Close Enough to Touch

The strip club had actually made a pretty good neighbor. Unlike bars and liquor stores, no one wanted to hang around outside a strip club. The interesting parts were inside, behind blacked-out windows and plain cement walls. And once the place shut down for the night, the girls dropped everything and left as if the building made their skin crawl.

Grace had always told herself she couldn’t imagine doing that. Pretending to like a man for money. Using her body to win favors. But in the end, she’d done the same thing, hadn’t she?

As she opened the heavy saloon door, she shook that thought from her head. What the hell did it matter? She’d done what she’d done, and now she was just as miserable as she deserved to be.

Old country music filled the saloon, though it wasn’t particularly loud. A friendly buzz of conversation overlaid the music. Even at 3:00 p.m., several of the tables were filled, though not with the usual miserable types she associated with afternoon drinking. Two of the groups looked like young and scruffy college kids that you’d see in any other town. But at the closest table, all five of the men wore cowboy hats. Each man touched the brim of his hat as she passed. Grace felt her face flush at the unexpected courtesy and hurried past them to the long bar that ran along the side of the building.

She hadn’t seen her great-aunt in almost twenty years, but the blonde woman behind the bar was clearly not Aunt Rayleen. This woman was somewhere in her thirties, probably, though her skin was fresh and so pretty she could pass for a younger woman.

“Hi,” Grace said, catching her attention. “I’m looking for Rayleen. Rayleen Kisler?”

The woman kept polishing a glass, but offered a wide smile. “Of course, sweetie. She’s right over there. Usual table.”

Grace followed the gesture to a table at the far corner of the bar. An old woman sat there playing solitaire, an unlit cigarette gripped tightly between two thin lips. Yeah. That was Aunt Rayleen. She looked as mean as ever.

“Thank you,” Grace murmured, thinking those weren’t quite the right words as she headed across the bar. What she should have said was “Never mind” or “Pretend you never saw me.” She should have turned around and grabbed her stuff and kept moving. Grace hadn’t even wanted to ask for help from her grandmother, much less this sour-faced woman who’d never had a kind word for anyone, even when Grace had been a child.

And her face had only gotten more sour in the meantime. Though her hair was still beautiful. Pure white and flowing past her shoulders in a gorgeous wave. Rayleen’s one and only vanity, according to Grandma Rose.

Grace finally stood before the table, but the old lady didn’t look up. She just scowled down at her cards, flipping over three at a time in a slow rhythm. Her pale chambray shirt looked about three sizes too big for her.

“Aunt Rayleen?” Grace finally ventured.

The old lady grunted.

“I’m Grace. Grace Barrett.” Still no response. “Your niece?”

Her silver eyebrows rose and she finally looked up. A sharp green gaze took Grace in with one flick of her eyes. “Thought you’d be knocked up.”

“Pardon me?”

Her gaze fell back to the table and she resumed her card flipping. “A grown woman who can’t keep a job or support herself and has to write to her grandmother to ask for money? I figured you were out of commission. But you look perfectly fine to me.”

Grace’s skin prickled with violent anger. “If you—”

“Aside from the hair.”

Grace stiffened and cleared her throat. She didn’t have the right to tell this lady off. God, she wanted to, but maybe a free apartment gave Rayleen the right to get in a few insults. Which was exactly why Grace hated asking for help.

“I was living with someone and it didn’t work out. With the economy—”

“Who told you you could ever depend on a man for anything?”

“I… No one told me that.”

“You probably learned that from your idiot mama. That woman doesn’t have the sense God gave a dog. And dogs ain’t exactly nature’s Einsteins, are they?”

A strange, hot wash of emotion trickled along Grace’s skin. Fury, certainly, but it was mixed up with shame and the awful burn of truth spoken bluntly.

“Listen,” she pushed out past clenched teeth. “If you don’t want me here, say so and I’ll leave right now.”

“Yeah? Where are you going to go?”

“Anywhere. I’ll find a place. I don’t need your charity.”

“Sure you do, or you wouldn’t have taken it in the first place. Your grandma is living in that old folk’s home in Florida, and you can’t stay there, can you?”

No, she couldn’t stay there. Though she’d rather have stayed there than have asked Grandma Rose for money. Unfortunately, her grandmother hadn’t had any money to spare, but she’d called in a favor from Rayleen. If Grace hadn’t been so utterly desperate, she’d never have hopped on that bus.

“I can see you’ve got a spine in you. Must’ve skipped a generation. You want the place or not?”

The burn sank deeper into her skin. She’d always hated that her paleness showed her emotions so clearly. Not that she often tried to hide her anger, but she wanted it under her control. She wanted to be in charge of who saw it and who didn’t. And what she wanted right now was to show this woman nothing. To be calm as she turned around and walked out with her chin held high. Sure, she had nowhere to go, but a city park bench would be better than politely asking this bitch for a key.

“Listen, honey,” Rayleen said, finally setting down the cards. “It’s not a question of me wanting you here. I don’t know you from Adam. But I’m willing to have you here because I have an empty apartment and Rose asked me for a favor. You pay the utilities and you can stay. But just through ski season. August is one thing, but come December? I’ve got my eye on a handsome snowboarding instructor I had to turn away last year.”

That broke through Grace’s fury. A handsome snowboarding instructor? For what? The apartment or an affair? Jeez, this woman really was crazy. But that didn’t mean Grace wanted to accept her grudging handout.

She was opening her mouth to tell Aunt Rayleen to do something foul to herself, but the old woman grinned, showing off perfectly white teeth past the cigarette dangling from her lips.

“You’re pissed, ain’t ya? I like that. Pride’s a beautiful thing, but you’ve got to ask yourself where your pride has gotten you up to this point. Because as far as I can tell, it’s gotten you homeless and bitter. You enjoying the taste of that?”

Good Lord, the things she wanted to do to this woman would constitute elder abuse, but Aunt Rayleen was just so rude. And mean. And right.

That was the worst part. The hardest to swallow. She was right. Grace had too much pride. Hell, sometimes it was all she had. But pride didn’t fill your stomach or keep the cold out. So she swallowed hard. And swallowed again, tasting every bitter molecule of it. And then she nodded.

“Thank you for the place to stay,” she managed to growl. “I’ll be out in a month.”

Rayleen laughed. “Oh, big words. We’ll see. For now, just don’t knock out any walls or leave a window open when it rains. No smoking. No pets. The key’s in the cash register. Jenny over there will give it to you.”

“Thank you,” Grace managed one more time. The words tasted just as bitter the second time around, and she wished she had the money to spare for a beer as she approached the bar. Wished her life was as simple as sitting down and washing the day away with a cold one. Better yet, a double of whiskey. God, yes.

“Hi, again,” the bartender offered.

Grace made herself smile back. This woman gave off a good vibe. She probably made a lot of money as a bartender. It was a skill. Grace knew that because she’d tried her hand at it and failed. People just didn’t like her. But this woman… She was comforting. “Are you Jenny?”

“I am.”

“Rayleen told me to ask you for a key to apartment A?”

“You?” Jenny asked. Her eyes nearly disappeared when she laughed. “You’ll be quite a change.”

“Do I need to check the place for hidden cameras?” she asked, only half joking.

“You’re probably safe. She just likes to collect them, I think, not spy on them. Nothing too creepy.” Jenny hit a button on the register and the drawer popped open.

“It seems plenty creepy,” Grace muttered.

“She’s pretty harmless. They like to come over here and tease her, but she calls them puppies and tells them to leave her the hell alone.” Jenny held out the key and dropped it into Grace’s hand. “Welcome to Jackson.”