Deep Fried and Pickled (Book One - The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles) Read online

  I softened my voice. “What’s going on? Did you have a fight with Nash?” I didn’t mean to send her over an emotional waterfall, but my question opened her tear ducts. By the time she calmed down, she’d filled the garbage can to the rim with tissues and I estimated that she’d killed at least one small tree.

  “Nash was in a car accident. I should be with him, but I’m stuck here. Y’all, it happened in New Bern, near my house.”

  A minute ago, I would have slept through David Letterman, but now she had my attention. “When was this?”

  “Yesterday. Late afternoon.”

  Macy guided Katie Lee to her twin bed and offered her a pillow. “What happened?”

  “To miss an oncoming vehicle, his Chevy truck lurched inta a ditch, and he knocked his head into the steering wheel.” She sniffled and blew her nose. “His windshield broke, and glass cut his hands and face. He probably had a slight concussion, but managed to walk over to our house to lie down.”

  Macy sat upright. “Why didn’t he call sooner?”

  Katie Lee sniffled. “He passed out at our house and didn’t feel well enough to call me until now.”

  Holding the beanbag to my backside, I moved closer to the bed. “Wait a minute. Your dad’s a doctor, did he examine Nash’s injuries?”

  “Mama and Daddy are attendin’ a medical conference in Beaufort. They weren’t due back until this evenin’.”

  “Wait a minute. How did Nash get in?”

  Katie Lee crimped her eyebrows at my question but graciously enlightened me. “Southerners don’t lock doors.”

  “For real?” I asked, and Katie Lee brushed over my astonishment. My father was a lock addict. He added deadbolts to doors and even locked his toolbox that he kept in the latched cabinet behind the padlocked garage. In my family, we locked doors.

  “Nash called some friends. They came over to give him a tow and help get him home.”

  “Is he okay now?” Macy asked.

  “He says so, but his voice sounds weak. I think he’s keepin’ some details of his injuries from me so I won’t worry. I should be home takin’ care of him.”

  FRIDAY, I AWOKE TO a dull ache behind my eyeballs and a gurgle in my stomach. I’d stayed up consoling Katie Lee, but tonight I might be the one who needed solace. If I was busted using my fake student I.D., my dad might get a call from the police to bail my ass out of jail. The thought made me queasy, and I reached for the Pepto-Bismol. Normally I didn’t touch the stuff, but I had a morning lecture to sit through, so I chugged from the bottle.

  Knowing Katie Lee worried about Nash, I speculated that she’d leave for the weekend to be with him. She was my only non-wussy excuse for bailing out on the planned outing at the Holiday Inn. Adding nonchalance to my voice, I asked, “Did you talk to Nash this morning? Are you going home to see him?”

  “He’s doing better. I don’t have a ride home, and he convinced me to stay. It’ll do me some good to get off campus for a drink.”

  My stomach corkscrewed. “Do you think there’s a chance we’ll get busted?”

  Katie Lee spritzed perfume above her head and walked underneath, dousing herself in a flowery mist. “It’s just a night out. Honestly, the worst thing that’ll happen is they’ll turn us away.”

  She pulled a robe and basket of shower essentials from her closet, and I asked, “Why did you put on perfume if you’re going to shower?”

  “It reminds me of Nash,” she said as she left our room and headed down the hall toward the communal showers.

  I stayed in bed. Katie Lee’s words didn’t subdue my skittish stomach. Thoughts of drinking illegally triggered a nervous habit I’d developed as a kid, hiccups.

  Holding my breath, I let a trickle of water I sucked from a straw drizzle down my throat. I imagined the meadow behind my home in Canton. The blades of the wild grasses, the notches on the lily pads in the stream fed pond. Serene thoughts cleared my mind of the potential negatives of underage drinking, like eating hot dogs and burnt grilled cheese for the rest of my life at the women’s correctional facility. That last thought was not helpful, and as I worked to erase it, the phone rang.

  “Rachael, Mrs. Brown here. Put Katie Lee on the phone, will you?”

  “She headed for the showers.”

  “Be a dear and fetch her. It’s important.”

  Katie Lee had grown up in a small town along the North Carolina coast. I had spoken to her long distance a couple of times before we first met in the hallway. Over the phone, she’d told me, “Last year was my debutante party at the New Bern Country Club. We live on the historical side of town. My girlfriends come over all the time and hang out on our screened-in porch that overlooks the Trent River.”

  Katie Lee’s life had sounded like one continuous party. I had the only parent’s, I knew of, who enforced curfews to the minute, kept car usage to a minimum, and made sure that the money from my minimum wage, after-school job went into the bank. A minute ago, I would’ve swapped my life for hers, but as I fast-walked to fetch her, I had second thoughts.

  TRADITIONALLY, FRIDAY’S ARE A relaxing wind down before a two-day break. Against a faded blue sky poof-ball clouds drifted as though they were filled with helium. The outside temperature had dropped ten degrees and a morning gust whisked through campus taking anything not tacked down for a spin.

  I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but as I dressed for class I could hear Mrs. Brown’s voice clearly transmitted from New Bern and was thankful that the phone wasn’t on my ear.

  “There’s been trouble at the house.”

  Katie Lee had wrapped herself in a robe, and her hair still had bubbles in it. She squeaked water out of her loose ends. “What do you mean, Mama?”

  “We didn’t get home until dinnertime, Thursday. When your daddy pulled up to the mailbox, he found an empty whisky bottle tucked in with the bills and letters. We headed up the driveway and could see beer cans scattered around the magnolia trees. Your father and I became alarmed when we noticed the open garage doors.”

  Our room’s cement block walls trapped suffocating air, and I opened our window. Scrambling to gather my books for morning class, I noticed Mrs. Brown’s voice rise an octave. She wasn’t finished.

  “Inside the house, I found dried blood on the carpet, bed linens crumpled, and wine missing from the cellar. You know how your father feels about cigarettes. The smell inside our house makes Split Happens bowling alley seem like a perfumery. Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

  Katie Lee and I locked eyes. I hadn’t met Nash Wilson, but a picture of him in an orange jumpsuit with shackles on his ankles sprang to mind. I hoped he’d be like my second cousin on my mother’s side who lived with some indigenous tribe in the South Pacific. I’d never met him and no one in the family knew what he was doing. Placing my bottle of Pepto-Bismol next to Katie Lee, I whispered, “See you when I get back.”

  THE WIND CONTINUED TO kick through campus, and by late afternoon, I’d resorted to fastening my hair in a ponytail. Intermittent gusts had broken the stagnant heat and invigorated me. Five hours had passed since I’d left my room. My stomach had settled, and I’d sat through my lecture without incident. I’d even eaten a light lunch and hung out in the library to start a Psych paper on paralleling co-dependent relationships and addiction.

  I wondered what awaited me in my room. Had Katie Lee taken a bus home? Had I been gone long enough for the boyfriend drama blown over? If she’d gone home, I could tell Macy it didn’t feel right going without Katie Lee since it was her idea in the first place. This would postpone the attempt at entry into the Holiday Inn and hopefully we’d find a less illegal way to meet cute guys.

  A Webster’s dictionary held our door open, and the wind had blown my desk papers into disarray. Katie Lee still wore her robe. I stared at the back of her head that hung off the foot of her bed and four Pepsi cans had missed the garbage can.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I just hung up with my dad. He says the New Be
rn police questioned Nash for forgery.”

  She ambushed me with that piece of information, and I fired back, “Forgery? For what? Where’s Nash now?”

  “Valium. I don’t know. I can’t find him.”

  “How can you forge valium? Start from the beginning. Tell me what your dad said.”

  Katie’s Lee’s soapy hair hadn’t styled well, and blotchy patches created a highway that ran south of her eyes to just north of her collar bone. She held a cold compress in her hand. “Honestly Rach, I’ve never heard Daddy yell so loud. Not even the time I sailed a pony keg on the Sunfish, and sank it in the Trent River.”

  I shut the window leaving it open only a crack. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “‘Do you know who I just finished talking to?’ Daddy asked.” Katie Lee exhaled her frustration. “Like how would I?”

  I dropped my book satchel and perched on top of my desk. “Who was your dad talking to?”

  Katie Lee sat up and blew her nose. “Ray Saunders. Apparently, he’s some kind of detective with the New Bern Police Department. He told Daddy that Nash attempted to fill a prescription at the pharmacy in town for Valium, written on Dad’s prescription pad. The pharmacist, Kitty Klum, recognized Nash and called to verify the prescription.”

  “Holy shit. Was it Nash?”

  “Couldn’t have been.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Dad’s receptionist told Kitty that Daddy was in Beaufort, and had been for two days.”

  I stared at Katie Lee, unsure where this story was going, but curious enough to keep listening.

  “Daddy talked over me. I tried to tell him everyone thinks teenagers all look the same. She’s probably seen someone who resembled Nash.”

  “Like who?”

  “Rachael, that’s not the point. Dad just blasted my ear. He said, ‘I didn’t write any prescriptions and certainly none for Nash.’”

  I shifted my seat and told Katie Lee, “This is bambuzzled.”

  “It gets worse. Daddy got all negative about Nash and gloated. ‘Unfortunately for your boyfriend, Kitty stalled and called the police.’”

  Katie Lee pulled two Pepsis from our mini-refrigerator and tossed one to me.

  “By the time the sheriff arrived at the pharmacy, Nash, or his impersonator had left.”

  She popped the top and slurped with her eyes closed as if she wished she drank something stronger than ordinary soda. “Daddy railed on me. Said, he’s mad as hell at that boy. I asked if he was sure about all this. I think he was drinking. I heard him drain a glass. He told me a patrol car caught up with Nash at the 7-Eleven. With an expired license plate and refusing to answer questions, the deputies took Nash to the station.”

  Not wanting to make Katie Lee feel worse, I told her, “If Nash didn’t forge the prescription, they’ll have to let him go.”

  She covered her eyes with the compress. “Daddy said Detective Saunders knew Nash, and I dated. That detective wanted to know if Daddy could shed some light on the situation.”

  “Daddy’s wiring short-circuited over the phone. ‘Katie Lee,’ he raged. ’I don’t have any light to shed. Do you?’”

  I searched the library in my head for comforting words. My card catalogue opened on ‘your boyfriend is an idiot.’ I kept quiet and hoped that a sympathetic gaze would suffice.

  Katie Lee collapsed on her bed. “Daddy’s tongue went all kinetic. ‘That boy is on a path of self-destruction. Nash Wilson is tarnishing the Brown family name.’ His temper was barely below ballistic when he said he’s deciding whether to press charges on Nash for trespassing and forgery. I’ve been so upset I skipped all my classes.”

  Katie Lee moped in a puddle of turmoil. Confiding her father’s final words, she struggled to dam the drips that overflowed her eyes. “Daddy warned me. ‘That boy is trouble, and I don’t want you having anything to do with him. You hear me?’”

  “He forbid you from seeing Nash?”

  Katie Lee nodded.

  EARLY THAT EVENING, NASH called Katie Lee. He’d been released from the police station without being charged. Katie Lee confronted him about trashing her parent’s home and he modified his story. He claimed a concussion had erased portions of his post-accident memory.

  I’d only spoken to Nash a few times via phone, and my experience with a boyfriend was zero, but I was fairly certain that I could find one less prone to trouble.

  Around dinnertime, I heard Katie Lee speaking to her mother, “He did a stupid thing, and he admits it. Mama, Nash didn’t have the upbringing that you and Daddy gave me. Give him another chance. He’s really a good person.” The conversation went into a whisper zone until she hung up.

  “Maybe we should stay in tonight?” I suggested.

  “Like hell. I need a drink.”

  NOTE TO SELF

  Suffocating in the stickiness of the Carolina heat and humidity. Find myself lingering in the airconditioned, non-dorm buildings. A tricky ploy to get the students to spend more time in an academic setting. I’m not fooled.

  Macy’s underwear intimidates me.

  From what I’ve heard, southern boyfriends are crafty troublemakers and do require damage control.

  Nash Wilson is not someone I ever need to meet.

  4

  Holiday Inn

  Roaming the empty halls at the Holiday Inn with Macy and Katie Lee, I found myself thinking about my Aunt Gert. She had a personality like pistachio ice cream, acquired and tolerated by few. The worn tangle of tangerine and maroon flower vines below my feet was a replica of the carpet runner in her bungalow. The air in her cluttered house, a concoction of gardenia carpet powder and pipe tobacco was as suffocating as the motel’s.

  Tonight, I decided to concentrate on the positive possibilities. So far, this was my only party lead. The Holiday Inn could be a secret hot spot. This could be the night I become a woman with experience.

  Macy’s crisp New York banter vacuumed me out of my head fog. “Don’t tell me, there isn’t a bar in here.”

  Since dinner, Katie Lee had contained her emotional tsunami. We hadn’t discussed Nash for two hours. Springing into action, she said, “Y’all sit tight. I’ll ask at the desk.”

  Initially I’d been nervous. Not about the flaming shots, relentless flirting and obliterated moments that I’d have to be reminded of, but about the logistical specifics of how to get into a bar with my student I.D.. Fast-talking myself into an opportunity or out of a predicament had never been a strength.

  “We’d better wait outside,” I whispered to Macy. “Don’t want to look suspicious, like we’re casing out a room to rob.”

  A soft night breeze cleared my hesitations. I determined I’d be fine once I held a drink. This was college life. I was supposed to get my party fix. In four years, I could leave my wild ways behind to become a responsible adult and contributor to society, or some bullshit like that.

  Macy tucked her red bra strap under her black shirt and hooked an arm in mine. “I’ve got something in my purse to occupy us.”

  “You scare me when you say things like that.”

  She unzipped her Gucci. “Cigarette?”

  I hesitated. “I’m not a smoker.”

  “Take one. It’ll relax you.”

  Outside the lobby doors, Macy and I huddled near a raised planter window box where I flicked ashes into the overgrown ivy that choked pink geraniums.

  “For God’s sake, Rachael,” she scolded. “You’re in tobacco country. Don’t mock them. At least make an attempt to smoke it.”

  Up until now, I’d only inhaled second hand smoke from Aunt Gert’s pipe. Knowing my mother would be mortified if she knew and trying to save face from Macy’s verbal scolding, I sucked hard on the white filter until I gagged and hacked like an old man dislodging a lugie.

  Katie Lee emerged from the revolving glass door and pinched the cigarette from my fingers for a drag. “Y’all know these things will eventually kill you.”

  “Thanks for the newsflash
. Where’s the fucking bar?”

  “There isn’t access from the hotel. It’s a basement bar. The entrance is on the outside, around the corner.”

  A narrow, cement staircase led to a lime-colored neon sign. We were just a few feet away from the entrance of “The Lounge,” and my heart palpitated in a synchronized rhythm with my flip-flops. With his back against a door, a bouncer with clip on shades rested one leg on the ground and the other on the crossbar of a barstool. Max, according to his nametag, bore a resemblance to a neighbor in Canton. Every Halloween, the house three away from ours, turned their lights off and blocked their front door with garbage cans. I worried he could be a distant relative and deny me access to this drinking hole. Knowing he held the power to make or break a night of drunken fun, I held my breath. Not bothering to look up from his movie trivia crossword puzzle, he asked, “Who wrote A Clockwork Orange?” This had to be a trick question.

  “Anthony Burgess,” Macy said. Max thanked her and penciled the name in his crossword. We were in.

  With a name like “The Lounge,” I expected mirrored walls and purple velvet high back booths. My mind threw a complete miss. Hunter green and mauve parrot decor mimicked an aviary.

  I’d worked up a thirst for drinks garnished with fruit and although thankful to be in a bar, whispered, “I can’t believe he didn’t check our I.D.’s,” wondering why I’d parted with a twenty at the Registrar’s office.

  Katie Lee led the way to the bar and Macy, and I followed. A window air-conditioner hummed, sending beads of rust-tinted water down the tropical wallpaper. Musty air smelled of fermented yeast and oak veneer tables dotted half of the dimly lit room. A dance floor, no bigger than the room I shared with Katie Lee, rested in the far corner. Near the restrooms, a lonely jukebox flashed SOS signals.