Page 29 of The Fall Back Plan
“I failed algebra twice, and by the time I was a senior, I was taking geometry for the second time. I felt so stupid having to be tutored by someone two grades behind me. I figured if I acted like I didn’t care, no one would see how humiliating it was.”
She sets her coffee cup down, her eyes fixed on mine now. I have her full attention. She nods for me to continue.
“That day I walked out on you in the library ended up being my last day of school.”
“I wondered,” she says. “When you didn’t show up for our next few tutoring sessions, I thought maybe that’s what happened. Since I never saw you in school besides tutoring, it was hard to tell if you were only blowing me off or everything off. But it was so stressful tutoring you that I didn’t want to follow up on it.”
“I really am so—”
She holds up a hand to stop me. “Don’t. You don’t need to feel bad again. That’s not why I brought it up. I’m putting it together, that’s all.”
I nod and continue. “I dropped out and kicked around for a year working jobs I hated. Manual labor stuff that left me bored out of my mind. Too much time to think. I decided to get my GED and try community college, see if I could get a better job. My brother was already on probation for burglary by then, and I knew I didn’t want to go down that road. So I didn’t. I went the other way. Got my associate’s degree, then a bachelor’s in criminal justice.”
She’s studying me with interest now, and I’m so glad it’s not pity.
“Anyway, I wanted you to know. It’s not an excuse. I just wanted to be clear that the way I treated you was never about you. It was about how crappy everything was at home. I remember exactly what a punk I was.” The attitude. The insults about everything from her looks to her personality. “You didn’t deserve it.”
“Heard and accepted.” She drinks more coffee and her eyes glaze over like her mind has wandered somewhere. She gives her head a small shake after a few moments and focuses on me. “Thank you for that.”
“Sure.” I wonder what she thought about in her short absence. I knew from tutoring that she had lightning-quick processing speed. Her mind could have wandered a million places in the space of those breaths. I’d love to know if it had wandered to me. I nod at the muffin, still sitting untouched. “Not a fan?”
She eyes it, then sets her cup down and straightens her shoulders. “Blueberry muffin.” She stops, and I wait, my curiosity sharpening.
She clears her throat. “My dad was a drunk.” She stops and presses her lips together. “An alcoholic,” she says a moment later. It has the sound of a correction that’s been practiced many, many times. “You heard about him crashing at the festival?”
I nod.
“I had to fend for myself all the time. Groceries weren’t a thing at our house. I got free lunch at school, but other meals . . .” She shakes her head. “I learned to go through his pockets for loose change when he was passed out, and I figured out where to buy the cheapest food in town. The Minit Mart on Juban would sell old baked goods for half price on a shelf near the back.”
Understanding dawns. “They had a lot of muffins?”
“Blueberry, specifically. Blueberry muffins taste like poverty to me.”
I rest my forearms on the counter. “For me, it’s spaghetti with cheap sauce. Don’t think I could ever eat it again.”
She nods. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, this bonding over a shared poverty experience. I’d bet she also saved food from her free school lunch in case nothing materialized for dinner. And there was the constant stress of the weekend, eating cold cereal for every meal, which was still better than the too-frequent weekends when there was nothing to eat by Sunday night.
It’s been useful in helping me understand some of the people I work with on calls, but I don’t like dwelling on my own memories of those times.
I straighten. “Look at us now though. Top law dog”—I point to my chest, then to her—“and fancy new bar owner.”
She smiles. It’s small but genuine. “Enough of all that. Thank you for the coffee and the apology. I promise the muffin thing isn’t personal.” She slides from her stool, and I take the hint and stand too. “Let me let you go. I know you have to work.”
“Actually, I’ve got something on that for you,” I say.
She tilts her head, an invitation to continue.
“I spoke with Shane Hardin this morning. The Domenico’s footage isn’t clear enough to nail him outright, but I stopped at his work and pointed to some interesting coincidences that are going to go against him if he causes any more trouble. I can push it if you want. He’s a known quantity, and I can get the charges, but I’m not sure they’ll stick.”
She’s shaking her head before I finish. “No. It’s okay. The mess is cleaned up, and I’m over it.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“All right. Back to the station for me then.” I take a step to leave at the same time she takes a step toward me. Suddenly we’re in each other’s space, not even an arm’s length between us. She’s barefoot, and it makes me realize how slight she is without her usual high heels for armor. She couldn’t even rest her chin on my shoulder if we—
Uh, no. If we nothing.
