“Can you walk to the car?”
“Sure.” She needed both Leena and Gigi’s help to stand up and limp to the car, which luckily was parked right beside the door.
While Leena drove her sister in the pink Batmobile to the local hospital’s emergency room, Sue Ellen spent her time calling Russ on her pink Razr phone.
“I keep getting his voice mail. He’ll come as soon as he gets the message. You’ll see. He’ll be there for me.”
“I’m your sister. I’m here for you.”
“You don’t want to be here. Russ does. You’ll see.”
What Leena saw was Donny, standing outside the entrance to the emergency room. He wasn’t wearing his Smiley’s Septic uniform but was dressed in khaki pants and a green polo shirt.
“What are you doing here?” Leena asked.
“The bartender at the Sugar Shack is a buddy. He knows Sue Ellen is a friend of mine, so he called me to tell me what happened.”
A hospital orderly quickly joined them with a wheelchair. “Be careful with her,” Donny ordered him, fussing like a mother hen.
“Russ is coming,” Sue Ellen told them all as she grimaced with pain.
“I’ll stay until he gets here,” Donny said.
The waiting room was full. A triage nurse took their information and then told them to wait.
Three hours later they left with Sue Ellen’s knee in a bandage, a pair of crutches, and a prescription for painkillers.
“I can’t believe they don’t let you use a cell phone in there.” The minute they were outside, Sue Ellen frantically checked her phone for messages. “I’m sure Russ has been trying to reach me.”
Leena could tell by the way her sister’s face fell that Russ was a no-show. No response.
Sue Ellen snapped her pink Razr shut.
“Why don’t you go get her prescription filled while I take her home,” Donny suggested.
“In your truck?”
“No, I can drive Sue Ellen’s car if that’s okay with her. You can drive my truck,” he told Leena.
And so five minutes later Leena pulled in front of Wal-Mart in a Smiley’s Septic Service truck. Certainly a new experience for her. The truck hadn’t been as difficult to drive as she’d expected. Then again, after managing the pink Batmobile, Leena figured she could handle any vehicle.
Her plan was to run into the store and get the prescription filled and quickly slip out again before anyone caught her. But Cole’s appearance put a stop to that plan. She should have expected him. He had a track record of showing up when she least expected it.
“You doing a little septic work on the side?” Cole asked as she walked away from the truck.
“It has been a shitty day.”
He cupped her face with his big hand. “What happened?”
“My sister hurt her knee while learning how to pole dance at the Sugar Shack.”
“What?”
“You heard me the first time.”
“Yeah, but I figured you were kidding me.”
“I wish. Donny drove her home. I’m here to fill a prescription for her. He lent me his truck.”
“That was nice of him.”
“He’s crazy in love with my sister.”
Cole didn’t seem to have an answer to that statement. Instead he said, “Do I want to know what you were doing pole dancing at a strip club? Trying to earn extra money?”
“
We
weren’t pole dancing. Only my sister was. Sue Ellen was checking out a bachelorette party package they offered. For Skye. You look disappointed that I haven’t taken up a second career as an exotic dancer.”
“I’m sure you’d be great at it.”
“Yeah, right.”
His response was to kiss her, right there in the Wal-Mart parking lot. “Want me to convince you?” he murmured against her lips.
“Convince me of what?” she murmured right back.
“How good you’d be. Good at being bad.”
“I already know how good I am at being bad.”
“Do you? It didn’t sound like it a minute ago. Maybe I should see about getting a pole installed in my house. You could practice your moves on me.”
“That’s generous of you. But I’ve got to get my sister her pain pills.”
“Right.” He reluctantly released her. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am.” She gave him a jaunty grin. “I’m always right.”
“Me too. Something else we have in common.” He took hold of her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “We might as well hang out together while you wait for Sue Ellen’s prescription to be filled.”
“Don’t tell anyone how Sue Ellen was injured,” she told him. “She doesn’t want Russ to know the details.”
“Okay, but people tend to find things out in this town.”
“Like the fact that we’re together?”
“Does that bother you?”
“I don’t like being the center of gossip.”
“Skye and Nathan are the center of gossip right now. He accepted her proposal, you know. And she accepted his apology. Finally.”
“Thanks for the latest update. I’m going to have to take a rain check on our plans for this afternoon, I’m sorry to say. I have to stay with my sister.” Seeing her sister collapse onstage that way had shaken Leena. Sure Sue Ellen went from one a crisis du jour to the next, but this was different.
“I understand.”
Leena wished she understood the tangled jumble of emotions she was feeling. About Cole. About her sister. About her own future. Nothing was tidy and organized the way she wanted, and she didn’t like that one bit.
“Brownies aren’t dinner,” Leena told her sister. “You need to eat something healthier with those pain pills.”
“Did you know that bossy behavior is the result of unresolved anger, sadness, or anxiety from childhood? I read that in a magazine at the hospital in the waiting room.”
“I noticed you were ignoring Donny. I thought it was very sweet of him to stay and help you.”
“He was sweet. Helped me get inside and everything.”
“He seems like a really nice guy.”
“Yeah. But getting back to your bossiness . . .”
“You’re just as bossy as I am.”
“So we both have unresolved issues from our childhood. We’re both stubborn too. You think we got that from Dad’s stint in the Marine Corps when he was young?”
“Huh?”
“I’ve heard Marines are stubborn.”
“So are Irishmen.”
“You do know that with a name like Flannigan, Cole is Irish too.”
“Yeah, but he’s not like Dad.”
“No one is like Dad. Remember how he always told us that we should expect the worst because then we’d never be disappointed?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like that philosophy,” Sue Ellen announced. “I think I’m going to change it. If you expect the worst, then that’s all you’re going to get. I want more. I deserve more. Dad was wrong.”
“Do you remember when he used to get drunk?”
Maybe the pain pills had lowered Sue Ellen’s defenses because for once she didn’t change the subject. In fact, she was in conversation-domination mode.
“Sure I do. I hit my knee, not my head. My memory is just fine.”
“You never talk about those days.”
“Because they stunk.”
Leena had to laugh at her sister’s bluntness. “Yeah, they did.”
“Why bring them up now?”
“Because since returning to Rock Creek, I’ve been thinking a lot about that time. Sister Mary said that maybe I had to come home to face my fears before I could move on, that you can’t really move forward until you’ve made peace with your past.”
“Have you made peace with it? You were just a kid.”
“I was nine, almost ten when Dad finally stopped drinking.”
“He’s been sober for almost twenty years now.”
“I know. Maybe that’s why I feel so guilty about being upset about it still. It’s such a cliché, you know? The alcoholic father screaming while the little kid hides in the corner with her baby sister.” It helped just to talk about it. Stashing the memories away in a closet and locking them in there only made things worse, not better. Harder to deal with, not easier. “I was so scared. I guess that’s why I’m bossy now, because I like being in control.”
“I didn’t realize you remembered so much.”
“You were gone a lot.”
“Yeah, I had to get out and stay with friends. I’d had sixteen years of it by then. You only had nine. You know why Dad quit, don’t you?”
Leena shook her head. “Did Mom threaten to leave him or something?”
“She did that several times and he’d promise to quit, but that didn’t work. He quit because he almost got you killed. He was driving drunk and swerved into oncoming traffic. Barely missed having a head-on collision with you and Emma in the car. He came home and never drank again.”
“They never talk about it. Not Dad or Mom.”
“They started life over that day.”
“How do I do that? I’ve tried reinventing myself, but there’s a part of me that stays the same. They’re the reason I am the way I am.”
“And what’s wrong with the way you are? Other than your bossiness, I mean.”
“I’m not the successful model you think I am. My agent fired me.”
To Leena’s surprise, Sue Ellen took the news nonchalantly. “Yeah, I figured something like that had to have happened.”
“You did? But you wanted to have a parade for me and everything.”
“Yeah, well, you’re my sister. I was prepared to back you in whatever you said.”
Leena felt the threat of tears sting her eyes. Sue Ellen’s loyalty was absolute. She was only now realizing how valuable that was. “So you think I’m crazy to be worrying about stuff that happened all those years ago?”
“What good does worrying do? You can’t change the past. It’s over. All you can do is enjoy the present and look forward to the future.”
The words made a huge impression on Leena; it was like one of those a-ha moments they talked about in
O
magazine. “When did you get so smart?”
“It wasn’t my idea. I think Angel taught me that. She’s real big on building self-esteem and stuff.”
“The road to self-esteem is a long one—filled with detours and dead ends.”
“And construction zones, potholes, and roadkill,” Sue Ellen added. “Dead possums and squirrels—”
“Yeah, that’s enough. Thanks for the nice visuals there.”
Sue Ellen grinned.
Leena grinned back and offered her bent pinkie.
Sue Ellen met her halfway, her pinkie bent as well.
They linked pinkies and repeated in unison the vow Sue Ellen had made up so many years ago. “Believe it or not, we’re sisters—no snot.”
Sue Ellen shooed her sister out the next morning, assuring her she’d be fine with Donny’s help. He’d insisted on staying with her while Leena went to work today.
“What about you?” Sue Ellen asked him. “You have to go to work too.”
“I didn’t have anything important on the agenda for today. My employees have got it covered.”
“Are you sure? I could call Skye or Lulu . . .”
“I’m positive. Now what can I get you? More ice for your knee?”
“That would be great, thanks.”
He’d just retrieved an ice pack from the freezer when her cell phone rang. She checked caller ID. It was Russ. Finally. He’d better have a damn good excuse for not calling her earlier.
“Hey,” he said cheerfully. “We were fishing. The guys and me. Anyway I figured you had plenty of people there to take care of you.”
“People?” she repeated in disbelief.
“Yeah, your sister and friends.”
Sue Ellen needed to clarify what Russ was saying here, because it sure sounded as though he didn’t give a damn that she was injured. “So you were fishing with your buddies and didn’t get any of my dozen voice-mail messages?”
“I got them.”
“When? Just now?”
“No, when you sent them. Like I said, I figured you had people to help out.”
“So you couldn’t even be bothered to call me back?”
“I’m calling now,” he said impatiently, as if she were the one being unreasonable. It was a technique he’d used on her before, and it had worked. But not this time.
“Yeah, you’re calling me now. Almost twenty-four hours after I was hurt so badly I had to go to the ER. Well, buddy, it’s too little, too late.”
“You have to understand, I was busy.”
No, Sue Ellen suddenly realized with 20/20 clarity.
I don’t have to understand. I don’t have to accept. I don’t have to settle.
“We are
so
over.”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard me. This relationship, if you can even call it that, is over. Through. Finito.”
“You’re just upset right now. You’ll shake it off.”
“The only thing I’m shaking off is
you
! Don’t call again.” She hung up on him.
“Are you okay?” Donny asked in concern. “Want me to go beat him up for you?”
“I’m well rid of him. I deserve better.”
“You sure do.”
She looked at Donny as if seeing him for the first time. In a way, she was. “Come here and kiss me.”
He blinked. “Huh?”
“You heard me right. Get over here and kiss me. Unless you don’t want to?” Sue Ellen asked uncertainly.
Maybe Donny was having second thoughts about her. Maybe she’d misconstrued that chocolate-brownie moment they’d shared weeks ago. Maybe he’d moved on and found someone else.
“Oh, I want to. I’ve wanted to for a very long time.” He was beside her an instant later and gently leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. Fireworks. He gave her fireworks. Big-time Technicolor fireworks.
Sue Ellen started crying.
Donny panicked. “What is it? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you? Is it Russ?”
“No, it’s you,” Sue Ellen whispered in awe. “It’s always been you. I just didn’t know it until now. Or maybe I knew but I fought it.” She cupped his cheek. “It’s you. Not Russ. You.”
Leena had been a zombie at work all day because she hadn’t gotten more than an hour’s sleep last night. She and her sister had talked for hours. And no CTS—changing the subject.