Deconstructed(74)

On the way to the bar, I had put in a call to Juke, telling myself that was the real reason I had chosen Dak’s bar as our meeting place—for ease. Cricket needed Juke’s help with this new potential criminal element, and to my relief, my cousin actually sounded sober and interested. He said he was out working and should be back at the close of the day. He said he would join us at the bar and that I should tell Dak to make fresh coffee. Good sign.

Cricket set the wineglass on the table. “You used to what? Did you date the bartender?”

“Well, actually, he’s the owner of this bar, but yeah, we dated when I was in high school. After my dad left and my mom started having some issues, well, lots of issues, we broke up. Dak was going to LSU on a baseball scholarship, and I still had a year left in high school. Just made sense.”

“Oh, your father left?”

Here we go. Perfect opportunity to come clean. It was beyond time to clue Cricket into who she was dealing with. We had formed a sort of friendship, and I was afraid of jeopardizing that—and of losing my job—but I didn’t want to hide my past any longer. “Yeah, my dad was sort of at the end of his rope. Not necessarily a breakdown but close enough. My family has a bit of a reputation in North Caddo Parish. You probably wouldn’t know them, but most out here do. The Balthazars are fringe people.”

“Fringe people?”

I cleared my throat. “Like on the fringe of being a crime family. I mean, not like cartel or anything. We just have a certain reputation. Or used to. My uncles and cousins sometimes ran afoul of the law, but we’ve mostly straightened up. And my dad, he just, well, I guess he just needed to be away from the temptation. So he left when I was a junior in high school. It sort of set me off a little. I may have picked up some bad family habits.”

Cricket leaned forward, her manicured nails brushing against her wineglass. “Like getting in trouble?”

“Yeah, I raised a little hell in high school, ended up dropping out after I skipped so many classes that I was failing most of them. I smoked a lot of weed, sold some to kids at the school. Got picked up for being an accessory to stealing cars.” I couldn’t keep the shame from my voice. The girl I once was had faded away, but she’d been there. She’d been angry, reckless, and very much a Balthazar.

“Oh. Well, it’s obvious you’ve found yourself. Look at you, in school with a job and a future waiting for you to grab. I saw the new dresses, by the way. They are fantastic, Ruby.”

I swallowed hard at her words. “Yeah, thanks. I have changed. But I need to tell you something. It’s hard for me to say, and I hope it won’t change things between us. It could. I know the risk, but I think I need to say it. Should have told you long ago.”

The clink of glasses and the hum of a college spring football game being telecast above the bar weren’t loud enough. I didn’t want to shout my admission to Cricket and have everyone in the bar hear it. Of course, there were only about twenty people occupying tables and stools at the bar. “Um, so . . . I served time.”

Cricket blinked rapidly and leaned even closer to me. “Wait. Like you actually went to jail?”

I closed my eyes because it sounded so horrible coming from the mouth of someone I respected, someone who would never have allowed herself to be used in such a way. “Um, yeah. It’s a long story, but it ended with me at Long Pines Correctional doing almost two years.”

My boss sat back, her eyes shifting from left to right and back again as she grappled with what I had just revealed. She cleared her throat and looked off. I waited, feeling like someone had their hands around my throat. I shouldn’t have told her. She’d never asked. The application hadn’t asked about felonies, only prior work experience and references. But I should have disclosed it. My parole officer had told me to be truthful on job applications, and I always had until this one. Because I had wanted to work in the store with the beeswax and vintage dresses.

Finally, after several seconds that felt like hours, Cricket leaned forward. “That must have been horrible, Ruby. I can’t imagine.”

This time it was I who had to take a moment to comprehend that she was . . . offering me sympathy for having to endure prison? I sucked in a deep breath and blinked away sudden tears. “You’re not going to fire me?”

“No. Why would I fire you? You’re one of the best employees I’ve ever had, and you’re, well, Ruby, you’re my friend. I know the real you. Or I think I do. I mean, let’s face it, I could possibly be a bad judge of character.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh that put me immediately at ease. “Why did you have to serve time? Did you kill someone?”

I laughed at that. “No. And if I had, it would have been more than twenty-two months of incarceration. No, I unknowingly transported meth for my uncle. He hid it in frozen wild game that he ‘donated’ to the Hunters for the Hungry nonprofit. He had a whole distribution thing going that was actually pretty clever. I certainly had no idea he was dealing meth. Like a moron, I dropped it by the place where they kept all the meat. When the police busted me, I didn’t squeal. I couldn’t. Ed Earl had been using my grandmother’s land and her bank accounts to hide the product and the money. I couldn’t risk getting my gran involved, and Ed Earl would have gone away for a long time. So I refused to talk, and because I had priors, I had to do the time.”