On Every Street (21 page)

I went into the garage, moved all my shit,
moved my con artist emergency kit from the truck and into my new car. Then I took my cell phone and placed it on the ground just behind the tires. I started Jose with a victorious roar and backed out, smashing the cell to delicious smithereens.

I roared away down that street, away from Javier, away from my first love, away from the lies. I gave the middle finger to Ocean Springs, to Biloxi, to Gulfport, to the whole damn state. I kept driving because that’s what Ellie Watt wanted me to do.

To keep going, keep moving, and never look back.

***

A few weeks later after conning my out of Louisiana, I was back in Texas with only one place to go. Gus wouldn’t know I was coming and maybe he wouldn’t even want to see me, but I figured it was time to tell him he was right. It was time for me to apologize.

Texas, of course, was always bigger than I expected. I pulled over
at a Holiday Inn outside of Huntsville to crash for the night. Sleep, however, didn’t come easy to a road weary mind. In fact, I’d turned into somewhat of an insomniac ever since…well, ever since Mississippi. When my mind wouldn’t shut off at ten o’clock, I rolled out of bed and made my way across the parking lot to a saloon, hoping for a stiff drink and maybe some steak brisket.

The bar was fairly packed so I took a seat up at the counter, away from the loudmouthed fishermen at the end, but beside a grizzled old woman.

Actually, up close she was less old and just grizzled. She was probably in her late sixties, with blond and grey hair gathered back into an anorexic ponytail. She had skin like cowhide and makeup that belonged on Malibu Barbie. I could tell she’d been just like me at some point, lost and angry and racking up the miles.

She smiled at me, hot pink lipstick on smoker’s teeth, and said, “Thank you for joining me.”

I nodded back. “They have strong drinks here?”

She shook her head. “They don’t. Stick to the beer, I’ll buy you one.”

“Thank you…” I trailed off expectantly.

“Thank you
, Marda,” she said. “And who is the beer for?”

I stuck out my hand. “I’m Elaine.”

My new name never sounded so sweet.

She pursed her lips as if she figured I wasn’t telling the truth. But it didn’t matter, between strangers in a bar, on the side of
a Texas highway.

Marda
told me she was just waiting for her husband to pick her up. He was working late and they were jetting off to Houston right afterward. Someone’s birthday party was the next day. I told her nothing about myself, learning to lay low and keep my mouth shut. She bought me drinks and brisket, and after my fourth beer, that’s when everything changed.

The bar had emptied out. There were some rowdy men in the corner booth and a few lonely souls scattered about. The service had dried up and the bartender
was spending her time in the back room, watching infomercials on a tiny TV screen. When we needed her we rang the bell, otherwise we were on our own.

I guess the bartender reminded me of Hogan’s Heroes
, because suddenly I was thinking about Julie, then Javier, and a single tear leaked down my face.

“Honey, what’s the matter?”
Marda asked, handing me a greasy napkin. I took it and put it beside me, wiping my tear away with my hand.

“It’s nothing,” I told her, breathing in long and deep. I had a prescription in my purse for panic attacks just in case, but I’d learned to tell the difference between panic and sorrow, even though they sometimes felt like one and the same.

“It’s everything,” she said after she slugged her beer. “I saw it when you came in. It’s a man, isn’t it? Oh, what a stupid question. What did he do?”

I hadn’t told anyone yet about what happened. It had been locked in my head, buried in a box. I was afraid to speak, to make it real. But the beer was hitting me hard and I was just so fucking tired of trying to hide from the pain.

I let it all out. I told Marda everything. Well, almost everything. I left out what Javier’s job was and what my job had been. But I drudged up the details of that moment, when I discovered what he’d done, when everything had been ruined and I’d been forever changed and irreparable. Javier put me back together only to break me again.

“Child, please,”
Marda said after she heard me babble on like a fool. “I know the pain you’re going through, oh baby do I know it! But damn, you can’t give up on love that easily.”

“But he was my first love, my first everything,” I sobbed quietly.

“So? Your first love? We all have our first loves. They come and they go. Just because he’s your first love doesn’t mean he’ll be your last. Take it from me, the human heart is much more capable than we give it credit for. Being able to love again is a choice.”

“But I just don’t understand. How could
he have done it? Why? Why did he choose her? Why did he sleep with her and throw everything we had away? Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know why. You’ll probably never know why. And if you did, would it matter? Would it change anything that happened? Would you be able to forgive him even with the best excuses?”

I swallowed down my beer. I couldn’t think what Javier’s excuse would be. Was he previously married or something and I was the woman on the side? Was he somehow forced —maybe blackmailed, maybe something to do with his job or his sisters? If any of that could possibly be true, would it matter to me? Would it make this pain go away?

No. It wouldn’t.
Because he did it. He chose something else over me.

“I just thought he loved me,” I said quietly, more to myself than to anyone.

She sighed and gave me a quick squeeze around my shoulders. Then she eased herself off the barstool. “Just because he cheated doesn’t mean he didn’t love you.”

I looked at her sharply, not expecting that.

She gave me a sluggish smile. “He might have loved something else more, that’s all. Look, love and respect don’t always go hand in hand. You can have one without the other. But if you want my advice, you should always have both. You, Elaine, you deserve that.”

I thought about that for a moment until a horn sounded from outside, a growling old 4x4 with headlamps on the roof
that was waiting across the parking lot.

“That’s my ride,” she said, wobbling a bit unsteadily. She patted me on the shoulder and staggered to the door.

“Thanks for the beer!” I yelled after her, surprised to see her leaving so soon.

She waved goodbye haphazardly, her sights now set on her husband.

And now my sights were set on her seat. She had taken out money earlier to give to the bartender, but I guess her wallet never made it back inside her bag. It was right there, right beside me.

I picked it up and turned it around in my hands. It was full of cash, credit cards,
her driver’s license. Marda Lee. I looked around me to see if anyone was watching me in the bar. They weren’t. I watched her still walking crookedly across the lot, her husband flashing his lights at her, getting her to hurry up. I could still catch her. I could return her wallet to her like the good citizen that could be. I could show the world that it wasn’t such a bad place when it really, really was.

I looked around the bar to see if anyone had seen me take it. They hadn’t. There was barely anyone around. Then I looked out the window in time to see
Marda get in her husband’s car and drive off. I ripped a twenty out of Marda’s wallet as an extra fat tip and slammed it on the counter. I chugged the rest of my beer then left the bar with the wallet tucked away in my purse, knowing that her money would pay the gas for my trip up to Dallas.

For the first time in a while, I managed to sleep well that night.

THE END

Continue Ellie Watt’s story with the best-selling
Sins & Needles, Book One of The Artists Trilogy available from Amazon.