“I only read Men’s Health and Maxim,” Garrett replied, puzzled.
“Maxim?” Sandy said, rolling his eyes. “For God’s sake, Garrett. That’s porn for kids not old enough to legally buy porn who don’t have Internet access.”
“It is not! They have sex tips and sports articles.”
“‘The Hottest NFL Cheerleaders’ is not a sports article.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Garrett shot back.
“That’s true, Sandy,” Cort added, amused. “You do.”
Another snap! of bubble gum from Cort’s jaws of life. “Yeah, my grandson reads it and leaves it lying around. Kid just got his driver’s license last week.”
“Rebuttal, Garrett? No?” Without loosening his grip on his hateful grandfather, Blake shifted his attention to the sweaty, greedy, pathetic man who somehow thought that arranging a meeting between grandfather and grandson would fix everything. “I had to work and live here for weeks to understand why places like Sweetheart are necessary. Because one piece of earth is not just like another.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he huffed, already looking around the quiet street for an escape route.
“In Las Vegas, the lights are always on, but not because anyone who cares about you is waiting. No clocks, so you aren’t reminded how much of your life you’re pissing away betting against a house that never loses. Vegas can suck you dry and then turn her back on you; Sweetheart is the pitcher of lemonade on the lit porch.” Not my best.
“What the fuck does this have to—”
“I don’t know; I am tired and confused and angry!” And hot. No one had warned him that North Dakota springs could be downright tropical.
“Atta boy.” From Sandy Cort, who blew a bubble of approval.
“And you want to make this place a miniature Vegas, with casinos and miniature golf and bright lights at ten o’clock at night, you soulless shithead! Which you never would have thought to do without wretches like this enabling such a toxic mind-set.” He gave his grandfather a light shake for emphasis, then released him. “And I helped you. You could never have taken it this far if I hadn’t also been a soulless shithead. Thank Christ I came to my senses in time.” He was so staggered by the epiphany he was dizzy with it. And for some reason his hands no longer hurt. “Forget your ill-conceived plan, Garrett. I’ll do whatever it takes to save Heartbreak, whatever I have to in order to get the funds. If I have to crawl, naked, the length of downtown to my mother on broken acid-drenched glass while listening to an audio of Angela’s Ashes as narrated by my brother and follow my undignified pleading with an hour of interpretive dance, I will.”
“Jesus,” Garrett said with a flinch, doubtless picturing the tawdry scene.
“Yes! That’s how determined I am. The place doesn’t have to be profitable, either, so don’t hang on to that hope. Heartbreak could burn down and I wouldn’t let it go, do you understand?”
“What the fuck did they do to you out there?”
“Worked me half to death, starved me, put me in danger, let me operate heavy machinery while fatigued, made me eat lefsa and haricots verts, and put me in charge of an animal who yearns for my death,” he replied happily. “This might be Stockholm syndrome. Don’t care. Go away.”
Here comes “this isn’t over.” That was unoriginal but vaguely badass, just the sort of thing Garrett—
“This isn’t over!”
—couldn’t resist.
“And you!” he continued as Garrett stomped off. Cort nodded to show he was still listening and Garrett almost giggled. No, that noise Blake heard was him giggling. The man was so unabashedly eavesdropping, and it was clear he would be gossiping about this for weeks, and refused to exhibit shame. It was glorious. “You tell Roger he will never get the White Rose of York back. She is going to live to the ripe old age of … of…” His research failed him. “… to whatever a ripe old age is for swine.”
“I’m tellin’ him a lot more than that.” With Garrett’s absence, Sandy seemed to realize the confrontation was winding down, and failed to hide his disappointment. “Welp, better get goin’. Nice to meet you, Blake. You say hi to your mama for me.”
“I will, Sandy, nice to meet you, too.”
An indifferent nod to the man so recently in Blake’s clutches. “Mitchell.”
His grandfather’s head moved a half inch in acknowledgment. “Cort.”
“And you! Awful, horrible old man.” Blake could not recall ever feeling so manically cheerful. He had no idea where he was going from here and did not care. His life had crashed and burned and he did not care. He kept having to stifle the urge to giggle and he did not care. It wasn’t that a weight had been lifted. It was more like he had lived his entire life on a high-grav planet and moved to the moon: an entirely new world to explore while weightless and free.
“I’m done with this,” his grandfather replied with chilly mien, but didn’t get far once Blake’s hand closed around his elbow.
“Of course! Things are out of your control, thus it’s past time to run along, isn’t that right? Our meeting didn’t go the way you planned? You thought I’d be small and stupid and timid? Hoped I’d be? Thought I’d be bullied by my mother like you bullied her? Okay, that part’s a little accurate.… Garrett told you I was having trouble and you came right over, didn’t you? But not to help. You wanted to see Shannah’s mistake up close.” The man’s disgruntlement was so plain, Blake could not stifle a smirk.
“Let me go.”
“Not yet; my brother would tell you I love the sound of my own voice, and he would not be wrong, though Rake is…” Now that Blake had met a blood relative who was genuinely terrible, he would have to think of something else. “… perhaps a bit less terrible than I previously thought. So I’ll leave you with what I think happened, why you’re a pathetic shit, and what will happen next.
“She left to get away, to see more of the world than Sweetheart, as teenagers have been doing since there were teenagers. But that’s not what you told yourself. You decided she left to find a husband, to—what’s the phrase? put on airs?—because for some reason you also thought it was 1950.” He watched the old man’s mouth get smaller and smaller, the only indication of his anger, and had a flash of inspiration. “You didn’t know my father was wealthy! She came to you for help and you turned her away. You didn’t reach out until after my father died, after she controlled the trust fund. And she told you where you could put it!” Blake could not recall the last time he was so delighted. “You assumed she was still the small scared girl who left. Don’t you see, you ancient ghoul? She couldn’t be that girl anymore; she had to be strong for her children. When you finally unclenched and called, she was the person you inadvertently made, strong, like obsidian, but brittle, also like obsidian.”
“She owed loyalty to her family.”
“So did you.” Hard to talk through clenched teeth. “Run along back to whichever hole you crept from, old man, and don’t dare to seek out my mom without a written apology of a minimum of five pages.”
“Boy, you don’t dictate my behavior.”
“Do not call me that! My name is Vegas Douche!” Dear God. What have they turned me into?
Without a word, his grandfather turned and walked away, stride brisk, shoulders back. You could not tell by looking at him that anything was wrong. Blake had seen that quality before, but in his mom it was something to admire. In his grandfather it was simply the old man’s place to hide.
“Five pages, single spaced!” Blake shouted, and noticed Bev and Cameron Harmon stopped short across the street, then waved at him.
He smiled and waved back.
Then he passed out.
Thirty-one
It’s okay he’s fine everything is fine his hands don’t even hurt so how could everything not be fine and yes a bit dizzy but it had been an interesting week so no wonder and he told the Harmons he tripped they rushed over when he didn’t trip when he went down and his grandfather never
slowed never stopped and good riddance you wretch you monster you are a dead thing and rumors of your not-death were exaggerated because you have always been dead for her and now she can be dead for you and we will be too the nuclear option has love enough for all of us and it was so hot but it was fine everything is fine and why is the road moving while the Supertruck stays still oh well home again home again and hurrah here is Heartbreak and Gary is pretending he doesn’t know the difference between Lactuca serriola and Lactuca sativa and surprise Gary the Supertruck and I are in the garden with you and oooh look at him dive out of the way and shall I park beside the basil row or the tomato row oh I seem to be on the muskmelon row and this garden will not weed itself so Blake to the rescue and don’t forget Natalie’s strawberries ooops forgot to put down the ladder and now my head is in the muskmelon row which is all right no time to waste it’s quicker this way much quicker and what is that terrible crash-bang noise and who is breathing on me who is snorting and breathing gusty hot breath on me and it’s nap time now.
Thirty-two
It wasn’t a nightmare, but Natalie forgave herself for thinking so at first.
First Blake managed to take the Supertruck to town without her noticing (that whole “give him space” thing really backfired). Then he came back, roared back, almost took out Gary, did take out half the kitchen garden, then conked out (on top of the muskmelons, no less).
All that was alarming enough, but the final surreal touch was Margaret of Anjou kicking free of the corral and galloping full tilt across the drive and around the house, running straight to the kitchen garden, Natalie had assumed, to seize her chance to stomp him to death. Instead she screeched to a halt beside Blake, who was facedown in muskmelon plants, then stood over him, nickering and gently pawing at him and giving every sign of a horse in emotional distress over an owner she cared about. Which wasn’t possible.
Natalie ran. She felt a dull pain over her eye and realized she had run into a closed door. Opened the door, ran more, kept running, ignored Gary
“Cripes, all he hadda say was, ‘I already weeded the patch,’ didn’t have to, y’know, try to kill me!”
shoved Margaret of Anjou, gave up trying to move her, and in the end nearly ended up facedown herself. In the end she crawled the last few feet to reach Blake. She put a hand on his shoulder and started to gently turn him over. Tried, anyway; he was a big man. She put both hands on his shoulder and grunted and heaved and after what felt like half an hour he flopped over on his back.
“Blake?” She gasped in horror; his entire front was soaked in blood! No, wait. Squashed strawberries. The smell should have tipped her off.
She carefully brushed dirt from his face and hissed when she touched him. Oh, Jesus. Hot. A fever, then, and … yep, she checked his hands and they were so raw, she could almost feel them throb against her skin. Infected, then, which had brought on the fever, all of it exacerbated by exhaustion and dehydration. He would be deathly ill for days in a place he felt unwanted, surrounded by people he was sure despised him, watched over by someone he knew had lied to him.
She could hardly believe there was a time she’d gleefully anticipated Heartbreak breaking him.
Something kept nudging her and she pushed back without looking. “Blake?” She shook him, brushed away more dirt. “Blake, can you— Dammit!” She turned and realized the source of the shoves. “Margaret of Anjou, I am working on it.” The pony let out a plaintive nicker, then promptly nudged her again. Cripes, what a nag.*
But the yelling did what her gentle concern had not. He stirred a little and mumbled, “Go away, Natalie. I don’t care if Margaret of Anjou has a fever; you take her temperature. I don’t have the courage.”
“She’s not the one with the fever, Blake. Can you see me okay?”
He blinked up at her, eyes watering. “No, you’re all blurry and dark.” She brushed away more dirt and he smiled. “Now you’re brighter. Why is it so dark in here?”
“You’re in the kitchen garden. If I help you up, do you think you could walk with me to the house?”
“Impossible.” Shit. Well then, get the guys to help or call an ambulance. Maybe both. “I already weeded today.”
“You’re not in the kitchen garden because— Easy, easy!” He sat up, blinking around at her and the pony looming over them. “Okay, we’re just gonna rest a minute, okay? And then we’ll go into the house and figure out what to do next, okay?”
“Why are you saying ‘okay’ so often?”
“Because I am freaking out, Blake!” She forced herself to lower her voice and continued. “I told you to take care of your hands! I told you that you were working too hard.” Then she was crying. She wasn’t sure when she had started—when she heard Gary’s screech? When she realized Blake had gone, and wondered if he’d ever come back? “It’s my fault. You didn’t know. I should have looked after you better. I should have done everything better.”
“That’s a lie. You are unimprovable.” Then he passed out.
Thirty-three
Blake burned for three days.
Thirty-four
It took her twenty minutes to help him into the house. She covered her terror by scolding, and he laughed at her.
“I can’t believe I let this get so far.”
“So say all who embrace the dark side.”
“You’re brilliant, Blake—”
“And I’ve never had a cavity!”
“—how could you not know this was a pretty inevitable conclusion?”
“Victim blaming, for shame, Natalie.”
“Argh, you’re right, careful, porch steps coming up.”
“Victim shaming. That’s what happened to my mom, you know. Do not, if you have any tender feelings for me, do not ever tell her I said that.”
“No prob. She’ll be plenty pissed at what I let happen to you, no need to stoke that fire.”
“Yes! Correct! That fire needs no stoking whatsoever. That fire should be left to burn out. We should do the opposite of fanning the flames.”
“Oof, heavy!”
“That’s not nice, Natalie,” he whined. “I’m at my winter weight. Victim blaming, then fat shaming, and you call yourself a feminist. Actually, I’ve never heard you identify as a feminist—”
“Shouldn’t have to,” she grunted, staggering forward in step with him, “should just be assumed.”
“Regardless, I am forced to report you to the good people at Jezebel dot-com.”
“How do you even know about Jez— Never mind. Here we are. Just several dozen more steps to get to the attic.”
“Rake is not terrible.”
She groaned, and not just with Blake’s weight. He had an arm slung over her shoulders, she had an arm around his waist, and they were averaging about two feet a minute. Even if his heat hadn’t been searing her wherever they touched, that statement would have told her everything. “Oh, man, now I know you’re delirious.”
“I’ve never been more clearheaded in my life. Sweetheart is great! Down with Vegas! Rake is much less terrible than I ever suspected! I bought you strawberries!”
“Blake, honey, you’re shouting.”
“Call me honey again!”
“I should be calling an ambulance, honey. And yeah, I saw the strawberries.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Why?”
“I could have bought you many more. I only bought you one bag. For spite! They were the strawberries of spite and I am ashamed.” His head drooped and his skull clonked against hers. Sparks flashed before her eyes
(that’s what they call seeing stars maybe?)
and she staggered, then straightened. “Okay, please don’t do that again. The thing with your head. And don’t worry about the strawberries of spite; I didn’t deserve any. Besides, they got all over your shirt when you pitched out of your truck, so it’s just as well you didn’t buy a ton.”
“When I pitched out of my Supertruck,” he corrected. He began scraping at the berries
all over him. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to get these stains out.”
“Who the hell cares? I’ll buy you a new shirt.”
“You’ll have to,” he said with strange cheer. “I am poor now.”
“Done. Okay, we’re almost a fifth of the way there.”
“Smooth sailing!”
“Sure, sure. Don’t worry about your shirt; I’ll help you get undressed.”
“You insatiable slattern! I might have known you’d leap at the opportunity to molest me. That’s why you got rid of everyone else, isn’t that right?”
“Gary went to town to get the doctor. Harry and Larry took the day off to go trout fishing. It’s just us right now.”
“Outstanding! I stand ready to be molested, Natalie, my darling, my dove.”
“Blake…”
“Oh please, please molest me.”
“If you still want me when you’re better—”
“Oh, I will! I want you more than Henry the Eighth wanted a son.”
“Wow.” She wouldn’t deny it; she was touched. She might have done a little research about the people Blake talked about like they were still alive. So she might have read that Henry VIII basically split his country down the middle out of lust for Anne Boleyn’s loins. (The end of that great love story was somewhat less romantic.) “Then I guess it’s a date. Don’t worry; I won’t hold you to it when you come to your senses.”
“I will never come to my senses!” He flourished his free hand and they nearly fell back down the steps. “Why are there an extra five hundred steps here?”
“Wondering that myself,” she grunted, helping him farther up the stairs. “No more flailing, please.”
“Why are you so beautiful?”
She snorted. “I’m not.”
“Only beautiful people deny being beautiful.”
“Unattractive people deny being beautiful, too.”
“Ha! That tickles!”
“Is it your phone?” It was in his back pocket, so every few minutes his butt vibrated, which prompted a burst of giggles from him. “Tell your butt to take a message.”