Till It Hurts by Cora Brent
Tori
Now
California is finally in my rearview mirror and I make a decision.
I’m going to eat a hamburger.
This doesn’t sound like a big deal and it isn’t, but I haven’t eaten red meat since college and despite a west Texas upbringing crammed with barbecues and beef, I haven’t missed old fashioned hamburgers at all.
Now, suddenly and out of nowhere, I have the urge to make up for lost time. This is symbolic, cathartic. I’m free of the dreadful trauma that sent me into a tailspin and I can anticipate a fresh start. Sort of. Some might argue that skulking back to a town that I have good reason to hate isn’t exactly a fresh start. However, it’s the best I can do right now.
Still, I hesitate to stop. I’m determined to reach my destination by nightfall and the entire state of Arizona passes beneath my wheels without a pause. It’s only when I find myself approaching a small town outside Lordsburg, New Mexico with less than a quarter tank of gas and feeling a bit lightheaded from hunger that I pull toward the nearest exit that promises gas, food, and lodging. I don’t need the lodging because I won’t be staying, but I do need to pee and I do need gas. I also want my burger; preferably a big, fat sucker stuffed with bacon and cheese and leaking copious amounts of unwholesome grease.
After wincing over the dollar amount required to fill my tank at the nearest gas station, I settle for a Burger Haven fast food meal. Though I really need to get back on the road, my legs are revolting against the prospect of being immediately stuffed back into the driver’s seat. I bypass the drive thru and go inside.
The high school kid behind the register must be new to the job. He presses the buttons with one finger, squints at the screen in front of him, glances around for help, then does something that causes the machine to start ringing like a telephone.
“Fuck,” he mutters. Then his eyes widen as he realizes he spoke out loud. “Sorry. Didn’t mean that.”
I keep a straight face. “I heard nothing.”
He presses six buttons at once. The register stops ringing. He clears his throat. “Ma’am, would you like to add an order of cinnamon flavored onion rings?”
Blech.I am wilting from hunger and yet I’m sure that cinnamon never belongs on onion rings. “No. Does anyone?”
The kid smiles and my heart contracts because he is dark haired and black eyed with the broad shoulders of an athlete and just for a second he bears a powerful resemblance to Jace Zielinski. Not the Jace Zielinski who steamrolls rival NFL teams and then flips off reporters on his way to the locker room, but the version of Jace Zielinski who lived next door and dreamed of being a writer. The one I fell in love with. The one who no longer exists.
Then I blink and the boy hands over my tray of food. He really doesn’t look much like Jace at all. I don’t know why I thought otherwise. I must be delirious from hunger after so many hours on the road following a hasty exit from San Diego just before dawn.
The dining area is not crowded and I have my pick of seats. An empty corner booth in the rear looks appropriately remote. I dislike sitting with my back to a door. I need to see what’s coming. The benches are upholstered with an unfortunate shade of burnt orange that reminds me of the color of Gloria Zielinski’s wall to wall carpeting. Many years have passed since I’ve been inside Gloria’s house and now I’m wondering about the orange carpeting, if it still survives in the home where I spent the happiest moments of my childhood. The fact that I’ll be discovering the fate of the orange carpet very soon hits me in the chest like a sack of bricks. Whatever I find in that house won’t be what I want to see the most, which is Gloria.
Gloria Zielinski was my music teacher and next door neighbor. At the time of her death, she was possibly my last true friend in the world. Though I’d been gone from Arcana for a decade and refused to visit, Gloria and I were still in touch. We exchanged cards and holiday gifts and while her grandson remained the pride of her life, she was kind enough to rarely mention him. I knew that Jace was swimming in oceans of pro sports money and he had repeatedly offered to buy his grandmother a luxury home anywhere she pleased. Gloria, however, was content to remain in Arcana. After collapsing at her weekly sewing circle held at the Arcana Public Library, she slipped into a coma and died the following day.
I’m sure everyone assumes that I avoided Gloria’s funeral because I was too much of a coward to deal with Jace. Fine, let them assume I’m terrible. It’s better than admitting the truth, that traveling to Texas was out of the question because I’d just been released from the hospital after suffering a concussion, fifteen stitches and a broken eye socket. My vision still blurred around the edges, my headaches were crippling, and I looked like a horror movie victim. I shed my tears of grief alone in a cramped studio apartment and lit a candle in honor of the woman who probably never realized she was one of the most important people in my life. The next day I was shocked to receive a call from Paul Elkins, Arcana’s best known attorney.
Paul needed me to know that Gloria had left her house to me.
Along with her grandson, Jace.
And my brother, Colt.
Ownership of the house was to be split evenly and could not be sold. Gloria had never mentioned a word about this.
My stomach rumbles and I try to silence it with a huge bite of my bacon double cheeseburger. The grease drips down my chin and lands with a splash in a puddle of ketchup. This burger is the best thing that’s happened to me in months, maybe years. I’m never giving up hamburgers again. I actually hear an ‘MMMMM’ sound and belatedly realize it’s coming from me.
“Got a mouthful there, heh heh.” The man had plopped himself down at a neighboring table while I was communing with my burger. He’s alone and his heavy-lidded eyes gaze at me with expectation.
I wipe my mouth with a scratchy napkin and hope he has nothing else to add. At the top of my list of Things I Am Not In The Mood For, being propositioned by some weirdo while I try to chew my lunch is number one.
The guy rudely looks me up and down. He seems to regard my silence as encouragement. Then again, he might regard a ‘Go fuck yourself’ response as encouragement. His white tee shirt that says Duke’s Garage is a couple of sizes too small and his upper body indicates that much of his free time is spent worshipping a weight bench. He seems like a dick.
Then again, what do I know? My character judgement skills are nonexistent. Maybe the guy runs a homeless cat charity and hosts story hour at the library twice a week.
Nonetheless, whether he’s a dick or a homeless cat champion means nothing to me. I just want him to get lost. The old version of Tori would have fucked with him a little, maybe feigned disappointment that the invisibility spell purchased from my spiritual adviser for eight hundred dollars was a bust because, sadly, people could still see me. I used that line once at a karaoke bar when some suit and tie kept following me around. The look on the man’s face was priceless.
Today I don’t have the energy to try that. Or the nerve.
I pop three fries into my mouth and turn my face to my phone screen, hoping that Duke’s Garage can take a hint.
He can’t.
“So where are you headed?” he asks. “You’re way too gorgeous to be interested in hanging out around here for long.”
Gag.
I’m sure I do not look especially fetching with my faded pink hair dragged into an unkept ponytail while sporting black yoga pants with a hole in the left knee and a grey sweatshirt that now has a ketchup stain.
Duke’s Garage grins. He has a silver tooth.
My heart thrums in my ears and my back breaks out in a cold sweat. I’m in public and it’s broad daylight. There’s no reason to be afraid.
“Can’t you talk?” He keeps smiling. Smiles mean nothing. Anything can live behind a smile. I should know.
My fingers dip into my purse and fumble through the contents. I feel the leather edge of my wallet, the pillowed surface of a tissue pack, the ridges of a prescription bottlecap. Lastly, I locate the cylinder of pepper spray.
Duke’s Garage has grown bored with my lack of communication. He unwraps a cheeseburger and licks the underside of the bun before replacing it. “Just tryin’ to be friendly,” he grumbles and glares out the window.
My appetite has disappeared. I gather my trash while keeping one eye on him and his cheeseburger. Then I slink out of Burger Haven with my pepper spray in hand. No one notices. A tired looking woman scolds two young boys for not sitting still. An elderly couple share a sundae and break into laughter at the same time. The boy up front, the one who made me think of Jace, is quarreling with the cash register again.
If anyone is watching, they’re probably curious about why on earth I race to my car, fling open the door and dive inside. Only when all the doors are locked and I realize there’s no one around, no one in sight at all, do I relax and check my phone GPS.
I have four hundred and eight miles left to travel and I should be reaching Arcana right around sunset. The only person who is aware of my plans is Paul Elkins, Gloria’s lawyer. I remember him as a permanent local fixture with an unchanging office in Arcana’s anemic business district. He narrated his own radio commercials. “Arrested for a DUI? Trying to write a will? Need to file for divorce? No matter your legal troubles, remember to call Paul!”
Paul has got to be in his late seventies now, yet he’s sharp as ever. He did not sound surprised to hear from me last week and quickly confirmed that yes, Gloria’s house is unoccupied and yes, as part owner I have the right to stay there for as long as I’d like. He even offered to stop by and make sure all the utilities are turned on before my arrival. I hesitated to ask about Jace but Paul didn’t miss a beat before declaring that Jace Zielinski has not been seen in Arcana since his grandmother’s funeral. I know I’m taking a chance but it’s a tiny one. Jace and I haven’t had anything to do with each other for a long time. If either of us had been interested in fixing that, we would have done so years ago. Should the news reach Jace that I’m in Arcana, he’s unlikely to care one way or the other.
Somehow I can never bring myself to refer to Arcana as my hometown. A loaded word, ‘hometown’. Full of wistful sentimentality that feels wrong. Arcana is simply my last option because I’m jobless and friendless and exhausted and my bank account has dwindled to a double digit number. Gloria would have welcomed me with open arms if she were alive and maybe somehow she sensed that I’d need this refuge after she was gone. There was always something kind of mystical about Gloria and while I doubt she was able to see the future, she did always have an uncanny sense about people.
As for my current jobless, friendless, moneyless status, there’s an origin story behind all that. A terrible one.
To make a long story short, my boss nearly killed me. He got away with it. And I became a pariah.
I won’t dwell on that now. Risking a panic attack on the interstate is impractical. It’s enough that I’m in a different state and left no forwarding address. I can stop glancing in the rearview mirror for imaginary pursuers. I won’t need to clutch my pepper spray can every time I exit the front door. Arcana has its faults and its ghosts and its excruciating memories of the past, but right now it’s the only sanctuary in sight and I feel better already just knowing I’ll be sleeping there tonight.
Still, tossing the word Arcana around in my head summons a riot of old feelings. Of images from a perfect summer that splintered into an unbearable autumn. I wish I couldn’t recall every wonderful and awful detail, but I do. I just never talk about it. And even if I wanted to, who would I reminisce with? Not my brother Colt, once my other half, my spirit twin. He’s become a distant and unreachable man, moving from one remote place to another and refusing to have a conversation that lasts for more than two minutes.
And definitely not Jace Zielinski. I do not even recognize the funny, thoughtful boy next door in the arrogant NFL quarterback who is as celebrated for his skills with a football as he is despised for his attitude off the field. He’s a stranger now. They both are, Jace and Colt. I’m sure they would say the same thing about me.
My right hand leaves the steering wheel to touch the hard shape hanging from a leather cord just beneath my collarbone. When Gloria gave it to me, she said a tiger’s eye gives the wearer courage. She also said that although I was plenty brave on my own, it might be nice to know there’s some extra courage nearby. I tried, Gloria, I did. I tried to be brave when it mattered but it’s hard to stand alone while being battered by violent storms. Sometimes holding your ground is impossible.
There’s a twinge now along the ridge of my left eye socket. It’s not pain, not exactly, yet I’m keenly aware of the crescent-shaped scar. When I tell my doctor of my headaches, I’m both lying and not lying. While I no longer suffer from the pounding aches of the concussion aftermath, there’s not an hour of any day when I’m unaware of the damage. The scar is hardly visible. On the outside I look mostly fine. As long as no one looks too closely. The cracks on the inside are much slower to heal.
I would have benefited from having something to do other than hide in my apartment and binge watch old sitcoms, but after the disaster of my last job I couldn’t find another one. The restraining order I sought was tossed out of court. A tsunami of medical bills wiped out my savings. Worst of all, I can’t sleep at night. In fact, without the aid of one of those pills in my purse, I can’t sleep at all.
My old doctor, the one who would willingly refill my painkiller prescriptions at my request without asking questions, retired last month. His replacement was more skeptical on my last visit three days ago. She wrote out a single prescription with no option to refill and gently told me that other options would need to be considered in the future. After all, a steady diet of addictive, numbing medication is not a long term solution. In fact, it’s dangerous. She probably wouldn’t have given me any prescription at all if not for the way I dissolved into tears on the exam table. She pitied me but she won’t help me again. Just as well. I’ll figure out something else once I’m in Arcana. Or maybe I won’t need any pills at all anymore. The pills are tied to my San Diego trauma and I’ll be far away from San Diego.
In need of a mood boost, I flip the radio dial until I discover a country music station. As a kid, I was never wild about country music. My dad was the country music fan. It was his companion of choice during his long haul trucking runs. On random occasions he would sometimes lug out an old guitar and sing. My dad’s been gone for seven years, a sudden heart attack on the road. His wife, Rochelle, hasn’t remarried and lives about an hour away from Arcana with my nine year old half sister, Carrie. They are the only family I have left in Texas. My mother and her latest husband live in Kansas City. And Colt is forever jumping from one place to another with no warning. One day he’ll be working on an oil rig in Montana and the next he’ll drop everything and drive to Alaska to live on a fishing boat.
Mile after mile of New Mexico passes by. The man on the radio sings a tender ode to his childhood pets. A woman howls about getting revenge on her cheating ex. Strangely, the music does indeed cheer me up. Somehow there’s solidarity in knowing that other people in the world have problems too.
By the time I cross the state line, the sun has moved low in the sky. A green and white billboard welcomes me to Texas.
I’m so tired.
I think I might actually be able to sleep without any help tonight.
Within an hour, there’s a sign pointing the way to Arcana and I travel a familiar two lane road for twenty miles until I see the water tower, then the peaks of the church buildings, and finally the recognizable layout of the whole town.
Arcana is unchanged, maybe just a little shabbier than I remember. I can navigate the route instinctively and the instant I make a right onto Tumbleweed Lane, the old streetlights blink on, blazing the way. I hardly glance at the house where I used to live, instead turning into the driveway of the green and white one story ranch. The hanging flower baskets that swing from shepherd hooks are empty of flowers but it is the end of February, weeks away from the first stirrings of spring. Even if Gloria were alive there would probably be no flowers just yet.
Paul Elkins had said that the house key would be hidden in the mouth of the ceramic frog by the back door. When I find the frog, a lump rises in my throat because it’s the same one I gave to Gloria for Christmas many years ago. Colt helped me pick it out on a trip to the mall in Plainsfield and then insisted on chipping in half the money. When I told him he didn’t have to because Gloria was my piano teacher while Colt never showed the slightest interest in music, he became stubborn. He wanted to thank her for all the times she fed us dinner when our mother was working late or out partying. After that it became an annual ritual to pick out Gloria’s Christmas gift together. A tradition that ended the year we left Arcana. A lot of things ended the year we left Arcana.
The frog grins at me. He doesn’t seem to mind his faded paint or chipped forehead. For an instant I feel like an intruder as I push the key into the lock and with a sigh I open the back door.
WELCOME!
The cheerful kitchen sign bordered with painted sunflowers is the first thing in sight and I no longer feel like an intruder. This is a place where I have always been loved, where I have always been welcomed, no matter what I have done or how long I have been away. The orange carpeting is no more, having been replaced by laminate flooring. Other than that, the house remains an untouched Gloria time capsule, although I suspect that someone has been here to clean. The smell of lemons lingers in the air and there is no trace of dust. These suspicions are confirmed when I spot a yellow sticky note on the fridge. The unfamiliar handwriting is all feminine loops and says, Compliments of your friend Paul Elkins with a smiley face. I’m shocked to discover that the fridge has been fully stocked. This unexpected gesture of kindness leaves me feeling a little tearful.
Suddenly I’m aware that many hours have passed since Burger Haven and I’m ravenous. After poking around in the fridge I choose an apple, two slices of American cheese and a package of bologna. A fresh loaf of whole wheat sliced bread sits nearby on the counter, just waiting for someone to turn it into sandwiches. In no time I manage to polish off two thick sandwiches, a glass of milk and the apple while seated at the cherrywood round kitchen table where I’ve sat countless times before.
With my stomach full, I have enough energy to bring my bags in from the car. There aren’t many. Over the last two months I’d sold most of what I could sell, leaving me with only clothes, some personal items and a rather ugly embroidered footstool that I’d found in a quirky thrift store and somehow can’t seem to part with.
I’m standing in the living room with my footstool under my arm when I realize I’ve given no thought to where I’ll actually sleep. There are three bedrooms in this house. The master bedroom belonged to Gloria and I can’t bring myself to go in there just yet. The first bedroom in the hallway to the right was Jace’s. I’m relieved that the door is closed because I have no intention of setting foot in Jace’s room tonight or tomorrow or six years from now. The third bedroom used to be a guest room for when Jace’s father would breeze into town for a few days to beg his mother for money and pretend to give a damn about his son. However, I remember Gloria saying that she removed the furniture and turned it into a craft space.
Luckily, the couch is the same floral patterned eyesore that’s been sitting in the living room for decades. While the thing would never win any interior design awards, I recall that it folds out to a queen sized bed. For now the old sofa bed will do just fine. The cushions are carefully removed and placed against the wall but yanking out the mattress turns into quite a chore. I tug and I curse and on the fifth try the frame finally gives way. I would have cheered, except my hand slips and I stumble backwards, landing on my ass atop a braided throw rug, which kind of hurts both my pride and my tailbone. Before I can get to my feet, I’m displeased to discover that I’m being watched by a smirking Jace Zielinski.
His senior year photo sits prominently atop the old console piano where I took lessons for years, long after I had much interest in the piano and only kept showing up for lessons because Gloria’s house was a far happier place than my house. The corner of Jace’s mouth tilts up like he’s reaching through the years to laugh at me. His head is thrown back and there’s a cocky edge to his expression that wasn’t there before he was knighted as Arcana High’s starting quarterback.
“Shut up,” I grumble to high-school-era Jace.
Naturally, I had braced myself for the fact that there would be reminders of Jace everywhere in the house he grew up in. Nonetheless, I’m not feeling real charitable about having any of them leer at me right now so I flip the frame face down.
This time the sofa takes pity on me and groans into position with one more hearty pull on the metal bar. With a sigh, I stretch out on light blue sheets that smell a tiny bit stale but will stay where they are for tonight. I close my eyes and wonder when the travel adrenaline will wear off. I hoped I’d feel calmer once I left San Diego and in some ways I do. I doubt anyone will follow me all the way to Arcana. I’m defeated and gone. That should be enough. For days my depleted energy has been fixated on getting here. Now that I am here, I’m not sure what to do next. My reputation is shot and my career in California is over. There’s no guarantee I’ll have an easier time here in Texas. I don’t have the resources to embark on a brand new profession but I’ll need to find something to do that earns some kind of a paycheck.
I roll out of bed, fish out my bottle of pills and swallow one. A low creak in the walls of the house sends my anxiety spiraling.
I know it’s nothing. I know there’s no one outside with plans to hurt me.
Yet I drag Gloria’s old armchair across the room and push it against the door. It’s not a very heavy piece of furniture and won’t really stop anyone but I leave it there anyway. The can of pepper spray is set on the end table within easy reach. Then I return to the musty couch and wait for my brain to begin shutting off.
None of the big questions can be solved tonight. The only thing I can do is try to reclaim some peace of mind and hope that an epiphany comes to me soon. It’s probably not a great life plan to hide out on a couch in Arcana, Texas forever.
I shouldn’t even be here now.