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I nodded.
“I haven’t met any of your friends.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. How could I explain that all my friends had deserted me when I went to jail? Any attempt to dance around the subject just seemed hollow or painted me in a bad light. I had grown up in this town; surely, I had friends.
“They’ve all moved away,” I lied.
She seemed to accept that, putting her hand on her belly. I wanted to ask her again if she was feeling well, but she said nothing. She excused herself and went to the bathroom while I paid the check. When we reconvened, she looked pale but more energetic than she had in the booth.
“I’m ready to look at cars,” she said.
It took us only one try to find the perfect little sedan. Perfect might have been a stretch, but it was within her budget and only had 60,000 miles on it. It was a grey Mazda 3 with cloth seats and four doors. Tammy got in and drove it around the seller’s neighborhood. It was wonderful to see her face light up, comfortable in the driver’s seat. She paid in cash fully, $4,000.
“I’m officially broke,” she confided in me.
I gave her a reassuring hug. I would have chipped in if I thought she would let me. Instead, I decided to pay rent for a couple months and to deliberately forget to ask her for her contribution. We stopped at the grocery store, me driving my truck and her in her new car. She seemed better than she had in the diner and possibly even hungry. She loaded the cart with some strange items like pickles and string cheese. I paid for it, and we drove separately back to our shared house and put the groceries away.
There was still a little bit of unpacking to do, so we worked separately for a while. I screwed some shelves into the walls and hung pictures. Tammy arranged things in the kitchen, cleaned out the junk drawer that the last tenant had left full. We had an animated discussion about what should go in the basement. I thought we should get a pool table and a couple of bar stools. Tammy argued, correctly, that neither of us had money for a pool table right now, and that if we wanted to take advantage of the space, we had to use items available to us.
In the end, we put our computers down there, each on its own desk, each with its own chair. It seemed like a waste of a good rec room, but Tammy promised that we could move the computers out if and when we found something better. By the time we had the “office” arranged, it was six o’clock.
Even though we now had some food we could cook, I wasn’t the most proficient in the kitchen. We hadn’t shopped with a menu in mind. Mostly we had each gotten snack foods and quick lunches we could pack for ourselves.
“Do you want to order out again?” I asked.
“Sure,” she agreed.
We went back upstairs, and Tammy stretched out on the couch while I placed an order for subs from the pizza joint. I joined her in front of the television, gently lifting her legs so I could slide under them, replacing her feet on my lap. She grinned, rotating to lay her head against my chest instead. I dropped an arm across her shoulders and picked up the remote.
“Do you want to watch a movie?”
“Sure,” she said. “How ’bout a romance?”
I usually wouldn’t watch a romantic movie, but since I had the most beautiful girl in the world on my lap, I decided to oblige. We turned on some silly rom-com starring an actress that I knew I had seen in some other film. Our subs arrived, and we ate them in front of the television. I was pleased to see that Tammy’s appetite had returned. Maybe she just wasn’t a big fan of breakfast. Some people didn’t really eat until lunch or dinner, so I tried not to be worried.
“I have work tomorrow,” I told her as we settled back down.
“Don’t forget your alarm,” she joked.
I laughed. She sighed happily.
“This is all new for me,” I said, stroking her hair. “I’ve never lived with a woman who wasn’t my mom.”
Tammy perked up, fixing me with a cautionary stare. “This will be very different.”
“I hope so,” I said.
She laughed and lay back down, her head on my chest. We finished the movie and debated watching another, but it was late. Tomorrow would be my first day commuting to the lumberyard. I couldn’t wait to arrive and leave like any other employee. Just like Tammy had said, things were looking up. I couldn’t believe my good fortune, but a nagging voice that sounded suspiciously like my mom wouldn’t let me rest. I had to tell Tammy about my misfortune and soon. It was better for her to hear it from me than from some unkind townsperson. She couldn’t live in Singer’s Ridge forever without running into someone who knew my past. I resolved to find my courage and tell her soon. I just didn’t want to spoil the heaven we had built together, and I was terrified that she would leave me when she found out.
18
TAMMY
Iwoke in Mike’s bed again, but Mike was gone. I had slept through his alarm apparently, and he had decided not to wake me. His side of the bed was cold when I stretched my hand across it. I sat up to check the time. Relief washed over me when I realized that I wasn’t late, and then something like a fever slammed into me, and I fell back against the pillow. My head felt wrong—I didn’t know how to describe it even to myself. I just felt sick. Then my stomach caught up to my head, and I rushed to the bathroom.
Falling to my knees, I was just in time to aim the small amount of undigested dinner into the toilet. It felt awful, and I shuddered, gripping the bowl with shaky hands. When the panic passed, I stood and rinsed my mouth with mouthwash. In the mirror, my reflection looked haunted. I looked two shades too pale, and my hair was stringy, probably because I hadn’t had a shower yet, but it still made me look worse than usual.
I felt my forehead and didn’t notice any temperature rise. I had just thrown up, so clearly, I was sick. I texted Lindsey to let her know I couldn’t come in that day. I texted Mike too, just to let him know I was home. He replied immediately by saying he could come home for lunch and bring me some chicken soup. I told him not to bother, since I was just going to watch Netflix and nap.
