“I’m just foolin’.” I could practically hear him roll his eyes. “Hard-working gal like you is probably overdue for some well-deserved ‘R&R’ anyway, in a small town like this.”
I didn’t respond for a while as I finished off my dinner, but I took a long swig of the last of the moonshine he’d given me. Brazen as he was, I had to admit he had some fine product; it tasted like blueberry pie.
“You’ll need to take off at the crack of dawn,” I said curtly, “I’ve got a delivery coming early, and they’ll start asking questions if they catch the likes of you around here. I’ll patch up whatever’s the matter with your truck, and then you get gone, hear?”
My drawl had a habit of coming out a little strong when I was on edge, and I could see by his crack of a smile that he’d picked up on it.
“Yes m’ayam, I’ll be gone like a tumbleweed in a gold rush,” he imitated the accent with a heavy drawl, and I was already storming out of the room halfway through, face flushed. Why did I ever offer this asshole a hand?
* * *
It rained that night. I stood at the windowsill of my room, barefoot in the same white nightgown I’d worn since I was a teenager.
I ran my hand along the hand-carved frame while listening to the soft patter of the rain outside. The whole house had been made by hard-working, honest folk who led honest lives. My parents had brought me up to be one of them, too.
I still was, wasn’t I?
Why was I feeling like I’d taken a sledgehammer to everything my parents tried to build in me by bringing this bootlegging city-slicker into the house? He was only going to be here for one night, I reminded myself.
But what happened by the truck…what was I supposed to make of that? Every time I thought about it, I felt a kind of burning I wasn’t used to. It was like I was ashamed of what I’d done, but I kept wondering whether it could happen again.
I’d let Jason take the guest room. He was as crude as I could have imagined at dinner, but I couldn’t help but think about whether he was down there sleeping or still up, thinking I’d be coming back down there for what I knew I wanted more of.
Another wave of guilt hit me—why did I feel this way about some low-down criminal?
I touched a marking on the windowsill where an old crush and I had carved our initials. I’d been grounded for a week for bringing a boy up into my room, and another week for putting a permanent mark on a fine piece of carpentry.
There wasn’t anyone around to ground me, but this time, I’d fucked up way more than that.
Quiet as I was when I was a kid, I pushed my way out the window and crept down the rooftop by a way I’d learned well. I didn’t want Jason to hear me leaving the house, just like I didn’t want my parents hearing me when I snuck out as a kid.
I padded out to the barn through the wet grass, footsteps shrouded by the light rainfall. My gown was short enough to keep from getting drenched in the wet grass.
The barn door creaked as I pushed it open, and I moved past the moonshine-filled truck to the ladder that led to the hayloft. I clambered up, careful not to nick myself on a splinter in the dark.
I hadn’t been up here in years. Not since my parents had passed. It hadn’t really occurred to me that with the whole house to myself, I didn’t have to hide what I’d stashed away up here.
In the corner of the loft, there was a little box next to a lamp that I kept. I opened it up, and inside were scores of papers full of my awkward handwriting. I flicked the lamp on and shuffled through a few of them.
They were poems. Most of them I’d written when I was ‘becoming a woman,’ as Ma said, and I didn’t have much of anyone to talk to about that kind of thing. New feelings, including the kind of shame I was feeling now, I realized.
I’d never shared anything I’d written, and as far as I knew, I was the only one who even knew I’d written them. Maybe they weren’t as good as being able to talk through some of those feelings, but they were better than nothing…and I sure as hell needed some guidance right now.
But I only had about five minutes to myself with my old scribbles before I heard a creak from the ladder behind me, and I whipped around as my heart leapt to my throat.
The faint lamplight illuminated the top half of Jason. We locked eyes for a few moments.
“Hey,” he said at last, as if he’d been invited up here. I swallowed.
“What are you doing here, Jason?”
For the first time, I thought I saw those ravenous eyes soften sheepishly for a second. “I uh…,” he rubbed the back of his neck and climbed the rest of the way up to the loft.
“Heard the roof creaking when you left the house, saw you headed for the barn. Thought you were going for the truck,” he gestured down to the truck full of valuable alcohol down below. “Figured you was—”
“—Gonna steal your moonshine, take off down the highway in a nightgown and leave the farm behind for one truck of bootleg?
” I couldn’t help but laugh, crossing my legs as I tried to be discrete about putting my poems away.