“Ugh,” Charlie groaned, repulsed by the words and also irritated that she knew them by heart. She hated to trot out one of those in my day sentences, but she could still remember how reviled Madonna was for singing about her feelings of renewed virginity.
Without warning, the music stopped.
The silence tickled the hairs on the back of Charlie’s neck. She had the distinct feeling of being watched as she walked along the uneven path to unit three. The wooden door was warped, painted a dark red that did not hide the black underneath.
She raised her hand. She knocked twice. She waited. She knocked again.
The curtains rustled. The woman’s face behind the glass looked older than Charlie, but in a hard way, like the few years had been spent on a construction site or, more likely, in prison. Her eyeliner was a thick black line. Blue eyeshadow. Heavy foundation reminiscent of the coating of Doritos dust on Charlie’s steering wheel. She wore her shoulder-length bleached blonde hair in a “Barracuda”-era Nancy-Wilson-style feather.
She saw Charlie and scowled before closing the curtains.
Charlie stood on the hot sidewalk listening to the air conditioning units grumble in the quiet. She looked at her watch. She was wondering if she had been given the brush-off when she heard sounds from behind the door.
A chain slid back. A deadbolt was turned. Then another one. The door opened. Tendrils of cold air caressed Charlie’s face. The whining a/c competed with OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” playing somewhere in the darkened room. The woman at the door was wearing jeans and a cropped red T-shirt with a Georgia Bulldog on it. A half-empty bottle of beer was in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Her fingernails were filed to long, sharp points, the polish bright red. She reminded Charlie of the trashy Culpepper girls who had relentlessly hounded her throughout high school. The woman had that look about her, like when the shit went down, she was ready to scratch out some eyes or pull out some hair or bite down real hard on an arm or a back if that’s what it took to win the fight.
Charlie said, “I’m looking for Maude or Leroy Faulkner.”
“I’m Maude.” Even her voice sounded mean, like a rattlesnake opening a switchblade.
Charlie shook her head. There had to be two different Maudes. “I mean Flora’s grandmother.”
“That’s me.”
Charlie’s chin almost hit the ground.
“Yeah.” She took a hit off her cigarette. “I was seventeen when I had Esme. Esme was fifteen when she had Flora. You can do the math.”
Charlie didn’t want to do the math, because grandmothers had buns and wore bifocals and watched Hee Haw. They didn’t sport cropped shirts that showed pierced navels and drink beer in the middle of the day while OutKast played on their boom box.
Maude said, “You gonna keep wasting my air conditioning or you gonna come inside?”
Charlie stepped into the apartment. Cigarette smoke hung like dirty yellow lace in the air. There was no light except for what came in through the slim part in the curtains on the front window. Brown shag carpet cupped the soles of her sneakers. The cluttered kitchenette was part of the living room. The bathroom was at the end of a short hall, a bedroom on either side. Clothes were everywhere, unopened cardboard boxes, a sewing machine on a rickety table shoved against the wall by the kitchen. A large television set was jammed into the corner by the front window. The sound was muted as Jill Abbott screamed at Katherine Chancellor on The Young and the Restless.
“Leroy?” the woman said.
Charlie blinked her eyes until they adjusted to the darkness. Across from the TV was a dark-blue couch. A large man overflowed from the matching recliner. A metal brace encapsulated his left leg. He had likely been handsome at some point in his life, but now a long, pink scar ran down the left side of his grizzled face. His lank, brown hair hung to his shoulders. He looked either asleep or passed out. His eyes were closed. His mouth gaped open. His red University of Georgia T-shirt matched the woman’s. His jean shorts were not the usual knee-length variety, but cut short enough so that they did not impede the metal brace, which meant they were also short enough to offer up a display to whoever walked through the door.
“Jesus, Leroy.” Maude punched his arm. “Tuck your ball back in. We got company.”
Anger flashed in Leroy’s rheumy eyes, then he saw Charlie and the look was quickly replaced with one of contrition. He mumbled an apology as he turned in his chair and made some discreet adjustments below the waist.
Maude flicked her silver Zippo, lighting a fresh cigarette. “Goddamn idiot.”
“Sorry,” Leroy apologized to Charlie again.
Charlie did not know whether to smile or run for the door. Peep show aside, there was something off-putting about Flora’s grandfather. If he had been handsome in his youth, it was the skeevy kind of handsome where you didn’t know if the guy was going to ask you to dance or follow you to the parking lot and try to rape you.
Or both.
“All right, missy.” Maude blew smoke toward the ceiling. “What the hell do you want?”
“I’m Charlotte Quinn. I spoke with—”
“Rusty’s gal?” Leroy smiled. His bottom lip caved in where his teeth should’ve been. Given his age, she assumed this meant he’d graduated from pills to meth. “I think the last time I saw you was before your mama died. Come closer so I can get a look at ya.”
Charlie stepped closer, though every muscle in her body told her not to. It wasn’t just the skeeviness. There was a sickly, chemical smell about him that she recognized from her clients who were detoxing at the detention center. “How do you know my dad?”
“Had me some troubles in my youth. Then I got straightened out, and this happened.” He indicated his leg. “Ol’ Russ helped me wrangle with the insurance companies. Good man, your father.”
Charlie wasn’t used to hearing people compliment her father, so she allowed herself a moment of pride.
“Screwed over those bastards for me,” Leroy said, and her pride dropped down a few watts. “Tell me whatcha need.”
“A beer?” Maude swirled the dregs in her bottle. “Something with a little more bite?”
“No thank you.” Charlie spoke the words to the woman’s back as Maude opened the fridge door. Dozens of beer bottles tinkled against each other.
Maude selected one, then used the bottom of her shirt to twist off the cap. She tilted back her head and drank down half the contents before she looked at Charlie again. “You gonna just stand there or are you gonna start talking?”
“If Rusty needs some help…” Leroy held up his hands, indicating the apartment. “Not much we can do for him.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m here on behalf of Flora.”
Maude glanced at Leroy. “I told you your little princess was up to no good.”
Leroy’s easier nature was gone. He sat up in his chair. He leaned toward Charlie. “You one of her teachers?”
“Why the hell would a teacher be here?” Maude demanded. “School’s been out for summer since—”
“Teachers work over the summer,” Leroy said.
“No, they don’t. They barely work during the year.”
Charlie jumped in, saying, “I’m a friend.” She realized how weird that sounded. Not many fifteen-year-olds had twenty-eight-year-old friends. “A fellow Girl Scout.”
Maude said, “I thought that was what’s-her-bitch? Melinda?”
“Belinda. She’s the leader. I was speaking at the meeting this morning.”
“Shit.” This came from Leroy. “You’re a lawyer, right? ‘On behalf of Flora.’”
Maude caught his train of thought. She asked Charlie, “What bullshit did that girl put in your head?”
Leroy jumped back in. “The wrong bullshit, I can tell you that right now.”
Charlie wasn’t going to let Meemaw and Paw tag-team her. “It doesn’t seem like bullshit to me.”
Maude snorted a laugh. “She tell you about the trust? You trying to get your dirty lit
tle hands on her money?”
Leroy snorted again, too. “Fucking lawyers. Always trying to steal what don’t belong to them.” He pointed his finger at Charlie. “That stuff I said about your dad—he could go to prison for that shit. Don’t think I won’t flip on him.”
The threat fell short of its mark. Charlie knew her father played it fast and loose with the law, but he would never be so stupid as to get caught, especially by a loser like Leroy Faulkner. She told him, “Your granddaughter wants to file for legal emancipation from you.”
Neither Leroy nor Maude spoke for a moment.
Leroy cleared his throat. “Emancipation, like she thinks she’s a slave?”
“No, you dumbass,” Maude said. “It means she’ll be an adult in the eyes of the law. That we won’t be her guardians anymore.”
Leroy scratched the scar on his cheek. His expression was hard enough to send a chill down Charlie’s spine.
He said, “Over my dead body that girl gets emancipated.”
Maude said, “She probably wants to live with Nancy. Or Oliver, more like.”
Charlie asked, “Oliver?”
“Nancy’s brother. They been dating since she was fourteen.”
Charlie felt blindsided. Flora had left out the boyfriend.
“He’s nineteen years old,” Maude said. “Only wants her for one thing.”
“That thing won’t be worth shit once he’s finished with it.” Leroy stared at the TV. “Stupid girl.”
Charlie felt her mouth go dry. She tried to break down what Leroy had said, to decipher what he meant about Flora’s worth. Was he just a run-of-the-mill sexist asshole who thought a girl’s value was wrapped up between her legs, or was he a super-predator asshole who didn’t want someone else ruining his good thing?
For her part, Maude seemed oblivious to the remark. She told Charlie, “Oliver already has a rap sheet as long as my dick. He ain’t got a job, ain’t got no prospects for a job. Hell, Flora might as well stay here as soon as live with that dipshit.”
Leroy jammed a finger Charlie’s way. “You can go back and tell her this ain’t gonna happen.”
“Damn straight,” Maude agreed. “I’m not letting that child run wild. It’ll be exactly like with her mother, only worse because she’ll blow through that money like it’s water.”
Charlie asked, “What happened to the Porsche?”
Another prolonged silence followed the question.
“What Porsche?” Maude locked eyes with Charlie, even as she put the beer bottle to her mouth. The end tipped up. Her throat worked like a goose being readied for pâté as she drank down the contents.
Leroy shifted in his chair. Charlie realized he was trying to work up enough momentum to stand. Just as she was reflexively reaching out to help, he hurled himself up to his feet.
He said, “Get some fresh air with me, will ya?”
“Watch yourself,” Maude warned her husband, but she didn’t try to stop him.
Leroy walked stiffly, swinging his straightened left leg out like he was part of the Queen’s guard as he propelled himself toward the door. He let Charlie leave first, then followed her with the same awkward gait.
Charlie squinted in the unrelenting sunlight. Tears rimmed her eyes. She had left her sunglasses in her car.
Leroy said, “Thiss’a way.”
She followed him down the broken sidewalk to the side of the building that backed onto a forest. This was the kind of thing that Ben had warned her about—being led out to a secluded location by a man that set off so many warning signs in her head that Charlie might as well be living inside the siren at a fire station.
Still, she followed him. Leroy’s leg was busted up. She could easily outrun him, or overpower him, or kick him in his bad knee.
Unless he had a gun.
“Here.” He was breathless when they finally reached the covered area by the pool. There were two rotting picnic tables, each with two coffee cans filled with cigarette butts. Instead of sitting down, he leaned on the edge of one of the tables. He kneaded his left hip with his fist, hissing out a slow sigh of pain. The pink scar on his cheek was more pronounced in the bright sunlight. The wound must have taken a zillion sutures. The right side of his face had nearly been cut in two.
He said, “Flora’s a good girl, but she gets things in her head sometimes and you can’t stop her from doing them.”
“It doesn’t seem like she did this on a whim.” Charlie didn’t know how much to say. She had no proof that Leroy was molesting his granddaughter, but a junkie was a junkie, and she had learned the hard way that you couldn’t trust someone who had lost their free will to addiction.
Leroy said, “Her mama, Esme, was the same way. Just headstrong. It’s what got her killed. At least, if you ask me. The day she died, Esme got into a fight with her mama, then she grabs Flora, jumps into the car, skids out onto the highway and the next thing we know, we’re getting a call from the hospital.”
“Flora was in the car with her mother?”
“Eight years old.” Leroy stroked the scar like a talisman. “Ambulance man said they found her cradling Esme’s head in her lap, just bawling, ’cause half the thing was hanging off. Her head, I mean. Semi-trailer whacked her sideways, nearly took off her head. Does things to you, watching your mother die like that.” He looked embarrassed. “Well, I guess you’re probably the only other gal in town who knows exactly what that feels like.”
Charlie slowly nodded. After several tries, the man had finally hit the mark.
“Well.” Leroy fished into the front pocket of his shorts for a pack of cigarettes. “I guess you figured out real quick that I’m not the best role model.”
Charlie let her silence be her answer.
“I’m going to rehab first thing in the morning.” He caught her look. “Yeah, I bet you heard that before, but I ain’t never said it before. Hand to heart. I’m sick of it, is all. Not doing it for Flora, though God knows I love her. Not doing it for Maude, or because it’s the right thing to do. I’m just plain damn sick and tired of feeling like shit all of the time.”
Charlie guessed this was a better reason than most addicts could cite. Then again, he was an addict, so he could be lying. If Charlie were in his shoes, if her meal-ticket granddaughter was about to be taken away, she would probably do exactly what Leroy was doing—give the old song and dance about changing her evil ways.
Leroy picked up on her thoughts. “Yeah, you think it’s bullshit, right?”
“I do.”
Leroy shook out a cigarette, then flicked his lighter.
Charlie watched him suck down half the cigarette before he huffed a plume of smoke into the otherwise fresh air.
He said, “You can ask your daddy about me. I was an okay guy until this.” He tapped the side of his brace. “Not the best guy, but an okay guy. Paid my bills on time. Took care of my family. Made sure there was food on the table, a roof over their heads. A good roof, not like this shithole here.”
Leroy took another drag as he stared up at the depressing apartment building.
He said, “Hot as a damn scorpion’s ass in there when the sun’s hitting noon. I just sit in there and bake and watch my programs and I’m thinking—What kind of life is this? What kind of example am I setting?”
Charlie studied the lines in his old face. She was usually pretty good at reading people, but she couldn’t get a bead on Leroy Faulkner. Even his face was duplicitous. The side with the scar showed what he said he used to be: an okay guy. The side without the scar showed a junkie who looked willing to do anything to get his next fix.
Leroy said, “When you lose your mobility, you start to think, well, what’s the point? And it took me a few years, but I’m seeing the point is that I gotta get up every morning, shave and shower, put on some clothes, and stand up like a man.” He tapped the metal brace again. “So what, I need help standing? Not many people can make it on their own these days, ya know? You see them boys coming back from the Middle E
ast, got one leg gone, two legs, an arm, blown up in the head so they can’t talk right or think right or even piss straight on their own. Who am I to wallow on my ass like some kind of baby ’cause I fell off a ladder?”
Charlie still couldn’t decide whether or not he was laying out the truth or stringing her along. But really, neither scenario mattered because she was here for Flora, and Flora had made it clear what she wanted.
She told Leroy, “I hope rehab works out for you. I really do. But Flora can’t wait to see how this turns out. She’s still a kid, and there’s only so much time she’s got left before she’s an adult.”
“I know that.” He looked up at the building again. “She’s at that age where there’s a fork in the road, you know what I mean? She’s either gonna end up like you or end up like Maude. Or, hell, end up in jail, she don’t watch what she’s doing. Especially with that Oliver fella. Kid’s just as crooked as that father of his—if he swallowed a nail he’d end up shitting out a corkscrew.”
Charlie decided to take advantage of Leroy’s expansive mood. “I could go back to my office right now and draw up the paperwork relinquishing your parental rights.”
“Not gonna happen, baby doll.” Leroy stubbed out his cigarette in the coffee can. “She’s my grandchild, my own blood. I’m not gonna let anybody take her away from me.”
“Surely you can see she’d be better off not living here.”
“I would be, too. So would Maude. What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Flora’s only got two years left before she’s legally an adult anyway. If you let her go now, that fork in the road is going to turn into a straight line to college.”
He laughed. “You Quinns always know how to turn a phrase.”
“Are you hurting her?”
Leroy’s head snapped around. “Is that what she said?”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“And I ain’t never gonna.”
Charlie tried to give him a way out. “You need to let her go, Leroy. You don’t want me asking you these questions in a courtroom, under oath, in front of a judge.”
He looked at her, maybe for the first time. Or maybe leered at her was a better description. His gaze traced down the V-neck of her shirt, then rested squarely on her breasts. He caressed the scar on his face with the tips of his fingers. He licked his lips. “You’re a good lookin’ woman. You know that?”