“Jeremy? Of course. She’s been dating him for over a year.”
I shake my head in confusion. “A year? She told me they just started seeing each other.”
Alarm bells go off in my brain. Nicole has been hiding this guy from me for months when I lived just around the corner from her. That tells me she knows in her gut that something is off and is afraid I’ll make her see the truth. Now I’m even more scared for her safety.
“Oh pish,” mom replies. “He spent Easter with us when you were at work. It’s very serious. She even declined a scholarship to that fancy college in New York so they could go to school together and could continue dating.”
She says all this wistfully, like my sister giving up her dreams, giving up a scholarship I didn’t even know she had won, is this great thing. In the meantime, my heart is pounding at this new information. She’s in so much deeper than I thought.
“I think it’s very sweet. One of my babies might get married soon.”
I ignore her dig, much more alarmed by this whole situation. “You know she came to visit me, right? Last weekend?”
“I didn’t find out until after the fact when she finally told me you had invited her, but yes, I know she stayed with you for a couple of days. I also know you made her babysit while she was there to visit.”
I ignore the obvious disapproval, completely unconcerned with her disdain right now. Suddenly, in light of everything happening with my sister, our rocky relationship seems trivial.
“Mom, Nicole had bruises on her arm. They looked like finger marks. And when I asked her about them, she got really defensive and mad at me for questioning her.”
“What did she say they were from?”
“That’s the thing. She came up with this weird excuse that she fell into an odd-shaped exercise machine at the gym. But I swear mom, it looked like someone had wrapped his hand around her bicep and squeezed, or maybe he shook her. I didn’t see the other arm.”
“Kiersten,” she tsks. “If your sister says she fell, then I’m inclined to believe her. I did not raise her to be a liar.”
I tamp down my frustration, trying to get her to understand the severity of the situation. “But mom, have you seen her? She has these really dark circles under her eyes and she was kind of jumpy.”
“You’re worried because she hasn’t been sleeping a lot her first semester away at college? Did you sleep a lot then? No. Because you were out with your friends having a good time on my dime.”
“But—”
“No buts, Kiersten,” she interrupts sternly. “I’ve known Jeremy for a long time. He comes from a lovely family and he’s never been anything but sweet to Nicole. I will not allow you to accuse him of something when you haven’t even met him.”
“I—”
“Now, if that’s all you called for, I need to know what size Carson is so I can buy him some quality clothes for his birthday present.”
“Um, okay.” I’m so stunned by her lack of concern for my sister’s well-being. How can she dismiss the evidence so easily? I can’t even think about clothing sizes at the moment. “Let me double-check all his tags and I’ll let you know what he needs,” I say quietly.
“Perfect.”
Discouraged and disappointed, we say our goodbyes and hang up, and I sit back to think through the conversation.
Did I misread something? Am I blowing the whole situation out of proportion? I know what I saw, but maybe I’m being more dramatic than I thought.
Shaking my head, I push off the couch and head to the small bathroom. There’s not one thing I know of that I can do to help my sister right now. The least I can do is get to work on time so I have a roof she can sleep under when the time comes. Because somehow, I know this isn’t the end of the conversation, no matter what my mother thinks.
NINETEEN
Paul
As the humidity of summer tapers off a bit and the days solidly fall in the warm category versus hot, Kiersten slowly relaxes as well. The weight of the world seems to fall off her shoulders a bit. She’s still worried—that much is clear—but when she mentions her sister finally answering her phone again, the sense of relief is also evident.
I’m glad for her, even though we both know this isn’t over. Not by a long shot. But there’s not a lot anyone can do until her sister is ready to get away from this guy. I think Kiersten is taking the time to prepare for that day. And I’m quietly supporting her, knowing I may have to cover her shifts or give her an advance when it finally comes time.
In the meantime, I can only assume word of mouth in the professional sports community is working because more and more athletes are showing up at the bar. Tammy is delighted to have more “young bucks” as she calls them, to dote on. Dwayne, on the other hand, is beside himself with the endless supply of people to challenge in a game of pool. I’ve never seen him this happy. And he’s drinking less as he tries to keep his wits about him. I don’t mind. My whole goal was to make customers happy here.
Speaking of, I’d like to thank Heath with a Sazerac or five, but he’s not here tonight. Seems like he sent the rest of his team, though.
“Hey man. I hope it’s okay that we all showed up.” Frankie asks as I hand him a Dos Equis. “Apparently one of my teammates went to school with someone on the Slingers, you know the hockey team?”
I nod because who doesn’t? They had a kick-ass season last year.
“When we decided to go out,” he continues, “the Slingers were suddenly invited and now we’re all here.”
I try to play it cool, not wanting him to know exactly how excited I am by having so many patrons at one time. But I am. “The goal is to have a packed house, right? I just hope you guys enjoy yourselves.”
“Okay cool. There weren’t a lot of people here last time so we felt like we could let our hair down. We liked that. We need a place like that. It gets kind of annoying having to shake off groupies sometimes.” Frankie rubs the back of his neck looking almost shy at admitting he needs a break from his fame every now and then. He doesn’t need to be embarrassed around me, though. I may not have to worry about it, but I get it.
“That’s why we put the tint up on the windows. Keeps things a little more private. And it’s why I put up my new sign.” I gesture to the large plaque against the wall that reads, Keep Frui Vita a fun place to be. NO KINNEARING per management.
Frankie inspects it, cocking his head to the side. “What’s Kinnearing?”
Dammit. I knew no one would understand that part. But Kiersten swore it’s a thing.
“It’s like taking a picture of someone without their knowledge and posting it on the internet.”
“Ooooh.” Frankie nods slowly. “Nice. Thanks for that. I can’t tell you the number of times people take the worst pics and post them just to get a laugh at our expense.”
“Yeah, people can be dicks. But I don’t want any of that here. I’ll kick someone out first. Y’all just have a good time and relax. Let your boys know I’ll be over in a second to take orders.”
“Will do.”
Frankie rejoins his group and I continue to hustle, pulling double duty. Kiersten is playing waitress today because Tammy’s off, but she’s late and hasn’t called, which isn’t like her. Normally it wouldn’t bother me, but normally we wouldn’t have a group of about twenty-five people here either.