep telling you, I just want to be
involved—“

“You are involved,” Jake interrupted, his
jaw tense, eyes narrow.
 
“But you
don’t get to waltz into my life and take over the operation.
 
This is business, and I decide what
works and what doesn’t work.
 
You
follow my orders.”

Raven sat back and closed her eyes.
 
“Fine,” she said.
 
“We’ll do it however you want to do it,
then.
 
You tell me how it goes.”

“Good,” he said.
 
“Now you’re getting it, finally.”

She laughed harshly.
 
“Maybe you should come up with a nice
story about what happened to me in high school, too.
 
Why let the
truth get
in the way of whatever helps you the most?”

“That’s not fair and you know it, Raven.
 
I didn’t tell you to lie about anything.”

She opened her eyes and glared at
him.
 
“No, but you sure don’t seem
to mind it, either.
 
Why stop at
lying about our relationship?
 
Why
not just make everything up?” she said.
 
“We should say and do whatever we need to as long as it makes for good
press for you.”

“Exactly,” Jake replied, his nostrils
flaring.
 
He sat forward.
 
“And next time you decide to have a
temper tantrum, save it for someone who gives a shit.”

“Point taken,” Raven said calmly.

She looked away from him, he looked away
from her, and they didn’t speak the rest of the way back to Massachusetts.

***

Raven was already exhausted and they
hadn’t even gotten out of the car yet.
 

But as they got off the highway and she
saw the old Ramada Inn that she remembered passing so many times driving with
her parents, it truly hit Raven that she was home again.

It was like being transported back in
time, because so much of Southbridge was the same as it had been when she’d
left at seventeen.
 
All of the
little details were still intact—the restaurants, the convenience store
on the corner of Main Street where all the kids had hung out, the tiny
independent movie theater that played second run movies, where Raven and Caleb
had kissed for the first time.

It was like a movie playing in her
mind—the movie of her childhood, and although the last bit had been quite
awful—there were lots of good memories mixed in too.

She stared out the window, in awe of the
power of this place, these streets, this town.
 
The hold it had over her was almost like
black magic.

“Are you okay?”
Jake
said, sounding genuinely concerned.

She was surprised, turning a little to
look at him.
 
“I didn’t think you
cared.”

“Of course I care. I’m not a monster.”

She raised her eyebrows.
 
“The jury’s out on that one.”

“Very nice,
Raven
.
 
Very nice.”

“I know I’m being difficult, Jake, but
you really don’t understand how hard it is for me being back here.”

Jake laughed.
 
“You think I don’t understand the kind
of demons the past can throw back in your face?
 
Baby, you really don’t know me at all.”

“Don’t call me baby,” she said, noticing
that they’d just passed the public golf course, and that meant they were about
to go by the second house she’d lived in before her parents had moved to their
most recent home.

“You seem determined to piss me off,”
Jake told her.
 
“But I’m not going
to give you the satisfaction.
 
If
you’re freaking out, you’re not going to have me to blame for it.”

“I’m not blaming you, but you’re not
helping, that’s for sure.”

“You won’t let me.”

Raven sighed, but didn’t say anything
back.
 
Maybe Jake was
right,
she didn’t know anymore who was right and wrong
between them.
 
All she knew was one
moment he was like prince charming, come to rescue her, and next he was acting
just like every other man who’d hurt her.

As the limousine progressed, Raven’s
hands started to tingle and she started feeling short of breath.
 
Now she could recognize certain houses,
and remembered the people who’d lived in them.

She recalled riding her bike down one
hill and practically going over the handlebars when she’d hit the brakes too
quickly at the bottom.

And then they were on her old street, and
she was counting down the houses, knowing that in ten, nine,
eight
…soon
they would arrive.

Finally, they turned a bend in the road
and her old house came in sight, looking smaller than she’d remembered it,
somehow.
 
It was a little two-story
white house with red shutters and a red door.
 

There were a couple of cars parked in the
small driveway.

Some children in a neighbor’s lawn stared
with their mouths open as the limousine pulled up in front of the house and
came to a stop.

Raven tried to take a deep breath.
 

I
can’t do this.
 
I left for a
reason.
 
And seeing everyone again,
knowing what they think of me…I can’t stand it.
 
Not for one minute.

But just when she thought she wouldn’t be
able to step out of the car, a warm, strong hand had taken her hand and was
gripping it tightly.

“We can do this,” Jake said softly.

She turned and looked at him with wet
eyes.
 
“Why do you always end up
proving me wrong when I start to doubt you?”

He smiled a little, his brown eyes
sparkling with mischief.
 
“I guess
I’ve always liked a challenge,” he said, and in that brief moment, she swore
that she loved him totally and completely.

And the way he was looking at her, she
thought that he must
be
thinking the same thing.

“Okay, let’s just get it over with,” she
told him.

Jake signaled to the driver, who got out
and went around to open the door for them.
 
They got out and Raven saw that the front door of her house was opening,
and her heart was beating so fast and hard that she was going to break a rib.

“Oh my God,” Raven muttered, as she stood
frozen, rooted to the ground, watching the door swing wide.

“You’re going to be fine,”
Jake
said, squeezing her hand.
 
“I promise.”

“Thanks for being here,” she whispered, grateful
for his presence.

Raven’s mother was coming outside, and
she looked just the same as she’d always looked.
 
She was short, with a wide smile and
silvery hair that fell about shoulder length.
 
Raven had always been told that she
resembled her father, whereas her brother Danny had always looked more like
Mom.

And as her mother came down the steps,
Danny followed her out, and she saw that this was even
more
true
now.
 
He was only a few
inches taller than their mother, with her same crooked smile, although his hair
was still dark.

Danny’s smile died on his lips the moment
he saw the limousine, and his eyes seemed to harden.

But then her mother and Danny were
approaching, and she went to meet them, hugging her mother first and then
Danny.
 

Her mother smelled like cinnamon, and she
was crying a little.
 
“Oh, I can’t
believe you’re really here,” she told Raven as they embraced.

“Mom, this is Jake Novak,” Raven said,
and they hugged too.

Jake shook Danny’s hand, and Danny looked
him over with skepticism.
 
“You
always travel by stretch limo, Jake?”

“Sometimes,” Jake laughed.
 
“I thought it was appropriate for
Raven’s homecoming.
 
Like, I don’t
know, prom or something.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “I don’t think prom or
anything to do with high school is a very welcome memory for my sister.
 
I guess you don’t know her that well.”

Jake didn’t react to Danny’s barb.
 
“Beautiful home,” he said, admiring
their house.

“Oh, thank you, Jake,” her mother smiled.
 

“Where’s Dad?” Raven asked.

“Oh, he’s inside,” her mother replied.

Raven glanced at Jake and he looked
away.
 
She got a strange feeling in
her stomach and then the four of them started walking towards the house
together, and soon they were going inside.

It smelled familiar, as if the very same
foods and clothes and plants and furniture had been here since she’d left.
 
Nothing much had changed, except for one
major difference.

Her father.

He was in a wheelchair with a tube going
to his nose.
 
Raven stopped, totally
shocked by how frail and gaunt her dad looked.
 
The hose was connected to a large oxygen
tank that was attached to the back of his chair.
 

“Oh, Dad!” she cried.
 
“What happened?”

Her father smiled.
 
He looked at least fifty pounds lighter
than when she’d last seen him, and his hair was grayer, and he looked sickly,
his skin almost jaundiced.
 

“I’ve had a few health things pop up,” he
said, shrugging, as if he was talking about getting a splinter and a broken two.
 
“But I’m okay, don’t look so frightened.
 
Come hug me.”

Raven couldn’t believe what she was
seeing, and her heart was breaking as she went and hugged him.
 
As he embraced her, she sensed his
weakness, much different than the strong man that had still been exercising and
lifting weights four years ago.

But he’d also been smoking back then—chain
smoking, actually.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him.
 
“You can’t walk?”

He chuckled, but there was a wheezing
sound in his chest as he laughed.
 
“I can walk just fine.
 
All
of my extremities are intact and in fine working order.
 
It’s my lungs that seem to have gone on
strike.”

She turned to her mother and Danny.
 
“I wish someone had told me what was
going on with Dad.”

Danny made a face.
 
“I think you made it pretty damn clear
you didn’t want to hear from us.”

“But if something was wrong—“

“You didn’t care what was right or wrong
with anyone but yourself,” he interrupted.

“This visit is going well so far,” Jake
mumbled, only loud enough for Raven to hear it.
 
He extended his hand to her father.
 
“Jake
Novak,
pleased to meet your sir.”