Chaos and Control(40)

I hear the door open and close. Bennie drops her purse and keys on the table. She enters the room, kicks off her shoes, and drops onto the sofa.

“Long day with Laney?” I ask.

Her head lolls back, face toward the ceiling, eyes closed. “So tired,” she answers.

Bennie’s lack of answer gives me hope that she’s going to come clean.

“How’s she doing?”

“Oh, you know. She’s okay. One day at a time and all that.”

“Bennie,” I say.

She rolls her head toward me and opens her eyes. They are red with dark circles beneath them. “Yeah?”

I’m so ready to call her out on the lie, but the look on her face stops me. She is half asleep and giving me a lazy smile. Most of my anger has been replaced with relief that she’s home, anyway.

“You look exhausted. You should take a bath and go to bed.”

“That’s the plan, kid. That’s the plan.”

I don’t know why I let her off the hook. I don’t know what I see in my sister that makes me put her lies on the back burner, but I do.

“Good night, Ben.”

“Night, Wren.”

I leave the record on and busy myself with searching for something to eat. I find the freezer full of junk food, and there is one more oddity to add to the list. Bennie never eats processed food. She’s more of a turkey, hummus, and sprouts on gluten-free bread type of lady. I look from the freezer to her closed bedroom door and back to the boxes of food. I pull out a frozen pizza, preheat the oven, and throw it in. After setting the kitchen timer for seventeen minutes, I take a seat at the front window and look out at Crowley.

There’s not much activity on the street below, not much activity anywhere. As much as I loathe this place, there’s still a quiet comfort that comes with being here. I don’t know how Bennie stayed all these years, living in the shadow of the great Reverend Hart. I don’t understand why she would do that to herself. The people of this town worship that man like he’s the one who turned water into wine. What he says is law. They admire my parents, because they don’t know any better. No one has ever taken the time to really look and see what kind of people they are. I suppose no one ever will.

My whole life, people needed to find a way to explain my rebellious behavior. I don’t have a dark and tortured past. I simply had parents who thought I was sin personified. There was a detachment there. But I always had Bennie to keep me sane and provide an escape from those lunatics. I wasn’t abused. Though they seemed cold and loveless, the Reverend and his wife never laid a hand on me. Sometimes, there is no explanation for one’s behavior. Sometimes you just need to feel like you’re leading a life worthy of your biggest dreams. And sometimes that means breaking all the rules.

…

Preston helps an old lady find the record she’s looking for. It’s a relic from the 1950s. I sit with Bennie. He walks toward the front counter and she is so tiny, I can’t even see her waddling behind him. Preston drops off the record, and Bennie stands to ring her up. I grab the hand sanitizer below the counter and wave it at him. He gives me a sly smile and holds out his hands.

Squeezing the bottle, I squirt some gel into his waiting palm and watch as he rubs his hands together. They smooth over every inch of skin up past his wrist and back down, and I’m completely entranced by it.

“Wren,” Preston says.

My eyes meet his, and he flicks his gaze to my mouth and back up. Preston reaches for me. Without thought, I lean toward him, wanting to connect that much sooner. His thumb presses to my bottom lip and pulls it free from my teeth.

“Ahem,” Bennie says, clearly wanting to ruin my life.

Preston drops his hand and heads toward the back of the store.

“What’s that saying? I hate to see him leave, but I love to watch him go.”

Bennie takes a seat and flips through a gossip magazine. “You two seem to be spending a lot of time together lately.”

I turn to face her and lean against the counter. “Yep.”

“If you leave again, he won’t go with you,” she says.

“You don’t know that,” I defend. Bennie shoots me an incredulous look over her magazine, and I shrug. “I don’t want to fight about Preston,” I say.

“What do you want to fight about?”

Accusatory and hurtful words are on the tip of my tongue. Laney! Lies! I swallow them down and shake my head. “I don’t want to fight at all.”

“Good.”

Looking around at the quiet store, I wonder how much longer Bennie can keep this dream alive. She opened it when she was just twenty-four years old. Our grandmother had left the building to her when she died. Bennie worked tirelessly to earn money to get Vinyl off the ground. I remember my parents’ anger and disappointment when she told them she was turning Grandmother’s Christian bookstore into a record store.

“How much longer do you think Vinyl can survive, Bennie?”

She sighs and folds the magazine closed on her lap. “Apparently, I just have to stay afloat between generations of hipsters. The vintage furniture and other items help bring in customers. These days, I feel like no one loves vinyl like me.”

“I do,” I say. “Because of you. And Preston does.”

“Great. Two people. If you two didn’t get a discount, I might actually make some money.” She laughs, but it’s void of humor. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll survive, Wren.”